Product alignment - scalability and flexibilty
Design visual and systematic direction to integrate Auckland Council’s brand pillars. The system must be useable across multiple services and products covering the wider Auckland Council business units. It must appear to be part of the same digital ecosystem to deliver a cohesive and consistent user experience.
Below are examples design developments for the future state. I worked closely with the Brand team to ensure brand coherence and integrity aligned.
Challenge: Auckland Council has more than 80 websites/subsites. How do we accommodate for all these different sub brands, business units and digital products?
Solution: Intergrate the brand strategy and matrix into the design system. Develop a colour system that is consistent with the four brand pillars and theme all the base components which can be handled by variables in the CSS. Users can choose a theme based on the brand pillar the business unit falls under. By changing base components that are largely used and inherited by subsequent patterns and content, this will create an impactful visual difference while maintaing the consistency of all usability across all digital products. The grid system and page layout guiding principals have also been designed with flexibility in mind to accommodate the different types of content. Different sub-brands or business units have the offering of a system that allows some customisation but restrictions in place to keep all digital products and website as part of the same eco-system.
This is currently at implementation stage. I have recommended to take test develop approach, ensuring the direction and framework is technically feasible before carrying out to all brand pillars. This will reduce rework, time and resource in order to deliver the subsequent brand pillars.
Showcasing some work in progress on two of four brand pillars.
Examples of high fidelity mock ups to showcase approach. I always mock up the vision to ensure it visually and techically works.