Level Up: Leveraging Style Guides to Enhance the Client Experience
Thursday, April 10, 2014
6-8pm
Register Now

AIGA Member code for $5 off admission is: AIGAMEMBER
Student code for $5 off admission is: LEVELUP14

The Holodeck at Palantir.net
2211 North Elston Avenue
Suite 400
Chicago, Illinois 60614

Designing for a Web content management system requires a systems-based approach. Communicating this to clients can be, well, hard. One effective approach that we use at Palantir is to expose our thinking in the form of a style guide that gradually evolves throughout the course of the project. Our style guide documents the system by abstracting the many design objects that can be assembled to create a page. This level of abstraction helps us illustrate the logic and relationships behind the design decisions we make. This, in turn, leads to more meaningful conversations around the design objects and their roles within the system.

In this talk, Palantir Senior Designers Michael Mesker and Patrick Grady will discuss the evolution of the style guide from a reference point to a deliverable that transforms clients into empowered decision makers.

Geared toward designers of any level or skillset.

No laptops needed.

Doors open at 6; talk begins at 6:30. There will be time for Q & A after the talk. Refreshments provided.

No on-site registration available.

ABOUT MICHAEL MESKER AND PATRICK GRADY
Michael Mesker is an interactive designer at Palantir.net. He’s worked on the Web with the University of Michigan, The Ounce of Prevention, Interlochen Center for the Arts, American Public Media Group, and Barnard College. As a recovering print designer, Michael enjoys examining and addressing the challenges of working *with* the maturing web. He was recently voted “most-likely to want Mexican for lunch.”

Patrick Grady has a design degree from the University of Illinois and a love of all things web. As an interactive designer with Palantir.net, he enjoys working with clients like The University of Michigan, NBC Universal, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Public Radio International, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. His professional interests include responsive Web design, designing with code, living styleguides, SASS + Compass, typography for the web, and attempting to stay ahead of the curve on all of those things.

ABOUT PALANTIR.NET
Palantir.net is a boutique Web firm that creates engaging online experiences. We work for clients with complex, enterprise-level needs and who value accessible, sustainable, best-practices- and human-centered approaches to processes, strategy, user experience, design, development, quality assurance, training, support and consulting. We make good, inside and out.