yay for chris doyle and his yellow pencil.

i never posted about it here, but a while back, Christopher Doyle's Identity Guidelines flew around email/interweb circles. i fell in love with them (and a little bit with chris in the mean time) and began to tell all and sundry about them.

it is an awesome document, lovingly taking the piss out of corporate identity guidelines and promoting himself as a freelance creative (clearly with excellent skills-to-pay-the-bills).

my personal favourite was always the bit about language/tone of voice and, being the sweary type, would always quote it:



Cynicism and criticism should follow the I think rule. This rule allows me to take ownership of critical statements, lessening any negative impact.

This rule simply involves beginning statements with ‘I…’ Take for example a common, aggressively delivered statement:

“Nickelback are fucking awful.”

When the I think rule is applied this statement now reads,

“I think Nickelback are fucking awful.”

While coarse language is a common element it should be used appropriately (for example, when discussing Nickelback), and never in the presence of Mum_Full Colour Vertical.



If you've never had to work with these kind of guidelines, or needed to develop a document with this kind of 'code', you probably don't find it as awesome as I do. But there are many that do.

Which is why he won a D&AD Yellow Pencil the other night, amongst a whole swag of brilliant designers and creative types. W00t!!




congratulations mr doyle.

download the guidelines here

image credit: chris at the awards by ben terrett.
christopher doyle™, identity guidelines.