Forums: Design:

I'm trying to setup a Corporate Guide for a Sporting Federation. I've done the Federation's site, but their sanctioned events is not under their control. Subsequently the standard of the sites that's rolled out by the organisers is, to put diplomatically, piss poor.

I've put together a document with guidelines on how to use the Federation's logo, stock images, but I'm having trouble putting together guidelines for the look and feel of the events sites.

Has anyone done something like this?

We gave up and made them send all proposed sites to us for QC and design standards before they rollout.

Aside from providing templates, or having them sent in I don't know what to suggest. I've not seen documentation that effectively deals with this issue.

I have twice put together something like this. One was for a golf company and the other was for the college I taught and worked at. I can help but it depends on how detailed and specific you want to get. These can be binders worth of information.

Are you complete with the logo / images document?

Your document from there could be as blanketing (for lack of a better word) as providing a screen shot of an acceptable design with markers showing the logo size, stock image usage, and column width or whatever you're specifying. But if you're going to cut them some slack, start with making a complete list of completely unacceptable details, sort of acceptable, and free reign details just for your own use just to give you a start. You'll find as you're making the list that some things are just absolutely not allowed and that will help you define what they can do. Base your document on the free areas moreso than the negative "YOU CAN"T DO THIS" listing, but it's a good place to start.

But as r_d said, if you want ultimate control, you're going to need someone approving what does get done.

I think templates might be the way to go, if you can do that. It saves them time and trouble, which encourages their use, and most of them are probably just as happy to use a good looking site someone else already designed instead of a crappy site they have to do themselves.