IBM Design Language

http://www.ibm.com/design/language/

by paulojreis • 12 years ago

115 43 12 years ago

couchwire• 12 years ago

As a design language/guide/framework etc, I've spent 5 minutes on that link clicking around and I still don't really know what I'm looking at.

blaze33• 12 years ago

I'd say it's IBM's response to Google material design. IBM blog announcement: http://www.ibm.com/design/blog-page.shtml?ibm-design-languag...

agumonkey• 12 years ago

That's the only thing their webpage said to me 'we too!'. I used to enjoy improving the visual qualities of data (Brett Victor and previous inspirations as extrapolation) but nowadays it's more of a fad of form over content.

skazka162• 12 years ago

This is exactly what I thought.

gima• 12 years ago

It's responsive, has animations when scrolling, pretty color scheme and only small amount of text. Oh, and let's not forget the social buttons. What else can a consumer hope for.

sǝuᴉlǝpᴉnƃ uƃᴉsǝp uɹǝpoɯ >;)

davidw• 12 years ago

There are actually some interesting bits about why things are the way they are, which is useful for someone like me who is not a designer:

http://www.ibm.com/design/language/framework/visual/layout.s...

tempodox• 12 years ago

At the very least, a beautiful presentation. And it collects some interesting hints for anyone remotely interested in graphical design. But then it reminds me how this is a field in and of itself, that deserves more professional attention than my own amateurish efforts. When I play around with design, I will do so in my spare time :)

paulftw• 12 years ago

looks pretty good for a summer internship project, but nothing more. Why are all these guides uglier than bootstrap?

humpt2• 12 years ago

uglier? to me bootstrap's visual patterns are overused and frankly unoriginal.

wwosik• 12 years ago

Well, the unoriginality is an advantage to me. Trying to discover yet which of the things is an active button gets tedious.

flixic2• 12 years ago

From the folder icons in resource zips you can see that they are using Google Drive.

Interesting, considering the size of the corporation.

humpt2• 12 years ago

I couldn't find the folder icons. Could you post the link to it please?

AnonJ2• 12 years ago

What's the issue with Google Drive? Do you suggest they should come up with their own whole backup solution? Why reinvent the wheel anyways. Not to mention it's possible that only certain teams use it, not all the teams, nor the teams who have truly sensitive information in the spirit they don't want Google to see.

flixic2• 12 years ago

No issue, just interesting.

I would assume that such a big corporation would have very strict data sharing policies. Apparently, that's not the case. Interesting!

cschmidt• 12 years ago

Leading with the Paul Rand "Eye Bee M" rebus is always cool:

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/gooddes...

abrowne• 12 years ago

Sometimes I wonder how much of Apple and IBM starting to work together was due to the shared love of Helvetica Neue.

justincormack2• 12 years ago

There was a good talk from IBM's head of design about what they are doing earlier this year [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvsnezSMdYk

khoury• 12 years ago

This is like the complete opposite of creativity. I actually feel a bit sick..

normloman• 12 years ago

Why? This is pretty standard design guidelines. Create a typography hierarchy, design mobile interfaces with enough space for fingers... etc.

If anything, I'd say these guidelines are too generic. Not specific.

runewell2• 12 years ago

Instead of leaving a simple comment I would like to share my authentic and thoughtful comment brand which communicates my living perspective and collection of crafted experiences working together as a cohesive language of positive reflection in the inverse context.

bresc2• 12 years ago

Exactly!

sp332• 12 years ago

Positive reflection in the inverse... Hey!

runewell2• 12 years ago

IBM has great products and the design of this website is nice but the content does the design a disservice. The design expresses "clarity and simplicity" while the text expresses "vagueness and complexity".

throwawayaway• 12 years ago

personally i feel that your mission statement could benefit from some bespoke, artisanal, hand crafted attention to locally sourced details, which would enhance the user experience. for over five years.

jackmaney2• 12 years ago

Net-net, we need to boldly strategize a new mission statement, bringing to the table our best and brightest outside-the-box thinkers. Let's set up a series of weekly meetings to best discuss how to monetize the paradigm.

cpeterso• 12 years ago

The only limit is yourself.

bresc2• 12 years ago

Dear IBM... you suck at communication! Take a look at their Watson LP (http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/) If you don't continue reading blog articles comments and do some tryouts you actually have no idea what they want to sell you and EVEN LESS how exactly you can use it.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

Sadly even when they customer research, we have been on a few of these with regards to improving their support sites, they seem to take all the suggestions and go the opposite direction.

At least the linked sites look good, try navigating their support sites, it gets worse when they cross license products and some support is here, some there, and all bound up behind horrid search engines.

tiler• 12 years ago

Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur?

yummyfajitas• 12 years ago

I like their replacement for Lorem Ipsum:

Be authentically thoughtful

Authenticity is based on real, shared experiences and is sensed rather than rationalized. Thoughtfulness is a quality that comes from the heart with the best of intentions in mind. It is the deliberate consideration for the needs of others and an empathic understanding of what is most important.

Unity, not uniformity

By giving people a common starting place—and the freedom to innovate and experiment—we allow them to recombine ideas and build specifically relevant solutions, while staying connected to that common center point.

andy_ppp• 12 years ago

IBsuM...

publicfig• 12 years ago

I find it interesting that even going to the main homepage at http://ibm.com shows that these guidelines haven't made it very far internally. I'd have thought they would have established their own brand at home before releasing guidelines.

maxmcd• 12 years ago

You could have said roughly the same about most of Google's products when they released Material Design.

AnonJ2• 12 years ago

That's probably not comparable at all.

nateabele• 12 years ago

Am I missing something here?

Why (and how) does IBM have anything to say about design?

justincormack2• 12 years ago

You mean the company that hired Paul Rand decades before Apple did? [1]

[1] http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/ibm/

skazka162• 12 years ago

Why the hell the height of navbar is so huge? It just has 6 words in it, but the level of distraction is like from a modal.

programminggeek• 12 years ago

This doesn't feel at all like IBM.

It feels like a modern design team trying to fit in, not realizing they work at IBM.

jackmaney2• 12 years ago

Serious question: does anyone have anything resembling an idea as to what the hell the linked page is talking about?

bokchoi• 12 years ago

I actually quite like mockups on their inspiration pages:

http://www.ibm.com/design/language/inspiration.shtml

_tkmj• 12 years ago

Now they just need to hire a celebrity to back up all this bullshit.

Who's next at coming up with a 'design language'? Blackberry?

woah• 12 years ago

Clearly, you know nothing about design. This design language looks pretty solid to me, and is much nicer (IMO) than Google's gee-whiz Material language.

baskind• 12 years ago

Not saying it's doesn't look nice, but certainly waaay behind Google's Material Design in terms of solidness and clarity IMHO. IBM is just trying to stay 'trendy' IMHO.

IBM Design Language

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