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Design language is an approved set of reusable components with a user guide whose sole aim is to reach an efficient, scalable, consistent and uniform digital product. It touches on all aspects of design from colours to typography, styles to layouts, and other related standards. 

Consistency is probably the most important factor why people want to implement a design language into their projects. Consistency is essential for a fluent user experience, but is hard to maintain as the size of the project increases. This is the reason why it is a good practice to have a design language implemented in projects.

Design language takes time to develop, it doesn’t happen overnight. First, you need to start off with identifying the inconsistencies within your existing or previous experience, or if it is your first time with a digital product, you need to carry out elaborate brainstorming sessions and workshops with your team and try to specify key features that might be problematic in the long run. 

Then some design concepts which are widely used within the industry are applied in achieving your desired design codes. These can be listed as below:

1. Reusable (functional) components such as buttons, call to actions (CTAs), forms, navigations, dropdowns...
2. Abstract (perceptual) styles such as typography, colours, animations...
3. Collection of the functional and perceptual patterns and styles
4. Style guide which is your specific rules for using these patterns such as the vertical and horizontal spacing, and different types of logo

Design language is the approved set of reusable components, including all aspects of design, aimed at achieving efficiency and consistency. The most important reason which attracts people to get a design language service is to achieve consistency in their product. 

It is not an easy task to preserve uniformity and standards throughout a products lifetime, so in the end most brands get their design language done to make life easier in the long run. In return, this brings a consistent user experience.

Depending on the size and targets of companies, the level and depth of design language shows some variation. Where small companies do not require such services, others can require one desperately. The main factor which differentiates between the two types of companies described here is the targets of that company. It might not even be the short term goals that govern this decision, but the fact that they might be planning big for the near future can be the reason that they are seeking to get a design language. Up until this point, we saw that the targets play a deciding role, but where does budget come into the equation?

The budget, no doubt, is always the main player. At Saypr, we offer different solutions that will suit every company’s goals and budget. Generally, small to medium size companies approach the process a bit more concerned and precautions as they do not want to spend too much money, but once our team explains them the effects of having a design language and the ease it will bring to their lives in the long run, they end up being big supporters of the design language concept.

Defining the short, medium and long term goals of every company at the beginning of our relationship gives us the chance to assess their case and give them custom tailored solutions, cutting down on the costs to a minimum by simply removing all that is not necessary and adjusting things to align their initial goals. This approach gives us the chance to help out very different companies of different sizes.

The story is slightly different when it comes to working with bigger companies. They are more relaxed when it comes to budget and spendings, but the problems we usually face is that there are a lot of people to deal with in larger companies and not everyone within the company is aware of the importance of getting such a service, and not everyone can visualize the problems they might face in the future if they don’t invest in a design language. Keeping things aligned and consistent is hard, let alone keeping it consistent throughout the lifetime of the product is nearly impossible. So when working with bigger firms, we sometimes have to explain the importance of a design language to multiple people and till we get everyone in the same mindset. Then we prepare the grounds to get the critical onboarding information from them. We use this information to identify their short, medium and long term goals, and shoot for the best solution that will suit those aspects.

As described above, there are many different cases and every project is unique when it comes to the amount of work we have to put and thus the prices varies. Since this is not a pre-defined or a templated approach, we go through each instance and determine the price according to how many resources and how much time will be required to get the job completed. At Saypr, we always work more and harder on projects than we charge, so our clients are always getting more than what they pay for. Our motto is getting the best outcome from every project and keeping our clients happy. This in turn makes us feel proud of the work that has been done by our teams.