Service · Brand and design systems
A brand that survives contact with a small team.
A design system is the set of decisions that lets people who aren't designers publish work that still looks like you. We build them in Figma for marketing teams with a real brand and no designer whose job is protecting it.
What it is
What is the difference between a brand guide and a design system?
A brand guide is a document about your brand. A design system is the working parts: the type styles, color variables, spacing scale and components, bound together so the correct decisions are the easy ones. A guide asks people to remember. A system means they don't have to.
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A type scale with real, named text styles
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Colors set once and linked everywhere, so changing one changes all of them
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A spacing scale on a consistent grid
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Components for the things you make constantly
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Written rules for the decisions a file can't enforce
Nobody sets out to publish a slide that looks wrong.
Brand guide
Design system
What it is
A document about your brand
The working parts: type styles, color variables, spacing scale and components
Color
Hex codes pasted in
Set once, linked everywhere
Type
Described in a document
Real, named text styles
What it asks of your team
Remember it
They don't have to
Scoped per project · Built in Figma · Designed and built in Webflow where the work extends to the site
How it works
What does building one involve?
We start by reading what you already have. Then we build it, and test it on real work.
1
Read what you have
Most companies have more of a brand than they think, scattered across a good deck, one landing page somebody cared about, and a logo with rules nobody wrote down.
2
Build the system
A type scale with named styles, colors set once and linked everywhere, a spacing scale on a consistent grid, and components for the things you make constantly.
3
Test it
Nothing gets freehanded, because a value typed by hand is a value that drifts. The last step is using it: building real work on the system.
What if we don't have a brand yet?
Then that comes first: identity, type, color and the reasoning behind them. We've taken projects from a name and an idea to a full identity, including how it moves and how it holds up at fifteen seconds on a phone.
Who is this for?
Companies with a real brand, recurring things to publish, and a design team of one or none. It isn't for organizations with an in-house design team that already owns this.
In practice that means marketing teams of three to fifteen with no designer of their own, rebuilding the same deck every quarter.
Who this is for
Marketing teams of three to fifteen with no designer of their own, rebuilding the same deck every quarter.
What do you get?
A Figma file that works, with variables and components bound rather than described, plus written rules for the decisions a file can't enforce. Where the work extends to the site, we design and build in Webflow.
Straight answers
Figma to Webflow
The system you approve in Figma is the system that ships.
Is In Fair Light just one person?
It's led by one person, with a longtime collaborator and specialists when a project needs one. You pay for direction and the edit, not overhead, and you talk to the person doing the work.
Do you build the website too?
Where the work extends to the site, we design and build in Webflow, so the system you approve in Figma is the system that ships. If you have a development team, we hand over the file and the rules instead.
How much does it cost?
We scope it on the first call, and you have the full number before anything starts. Two revision rounds are included on everything. We'll also tell you when a smaller project would do the job.
How much of my time will this take?
Very little, and that's deliberate. The first conversation, your feedback once you've seen the visual direction, and two rounds of review. In between we go quiet and build, and you review finished thinking rather than half-finished questions.
Do you work in French?
Yes. Alex is from Québec and works natively in both languages, including scripts, narration and correspondence.
Elsewhere on the site
Not sure which lane you need?
Bring the project. We'll work out which one it needs on the first call.
Get in touch
Does everything you publish look slightly different?
Send us the last five things you made. We'll tell you whether the problem is the brand, the file, or neither.