evanmwillhite/styleguide.txt

## styleguide.txt
1. Single Authoritative Source: A living styleguide becomes the authoritative source for your branding, design and code. Too often, authority is spread across multiple iterations - multiple rounds of mood boards, wireframes, mocks/prototypes (not to mention written conversations including email or ticketing systems). These are all necessary pieces, but a living styleguide serves as a final definitive source - one that should be authorized by the entire team including designers, developers and stakeholders.
2. Quick Iteration: Speaking of authorization, a styleguide offers a faster way for designers and stakeholders to sign off on  components while the backend or API is being developed. Free from these constraints, it is faster to iterate and easier to digest in terms of approvals, allowing the whole team to more rapidly move through the design and prototyping phase.
3. Speed of Development: Along the same lines, styleguide-driven development - particulary one that emphasizes a component-based approach - greatly reduces duplication of efforts. Reusability is enforced rather than encouraged because of the authoritative nature of the styleguide and the designed nature of the styleguide makes it much faster to locate pre-built components.
4. Scalability: A component-based styleguide is also the strongest foundation for a scalable, maintainable frontend system. CSS is one of the worst languages in terms of scaling, and not only does the styleguide-driven approach reduce duplication but it also can set establish a methodology for growing/pruning the design system over time (especially when paired with something like BEM).
5. Testing: Although not required, an authoritative styleguide can also become a litmus for automated testing. Here is a great series on the different kinds of design testing available as it regards styleguides: https://tinnedfruit.com/2016/09/12/why-and-how-to-test-your-pattern-library.html
	1. Single Authoritative Source: A living styleguide becomes the authoritative source for your branding, design and code. Too often, authority is spread across multiple iterations - multiple rounds of mood boards, wireframes, mocks/prototypes (not to mention written conversations including email or ticketing systems). These are all necessary pieces, but a living styleguide serves as a final definitive source - one that should be authorized by the entire team including designers, developers and stakeholders.
	2. Quick Iteration: Speaking of authorization, a styleguide offers a faster way for designers and stakeholders to sign off on components while the backend or API is being developed. Free from these constraints, it is faster to iterate and easier to digest in terms of approvals, allowing the whole team to more rapidly move through the design and prototyping phase.
	3. Speed of Development: Along the same lines, styleguide-driven development - particulary one that emphasizes a component-based approach - greatly reduces duplication of efforts. Reusability is enforced rather than encouraged because of the authoritative nature of the styleguide and the designed nature of the styleguide makes it much faster to locate pre-built components.
	4. Scalability: A component-based styleguide is also the strongest foundation for a scalable, maintainable frontend system. CSS is one of the worst languages in terms of scaling, and not only does the styleguide-driven approach reduce duplication but it also can set establish a methodology for growing/pruning the design system over time (especially when paired with something like BEM).
	5. Testing: Although not required, an authoritative styleguide can also become a litmus for automated testing. Here is a great series on the different kinds of design testing available as it regards styleguides: https://tinnedfruit.com/2016/09/12/why-and-how-to-test-your-pattern-library.html