In the military, they have two kinds of rule books: Regulations and Guidelines.
Regulations are to be followed strictly. If it says "This doohicky on your uniform should be one inch from that other thing" then you literally pull out a ruler and measure it and adjust it until it is exactly one inch.
Guidelines are not followed strictly. They help you make the best possible decision, all things considered given real world conditions, but guidelines are not strict rules to be followed exactly.
They have regulations for things like your uniform and they have guidelines for how to conduct a battle. Here are a few useful sayings that come out of military culture:
Military culture is an amazing source of practical wisdom that can be very useful when doing hard things.
So plans to create a style guide are about creating something to help you make informed, effective decisions, all things considered and knowing that you probably can't manage to follow them exactly all the time. So don't get all hung up about deviating from the guidelines when life gets in the way of following them exactly.
They aren't intended to be followed exactly. That's not how guidelines work. It's not what they are for.
So, for example, the color scheme here on this site is dark brown, light blue and white.
Please notice that there are three shades of dark brown on this site. So "warm dark brown" is a guideline. It's not an exact shade of brown to be followed strictly.
So a guideline for a color scheme should list the preferred colors and some alternate color that makes a good substitute if the preferred color is simply not available, like this:
Or you are a city clerk shopping for dumpsters and the one and only company your city contracts with doesn't sell brown dumpsters, but they do sell black ones. So you order the black dumpsters.
Brown, blue, white, black and grey are all fairly basic colors. In most cases you should be able to find something in at least one of those colors.
If you run into a situation where the thing you need doesn't come in any of the colors listed above, you wing it and make the best choice you can figure out how to make, all things considered.
In the real world, you need to meet deadlines and meet budget constraints. Guidelines should be seen as a means to help you get the job done efficiently and effectively within these other real world constraints.
Guidelines shouldn't be seen as a means to make your life harder.
You are going to be buying stuff anyway at times. Having some guidelines for prefered color options is a really small extra step that can add a lot of bang for the buck to help you level up your style for next to nothing.
Regulations are to be followed strictly. If it says "This doohicky on your uniform should be one inch from that other thing" then you literally pull out a ruler and measure it and adjust it until it is exactly one inch.
Guidelines are not followed strictly. They help you make the best possible decision, all things considered given real world conditions, but guidelines are not strict rules to be followed exactly.
They have regulations for things like your uniform and they have guidelines for how to conduct a battle. Here are a few useful sayings that come out of military culture:
- No plan of attack survives contact with the enemy.
- Sometimes a 90 percent solution now is better than a 100 percent solution later.
- You gotta break some eggs to make an omelette.
Military culture is an amazing source of practical wisdom that can be very useful when doing hard things.
So plans to create a style guide are about creating something to help you make informed, effective decisions, all things considered and knowing that you probably can't manage to follow them exactly all the time. So don't get all hung up about deviating from the guidelines when life gets in the way of following them exactly.
They aren't intended to be followed exactly. That's not how guidelines work. It's not what they are for.
So, for example, the color scheme here on this site is dark brown, light blue and white.
Please notice that there are three shades of dark brown on this site. So "warm dark brown" is a guideline. It's not an exact shade of brown to be followed strictly.
So a guideline for a color scheme should list the preferred colors and some alternate color that makes a good substitute if the preferred color is simply not available, like this:
- Base color: Warm dark brown (alt: Black)
- Secondary color: Pale blue (alt: other shades of blue; other pale shades similar in value, like pink, pale green or beige)
- Tertiary color: White (alt: Pale grey)
Or you are a city clerk shopping for dumpsters and the one and only company your city contracts with doesn't sell brown dumpsters, but they do sell black ones. So you order the black dumpsters.
Brown, blue, white, black and grey are all fairly basic colors. In most cases you should be able to find something in at least one of those colors.
If you run into a situation where the thing you need doesn't come in any of the colors listed above, you wing it and make the best choice you can figure out how to make, all things considered.
In the real world, you need to meet deadlines and meet budget constraints. Guidelines should be seen as a means to help you get the job done efficiently and effectively within these other real world constraints.
Guidelines shouldn't be seen as a means to make your life harder.
You are going to be buying stuff anyway at times. Having some guidelines for prefered color options is a really small extra step that can add a lot of bang for the buck to help you level up your style for next to nothing.