With the City’s brand colors as a foundation, we expanded the color palette to include complementary shades and tones. The palette was carefully chosen to maintain accessibility standards and create a visually pleasing experience.
Bootstrap Library System
Task
We recognized a need for a consistent and visually appealing web presence across the City of Cape Town's web applications in its various departments and services. As the lead frontend developer, I was entrusted with the task of creating a custom high-end design system that would align with the City's brand and maintain typography and color integrity
Thoroughly studying the City’s existing brand guidelines and style documentation was essential to gain a deep understanding of their visual identity and design principles. This research phase helped identify key elements such as typography, colors, and imagery that were crucial to maintaining brand consistency.
By collaborating with stakeholders, I identified the need for a clean and modern UI that would cater to a diverse range of services provided by the City. I also identified the need for a responsive design to ensure optimal user experience across different devices.
A comprehensive analysis of the current frontend development practices within the City’s departments allowed me to understand the pain points and areas where a design system could provide significant value.
This analysis guided our decision-making process for creating a tailored solution.
Working closely with stakeholders from the IT department, I determined the scope of the design system, including the key components and patterns required for consistent web development. This included buttons, forms, navigation, alerts, and various other UI elements.
I carefully selected typography that aligned with the City’s brand identity. This involved choosing appropriate font families, font weights, and font sizes for different use cases. We created a typographic scale that catered to various headings, subheadings, and body text.
Primary Green
Primary Pink
Primary Blue
Primary Orange
We established a consistent design language by defining key visual elements such as colors, typography, icons, and UI components. This created a cohesive and harmonious visual experience throughout the application.
The design language was developed to reflect the vibrant and diverse spirit of Cape Town, incorporating elements that resonated with the local culture and community.
Typeface
Avenir Next
Usage
Headlines (Print, Documents)
The Avenir® Next font family was designed by Adrian Frutiger in collaboration with Monotype Type Director Akira Kobayashi.
Typeface
Avenir Next Condensed
Usage
Secondary/Supportive (Web)
Mobile App Typeface
Roboto (Android)
Mobile App Typeface
SF Fransisco (iOS)
Since its release, the Avenir Next design has been immensely popular for an extensive range of different applications.
After assessing different frontend frameworks, I determined that Bootstrap was the most suitable choice due to its flexibility, extensive component library, and strong community support.
I extended Bootstrap’s default styles to match the City’s brand identity. This involved modifying variables and overriding default styles to ensure consistency with typography, color, and spacing guidelines.
To maintain a cohesive design system, we carefully reviewed and customized Bootstrap’s default component styles, ensuring they aligned with the City’s visual language. This involved creating custom classes and modifying existing ones where necessary.
Leveraging Bootstrap’s component library, we designed and developed a range of reusable UI components that adhered to the City’s design system guidelines. This included buttons, cards, modals, navigation menus, and more. Each component was thoroughly tested for functionality and consistency.
I established a rigorous quality assurance process to ensure that all components met the design system’s standards. This involved code reviews, design reviews, and user testing to validate the components’ usability and adherence to the established guidelines.
To facilitate seamless adoption by developers, we created comprehensive documentation that outlined the proper usage and guidelines for each component. This documentation served as a reference for developers, ensuring consistent implementation and reducing errors.
I conducted regular meetings and workshops with the development teams, involving them in the design system’s evolution. This collaboration fostered a sense of ownership and encouraged developers to provide feedback and suggest improvements.
To ensure a smooth transition to the design system, we organized training sessions and workshops for the development team. These sessions covered the proper implementation of components, usage guidelines, and best practices for using the design system effectively.
We actively sought feedback from developers during the implementation phase, providing them with a platform to share their experiences and suggestions. This iterative approach allowed us to refine the design system based on real-world usage and developer input.
Once the design system was stable and thoroughly tested, I published it as a centralized resource accessible to all developers via Microsoft’s TFS system. This allowed for easy adoption and consistent implementation across the City’s web applications.
Alongside the design system, I created detailed documentation that encompassed guidelines, usage instructions, and best practices. This documentation served as a comprehensive reference for developers, empowering them to implement the design system effectively.
Increased Efficiency and Consistency in Frontend Development: The design system streamlined the development process, enabling developers to build applications faster and with greater consistency. By providing a library of reusable components, developers spent less time on repetitive tasks and more time on value-added features and Improved Brand Alignment and Integrity.
