As we’re closing out Season 1 and preparing for Season 2 of the DAO, it’s fairly plain that we in the DAO have done a significant amount of work in getting ourselves organized, proliferating projects and doing all things respectable equal to our mission: helping the banked to become Bankless. With this end in mind, we in the Audio/Visual, Design, and Marketing guilds have crafted a proposal that aims to bring the skills of Design to all of the DAO. Our proposal is to assemble a Creative Council that will ensure that all digital assets are aligned with the Bankless DAO ethos.
Whereas some might see this as a constraint to their guilds creativity, we assure you that is not the aim. Our aim is to provide a defined playground that is representative of the Bankless brand. This playground will be defined by a Style Guide that will be available to the DAO. The Council will ensure that as projects roll through the DAO that its visual and verbal voice is consistently used. This allows all other guilds to do what they do best; Marketing, Legal, Education, Ops, Analytics, etc., while we in the Design Guild assist you with what we do best: maintenance and curation of the brand assets and their usage. This will help us in the DAO ensure that we are doing quality work by following a brand standard that meets our measure of quality on a consistent basis. It will help contributors avoid burnout by providing succinct parameters to create within. And, it will provide a structural framework to our flow of work. As our DAO continues to grow, the Creative Council will also provide a well-needed sense of structure and vision to seasoned professionals; an encouragement for them to get involved.
Please read through and provide your feedback. It’s our belief that taking this step will get us one step closer to becoming better organized and ready to be a public-facing DAO.
The idea is that this would be a requirement. As the DAO works towards gaining a public facing, it should look as buttoned up and professional as possible. We think this multi-guild Creative Council will ensure this posture. The goal is to make it as frictionless as possible. Initially it may feel a bit tacky but over time and as we become seasoned with the Style Guide I think it will prove to be absolutely frictionless and a welcomed part of the process.
Something else to consider: I posted a hierarchical application pyramid which shows an ETH pyramid used as a hierarchical diagram with the following hierarchy:
Bankless HQ
Bankless DAO
DAO Guilds
Guild Programs/Projects
NFTs, Merch, SWAG, POAPs, etc
The idea is that the higher you are on the pyramid the more binding the Style Guide, the lower down the pyramid, the more broader the creativity and looser the Style Guide parameters.
That’s a great question. Last I recall I believe everyone approved the idea that it would come from a fellow called “Above Average Joe.” JK! LOL. I think NFThinker will be able to provide better color on that topic than I can.
I like the idea and believe it to be a very important thing going forward, especially when we go “public”. The question I have, and maybe I’m missing it somewhere is are we doing a vote or a poll on this? If so where do I find it?
The idea of having a standard for the outward face of the DAO makes sense but does it need to be a requirement? Could a elected, temporary and/or recurring council not make a Style Guide and trust the individual guilds alignment with the vision of the DAO to incentivize them to follow the guide?
Will regular elections and the impeachment process prevent the council from potentially becoming a layer of bureaucracy?
+1 Having a clear style guide and trust everyone to follow it would be more than adequate, for now, imho. I think companies at larger and more public facing scale than us follow a similar process and it works. Consistency in design matters but not enough to have people on permanent payroll for this. I like your initiative though!
Again @frogmonkee took the words from my brain. As I was reading this I was thinking strongly about Disney and how tightly they control their IP. I understand the concept here well, but I worry that this might have the opposite effect to the aim “Whereas some might see this as a constraint to their guilds creativity, we assure you that is not the aim.”
I wonder if we might consider simply starting this guild as a resource instead of a requirement and experiment with it before it becomes a requirement? Part of the open nature of being bankless and dealing with open sourced protocols and smart contracts is to be super open to tinkering and playing and the community self governs in this sense.
My two gwei: Setup the council, provide it as a resource for one season and communicate often with guilds to see how this plays out. If this feedback says this committee stifles creativity and feels too restrictive then we just keep as a resource. If the community loves the committee and it becomes super helpful then perhaps it becomes a requirement in future seasons.
I think if there is to be a “standard” then there will certainly be requirements to maintain that standard.
Something that I think some folks may be missing is that most creatives (designers, illustrators, photographers, videographers, etc) actually like to have some guidelines to work within. Without a standard there will be a constant asking “is this right?” When a standard is created there is concrete information guiding you in the process. This also saves on time, and minimizes revisions. And, I will repeat, this is not to squash any form of creativity of the individual guild itself. Please see my response to Frogmonkee above regarding the “pyramid” that establishes a hierarchy for the DAO. The higher up the pyramid the tighter the parameters, and the lower down the pyramid the broader the liberty within the scheme.
Understood on maintenance of the standard. Optimistically once it has been up and running for a bit it will require only occasional tweaks as we expand into different mediums or encounter different needs. Do you anticipate the framework/standard requiring a full time team? I don’t have a concept of what a design standard looks like or what it takes.
Artists / designers and more share a minefield of creative output that has no boundaries.
I like the idea of the proposal as,
It will be useful for the free thinking artist/s to use as a guide. Colours, text size, font designs, is it too wordy or are the images not big enough …
It will also help to avoid any one being accused of copyright infringement if the final work looks too similar to other brands, and not just the DAO but also every other organisation / brand / IP.
I don’t think of myself as a creative type but at a new job I always ask if there’s a style guide. It’s disappointing if there isn’t. I’m 100% for this.
