Brand style guide development in Dubai

A brand in the UAE usually lives in Arabic and English at once. The Arabic side of every layout reads from right to left, and that changes far more than the direction of the text. Brand guidelines written only for left-to-right pages leave the Arabic designer guessing. Guessing produces a different answer in every agency, every app release and every printed brochure.

The rule of thumb is simple to state. Anything that expresses reading order or movement through content flips. Anything that represents a physical object, a fixed symbol or a measurement of time usually does not. The hard part is the long list of cases in between, and that list is exactly what a guidelines chapter should settle in writing.

Start with what mirrors. The column order of a page reverses, so the first column sits on the right. Text aligns to the right margin. Navigation arrows swap: back points to the right, forward points to the left. A progress bar fills from right to left, and a step indicator counts its steps in the same direction. A carousel advances leftwards. The image that sits on the left of an English article moves to the right in its Arabic twin, so the eye meets the headline first.

Now the elements that never mirror. The logo is the first. A mirrored logo is a different logo, even when nobody could read it backwards. Clock faces keep running clockwise. Play, pause and rewind controls keep their usual orientation, because they describe the direction of the media itself, not the reading direction of the page. Charts with a time axis are another common exception. Many teams keep time flowing from left to right so that figures compare cleanly with English reports. Whichever choice is made, write it down and apply it to every chart.

English words inside a right-to-left page keep their own direction. A product name, an email address or a web link runs left to right in the middle of the sentence around it. The same goes for a checkmark, a slash in a date or a trademark set in English on a poster that otherwise flows the other way. Show these cases in the guidelines with real examples, because they break most often in production.

Icons deserve their own table. Some have a clear direction and flip: a reply arrow, an exit door, a list with bullets. Others carry no direction and stay: a search magnifier, a camera, a padlock. A few are unclear at first glance, and those are the ones a team argues about later. List each icon from the brand set with a note on whether it mirrors.

Digits come next. Arabic text in the UAE can be set with Western digits, the familiar zero to nine, or with Arabic-Indic digits. Both are correct. The problem is mixing them. A price in one form on the website and another on the menu board looks careless. Pick one form for each type of material, such as all digital products, all official documents or all advertising, and state the choice clearly.

Numbers keep their left-to-right order even inside right-to-left text. A phone number, a date and a sum of money read from left to right whichever digit shape is used. Check that the typefaces in the system include both digit sets, with matching weights, before the rule goes into print.

Finally, give the Arabic layouts their own templates. Flipping an English file on a copy machine, so to speak, never works. Grids, margins and image crops need to be designed for right to left from the start, then checked by a native reader.

Every set of brand guidelines meets a situation it did not foresee. A partner insists on a white background. A trade stand has a ceiling too low for the full logo lockup. A campaign needs a colour that is nowhere in the palette. Something has to give, and the question is who decides and how.

Without a route for exceptions, two things happen. Some people give up and produce something bland that fits the rules and misses the brief. Others quietly break the rules and hope nobody notices. Both outcomes weaken the brand. A short, visible process for exceptions keeps the guidelines respected, because it admits that they are finite.

The process starts with a named owner. One person, or a small brand team, approves or declines departures from the guidelines. Their name and contact belong on the first page, not hidden in an appendix. If nobody owns the decision, the loudest person in the meeting owns it by default.

Next comes the request itself. Keep it short. A form with five fields is enough: what the material is, which rule it breaks, why the rule does not fit, what the proposed alternative looks like, and when the answer is needed. A sketch or a screenshot helps more than a paragraph. The requester should also say where the material will run and for how long.

Set a response time. A campaign that waits three weeks for an answer will go ahead without one. Two working days suits most requests. Anything urgent needs a phone call rather than a ticket.

Decisions come in three kinds. The request is approved as a one-off. It is declined, with a suggestion that stays inside the rules. Or it reveals a gap in the guidelines, and the rule itself gets revised. The third kind is the most useful. When the same exception is asked for twice, the guidelines are probably wrong.

Keep a log of every decision. A shared spreadsheet is fine. Record the date, the material, the rule, the outcome and the reason. After six months, read it through. Patterns show up quickly: a colour that everyone wants, a logo size that is always too large for small screens, a photo rule that no supplier can meet.

Exceptions also need an end date. A temporary campaign colour approved for one season should not appear on the website a year later. Put the expiry into the approval, and check it at the next review of brand materials.

Treat agencies and freelancers the same way as internal staff. Send them the process with the guidelines. An outside designer who knows where to ask will ask. One who does not will improvise, and the result lands on your desk after it has already been printed.

Finally, publish approved exceptions as examples. A page called special cases, with real layouts and short notes, answers future questions before anyone writes them.