Style Tiles: An Alternative to Full Design

If you’re like Chris Brown, you’ll agree that the initial design phase of a project can be time consuming, fraught with frustration and rarely meets client expectations at the first approval meeting. What if there was a better way to approach things? With Style Tiles, the newest kid on the design-methodology block, there is. Some say that the days of creating full mockups for webdesign projects in Photoshop are dying, if not outright dead.

In its simplest form, a Style Tile is a single page collection of common elements including colors, typography, textures, patterns and design features. Where an interior designer may present their client with a mood board comprising paint chips, fabrics and magazine clippings, the progressive web designer can present their stakeholders with a set of Style Tiles. The important thing to remember about Style Tiles is that they are not a literal representation of how the site will look; instead, they help define the mood, tone and ‘feeling’ of a site based on what you’ve learnt from the client in your initial kickoff meetings.