Support
We want to help you apply the IBM Design Language correctly. Learn about the approval process and where you can find answers to specific questions.
Collaboration and approvals
We’re counting on your creativity to help bring the IBM Design Language to life in everything designed for IBM. Please loop in a member of the IBM Brand Experience Design team early in the creative process for all significant new projects, so that we can help you learn to correctly and creatively express the IBM Design Language.
To advise the team on new projects and coordinate their participation, please send a message to our Slack channel #ibm-design-language, with a brief description of the project, the timeline and the names of the main IBM and agency contacts. If you’re an outside vendor or agency, or don’t have access to IBM’s Slack channels, please email these details to designlanguage@us.ibm.com with the subject: IDL Sponsor User Group request.
Questions?
Please take some time to explore the content on this website before reaching out to the IBM Design team. The site is very comprehensive and most of the guidelines and components are well documented. However, if you still have a specific question:
Please check whether there’s an existing answer on our FAQ page.
If your question relates to a discipline area, please go to the FAQ section within that site:
Please search the #IBM-design-language Slack channel to see if an answer to your question has already been provided. Slack’s filtering feature will return targeted and relevant results. For instance, if you have a question about the color palette, you could search “palette” in Slack and filter your search results by channel selecting #IBM-design-language. Alternatively, you could paste “yoursearchterm in:#IBM-design-language” into the Slack search box. Tip: You can start a new search directly from the message box using the /s slash command.
If you can’t find an existing answer to your question, please ask the team directly:
- For general questions, please use #IBM-design-language.
- For designer questions, please use #carbon-design-system.
- For developer questions, please use #carbon-components or #carbon-react.
If you don’t have access to IBM’s Slack channels, please email your question to designlanguage@us.ibm.com. Messages will be addressed by the IBM Brand Experience Design team as quickly as possible.
Please note that the IBM Brand Experience Design team is small and works through a backlog of user-initiated features to deliver design elements and guidance. We’ll get to your question as soon as possible.
Enablement
If you have explored the IBM Design website, and familiarized yourself with the new IBM Design Language website, including the Design Philosophy and Principles, you’re ready to learn more:
- Start here with IBM Design Essentials Course. These six sessions will cover the must-know essentials, so you can understand, design and implement with the new IBM Design ethos, language and system.
- Explore the Gallery of IBM Design Language in use.
- Access elements and set up the IBM Design kit.
- Become a member of the #ibm-design-kit Slack channel.
- Become a member of the #ibm-design-language Slack channel.
- Request to become an IBM Design Language sponsor user group by emailing designlanguage@us.ibm.com with the subject: IDL Sponsor User Group request. Once you are part of the Sponsor User Group, participate in the IBM Design Language Wake board.
More enablement materials are continuously developed. Please check back here regularly.