Looking for a long dash

How to love the rules of the Russian language

Hello! I am Vanya Solovyov , design director at DocDoc (part of the Sberbank group). Today heading Lecture Hall , which tell about everything and little by little.

We, in the design team, love to systematize knowledge and processes:

• we add duplicate elements to the guidelines and describe their construction rules when designing the product interface;
• we create corporate templates when managers often approach us and ask to “put presentations in order”;
• using the brand book, we explain how to interact with the corporate identity and create illustrations when we begin to work closely with contractors;
• Create an illustration designer in Figma, when you need to draw a bunch of illustrations for the application.
  

  Such systematization helps to eliminate repetitive tasks from the workflow.
  

It all started with a problem

In quality design, I like verified typography and the observance of the rules of spelling and punctuation of the Russian language. The difference between quotes "Christmas trees" and "feet" or a thin line between the hyphen and the middle dash - the knowledge that helps to make the interface aesthetically neat. I decided to introduce some of the rules into our processes for designers, colleagues and contractors.

The first two attempts to systematize the basic rules of the Russian language ended in failure.

The second version of typography

Version 1.0 consisted only of text with rules, there were a lot of them and it was not easy to master everything, so the guys did not read. In the second version of the rules diminished and examples appeared. It became clearer, but the percentage of "involved" did not grow much - it was still a long list of rules without a clear structure.

One rule - one card

The third version has become easier to learn. The format of the cards, also known as Storis, was taken as a basis, and one rule was made for each card. The number of rules has decreased, only the basic ones remain. He divided them into four semantic parts, each with 8–10 rules with examples and shortcuts.

The third version of typography

Russian language rules in cards

If cards helped you to love typography, write about it in the comments. We will be pleased :)

Part 1

Quotes, dash types, currencies, chasing numbers, and trailing prepositions.

Part 2

Telephone numbers, physical quantities, time, signs and numbers.

Part 3

Addresses, types of lists and abbreviations.

Part 4

Dates and their ranges - useful for tables.

Instead of totals

The ending of the story remains open. Only a month has passed since the launch of the latest version and it is too early to draw conclusions. While I saw two presentations of managers and one layout of the designer, where there appeared long dashes and regular quotes - the dynamics are positive.