# eswiss Documentation Draft
## Introduction
**eswiss** is a design system that applies classic Swiss design to modern user interface design.

The goal of eswiss is to:
- Create rationally beautiful user interfaces by using Swiss design principles
- Enable rapid development of user interfaces
- Streamline collaboration between designers and developers
- Enforce maintainability to keep design and development straightforward and efficient

## Swiss Principles
- Cleanliness: Represent content in an clear, legible manner
- Rational: Develop a robust system that produces visual harmony using the given content
- International: Develop universally accessible interfaces that sufficiently communicate regardless of the audience's background and conditions

## What is Swiss design?
Swiss design, also known as Swiss style or International design, is a graphic design style that was popularized by designers in Switzerland during the 1950s, originating from a desire to convey information in an objective and pure manner. Inspired by the Bauhaus philosophy "form follows function", the style creates designs that emerge from developing systematic solutions to problems, contrary to the common artistic philosophy "beauty for the sake of beauty."

Common characteristics of Swiss design are:
- Sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz-Grotesk, Helvetica, and Univers
- Use of a grid
- Abstract illustrations and objective-style photography

## Why Swiss design?
### 1. Everyone is already acquainted with the style.
Swiss design originated in the 1920s so it has been around for quite some time. Thanks to the nature of its clear, objective visuals and its popularity with corporate branding, the style has been subconsciously added to the world's visual vocabulary. Everyone is comfortable with Swiss design regardless of whether or not they actually understand it on a deep level. In fact, most people don't even know the words "Swiss design" and often insufficiently label designs that follow it as "minimalism."

Core aspects of Swiss design have already permeated its way into other graphic design trends like flat design and other design systems like material design. This further proves the point that everyone has had some exposure to Swiss design and has experience with it in some form.

### 2. The objective nature makes it work well with user interfaces today.
The objective nature of Swiss design means that even though the style was originally developed for a non-digital world, it has adapted quite well to the new digital age. Because of the stripped down nature of the designs, user inferfaces that use the style can potentially support all different types of content, languages, and users. The neutral style lends itself well to absorbing the meaning of its content, making Swiss design able to express anything.

The flexiblity of Swiss design also makes the style particularly suitable for handling the dynamic interactions. Back in the pre-digital age of Swiss design, designers had full control over the content of a work. If there was some element that involved the audience, like reader responses for a magazine, the designer would manually filter for appropriate responses and meticulously lay them out on paper. With the advent of digital user interfaces, the audience can now directly update the content themselves, often allowing other audiences to view the changes in real-time. The audiences will not care about the nuances to the design—the grid, typography, spacing, etc.—so designers must build robust user interfaces that can properly handle them. Swiss design lends to this very well as its objective nature works with the dynamic potential of this space very well.

Using Swiss design on user interfaces also ensures their longevity. The style has flourished even before the internet era and has managed to age extremely well to this day. It has truly stood the test of time and will likely continue to hold up well into the far future.

### 3. The minimal styles are easy to work with and expand upon.
Working with popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap often creates user interfaces that give off a rushed or unprofessional impression, usually eliciting responses of dissatisfaction from the audience. They're seen so often in different places that many users can even identify the specific framework being used. These frameworks often deprioritize visual design practices as they are created from a developer's perspective first. While it is possible to perform a lot of significant changes to a typical UI framework to make it so the UI truly looks unique, the process usually requires a lot of fighting against the framework's default styles which can be a very laborious process.

Swiss design on the otherhand has a clean, neutral style that reduces the visuals down to their essence, giving off a very clean and minimal look. As a result, there are a lot less complicated default styles that will need to be worked with if any customizations are needed, making eswiss a great foundation to build upon whether you are only doing minor style changes or using it as a starting point for a completely new design system.