On Thursday, I got invited to the Federal Press Office. Equipped with brezels and coffee, I gathered with other design specialists and branding responsibles from across the federal government in their neo-modernist visitor hall at the Spree River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Federal Press Office invited us to a half-day on-site branding and design workshop. It is rare to gather with 30 design colleagues from all other ministries and departments and have time to compare notes. In a well-facilitated manner, we were split into 4 groups and offered our insights. It is input for a government brand refresh exercise they are launching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like everyone else, I brought examples of what\u2019s good or great and what can be improved. I also felt compelled to highlight the parallel work on the cross-government branding and design system. People in my group had just reworked their ministerial website and were unaware of the slim government header<\/a>, for example. It once again showed the need for better, broader communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We left the space after 4 hours, with whiteboards filled with notes. This work will continue over the coming months, with all of us getting involved frequently, we are told. I look forward to seeing where this is all going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday night, the second consultation round for the D-Stack<\/a> ended. Somewhat similar and yet different to the Eurostack<\/a> and the GovStack<\/a>, the D-Stack is supposed to define how Germany\u2019s public services are structured and technologically composed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last few days before the deadline, quite a few design system-related submissions came together. Multiple state-owned entities proposed their solutions as components of the D-Stack. Some received a moderate number of 2 to 3 responses, but one got some good traction. The KERN Design System, now accessible via designsystem.gov.de<\/a>, received over 50 responses<\/a> on OpenCode. Various cities and states described how the KERN Design System helps them offer better service to users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I added a comment as well, describing what we see at DigitalService. I recapped our activities described in the November blog post<\/a> about adopting the KERN Design System. Good to know for decision makers is that we were able to use it widely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am curious to see what\u2019s going to happen next, and now the consultation input will be processed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sonja and I checked in with NExT network colleagues to get the white paper on digital identity we plan to write cleared from their side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we could write the paper independently, it makes much more sense to do it with them as a partner. They can help us bring more people to the fold and then publish it with more oomph later. More importantly, their original NExT workshop format<\/a> has been a bit dormant. It\u2019s a perfect fit, and I pitched for reviving it. Just days later, by Friday, the NExT board approved our white paper proposal. So, we are good to go with our activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDefining the Deutschland-Stack<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Writing a white paper and gathering insights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n