I might have a solution that larger organizations could use. Sharing CSS assumes that there is some synergy among the family sites which, in general, is good for branding and for scaling, clearly. We do our part to keep designers within the patterns agreed upon, but there are always the anomalies. We manage a multitude of sites under the AB umbrella, and the majority (~95%) of the CSS classes come from a global file shared in a /common/resources/CSS/ folder in the root of all of them. That folder is replicated across servers in NJ for US + EMEA sites and in Singapore for APAC sites. But one size never fits all, so we have a local resource folder for the odd differences or the unique needs of that site. But like Jeffrey says, having a front-end director who reviews all additions to the global CSS and local CSS files is critical. We are lucky to have that in Natalia Nesterova, our development manager. Having that central point of control is critical when building out a network of sites.

PS: If you are in Chicago for the AEA conf this Aug, reach out and we can speak more about this and other challenges of large and small projects. I am bringing out the entire design & development team to learn from Jeffrey’s “digerati.” And of course, listen to some Chicago blues while we are there.

../racine