Roles and responsibilities

Who decides what

The brand system only works if decisions land at the right level. The diagram below (three-layer token model) governs ownership.

Federal level (Chancellery)

• Common tokens (semantic roles, spacing scales, contrast minima)
• Component tokens (digital design system)
• Governance procedures (validation, exceptions, conflict resolution)
• Versioning of the federal core (semantic versioning)

Changes to this layer require review by at least two people from the Chancellery team (CODEOWNERS).

Institution level

• Brand tokens (own primary palette, fonts within the allowed scale)
• Own _brand.yml for Quarto output
• Own communication kit and applications

An institution may modify its Brand layer without federal review, as long as the WCAG CI stays green and no Common tokens are overridden.

Conflict resolution

When an institution wants an exception that falls outside the rules (e.g. keeping its own typography, deviating lockup position), it follows the exception procedure:

1. Submit a request via the governance portal with motivation.
2. Chancellery advice within 15 working days.
3. On approval: documentation of the exception in institutions/{name}/exceptions.md, with end date.
4. Semi-annual review of whether the exception remains justified.

The aim is not to avoid exceptions, but to make exceptions traceable. An undocumented exception is a future drift source.