Video: One-page designs
In this free GDC Vault video from 2010, then-EA designer Stone Librande (now a design lead at Riot) looks at the flaws of most traditional Game Design Documents (GDDs) and offers a solution for making extremely concise, readable one-page designs.
Librande looks at the old school "design bible" and traditional Game Design Document format, as well as the wiki versions of both, and notes core problems with them: chiefly, the issue that "no one" reads longer documentation, and wikis often break the core relationships between elements.
His solution: annotated diagrams or other visuals that fit on one page that accurately and concisely illustrate a game’s design. He looks at compelling information formats (including children’s placemat art!), explains the core appeal of making something that people would actually want to hang on their office walls as inspiration, then walks through some of his own one-page designs from a licensed Simpsons game and 2008's Spore.
Librande offers plenty of great "what not to do" advice as well, noting that if you do print out the sheets, make sure to date them (so you actually know what the most up-to-date versions are), and showed an ugly over-complicated mess of a one-page chart (which comes complete with some high quality 2010-era jokes about the 2010 Affordable Care Act, where the terrible chart in question comes from).
You can't just cram a bunch of things into one page: it really does need to fit together in relative simplicity.
The core advice he gives boils down to keeping the documents extremely clear, with plenty of white space and strong central images (with room for crucial, context-giving notes and small visual elements that show important relationships).
Librande also advocates for
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