Great article. Very challenging. I don't agree with some of the foundational thrusts of this, (meaningless distinction) but I do think that there is a huge problem with the analytical putting creative in a stait jacket and charging money and time to do so.
Thanks Marcellino! If all this article does is convince designers to put radical distinctiveness and timelessness first, I'm happy with that! Clients will be too. :)
Really challenging read. As a brand strategist serving mostly b2b tech SaaS and ai-native companies, it’s “differentiate or die”. But that usually puts the pressure on brand strategy and not so much design. At the end of the day, they want the identity to follow certain tropes for fear of alienating “their ideal customer.” I agree that strategy should be the foundation of good brands(and can help build the meaning and lore today’s marketing leaders want), but it shouldn’t over reach to dictate it. I’ve done a lot of writing on flexible brand systems (strategy and design) and this drove it home for me: “In contrast, some of the most influential brand designers have designed iconic, enduring brands without adhering to rigid strategic formulas.” The TLDR: differentiation is king. Flexibility is a necessity. And a great brand sometimes just takes guts. A strategist should help get wary clients on board.
Great read. Your point around not designing brands to not align with trends is a really valid one - good designers know this but it’s all too easy to get suckered in and forget the why. The flexibility in Cokes brand design system is a great example of what can and should change in a brand to stay relevant.
Thanks for reading! I've even heard some designers claiming that core brand assets should not be timeless. It's a weird world out there. I guess everyone is trying to hustle where they can, especially when their careers are built on design overhauls for established brands. They have to have some excuse for brands to come back! haha
Brands do totally have to evolve to maintain cultural relevance, but I guess the trick is in the what and how you evolve them.
Read a great analogy on here recently (which I loved) describing a need for modern brands to be more like tents, flowing to fit culture, rather than the static grandiose cathedrals of old - so maybe it’s just a case of figuring out what brand assets are the tent pegs!
It depends on what changes. Core assets are the pegs (logos, mascots, jingles). If a core asset needs to change, you can make smaller tweaks without losing existing recognition, but it should remain largely the same. But, the brand surrounding the core assets can change with the times. Like the Coca-Cola example. They didn't actually change the logo, they just stylized it temporarily.
I guess the problem comes when we are expected to do everything as you mentioned at the start. Let the designers design and the strategists strategise.
I am slowly becoming an evangelist for evidence based branding, thanks to this Substack. I use the frameworks to spark creativity when nothing has come to mind yet but I’ve found going with my gut and collaboration with the clients work wonders to create some truly magnificent. Great read as always!
Some strong points, but the argument feels a bit too one-dimensional. Strategy isn’t the villain here—bad strategy is. The issue isn’t that brand strategy exists, but that it’s often over-intellectualized to the point where it stops serving the actual brand.
Distinctiveness for the sake of recognition is crucial (Ehrenberg-Bass makes that clear), but consumers don’t just see brands—they experience them. The most iconic brands don’t just show up consistently; they integrate into culture, habits, and identity in a way that makes them unskippable. A bright red can might be distinctive, but Coca-Cola thrives because it’s embedded in rituals—holidays, meals, friendships, nostalgia. Design alone doesn’t achieve that; it’s the strategic application of branding over time.
The real problem? Strategy has become too much of a performance. We see agencies running workshops that create beautiful strategy decks but fail to translate into actual, memorable execution. Strategy should be a launchpad for action, not an intellectual exercise that lives in a Notion doc.
Your critique is valid, but it shouldn’t lead to a rejection of strategy—just a rejection of strategy that doesn’t move the needle. The best brands aren’t just distinctive; they’re culturally sticky, meaningfully relevant, and consistently present. That’s not just design—that’s strategy done right.
My article doesn’t dispute any of that. I make it clear that proper brand strategy is essential for marketing. I make the point that designers distort it, but I also believe even proper brand strategy isn’t as relevant and can be a distraction when designing distinctive brand assets or naming a brand. I do not devalue good strategy here.
"Strategy isn’t the villain here—bad strategy is." Completely agree! Also - too often brand strats stops being used after the Vis-id is done, when really it should shape the full brand experience, from products, to decisions to how a brand lives in culture, even to who you hire!
I also agree, but the real value of brand strategy comes into play after the visual identity is complete. It isn’t as essential during the design process itself.
There’s a reason brands with “meaningless” assets enter the culture after those assets are designed, and it’s not because of what the assets convey or evoke or any strategy involved in their creation (most were created with very little if any strategy like Apple and Dominos). It’s the strategy that follows when applied to every other area of business combined with the consistent use of those assets.
Austin, this is a great POV, but I believe you are confusing the practices of graphic design and brand design. In my opinion, they are different but they inform each other.
Brand design, category design, brand strategy…this work is more upstream and critical to laying the foundation of the brand and company. I like to call it company level work, not just marketing or pretty pictures and witty phrasing. This work has all the “strategy” you shared above. It should inform the graphic look and voice/tone of the brand…but doesn’t have to prescribe it.
Design work…type, logo, photography, illustration etc should take the strategic work, use the category/product/service and inspire a graphic system. The designers your champion do this very well and I agree with you. Also look at Allen Peters. He’s a great designer, with a simple approach.
I love Chris Do for his content, but that example is whack and I agree very sophomoric. I would call that logo a “badge” not a logo.
I also don’t agree with the idea of meaningless distinction. Sometimes, it’s just a happy accident (geico)…but I think what you are getting at is “visual tension”. Apple is a great example…I know there is a concept behind using it, but I forget.
Glad we are talking about design. More people should care about it. It makes the difference and empowers brand.
I make it clear that proper brand strategy is essential. I'm against Chris Do's watered-down version and it.
I'm also against relying on brand strategy (even in its proper form) too heavily when designing core brand assets, not supporting graphical elements that are not designed to be permanent.
Designers conflate core assets with temporary supporting graphical elements. I think that's part of why the industry has gone off the rails.
Many designers love the idea of evoking emotion and following trends, and therefore resist the idea that core assets shouldn't do that. It goes against their more artistic nature. They can be happy that I believe it's not inherently bad to apply strategy more heavily, evoke more emotion, and follow design trends with supporting graphical elements, but it makes far less sense with core assets.
First of all - I LOVE this piece. It makes sense of some of the swamps I've found myself in throughout my career, stuck between my own discipline of brand strategy in the more classical, marketing strategy sense, and the design version of it. Secondly, though, I'm not sure I agree with you that there is any such thing as a truly timeless logo. The current swirly script Coca-Cola logo for example couldn't BE more redolent or representative of 1900-esque typographic trends, and it's only acquired a kind of timelessness now because it's so familiar. I would argue that timelessness isn't an inherent property but an acquired one. So, based on the example of the Coca- Cola logo, surely any logo has the potential to become timeless if you are stubborn enough to keep on using it: in other words the exact opposite of your suggested approach.
Thanks for the praise! I agree the Coca-Cola logo isn't the best example of a timeless logo from the start. Coca-Cola got lucky that their trendy typography never really went out of style over the years, but they were also the first cola so there were much bigger factors at play.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the exact opposite of my suggested approach." I certainly advocate for stubbornness in keeping recognized logos consistent. I'm in the camp that, even if your logo does have major problems with it, you shouldn't touch it unless absolutely necessary.
I believe you can design for timelessness from day one. That almost always entails designing for simplicity. The more illustrative a logo is, the more likely it is to age poorly.
We have plenty of examples beyond Coca-Cola: Nike, Domino's, Apple, and McDonald's. The most iconic logos of all time were either born timeless, or had the structural bones to become timeless without losing recognition (e.g., the Apple logo's rainbow colors weren't timeless, but the iconic shape was).
The fundamental issue with the examples in my article is that their very structure was built upon passing design trends. They can't evolve past those trends without altering the inherent silhouette of the wordmark—which is exactly the path that kills existing recognition and causes a massive headache.
I always advocate for building a design that is Distinctive, Simple, and Timeless. Critically, these three characteristics are not separate goals; they feed directly into one another.
A logo that is initially distinctive can be successfully evolved to become more timeless over time without losing any recognition, while a simple logo is fundamentally more likely to be timeless in its own right. Though timelessness is certainly achieved through religious consistency, it is initially unlocked via the combined power of distinctiveness and simplicity.
For this reason, it is paramount to consciously strive for timelessness when designing any new mark. Design trends should only inform the fading executions surrounding your core assets (e.g., advertising through the years); they must never be allowed to dictate asset itself IMO.
I really enjoyed your thought process and ideas. While I crave meaning in a brand, I don’t think our approaches are mutually exclusive. They can actually work well together. Thanks for sharing your observations and examples. Great job, man! 😊👏
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm actually working on a new article highlighting that very idea: that meaning and distinctiveness can, in fact, reinforce one another. With one caveat...
This was a great read. I love the length - It gave me the chance to actually get into the argument deeply. I appreciated how you call out that building brand love doesn’t necessarily equate to overall commercial growth.
Spot on. Too many brands confuse strategy theater with real design. Distinctive, timeless design beats endless workshops and chasing “brand love” every time.
Meaningless distinctiveness is for brands that have nothing meaningful to contribute, so they need something quirky to be memorable. It’s for brands that are too lazy to build worlds.
Otherwise, great article. As a brand architect, I can’t wait for the pixel pushing designers to step out of this game. Y’all are the reason people think my job is just redoing logos and color schemes…
If you're interested in a better framing than "meaningless distinctiveness" I have gone into more detail in my article "Why Meaning-free Distinctiveness Jumps the Shark." But, also, every brand needs strong distinctiveness to be memorable. Consumers are distracted. They rarely pick up on anything marketers deem something meaningful to contribute. Quirky doesn't have to conflict with strong positioning, it can reinforce it.
Great article. Very challenging. I don't agree with some of the foundational thrusts of this, (meaningless distinction) but I do think that there is a huge problem with the analytical putting creative in a stait jacket and charging money and time to do so.
Thanks Marcellino! If all this article does is convince designers to put radical distinctiveness and timelessness first, I'm happy with that! Clients will be too. :)
Really challenging read. As a brand strategist serving mostly b2b tech SaaS and ai-native companies, it’s “differentiate or die”. But that usually puts the pressure on brand strategy and not so much design. At the end of the day, they want the identity to follow certain tropes for fear of alienating “their ideal customer.” I agree that strategy should be the foundation of good brands(and can help build the meaning and lore today’s marketing leaders want), but it shouldn’t over reach to dictate it. I’ve done a lot of writing on flexible brand systems (strategy and design) and this drove it home for me: “In contrast, some of the most influential brand designers have designed iconic, enduring brands without adhering to rigid strategic formulas.” The TLDR: differentiation is king. Flexibility is a necessity. And a great brand sometimes just takes guts. A strategist should help get wary clients on board.
Thanks for reading! It does seem most iconic brand ideas came almost entirely out of nowhere. I wrote about 20 examples here: https://www.brandingbullshit.com/p/meaningless-distinctiveness-20-examples
Great read. Your point around not designing brands to not align with trends is a really valid one - good designers know this but it’s all too easy to get suckered in and forget the why. The flexibility in Cokes brand design system is a great example of what can and should change in a brand to stay relevant.
Thanks for reading! I've even heard some designers claiming that core brand assets should not be timeless. It's a weird world out there. I guess everyone is trying to hustle where they can, especially when their careers are built on design overhauls for established brands. They have to have some excuse for brands to come back! haha
Brands do totally have to evolve to maintain cultural relevance, but I guess the trick is in the what and how you evolve them.
Read a great analogy on here recently (which I loved) describing a need for modern brands to be more like tents, flowing to fit culture, rather than the static grandiose cathedrals of old - so maybe it’s just a case of figuring out what brand assets are the tent pegs!
It depends on what changes. Core assets are the pegs (logos, mascots, jingles). If a core asset needs to change, you can make smaller tweaks without losing existing recognition, but it should remain largely the same. But, the brand surrounding the core assets can change with the times. Like the Coca-Cola example. They didn't actually change the logo, they just stylized it temporarily.
I guess the problem comes when we are expected to do everything as you mentioned at the start. Let the designers design and the strategists strategise.
TRUTH!
This is truly excellent. Saving for later so that I can continue to refer to different sections. Thank you for writing!
Anytime, glad you enjoyed it!
I have a newsletter on creative and innovative campaigns that you probably will like :) https://hellokomando.substack.com
I’ll check it out, thanks!
Powerful writing. Cuts refreshingly to the bone.
Wow! You don't happen to be famous do you? Should get you to endorse any future books haha. Thanks for reading!
I am slowly becoming an evangelist for evidence based branding, thanks to this Substack. I use the frameworks to spark creativity when nothing has come to mind yet but I’ve found going with my gut and collaboration with the clients work wonders to create some truly magnificent. Great read as always!
I'm glad to hear it! I have also found it freeing and I deliver better work as a result.
Some strong points, but the argument feels a bit too one-dimensional. Strategy isn’t the villain here—bad strategy is. The issue isn’t that brand strategy exists, but that it’s often over-intellectualized to the point where it stops serving the actual brand.
Distinctiveness for the sake of recognition is crucial (Ehrenberg-Bass makes that clear), but consumers don’t just see brands—they experience them. The most iconic brands don’t just show up consistently; they integrate into culture, habits, and identity in a way that makes them unskippable. A bright red can might be distinctive, but Coca-Cola thrives because it’s embedded in rituals—holidays, meals, friendships, nostalgia. Design alone doesn’t achieve that; it’s the strategic application of branding over time.
The real problem? Strategy has become too much of a performance. We see agencies running workshops that create beautiful strategy decks but fail to translate into actual, memorable execution. Strategy should be a launchpad for action, not an intellectual exercise that lives in a Notion doc.
Your critique is valid, but it shouldn’t lead to a rejection of strategy—just a rejection of strategy that doesn’t move the needle. The best brands aren’t just distinctive; they’re culturally sticky, meaningfully relevant, and consistently present. That’s not just design—that’s strategy done right.
My article doesn’t dispute any of that. I make it clear that proper brand strategy is essential for marketing. I make the point that designers distort it, but I also believe even proper brand strategy isn’t as relevant and can be a distraction when designing distinctive brand assets or naming a brand. I do not devalue good strategy here.
"Strategy isn’t the villain here—bad strategy is." Completely agree! Also - too often brand strats stops being used after the Vis-id is done, when really it should shape the full brand experience, from products, to decisions to how a brand lives in culture, even to who you hire!
I also agree, but the real value of brand strategy comes into play after the visual identity is complete. It isn’t as essential during the design process itself.
There’s a reason brands with “meaningless” assets enter the culture after those assets are designed, and it’s not because of what the assets convey or evoke or any strategy involved in their creation (most were created with very little if any strategy like Apple and Dominos). It’s the strategy that follows when applied to every other area of business combined with the consistent use of those assets.
Austin, this is a great POV, but I believe you are confusing the practices of graphic design and brand design. In my opinion, they are different but they inform each other.
Brand design, category design, brand strategy…this work is more upstream and critical to laying the foundation of the brand and company. I like to call it company level work, not just marketing or pretty pictures and witty phrasing. This work has all the “strategy” you shared above. It should inform the graphic look and voice/tone of the brand…but doesn’t have to prescribe it.
Design work…type, logo, photography, illustration etc should take the strategic work, use the category/product/service and inspire a graphic system. The designers your champion do this very well and I agree with you. Also look at Allen Peters. He’s a great designer, with a simple approach.
I love Chris Do for his content, but that example is whack and I agree very sophomoric. I would call that logo a “badge” not a logo.
I also don’t agree with the idea of meaningless distinction. Sometimes, it’s just a happy accident (geico)…but I think what you are getting at is “visual tension”. Apple is a great example…I know there is a concept behind using it, but I forget.
Glad we are talking about design. More people should care about it. It makes the difference and empowers brand.
I’m not confusing those things.
I make it clear that proper brand strategy is essential. I'm against Chris Do's watered-down version and it.
I'm also against relying on brand strategy (even in its proper form) too heavily when designing core brand assets, not supporting graphical elements that are not designed to be permanent.
Designers conflate core assets with temporary supporting graphical elements. I think that's part of why the industry has gone off the rails.
Many designers love the idea of evoking emotion and following trends, and therefore resist the idea that core assets shouldn't do that. It goes against their more artistic nature. They can be happy that I believe it's not inherently bad to apply strategy more heavily, evoke more emotion, and follow design trends with supporting graphical elements, but it makes far less sense with core assets.
First of all - I LOVE this piece. It makes sense of some of the swamps I've found myself in throughout my career, stuck between my own discipline of brand strategy in the more classical, marketing strategy sense, and the design version of it. Secondly, though, I'm not sure I agree with you that there is any such thing as a truly timeless logo. The current swirly script Coca-Cola logo for example couldn't BE more redolent or representative of 1900-esque typographic trends, and it's only acquired a kind of timelessness now because it's so familiar. I would argue that timelessness isn't an inherent property but an acquired one. So, based on the example of the Coca- Cola logo, surely any logo has the potential to become timeless if you are stubborn enough to keep on using it: in other words the exact opposite of your suggested approach.
Thanks for the praise! I agree the Coca-Cola logo isn't the best example of a timeless logo from the start. Coca-Cola got lucky that their trendy typography never really went out of style over the years, but they were also the first cola so there were much bigger factors at play.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the exact opposite of my suggested approach." I certainly advocate for stubbornness in keeping recognized logos consistent. I'm in the camp that, even if your logo does have major problems with it, you shouldn't touch it unless absolutely necessary.
The core issue with the Cracker Barrel redesign, for instance, wasn't the political backlash. The real problem was the instantaneous loss of brand recognition. They even had the rare luxury of a potential, distinctive mascot built right into their logo that they could have leveraged. They did that really well here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/austin-franke_redesigns-crackerbarrel-brandmascots-activity-7364297616471322626-ThPo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAA01qcsBGNOXgwHgT2DNbRXs4mLg-7uh6Ek. Getting rid of him, from a distinctiveness standpoint, was an insane move.
I believe you can design for timelessness from day one. That almost always entails designing for simplicity. The more illustrative a logo is, the more likely it is to age poorly.
We have plenty of examples beyond Coca-Cola: Nike, Domino's, Apple, and McDonald's. The most iconic logos of all time were either born timeless, or had the structural bones to become timeless without losing recognition (e.g., the Apple logo's rainbow colors weren't timeless, but the iconic shape was).
The fundamental issue with the examples in my article is that their very structure was built upon passing design trends. They can't evolve past those trends without altering the inherent silhouette of the wordmark—which is exactly the path that kills existing recognition and causes a massive headache.
I always advocate for building a design that is Distinctive, Simple, and Timeless. Critically, these three characteristics are not separate goals; they feed directly into one another.
A logo that is initially distinctive can be successfully evolved to become more timeless over time without losing any recognition, while a simple logo is fundamentally more likely to be timeless in its own right. Though timelessness is certainly achieved through religious consistency, it is initially unlocked via the combined power of distinctiveness and simplicity.
For this reason, it is paramount to consciously strive for timelessness when designing any new mark. Design trends should only inform the fading executions surrounding your core assets (e.g., advertising through the years); they must never be allowed to dictate asset itself IMO.
I really enjoyed your thought process and ideas. While I crave meaning in a brand, I don’t think our approaches are mutually exclusive. They can actually work well together. Thanks for sharing your observations and examples. Great job, man! 😊👏
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm actually working on a new article highlighting that very idea: that meaning and distinctiveness can, in fact, reinforce one another. With one caveat...
This was a great read. I love the length - It gave me the chance to actually get into the argument deeply. I appreciated how you call out that building brand love doesn’t necessarily equate to overall commercial growth.
Thanks!
a delicious burger made from sacred cows. i love this.
That’s a fun description! Thanks!
Spot on. Too many brands confuse strategy theater with real design. Distinctive, timeless design beats endless workshops and chasing “brand love” every time.
Meaningless distinctiveness is for brands that have nothing meaningful to contribute, so they need something quirky to be memorable. It’s for brands that are too lazy to build worlds.
Otherwise, great article. As a brand architect, I can’t wait for the pixel pushing designers to step out of this game. Y’all are the reason people think my job is just redoing logos and color schemes…
If you're interested in a better framing than "meaningless distinctiveness" I have gone into more detail in my article "Why Meaning-free Distinctiveness Jumps the Shark." But, also, every brand needs strong distinctiveness to be memorable. Consumers are distracted. They rarely pick up on anything marketers deem something meaningful to contribute. Quirky doesn't have to conflict with strong positioning, it can reinforce it.