Volume 90: Back for another year.

1. Branding friction.

tl;dr: The critical difference between brand design and digital design.

What we might label “digital design,” especially the field of digital product design, has evolved rapidly over the past 5-10 years, firmly establishing itself as the dominant design practice in most corporations. What’s most interesting, though, isn’t that “designing for digital” has evolved so quickly, but the singularly beige blob of genericism it’s evolved into.

This is largely because of three things. First, reusable componentry, pattern libraries, rapid iteration tools, and design systems (think Material Design) narrow the aperture of what’s believed to be possible. Second, a design process that seeks to eliminate friction to make the desired customer flows as smooth as possible tends to mistake familiarity for usability. And third, a kind of collective groupthink FOMO that dictates what’s “acceptable” and “good” that’s aggressively policed online.

Critically, while removing friction and optimizing for familiarity plays a critical role in the successful delivery of the product, if extended too far beyond, it can be terrible for the brand.

This is because the goal of brand design shouldn’t be the removal of friction; it should be harnessing it and turning it into something unique. As a result, a brand designer should strive to accentuate the exact thing a product designer seeks to eliminate.

And the tension between the two is where magic should happen.

This article provides an unwitting example. The author compares Squarespace to Oatly, claiming that Squarespace doesn’t work because it’s about branding, whereas Oatly does because it’s about storytelling. While this is abject nonsense, I’m delighted to borrow from it in order to make my point.

The author correctly reacts to the Squarespace brand being instantly forgettable. However, this isn’t due to a lack of storytelling; it’s due to a product design mentality applied to branding design - simple, seamless, friction-free, and utterly generic. Oatly, on the other hand, takes a brand-first approach to design that stands out uniquely and distinctively on the shelf and in media. This isn’t about storytelling; it’s about friction and placing things into your mind that you’ll remember. Frankly, the Oatly typeface is far more distinctive than anything they write in it. Far from friction-free, Oatly revels in its grit in the oyster status. Just look at how unique the packaging is compared to every other nut-milk on the shelf.

It pains me to say these things because they represent some of the most basic and foundational building blocks of branding, but they need to be said. The overwhelming application of the seamless digital mindset to branding is slowly but surely depriving branding design of everything that makes it special.

Picture, for a second, what would happen if a digital designer designed the iconic Coca-Cola bottle. Would it be “instantly recognizable even when laying broken on the ground?” Not a chance. Instead, it would be the most familiar, generic bottle in existence. Simple, easy, modern, and seamless. And utterly, forgettably, boring as a result.  

The goal isn’t to make everything the same, familiar and comfortable, and remove all friction to the point that your brand becomes so generic that it could be any brand. Instead, the goal is to do the unexpected and create a memorable friction. To actively avoid what everyone else is doing precisely because it’s what everyone else is doing, no matter how nice it might be, how well designed, how aesthetically pleasing, or how comfortable.

Why? Because we’re not in the comfort business, we’re in the branding business. And if we’re in the branding business, we’re in the standing out business.

2. We won’t know what matters until after it all explodes.

tl;dr: A rather important perspective on all things Web3.

With the sheer amount of hype around all things Web3, from NFTs to crypto true believers, to DAOs, to the tokenization of everything, to the decentralization of the web, you’d be forgiven for feeling more than a little confused.

Unfortunately, of all the voices in this space, those in marketing are the worst hype offenders. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the same marketing talking heads always seem to be experts in ESNTTCA (Every Single New Thing That Comes Along). They’re either impressively well-informed polymaths or suffering deeply from the Dunning Kruger Effect. Take your pick, but I’m generally wary of snake oil.

Over the break, in an attempt to pick my way through the maelstrom, I decided to seek out voices I knew to be more thoughtful and found this article by Tim O’Reilly, coiner of the term Web 2.0 back in the day, and a generally brilliant thinker on all things tech.

It’s an excellent read for a backward/forward perspective on what’s going on and how it fits with historical precedent. There are many takeaways, from inflationary bubbles as primers of the infrastructure pump to the tendency of profits to centralize before capital seeks new opportunities elsewhere.

But, the thing that most struck me was the observation that the term Web 2.0 didn’t come about until five years after the dot com bubble burst—designed as it was to make sense of why some firms succeeded despite the bursting bubble, while others failed spectacularly.

Now, I firmly believe in the idea that more than one thing can be true at the same time. We can be in a spectacularly speculative bubble in relationship to Web3 and crypto in general, and these technologies can also be a truly transformative force for change. The problem is that we don’t yet know which bits will be transformative and which we’ll look back on as tulip-mania folly. And we likely won’t know until after it all explodes, and even then, it may take us a few years to pick through the debris to make sense of it all.

Anyway. If you’d like to start your year with a rare and thoughtful foray into a subject so utterly overwhelmed with hype, this is it.

3. The end of one year…and the start of another.

tl;dr: Thank you all. Here’s to a happy 2022.

Well, that was it for another year. Now we’re on to 2022. Let’s hope it turns out to be a bumper year, that pandemic-related issues fade, that we make a breakthrough or two in our fight against climate change, that political dysfunction tamps down a bit, and that everyone gets to be happy and prosperous.

When I started this newsletter, I sent it out to a few friends, former colleagues, and former clients and hoped they wouldn’t unsubscribe or be offended. Most of them didn’t and weren’t. So I added a signup page on the Invencion website and have occasionally posted links on Twitter and LinkedIn, even though I’m terrible at self-promoting posts. And then people like you chose to subscribe from far and wide. Thank you for that. I sincerely appreciate it. Since I started this in November 2019, subscriber numbers have grown by more than ten times. I won’t say how many of you there are because I have no idea how significant that number is. But, I will say that your choice to subscribe and read these scribblings and occasionally email me to say that you like them is what keeps me writing.

I try to stay current, but sometimes client work takes priority, like last month. So, if I miss a week or two, please understand that it’s only because I’ve been too busy, which means Off Kilter had to take a break that week. Sorry.

As we head into the New Year, please let me know if there is anything you like that you’d like to see more of, things you don’t like that you’d like to see less of, or anything else you’d like me to think about or write about. I’ve never really requested feedback, so I’d love it if folks were willing to take a minute or two and let me know. I would offer to pay you, but this newsletter costs me money as it is, haha.

Otherwise, I wish you the very best for a healthy, happy, and prosperous year ahead.

Until next time.