From Flaws to Features: How Weird Wins in Branding

When developing brand assets, the natural tendency for most brands is uniformity. To be on trend or fit in rather than stand out.

But it’s exactly those quirky, unusual, or unexpected elements that make your brand memorable. Rather than just noticing your brand, people recognise patterns through their own visual interpretation. Something that lingers with them longer than intended.

To a kid, Colonel Sanders’ bow tie looked like a stick body. An interpretation that might send risk-averse marketers scrambling to ‘fix’ the logo. But this unexpected visual association is exactly what helps to make it unforgettable.

These aren’t design flaws to eliminate. They’re memory anchors that separate your brand from the wallpaper of cookie-cutter executions.

If you’re playing it safe, you’re doing it wrong.