Like: Branding Is About Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages |Mark Shillum for Co.Design

Excerpt:

"...To succeed in a more agile world, a brand needs to think less about defining a fixed identity and more about creating coherent and flexible patterns.

Five similarities between patterns and the desired behavior of brands:

1. Patterns are both adaptive and coherent

Because patterns are composed of elements, they are reconfigurable. The elements can be reorganized to shift meaning, but this new meaning is still created from familiar elements.

One of the most reconfigurable patterns is the modern English alphabet. The Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words, but they are composed of only 26 letters. We detect words as a pattern of letters to which we give a pre-assigned meaning. Over time, we assign sub-patterns to each word, which means we begin to read patterns of words rather than individual letters.

Rseaerch icntidaes taht the oerdr of the ltteers in a wrod dnsoe't relaly mettar. Waht relaly mtteras is the frist and lsat leettr in the wrod. If tehy are in the rhgit palce, you can raed the wdors.

Consider the iPhone app grid. It allows the user to reorganize and personalize the face of the iPhone. Wobbling tiles signify the most flexible state of the interface. Each tile, although different and a brand in its own right, is recognizable as an Apple object through the use of a "glare" reflection and the standardization of form. The curved corners of the tile appear on each successive app, on the product itself, and throughout the Apple family of products. The app grid was originally introduced by Nokia, but Apple came to own it through the successful application of patterns.

The adaptability of patterns makes them perfect for iterative environments, as they can grow while retaining meaning in new contexts, allowing brands to adapt and evolve without the "shock of the new."...

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