Recently I happened to read some of Diego Rodriguez’s old blog posts, where he talks about fractal brands. Specifically, the best brands are fractal. Here’s a quote from his post:
Definition of fractal, from Hyperdictionary:
A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how close you zoom in)
Good brands are fractal. Every interaction you have reflects the interaction you’ll have with every other piece of the whole, as well as the whole itself. Since “brand” is shorthand for the total experience you get from buying, using, servicing, and disposing of a product, creating a great brand requires taking a fractal point of view to the process of designing total experiences where everything — large and small — is consistent and mutually self-reinforcing.
(Emphasis is mine)
To understand his background, Diego is a partner at IDEO and teaches at the d.school (Design School) at Stanford. He’s been on the forefront of innovation his entire career.
This is a very insightful view on good branding. He later follows it up with this post on Apple Stores, remarking that even three-year olds recognise them as a place to buy an iPod, because they have the same design sense as an iPod. And of course, there are also some bad governmental examples.
Everything you do in a company is part of the brand, but to a geek like me, describing it this way is so simple to understand. What do you think?
Jed Christiansen 