Design Builds Confidence When Trust Is Low

Trust is fragile, attention is crowded, and buyers make judements in 0.7 seconds. In this episode I'm breaking down how design acts as a signal that helps people feel safe saying yes (without shouting, hustling, or dumbing things down). From Coke’s signature bottle to the Nike tick and Tiffany Blue, we show how consistent visual systems become memory shortcuts, reduce cognitive load, and turn perception into choice.

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Transcript

Life Update And Why Systems Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You're listening to Brandon Butler, straight talking, occasionally in your face, no BS, branding podcasts, modern marketers and business owners. For those who want to understand the influence and power of branding and health caring associations, consumer behaviour and design thinking can impact what people say, think and feel. I'm your host, our life is sometimes funny, sometimes vulnerable, and often unapologetically blunt, founder and creative director of Brand and Design Agency, your one and only. Hey, hey, welcome to this week's episode of Brand and Butter. It's a little bit late this week because I took a trip to the EUD with my son who's immunocompromised, and sometimes that just impacts everything because he has to stay on IV antibiotics for 48 hours, which means that we're usually stuck for a couple of days with him on a drip. So yeah, that um rocked us a little bit. And that's just our life, and that's why I talk a lot about systems, because the better business model that you obviously develop will funnel into the type of system that you run and also the society that we live in. But anyway, off topic, just a little bit of a throwback. I currently have two packets of pretzels and a can of Coke Zero for lunch with some curly whirly squeaggle things on the side. So completely nutritious lunch today. Lunch at the time of recording, three o'clock. Love that. Anyway, so if you're feeling like you don't have your life together, it's alright. I'm right there with you. Anyway. What I want to talk about today is trust. I think trust is a really big I'm doing a lot on trust at the moment, but it's a really big thing because what we're seeing right now is everybody losing trust in almost everything. What we see, what we believe, what we hear. And when you're living in a world like that, how do you establish trust with an audience whenever everything else feels like it's just you know fake or I guess some people say cheating through AI? You can generally tell that slop, even people that think that they don't, you absolutely can. It loses the emotion. But I think what's most important, this is what I will dive into today, especially in terms of visuals, is that creative process that takes you from point A to point B is in any process, by the way. I'm not just talking about in visuals, is so important. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I've developed a logo or come up with some kind of illustration or visual execution from a mistake. Yeah, there's my secret. It's a mistake. And no, I think it really just comes down to that element of play, being able to move things around and play with things and have that freedom to experiment. Allows you to stuff up. And you hear it so many times from people that say, I succeeded, but I failed 10,000 times or something before that. And it's so important to know that because that process is the failure part. It's where you try something, it doesn't work, you do something else, you try it again. Some of the best things that I come up with was a mistake. Like one of the really cool concepts that I came up with recently was simply because I rotated something on its side and it worked better as a horizontal than it did as a vertical. And I cannot tell you how long I was working on that for either. And I think that that's the thing. Everyone thinks, oh, you know, you it should just come easier when you get older. In fact, sometimes I find it comes harder because you've you put a lot of perfection on yourself so that that that perfectionism or that ability to want to make it look good. Now I'm gonna talk about my own work. I can push my own work out as 75%, but when it's someone else's work, I really take pride in making sure that that looks really well. Obviously, they're paying us for that, but that's a really important thing to take note. And I think when you're using AI a lot of the time, you're limiting that process in between and writing something and then coming up like I write with a lot of parentheses, like a lot of brackets because I sidebar everything. And I think it's the same thing with design, right? I will start to design something, the same with writing, and then I'll go, oh, what about that? And then I'll add that in, and it adds so much value. I think you lose that, and I think it's so important to keep that because not only are we eliminating, we're trying to do things faster, right? Everyone wants to do things faster, more productive, more faster. But that do make sense, but anyway, we're losing that that space to sit. And you ask anyone, they say, How do you recover? You sit, you relax, you take it in. It's the same thing with creativity. How do you come up with something? Writer's block. You have to go away and and chill and remove the stress. And I think that this is where society's at at the moment is that they're creating all these things for us to do things faster and faster and faster and faster, at the expense of losing the art of the creation. Anyway, totally veered off topic there, so I'll reel it back in because I haven't even got to the first part of my outline. But basically, last week we well, I spoke about more about what design can't do. But this week I actually want to talk about what it can do. So design can't create trust, however, it can signal that trust is justified. What the hell does that mean? You're probably asking. Well, let me break it down a little bit. So your brain is already deciding. So your brain reads visual signals before your well, the consciousness, your conscious mind maps it, right? And that's why we make judgments so quickly, because it goes from preconceived, you know, ideas and and thought. So it's like a judgment's made in like 0.7 seconds or something. So if you see someone across the road, it might look shifty. That's your own perception of what a shifty person looks like coming up, right? So that's what we think about when we're talking about trust. Now, let's talk about the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle, for instance. So you could remove, and they did have a campaign about this, they do it a lot of times actually. You could remove all colour and just have a black and white and the silhouette of the bottle, and you would still know that that was a Coke bottle. That is a product design feature, but it's also become a symbol of the Coke brand, an identifier. And so that's actually their product design. Very clever, by the way. Or it's not a straight up and down Coke bottle, it's you know, it's got the curve, and people now identify that, and so that's something that we need to think about. You could almost feel that as well. So you could have your eyes closed and pick out a Coke bottle just by just feel alone. So not only do you identify the Coke bottle, you identify the feeling of it, and then you've already cemented this idea in your head before you've even seen the colours, which are also strong as well. So you know, and then you feel something. The Pepsi Paradox was a really good example of this as well. So if you don't know what the Pepsi Paradox is, is when they did the blind tasting with Pepsi and Coke, and when everyone was blindfolded, like a wide margin, they had everyone choose the flavor of Pepsi, but when they removed the the blindfold and people could see the branding, everyone chose Coke. And it was because there were so many things that people thought about with the Coke brand, like you think about all of the associations of it, that that's why they chose Coke. And so you think about sharing it at a party, share a coke campaigns, and you think about how they promote happiness. And I mean, there's a whole lot of political things going on in the background with Coke at the moment, so that's a whole other issue. But from previous times, that's something that people will draw back on. So that's your brain already going back to the you know, the spreadsheet of things uh that you know about that brand, and it goes ding ding ding ding ding. You've selected the associations, it's a much safer choice because you've already got this idea in your head. So, other quick examples I guess I could give you is the Nike Tick. Everyone knows the Nike Tick. You could say that instantaneously, you would know that. Also designed for 30 bucks, crazy. And so that gives you another example of the design itself is was something that was paid for that was quite simple, but it was the associations that they mapped to that tick over the coming years. So the Nike Tick itself is probably worth millions and millions of dollars because of the associations and the brand that they've built around that. So it's an identifier. And then you also look at Tiffany's box, right? You see Tiffany's box, the colour, the ribbon, the box, these are square. I mean, sometimes it depends on what you get, but most of the time you see this, it's it's a very big differentiator on the brand and who it is and what it stands for. And you will know straight away that that is a Tiffany's box. I also say the same with the Burberry pattern. These are things that people remember, right? So they're not always just logos, they're patterns or their shape and their things that you feel. So the Tiffany Co. logo is quite simple, but the box itself is also a very big distinguisher of or an identifier for you to be able to recognize that brand. So again, they're the signifiers that cue that, I guess, repeated, really consistent um feeling that you have when you see that brand. And this is this is where design comes in. Because the anchor for that, so when I talk about using brands as an anchor for safety, because people are choosing safe brands at the moment, the anchor is that your brands are ready. Well, your brands are ready, your your buyers are reading your signals, so they're whether you I guess mean to send them out or not, they understand what it is that you're trying to say through repetition, consistency, and through clever thinking. So what I see, right? My chairs are really squeaky, so if you can hear that, I'm not editing that out. Sauz. The part that most brands I guess get wrong is that they treat design like it's the finishing layer, or they start there, right? And the strategy first, then make it pretty at the end, is well, I think it's important to have strategy first. Obviously, this is something I'm like, how do I actually not stick my foot in it here? So we need to have strategy first, but design needs to be part of that initial strategy, right? So when I'm creating a brand strategy and I'm having conversations about the psychographics of the client's um audience and the market that we're entering in the category that we're positioning in, a lot of things will come up in my mind, right? So I'm already visually mapping because I'm a visual processor as well, obviously. And so mentally I've got this map going on in my head. If you're not doing that at the same time, it's like you've you've used it as two different parts. Anytime I'm working with a copywriter, we're always working in that visual stage as well. And my copywriter who I work with often, Shani, also Wild Spark Copy, but she's gone out on as Shani now, which is great. Shani Fitzgerald, she is doing the same thing. So she will map a mood board on how she's thinking. And almost nine times out of ten, we've got the same idea. And that's that means that the strategy is in line. I did this recently with one of my clients, and she said, You pegged it, this is what I had in my mind. I was like, boom. And that's when you know there's good alignment. And I see so many people going, we are designing for your brand so that it stands out. I'm like, standing out is great, but it it also needs to communicate the reason why it's standing out. And a lot of the times people have this like consistent feel. Um, and so you want to make sure that that it's being designed for what you're wanting it to do, not just what the strength is of the person that or agency that you're getting to design it, right? So design isn't a last step noop. It's the it's like the entire time someone is looking at you, right? So if it wasn't built deliberately, the signals need to be clear about you know who it is and what you stand for. So well, basically the signals are incoherent. So, and what does incoherent feel like to a buyer? It's that it's not interesting and it's unsafe, right? So if you're doing different fonts and different styles all of the time and changing colours and changing layouts, it's creating instability. As you would not think so, but it it changes how people see the brand because there's something changing every time. What people need and what you need for brand recognition is that consistent, ongoing, that the vibe of where people can see what the colors that are associated with your brands, the tones and tints that you use, the voice that you're using, the color, the not the colors, the imagery, all of that stuff needs to be really clear, which is why branding guidelines exist. This is like one of the key parts of of our brand development process is wrapping everything up in a brand guideline stock. Because when everything feels like it's fighting for retention, a lot of people think adding another design, another graphic, if the graphic does not serve the purpose of the message, get rid of it. I say this so many times. Design is great. If the design is detracting from the message that you're using, get rid of it. So whenever we're doing something that's quite serious, the imagery is really important. The graphics are really important because the it can actually downplay the strength of the message. And a lot of the times you will see really impactful messaging just be typography. There's good reason for that. And that also is a thing that's a strategy. So you need to take into my there's multiple strategies, it's a design strategy that's really important to take into consideration. So when we're looking at high-value buyers, right, they're already at capacity and they don't have the bandwidth to go through a confusing visual system, right? They're not they don't try to figure it out. They want you to tell them straight up, really easily. That's why they always say in design, less is more. Coco Chanel does it as well. You know, before you leave the house, take one thing off. It is very much that. Especially when everything is so overwhelming. You know, you get on Instagram or you get on a social media platform, there's just things in your face, right? Simple sometimes is better. Don't confuse with minimalism. That's a whole different thing. But if your brand feels like effort to understand, it's like cognitive overwhelm, right? So you're already, you're already crossed off. If someone has to figure out something in more than five seconds, you are out of there. People do not have the bandwidth these days. And this is what people keep saying that people don't have attention. It's not that they don't have attention, it's that they're mentally overloaded. If you go back to, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago, it's probably even early than that, like the amount of products on the shelves and in shopping centers and well, more so, like it's say in a grocery store, you're seeing so many different iterations of milk, of cereal, of friggin' oats. Like there's so many different variations of that one product. So they're overwhelmed. So their brain is like tabbed out. So people like they don't have attention. It's because what we're doing now is overwhelming everyone's brain. This is this is the system I'm trying to talk to, right? Let's go into there for a sec. When we talk about the younger generation having no memory or having no attention, it's because what we give them these days is so overwhelming. You think when like let's go back to when I was a kid, I'm 40 this year, so you can work that out for yourself. But we had what, four channels for on the TV, a newspaper, magazines, you know, TVCs, uh, television commercials, if you don't know what a TVC is. There was no internet, there was no phones. You know, these things came during our lifetime and they've evolved. So technological advancement has happened so much, and with that means cognitive overwhelm. Like emails, for instance. It used to be just the letter in the bag. You know, you have one form of communication. It's easy to remember that when you've got one place. Now it's like, oh my god, where did I see that message? Is it in an email? Is it in a DM? Is it in a WhatsApp chat? Is it in an SMS? Like there are so many different, is it in the school app? Like there are so many different ways that people can communicate with you now that it becomes overwhelming. And someone with ADHD, it is infuriating. I actually wrote back to my school, they sent out a communication thing, which I am really thankful that they did because last year I addressed and I said, I'm really sorry you guys send out like so many different emails. I get really overwhelmed with what I need to be looking at. Like, please just send me stuff that concerns my kid and the occasional one about the school because I cannot keep track of everyone else's kid. I just and so the email came out this year, which I think they're really good for doing that. But yeah, so you need to understand that what people are reading now, like and also what's going on in their lives. You don't know what's going on in their life. They could have four or five different things that are happening. For instance, me this week, I did not give a crap about anything. I was bare bones. Anything that was the least, um like hence why I had pretzels and a can of Coke for lunch today, is because I simply could not think of making another decision, so I grabbed what the thing was that was closest to me. Great choice? No. Easiest choice? Absolutely. And here is where the issue is. You may not be the best choice, or someone else may not be the best choice. You may be the best choice, but if you are too hard to choose, they are going to choose the easiest choice, even if they are not better. That is a really great example, see? And if without that process of going on a sidebar, I never would have got there. Perfect example. So many things just proving my point today. Right, let's get back to this list because I'm gonna go off story and I'm like, oh, where am I at? But anyway, okay, so if we're talking about that, you you really need to understand that your brand feels like effort to understand, and that means that you're out, right? So we're talking about the cognitive load. And again, like I said, it's not because they don't dislike you, it's because their their brain filtered you out because you were too hard. And your design might be costing them energy that they don't have. I cannot tell you the amount of times someone will change the design I've done, and I'll be like, why did you do that? And yeah, anyway, coming back, that's my little dig. It's like if I give you a thing with a whole brand guidelines, just stick to it. There's a good reason I've given it to you. Anyway, let that land, let that land. So brands think that they um again, like I said before, they need to stand out and be distinctive and bold. And look, yes, that works for some audiences, but today's audience I think is very different. And if you go back and listen to the last four or five different episodes, I think you're going to understand this the shift that we're having right now and why it's really important to understand this dynamic. Because the simplified the visual system, so less is more, as I was talking about, it makes it scannable, it makes it readable, it's the same offer, but completely different perception. But they didn't change their offer, they changed how safe it looked to say yes. So it's not always about screaming the loudest, right? So go back to the case I missed the bit. So the decision maker is the person that can take in the information you're giving them. It can stand out, but if the messaging is conflicting, they're not buying from you. That's just that's it. That's the end, that's the story. So if we look at, I guess, in corporation context, right? Creative can read as really unpredictable. A lot of big business, big corporations really want structure and routine. I get it, right? Because unpredictability is risky. And risky is a big no-no. And this is something that I mentioned in my latest reel about change and needing to speak about change and why big corporations and you know old branding models will say to you, This is how you need to do a brand. Whereas we've really shifted into the next dynamic now, we're seeing Gen Z moving into decision making spaces, we're seeing everyone moving into higher leadership roles for millennials, and we're not realizing that money is shifting hands. And these people are going to be the leaders, and with that comes a value shift. So I had a whole thing on that. So the traditional old brand model is out. Like if we go by legacy branding, what used to work for them is you know mainstream media and you know a logo and some colors. Not anymore. But that's why I guess bigger brands now are having an issue because they're having to justify why they should be the choice. And if you're not evolving constantly and you are, you think that your brand is secure, they're the ones that fall out, right? That's the that's the blockbuster of the era, and no one thinks they're blockbuster. They think by doing new new tactics in terms of, you know, they make a new different Instagram reel, or, you know, they add a new service, or I don't know, they switch out their identity and add a new logo or whatever. And they think that that's enough, but it's it's not because we're dealt with some really big changes at the moment, and with that comes reflection, and with the reflection comes repositioning. This is why you're seeing bigger brands do really big changes, but some aren't. And this is the problem. And this is where you see brands like Blockbuster, like Kodak, like Toys R Us fall out of preference because these younger, more nimble brands come through and they challenge them competitively and they bring to the table this whole area that the bigger brands just haven't touched yet. And the legacy loses because legacy brands are losing trust. And unless you're constantly marketing, which is why legacy brands have huge marketing budgets in a way that is adapting to the cultural environment, you will fail. And trust erodes, by the way. So you, if you're looking at it as though you're going to, you know, do something new here and there, it's not something that's just happened, right? You can't just change something. You see it, you see a problem and you change just that one thing. You have to know where that change has come from, where it originated, because I can guarantee you that these are small micro things that have built into a snowball. And you probably think it's just this one thing, and it's more likely a bunch of little things that have caused the snowball. And I would highly get everyone to go back through, especially over the last couple of years, and see how people are feeling about your brand. Because if anything, the last few years has really created some tone-deaf messaging. Tell you what, on the rise back up again and being in a really good place. I have some people, brands, um, businesses that have gone out and said some things where I'm like, whoa, really shifted my perception on you. And people remember. That's the thing. People remember. So you have to be always having conversations with people about the changes and the development of your brand, especially from people that piss you off. I think a lot of people just want to get the feedback from people that they like and know, that are loving their, loving them sick. No, it doesn't work like that. Majority of our audience comes from this whole middle section. You'll have people that love you and people that hate you, and there's a whole bunch of people that sit here in the middle. You can't keep going to the people that love you, they'll keep feeding you the same bullshit. They're always gonna love you. There's people over here in the center that are sh that are decision makers, they'll swing. And if you haven't pleased them enough in a way for them to be, you know, I guess receptive to your brand or understand what it is that you do and be part of the values of of what you stand for, then you're gonna lose them really easily. Brand loyalty is lost very easily these days. So we need to look at it like um, yeah, if they have to justify their choice to someone else that and they can't explain why they chose you in one sentence, then they probably won't. And a lot of the time I say this to people that people will end up coming to work with us, and it's not about the way we design, it's about what we stand for. All of our clients over the last six months have always come through what we stand for because I'm very clear on what my values are and what we represent here at your one and only. And everything that we do is indicative of that. Where we invest our money, the pro both, the pro bono jobs we do, the messaging on our website, how we show up, what we talk about, all of this stuff is in alignment and nothing has changed. It's just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's when people feel trust because they know that over that time, where I did, and I can be completely honest here, stuff it up, was last year I um took on too much work and the capacity got staggered through. So then I ended up having to try and catch up these projects that will push out the timeline. So that's where I think a lot of you know issues came from us. But again, good communication can help there. Um, but if you don't communicate again, you will lose that. And if you're not willing to listen, people will just leave. The people that get comfortable with that really need to open their eyes because people will just leave and they leave quietly, and one by one, and before you know it, you're like, oh wow, we've lost all these people, or all of these people don't come back to us anymore. And you know, no one's no one's uh immune to this, it happens to everybody. So the way you've got to look at it, right, is that it isn't about your inadequacy, right? It's it's not about that, it's about their reality. So if it's too hard for them to deal with, you'll lose out if you're not clear, and that's what you need to understand. It's not that you're not the best, but if you're not the clearest, you will lose out. That's the same thing goes when people use really complex language. Simplify the complexity is my my moral here. My rule, my moral. My rules here is to simplify the complex every time. I could talk to you in the biggest jargon with the biggest words, but what's the point if you don't understand what I'm trying to say? Absolutely stupid. That's why I'm very conversational in the way that I that I do my podcast and the way that I rock up, because I would just rather it be like a conversation between two friends. And actually, we have worked with um Australia's biggest disability employer, it's the uh Endeavour Foundation. And that was actually one of the things that they mentioned was that it was like working with friends. We got along really well. It was like I was part of the team, um, for lack of a better word. And that was really humbling, and obviously that we shared the values and wanted to fight the same systems that they were fighting. And I think that that, and that's what pulled us across the line, which was really good that that's what hit home for them. So, what needs to change is that you've got to understand that design isn't something you just slap on. And it is a system. This is why we call them design identity systems. So you've got to look at colour and spacing and imagery and type and placement and all of these things which consistently signal the same thing across literally every touch point. Layout is huge. I don't think people realize that you changing to center, to left, to right, like that changes readability in something. I will go through something and it like obviously as a designer, it pains me. If you start left aligned, finish left aligned. Like you left align that whole pain. In fact, most things should be left aligned, unless you are like a carousel on Instagram with a small bit of text sentenced, that's fine. But you know, if you're targeting a westernized culture, which in most cases we are, it's a left-to-right thing. So you need to understand the visual consistency, you need to understand the that it means operational consistency. So the visuals equal how it operates, how it's the system itself and how people can use that system. It's basically user experience. This is why it's really important to understand design, not just whack together something in Canva. Because who designed the template that you're using? You don't know. And that's the thing. So if the brand looks like it has its act together, they assume that you do too. So this is where the polished look comes in. Now don't mistake authentic for unpolished. There are ways that you can be very authentic in the way that you show up, but still remain really authentic, looking like you've just picked up your phone and gone for a walk. Plenty of content creators out there talking about this at the moment, but that visual that you're using, the way that you shoot that video, these are the things that people don't realize have a huge role in the way that we uh see the visual system. So your edits, your photography style, the way that you chop and edit is a really big thing. So are you like long drawn out cinematic, or are you like punchy and like carrot like, you know, all of these things play a role and there should be guidelines for the way that you do videos, for the way that you uh, you know, have your imagery style. All of these should be consistent, and that's something that's really important to note is that these are the things that we're now using consistently. So how you shoot them matters. For instance, you'll see people doing video shoots where they'll wear the same shirt. It's for visual reference. I've unintentionally been doing that lately, and people have identified that. So I might have to create myself a uniform. But I will always always shoot in this video. If you're watching the video, there's always the same background, and you'll notice that in the videos that you see as well, unless they're obviously walking around, but there are visual things that people can see and they will notice. And so these are things that people aren't realizing, like glasses colors and these tiny little visual cues that people can pick up are part of a visual system. The visual system is symbolic, it's it's signifies for people to be able to identify you. So stop identifying for attention, it's not about attention, and start I like designing for confidence, like what the brand stands for. Start designing consistently so that people can understand the system and stop changing to marry up to what everyone else keeps bloody telling you to do online because that's not what you should be doing. So when the visuals match the value, the pricing conversation shift, right? So if you look like you are someone that is high caliber, people will pay. If your brand looks trashy and cheap, no offense, people won't see you as being a valued brand, they will not pay. Unfortunately, people make judgments in 0.7 seconds. There's that hook back again, unintentionally, but they will. And so if all of these little identifiers, say if you've got a crappy photo shoot or you know, the lighting's wrong, like this is where it's really important to have the right people. And again, it depends on what it is that you're doing, but these are really important, and these are like the finer things that people will see, and they will collate these tiny little things, like I was saying before, and all of these tiny little parts create the snowball. If it's good, it'll go well. If it's not, it'll go downhill. Once you lose trust, it's really hard to regain, by the way. So just keep that in mind. So the brands that are doing really well, especially from a top level, they're not necessarily the most creative. I mean, they've definitely got they definitely know where to put their money, that's for sure. But they're always the most certain. So they know exactly who they are, exactly what they're doing, and who they're here for. And so this is why I know that so many brands are really struggling with either understanding their audience or understanding their positioning in the market. And because if people can't remember you, the positioning's off. Guaranteed. Like guaranteed, not it. And I think the thing is we can be biased as business owners or those in marketing teams and and people in brand can be biased because we've got a preconceived idea in our head of what we want the brand to be. But if you're not communicating that, people are only getting what you're feeding them. That is the brand narrative. That's the messaging. That's up to you to communicate that. And if you're not, hence why consistency matters, because it's if you're posting consistently, say on social media and sending emails and doing podcasts, then you're constantly reminding people that you exist. If you're rocking up every now and then, then you're not doing that. And that's the problem. It's not that you don't know what you're talking about, it's that you're just not reminding people enough. And when they're so preoccupied, like I said before, they are not remembering you. You can't even remember what a war yesterday, you know, and that was me. So you are a side character in everyone else's main main story. Just keep that in mind. So I would like to give you, I guess, a little bit of a five-second test. You ready? So I want you to pull up your website on your phone and give yourself five seconds and go through it. Like, if you're a busy decision maker, does it feel calm and easy to read? Is it structured? Are the things in the right spot? How long does it take for someone to, you know, read your uh content? Like, are they getting the right message? Are you answering their answering what they need? And does it feel calm and safe or like a lot of effort? Because that gut reaction is your data. Ask someone else too. Also, does it look different from a website to a to a mobile? If it doesn't, you know, if it's not responsive and you know that more people are and more people are looking, more and more people, that should have said, is are looking at things through their phone and the phone isn't the website isn't responsive for a mobile, then that's another big kicker for you. At the end of the day, an assessment is really important. This is something that we've been doing with all of our clients at the beginning, is like really understanding where they're at before we go and dive into something. Or the assessment comes through the questioning. And I really can't stress enough that in a world that keeps on moving, brand needs to be really fluid. Like you should be adapting and moving. And what we're doing to keep our brand, I guess, our visual systems moving, is creating like asset libraries. I was like getting stuck on what I was trying to say then. It like symbols and uh icons and things that you can use that are symbols of the brand that can be rotated in and out and can be added to or or removed and ways that you can keep that brand moving um in line with you know the shifts in what's happening in the world right now. At the end of the day, you just need to understand that the perception isn't always from an aesthetic point of view. So it's what's underneath it, but the aesthetics help to amplify what's underneath. It's like me saying I'm a professional and then rocking up in, you know, pajamas and then someone going, what? But then me wearing like a suit will obviously give you a very different perception of who I am. It doesn't mean that what's underneath doesn't matter. However, the same thing is also true. If I was to rock up in a suit and spit absolute bullshit, then you would think that I knew nothing. And so that visual identity doesn't matter if if that substance isn't underneath. So they're both they both go hand in hand, and you've got to look at the design, look at the design as a signalling system. Anyway, that's long on. So if you are, I guess, struggling or want to know what you can do as a next step, like if you we have a I have like an audit you can do. It's um it's on our website, I'll drop it in, it's the brand gap finder, and it asks you a series of questions that also asks you to ask other people and it tries to break bias, and it should give you a score. And from that score, you should be able to understand what it is that you need to focus on in order to move forward. I like to get people to I at least identify a problem area before they move forward, and at least that will give you a bit of an idea on where you can start. Until then, I will wrap that one up for today because I keep talking about this one forever, it's a good subject. But if you are interested, I have started a Substack, and I will drop that link into the show notes. That's going to be a little bit more in-depth, a little bit more system design, and more into the Slack science space, which I am now studying a bachelor's for. And, you know, cultural brand, not necessarily brand, but like human decision making. Anyway, hope you have a good week, and I will chat to you next week. Did you like that episode? I hope so. Because if you did, why don't you head over to whatever platform you listen on and write and review? It's much appreciated and helps others know what we're about. 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