The Case for Cleverness
The Case for Cleverness
By Richard Hunt
There’s a particular kind of satisfaction in spotting something others might miss. A detail tucked into a logo. A double meaning hiding in plain sight. And doesn’t everyone love an Easter egg? Not because it’s obvious, but because it isn’t. Because it rewards curiosity. Because it makes people feel, however briefly, like you’ve been let in on something.
Twenty years ago, it felt like that feeling was everywhere. This was the era when FedEx slipped an arrow between its letters and trusted you to find it. When Amazon quietly drew a smile from A to Z. When Toblerone hid a bear in the mountain and Carrefour concealed a ‘C’ in plain sight.
Twenty years ago, it felt like that feeling was everywhere. This was the era when FedEx slipped an arrow between its letters and trusted you to find it. When Amazon quietly drew a smile from A to Z. When Toblerone hid a bear in the mountain and Carrefour concealed a ‘C’ in plain sight.
It was a good time to be a designer. There was space for a certain kind of thinking, and an opportunity, or possibly even a requirement for work that didn’t just communicate, but rewarded attention. We could create work that assumed the audience might enjoy joining the dots. The industry felt playful. Confident enough to be understated and light-hearted.
But then, everything had to work everywhere. The rise of digital expanded the canvas and rewrote the rules. Brands were no longer static marks sitting on packaging or print. They became living systems, required to flex across screens, platforms, and formats.
Clarity became paramount. Speed became critical. Consistency, non-negotiable. And understandably so. When a logo has to function at the size of a favicon or animate seamlessly in an app, there’s less room for nuance. Less tolerance for ambiguity. Less patience for ideas that reveal themselves over time.
Clarity became paramount. Speed became critical. Consistency, non-negotiable. And understandably so. When a logo has to function at the size of a favicon or animate seamlessly in an app, there’s less room for nuance. Less tolerance for ambiguity. Less patience for ideas that reveal themselves over time.
So, we streamlined. We flattened. We optimised. And everything took on a blanding sort of look and feel. Across much of Europe, a certain sameness crept in. A kind of visual neutrality. Sans-serif typefaces. Restrained palettes. Grids that behaved impeccably. Sure, it worked. But it rarely surprised.
These days, we talk a great deal about distinctiveness. But I can’t help but feel that somewhere along the way, distinction has become a question of visibility rather than ingenuity. Today, we design to be recognised instantly. Understood immediately. Scaled infinitely.
These days, we talk a great deal about distinctiveness. But I can’t help but feel that somewhere along the way, distinction has become a question of visibility rather than ingenuity. Today, we design to be recognised instantly. Understood immediately. Scaled infinitely.
What we talk about far less is that ‘smile in the mind’. The kind of idea that asks something of its audience. That takes half a second longer to land but leaves a far deeper impression when it does. That sort of cleverness introduces friction. And friction, we’ve been told, is risky.
Brands have become clearer, and that’s a good thing. But in pursuing clarity, we may have started to underestimate the very people we’re trying to reach. I don’t believe consumers have lost their appetite for discovery. If anything, I think they are more attuned to it than ever. They share it. They celebrate it. They return to it.
Brands have become clearer, and that’s a good thing. But in pursuing clarity, we may have started to underestimate the very people we’re trying to reach. I don’t believe consumers have lost their appetite for discovery. If anything, I think they are more attuned to it than ever. They share it. They celebrate it. They return to it.
In our recent rebrand of Henkell, we found a way to reintroduce that sense of discovery. The brand’s fleur-de-lis, once a familiar but generic motif, has been redrawn to incorporate Henkell’s own ‘H’ within its form. It’s a design detail that rewards attention as it transforms the symbol into something distinctive and ownable. For those who notice, it offers that small, satisfying moment of recognition.
It would be easy to accuse me of nostalgia. And maybe I am. I don’t claim things were better, but they were different. Today, we designers have tools, technologies and opportunities that were unimaginable twenty years ago. The scale at which brands can operate and connect is extraordinary.
But in gaining all of that, we may have unintentionally deprioritised something valuable. That layer of intelligence. A touch of wit. A willingness to leave something unsaid. The kind of thinking that creates moments of satisfaction, a sense of discovery, and that incredible feeling of being included in the idea.
That’s not at odds with modern brand building. If anything, that’s exactly what people these days are hungry for. In a world of seamless systems and frictionless journeys, the brands that stay with us are rarely the ones that simply work. They’re the ones that make us feel something. Even if that feeling is just a small, passing thought of, “That’s clever.”
*Image source: A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design (eds. Beryl McAlhone & David Stuart), Phaidon Press Ltd.
But in gaining all of that, we may have unintentionally deprioritised something valuable. That layer of intelligence. A touch of wit. A willingness to leave something unsaid. The kind of thinking that creates moments of satisfaction, a sense of discovery, and that incredible feeling of being included in the idea.
That’s not at odds with modern brand building. If anything, that’s exactly what people these days are hungry for. In a world of seamless systems and frictionless journeys, the brands that stay with us are rarely the ones that simply work. They’re the ones that make us feel something. Even if that feeling is just a small, passing thought of, “That’s clever.”
*Image source: A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design (eds. Beryl McAlhone & David Stuart), Phaidon Press Ltd.
