Allowed to Persist

Why the small things matter alot [sic].

Growing up, I was terrible at spelling. To the point where it was sometimes hard to tell what word was on the page in front of you.

As a part of this, I would always spell ‘alot’ as one word rather than two.

Over time, my spelling has improved – but the spelling of alot stuck. Even to this day, I generally use ‘alot’ when I know that ‘a lot’ is correct. (Autocorrect doesn’t always agree with me).

That’s how these things evolve. Something happens once, then it happens again, then it becomes a pattern. It persists through time. And, when something has persisted for long enough, it becomes recognizable.

These small idiosyncrasies can become how people recognize your work – they can become your fingerprints. They’re a subtle, but strong signal of authorship and craftsmanship.

A small side effect of this: within my writing, ‘alot’ has become a bit of a tell.

This is true for an individual – but also true of brands.

The things that make brands recognizable are the small, repeated choices – things that happen once, then again, then they persist.

These small touches give brands their uniqueness – something subtle that, while often unnoticed, would be missed if it was gone. People can notice it, look for it, and – eventually – recognize the brand for it.

That’s not to say everything should be incorrect or you should specifically pick a word for your brand to misspell. Doing that misses the entire point:

Idiosyncrasies aren’t added – they’re revealed.

You don’t invent them – you allow them to persist.

There are two questions I’d leave you with:

1 – What are the small things people would recognize your brand by?

And

2 – What are you intentionally smoothing out? Would it be better if we didn’t sand off all the edges? Remember – friction is what allows people to grab ahold of something.

Thanks for spending time with me in my workshop,

Eric