THINKDROP 11: Normcore sucks!
- Pierre Stanghellini
- Jul 1
- 5 min read
And Why Vanilla Ice Cream Is Boring..
🎤 From Me to You
Rethinking conformity, creativity, and courage in a world addicted to the average.
Vanilla isn’t a flavor — it’s a compromise. It’s the symbol of today’s normcore culture, where playing it safe is the default strategy, and neutrality is mistaken for professionalism.
But in trying to appeal to everyone, we end up resonating with no one.
This isn’t just a design issue — it’s a strategic one. Businesses, creators, and professionals alike are watering down their offerings into predictable templates. Services are becoming indistinguishable. Products lack soul. Ideas are too polished to provoke.
Just look at what’s happening in luxury branding: legacy fashion houses like Saint Laurent, Burberry, and Berluti have flattened their once-distinctive logos into sterile sans-serifs. What was once expressive and crafted is now safe and systematized. This isn't clarity — it's capitulation.
What we’re witnessing is the mass production of “fine.”
But fine doesn’t get remembered. Fine doesn’t drive loyalty. Fine is forgettable.
If you want relevance and resilience in this climate, you need flavor.
You need to risk being something, so you don’t end up meaning nothing.
Pierre Stanghellini.
HARi.wtf founder.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The Beige Trap
How we ended up mistaking neutrality for excellence.
In the pursuit of pleasing everyone, brands have slowly drained themselves of distinctiveness. Products, services, and even people are increasingly optimized to offend no one. Which means they inspire no one either.
What began as strategic alignment quickly becomes creative erosion.
This isn't about minimalism — it's about mediocrity dressed as market strategy.
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.” — Robert Anthony
UX Collective once remarked that playing it safe is one of the riskiest paths in modern branding, because safe equals silent.
As brands flatten themselves into marketable generalities, they lose their spark.
Marq’s analysis on differentiation echoes the same: in a saturated world, the bold cut through.
Average brands might survive, but they rarely thrive.
🔧 Try this:
Audit your brand or offering for “sameness.” Replace 1 generic message or feature with something that reflects your boldest values.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Logo Monotony
Luxury brands are flattening their icons into oblivion.
A wave of indistinguishable sans-serif logos has swept through the luxury fashion world. Brands once known for typographic elegance and heritage flair now conform to a sterile aesthetic. Balenciaga, Burberry, and Saint Laurent have all abandoned their historic visual identities for ultra-minimal wordmarks that scream modernity — and whisper nothing else. In their pursuit of versatility and digital cleanliness, these icons have stripped away personality.
“A logo doesn’t sell (directly), it identifies.” — Paul Rand
Critics have dubbed this the "blanding" of luxury — a design movement where high-end brands look more like generic tech startups than cultural institutions.
Articles from sources like Highsnobiety and The Cut have documented how this shift isn't just a visual update; it's a systemic erasure of brand voice and legacy.
The result is a parade of brands that feel forgettable, interchangeable, and hollow.
🔧 Try this:
Revisit your brand's visual roots. What unique historical or emotional element can you reclaim or reimagine to make your mark stand out again?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Culture is Built by the Brave
Movements don't start in the middle.
Culture is shaped by those willing to say the uncomfortable thing, to challenge norms and introduce new perspectives. Brands that matter don’t always play nice; they play real. They speak up, take risks, and become mirrors (or lightning rods) for the cultural tension around them.
“If you are not taking a stand, you are standing for nothing.” — Seth Godin
As explored in thought pieces from AdAge and Medium, the rise of brand activism, identity-forward design, and polarizing positioning has shown us that clarity of perspective is more powerful than breadth of audience. Your audience doesn’t have to agree with you — they just need to know what you stand for.
🔧 Try this:
Declare your stance on an industry norm or trend. Turn it into a manifesto, podcast, or headline that grabs attention.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Design Like You Mean It
If your service or product could belong to anyone, it means nothing.
Visual identity is more than how something looks — it’s how it feels, how it resonates, and what it signals. A brand that blends into a sea of templates loses its voice before it even speaks.
Great design is emotional design — it provokes, comforts, excites, and sometimes even unsettles.
“People ignore design that ignores people.” — Frank Chimero
Studies from the Nielsen Norman Group emphasize how emotional connection impacts memory and decision-making. Meanwhile, Kantar research confirms that distinctive assets (not pretty sameness) drive growth. If your logo, color palette, or voice feels "safe," it might also be forgettable.
🔧 Try this:
Identify one area of your brand (site, pitch deck, packaging, social) that looks too much like your competitors. Redesign it with emotion and attitude.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Serve Real Flavor
Offerings that try to be everything to everyone end up serving no one well.
In an effort to please, many businesses smooth the edges off their products and services until they’re flavorless. But real loyalty isn’t built from neutrality — it’s built from resonance. People want to feel seen. To feel like something was made for them, not for a vague median.
“When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.” — Meredith Hill
Entrepreneur and First Round Review have both argued that finding your niche is more than a tactical move — it's a philosophical stance. It says: we know who we are, and we’re not for everyone. That’s not exclusion — that’s attraction by contrast.
🔧 Try this:
Define your "hell no" customer or client. Create a persona and reverse-engineer messaging that filters them out, so the right people lean in.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion: Be Unmistakable, or Be Invisible
In a sea of sameness, distinction is power. The businesses, thinkers, and makers who thrive aren’t the safest — they’re the most specific. They take risks, declare values, and serve something with real taste. That’s how culture is made. That’s how loyalty is built.
So throw out the vanilla. Serve something bold. Not everyone will love it — but the right people will remember it.
And if you need a wake-up call?
>Scroll through the luxury logo graveyard.
See what happens when even icons surrender to the algorithm.
Then decide if that’s the path you want to follow.
→ Let’s connect at www.hari.wtf or drop me a line directly at pierre@hari.wtf .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Creator
Pierre Stanghellini is a creative strategist, systems thinker, and curator of mental rabbit holes. He created Thinkdrop Weekly to feed the brains that don’t want the same old Business advice. If you’re building something bold, beautiful, or strange—this is your corner of the internet.
Connect on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/pierrestanghellini
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About HARi.wtf
HARi.wtf is a creative strategy studio for businesses that hate business-as-usual.
Born in Hong Kong in 2017, we work with restless founders, operators, and teams who’d rather break things thoughtfully than grow them blandly. We don’t do generic decks or bloated strategies—we build clarity, guts, and traction.
From street-level restaurants to global brands, from Asia to Europe, we help shape ideas that move fast when it matters, and slow when it counts.
→ Explore more at hari.wtf
Comments