Thisness vs Sameness

Why do so many brands look right, but feel interchangeable?

Because they are built from external reference rather than defined from within. When creative work draws primarily on trends, competitors, and familiar signals, it can appear polished but lack a clear centre. Work becomes recognisable when what must remain true is defined first, and everything else follows from it.

Creative work rarely begins in isolation. Designers gather references, study competitors, and pay attention to what is happening around them. This is entirely natural. Creative practice has always involved influence, observation, and the gradual development of ideas through exposure to other work.

Yet there is a consequence to beginning here.

When many people draw from similar sources, patterns begin to repeat. Visual styles converge. Language starts to sound familiar. Organisations that serve different audiences can begin to resemble one another more closely than anyone intended.

This is not usually the result of poor design. In fact, much of it is highly competent. The difficulty is that competence alone does not necessarily create distinction.

Over the years, I have often noticed that work can appear polished and professional while remaining strangely difficult to remember. Nothing is obviously wrong with it. The design may be strong. The messaging may be clear. Yet there is a sense that the organisation could easily have looked or sounded another way without losing very much of itself.

That is the territory of sameness.

Sameness is not defined by quality. It is defined by dependence on external reference points. When direction is shaped primarily by trends, competitor analysis, or prevailing conventions, the work can become highly effective at fitting in while struggling to express what makes it uniquely itself.

Thisness begins elsewhere.

Rather than starting with what others are doing, it begins by asking what must remain true. Beneath every organisation there are often values, convictions, histories, or defining characteristics that give coherence to its decisions over time. These are not always visible at first, but they shape what belongs and what does not.

Once that centre has been articulated, creative work changes.

Decisions become easier to evaluate because they have somewhere to return to. Feedback becomes less subjective. New expressions feel connected to earlier ones, even as the work evolves and adapts to changing circumstances.

The result is not rigidity.

An organisation can still change. It can respond to new audiences, technologies, and contexts. But when there is a clearly defined centre, change becomes easier to navigate because there is something stable beneath it.

This, to me, is the difference between sameness and thisness.

Sameness assembles signals from the outside and hopes coherence emerges. Thisness begins from within and allows expression to grow outward from something more enduring.

In practical terms, this matters because surface-level advantages rarely last. Visual styles can be copied. Trends evolve. New competitors emerge. Work that depends entirely on external reference points must continually chase change in order to remain visible.

Work grounded in something deeper behaves differently. It carries its own internal logic. It becomes more recognisable over time and more difficult to substitute because it is connected to something that cannot easily be replicated.

Thisness does not reject reference, trends, or creative influence. Designers will always learn from the world around them. The question is simply where the work begins.

If creative direction starts from the outside, distinctiveness becomes difficult to sustain.

If it begins by defining what must remain true, expression has a stronger foundation upon which to grow.