Over the past few years, I’ve noticed something: most brands die from being “just like everyone else,” not from doing something wrong.
Their product isn’t bad. Their pricing is reasonable. Their distribution is in place. But they stay lukewarm, like a cup of water left out too long. Users walk past them on shelves, scroll past them in search results, swipe past them in feeds—and don’t remember them. Their presence is close to zero.
The problem is design. Not ugly design. Design that plays it too safe.
I’ve worked with many clients who share one trait: they don’t want to take a bold swing. They just want to find a safe spot near whatever is already considered “good.” If others use a certain color, they use it too. If others lay out their pages a certain way, they do the same. If others build a certain interaction, they copy it. When you ask why, the answer is always: “This feels stable.”
But “stable” is an illusion. When everyone stabilizes in the same place, that place becomes the background. Users can’t see you in the background. They won’t remember you. They won’t choose you.
Worse, some clients just copy outright. They see a competitor’s design working well, tweak it a little, and ship it. Designers consider this a taboo, but clients see it as a shortcut. The result? Copied design is always half a step behind. And users subconsciously feel “this brand looks familiar, but I can’t place it.” Fuzzy brand recognition is more lethal than no recognition at all.
Lukewarm brands mostly die in the end. The cause might be cash flow, brutal competition, or a product that simply doesn’t hold up. But conservative design is a symptom of a broader inability to differentiate. And the layer users actually see is precisely the most superficial one.
I need to be clear about one thing: design is not omnipotent.
Some clients who listened, took a bold swing, and did well—they exist. But I can’t take full credit for that. They survived because their product was already strong, because they caught a trend, because their team executed well, because the capital environment was favorable. Design just got them one more glance on the shelf, in search results, in the feed.
One more glance doesn’t guarantee a sale. But one less glance guarantees no chance at all.
Conversely, clients who insisted on “just being similar to everyone else” ended up lukewarm. That’s not entirely design’s fault either. Conservative design choices often reflect conservative business strategy, conservative team culture, conservative decision-making. Design is just the surface layer. But the surface layer is exactly what users see.
So my judgment is this: Design won’t guarantee you survive, but undifferentiated design guarantees you’ll be ignored. Being ignored doesn’t necessarily kill you, but being unseen guarantees you have no chance.
Whether a brand survives depends on product, pricing, distribution, timing, team execution, capital environment. Of those variables, designers can influence very few.
But visuals, motion, interaction, narrative—these are things designers can influence. When a brand differentiates itself from competitors along these dimensions, it at least earns a chance to be noticed. Whether it survives still depends on other things. But if it never gets noticed at all, it definitely won’t survive.
This is why I insist on differentiation in design. Not to show off. To give clients at least a chance to be seen.
I spent a long time in the anime world, going through multiple style shifts, technology iterations, and medium transitions. That experience gave me a different understanding of motion, rhythm, and world-building than most UI designers have.
Conventional UI motion is “adding an animation”—a button click gives feedback, a page transition has a fade, a loading state spins. All fine, but they’re just decoration.
My approach is different. I use the tracking paths of animation to organize the flow of a user’s gaze. I use the logic of world-building to design the narrative rhythm of a page. I use the storyboard thinking of anime to arrange the order and timing of information. A website isn’t a stack of documents. It’s a space with rhythm, emotion, and a worldview.
This kind of thinking is something conventional UI designers can’t offer. Because they don’t have an anime background. That’s my differentiation.
FanUp is a sports social gaming platform. The space it competes in—fantasy sports—is brutally competitive. Two giants, DraftKings and FanDuel, dominate most of the market.
But it found a different entry point: not “hardcore” fantasy sports, but “social” fan entertainment. Its user base looks completely different from traditional fantasy sports: 89% are 18–24 years old, 58% are women. The gameplay is drastically simplified—no drafts, no salary caps, no injury management. Just pick four players. It also grafts sports onto pop culture: users can predict not only NFL and NBA games but also outcomes on Love Island, Love Is Blind, and other reality shows.
Visually, FanUp’s UI has been described by investors as “elegant” and “best in the game.” It heavily incorporates partner brand visuals, making the interface itself part of the brand collaboration experience. Its motion isn’t decoration—it’s part of how information is communicated and how the learning curve is lowered.
The results? As of 2025, FanUp has raised $12.1 million, with investors including early backers of DraftKings and Skillz. The platform has 2.3 million global fans, 41 brand partnerships, and 105 university partnerships. The fact that DraftKings invested is itself a signal: industry giants recognize its differentiated route as an effective incremental market strategy, not just a copycat.
I can’t say it’s all because of design. Product positioning, team execution, capital environment—all played a role. But one thing I can say for certain: if FanUp’s visuals and interactions looked the same as traditional fantasy sports apps, it could never have attracted 58% women.
FanUp’s differentiation is in product positioning. Mine is in design method. It’s essentially the same thing: don’t stand in the same place as everyone else. When you stand somewhere no one else has stood, you have your own circle. That circle may not be big, but it’s yours.
The moment I differentiated myself from my peers, I had my own circle. That circle may not make me win, but it keeps me from disappearing into the background.
That circle is my insurance. Not a guarantee that I won’t die, but a guarantee that I at least have a chance to be seen. In a market where everyone looks the same, being seen is itself a competitive advantage.
To the clients still hovering near the “safe” end, I understand the hesitation. Taking a risk has a cost. A bold attempt can fail. But I want to ask them one question: Do you want to die safely in the background, or do you want to take a risk and be seen?
Design won’t guarantee you survive, but undifferentiated design guarantees you’ll be ignored.
