How Brands Endure
It’s time to create for an elevated kind of ROI: Return on Intention.
You are reading Future Visions, a newsletter by Uncommon Practice. Our studio was born from a simple belief: the best work doesn’t just bring clicks, sales and likes, it comes with attitude and intention. Here’s my plea for a slower, warmer, more intentional web.
Hey there,
The web was built to connect the world.
To make ideas, brands, and businesses thrive.
But somewhere along the way, it became fast, flat, and frictionless.
Designed for clicks, cleaned of character.
A machine built for efficiency, not emotion.
Sure: beautiful. Ergonomic. A/B tested and optimized.
But also mediocre, predictable, forgettable.
Everything loads instantly.
Everything looks right.
Everything feels the same.
It’s the digital equivalent of fast food:
quick to consume, easy to replicate, empty after a scroll.
Here at Uncommon Practice, we started calling it the Fast Flat Web.
And we believe it’s time for a change.
Because we believe in something slower.
More deliberate. More crafted.
A web where business goals and audience needs still matter. Absolutely.
We need usable. We need effective. We need ROI.
But we also need a third layer: a layer of care, friction, and meaning.
We call it Brand intention, and we put it at exactly the same level as Business and Audience.
It’s where every detail is considered, not automated.
Where design is not just smooth, but alive.
Because in the silence after the scroll,
in the pause before the click,
in the unexpected pattern,
that’s where Brand lives.
Brand isn’t a logo or a color on the page.
It’s an attitude.
It’s what you choose to say, show, and leave out.
More than ever, it’s how you dare to step away from the expected UX pattern.
Even the smallest thing, like the filters above your portfolio,
can reveal what you stand for instead of what you sell.
We believe that friction creates beauty.
That texture makes things human.
That what lingers matters more than what converts.
Because that is ROI Elevated.
We call it Return on Intention.
It compounds in meaning. It builds in time.
The Fast Flat Web has reached its limit, and default AI will only accelerate it.
It’s time to build the Warm Wide Web: a web worth feeling again.
Because in the end, people remember how you make them feel.
And that’s how brands endure.
Before we go
We made a short video explaining the thought process behind our new website. It’s our way of applying the above manifesto. You can watch it here (2:32).
On the topic of friction: see Kyla Scanlon explain why there is value in digital tools introducing a little bit of difficulty. We say amen to that.
Thank you for signing up to our newsletter. We promise you’ll always be the first to know. This issue went out to only 53 subscribers. On the sunny side: that makes it extremely precious :)
Until next time,
Thomas Byttebier,
Uncommon Practice