The central problem of brand-building is getting a complex organization to execute a simple idea.

The narrow gauge mindset of the past is insufficient for today’s wicked problems. We can no longer play the music as written. Instead, we have to invent a whole new scale.

In a sense, traditional business is design blind.

Cultures are naturally resistant to change. The same shared mental models that allow large numbers of people to work together efficiently can also keep people from imagining new ways of working together. In many corporate cultures, new ideas are viewed as heresy. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Designers don't actually solve problems. They work through them.

The best design tool is a long eraser with a pencil at one end.

Designful companies are those that weave design thinking into the fabric of the company. In a designful company, innovation is rewarded instead of punished. Risk taking is the norm instead of the exception. Some companies have already embraced this type of culture change with impressive results.

Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.

Brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.

To achieve originality we need to abandon the comforts of habit, reason, and the approval of our peers, and strike out in new directions.

You can't be a leader by following a leader.

The most innovative designers consciously reject the standard option box and cultivate an appetite for thinking wrong.

When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand.