The Curse of Perfection

Professional branding used to mean flawless. Each vector in a wordmark placed with precision. Each video shot in glossy 5K high-resolution.

But in an age where ChatGPT can spit out a polished render in seconds, people are searching for brands that feel messy. (Note: human mess isn’t the same as its sister, human craft. That’s a whole other blog.)

Blurry images. Photo dumps. Screenshots. DIY layouts.

This is why brands are dropping the icecream cone on the floor. Literally.

Why are brands tearing up the rule book?

Theory number 1: we’re exhausted.

This scary graph shows the interest over time of the search term “maxxing” on Google. It’s a steep >5,000% incline towards a world where every element of daily life is taken to its extreme.

Because let’s be honest. The algorithm doesn’t push us to whimsymaxx. It says… Optimise your morning routine. Optimise your marathon training. Optimise the actives in your skincare. Optimise your attention span. Optimise your water potency.

This worked for a while, because most of life is outside of our control. Whether it rains. Whether we can afford to buy a house. By locking in to one singular thing and optimising it, we take back (some) power. But locking in forever is exhausting.

And after years of hyper-curated feeds and picture-perfect holiday dumps and wellness-hacked routines, consumers are taking a breather.

Theory number 2: we don’t trust AI.

People value effort. When the same painting is labelled as “human created” or “AI created”, people judge the human works as more beautiful and meaningful.

Generative AI smooths wrinkles from skin and removes tangents from writing. Sometimes, it accidentally adds an extra finger.

By delivering the “statistically most likely”, AI creates subtle uncanny valley anomalies—poreless skin, overly symmetrical faces, inconsistent depth-of-field—which can trigger an unconscious threat detection mechanism.

Mess builds trust with the 68% of consumers who struggle to de-code social media. It’s an authenticity mark on feeds filled with low-qual content called AI slop. 

Exhibit A: messy videos.

In front of the camera: a Bark Jacobs painstakingly hand-painted with the portrait of bunny-fluencer @Bunnydayoff.

Behind the camera: low-fi production. Imperfect framing. Shot as if an iPhone were propped up on a pillow at the end of the bed.

You could do this at home. If, of course, you could afford a custom Marc Jacobs bag and a luxury hotel room.

Exhibit B: messy layouts

Do you need a bucket? Because Microsoft WordArt vomited on your Instagram carousel. 

An orange gradient headline paired with heavy italic text paired with Comic Sans bullet-points paired with talking head emojis paired with Arial Italic outline paired with blue 3D waves paired with a cut out, background removed image of a dulce de leche machine.

What about this post? Text typed on top of a screenshot in the IG app. It’s a scoop of nostalgia from the era social media managers attended primary school, not production meetings.

Gelato Messina flips a reusable spoon middle finger at the design establishment.

Exhibit C: messy typography.

Sure, you could let a six-year-old child’s naive handwriting shape unique letterforms. (Yes, I’m talking about Jolene’s viral bread branding.) 

Or, you could get messy in the kitchen. 

This typeface, created by @crafta.girl, is literally Graza golden olive oil squeezed onto a sheet of baking paper. Liquids run. They splotch and stain. They couldn’t begin to understand the concept of a straight line.

So what does it all mean?

The dirty fingerprints around the edges of a brand, metaphorically speaking, say: “this is real.”

Our eyes have adjusted to years of polished beauty. Mess creates visual friction. An obstacle that forces the brain to process the unexpected.

Brands aren’t regressing into messy slop. Marc Jacobs still makes beautiful, multi-episodic video campaigns and slices them up for socials. Gelato Messina still posts high-resolution product photography that makes me literally water at the mouth.

But like a pigeon shitting on your shoe, a messy moment stands out.

And you know what they say. Pigeon poop is a sign of good luck.