Frontify

Living Systems

In a world of global teams, endless channels, and accelerating cultural change, brands are no longer shaped by a single truth, but by many hands, often spread across markets and disciplines. We spoke with Patrick Hummel, Senior Product Designer at Frontify, about play as a mindset, orchestrating brand design, and why modern brand systems need to behave less like rulebooks and more like living systems.

mcbw’s theme for 2026 is “Playground of Possibilities.” What does that mean to you?

It immediately takes me back to something very basic: childhood. I recently finished acting school alongside my design job, and in theatre there’s a strong belief that we are all still children, perhaps just with a slightly weakened imagination. Children accept ideas without resistance. They play things through, even when they’re impossible.

As a designer, that mindset is incredibly powerful. Play allows you to think ideas all the way through, even if they’re not realistic or technically feasible yet. A playground has rules, but only enough so people can play together. Within that, you’re encouraged to try, to fail, to be bold. Design desperately needs more of that again.

Design today is often driven by systems and frameworks. Is there still room for play?

You can only break rules meaningfully if you understand them in the first place. Good design often happens when someone consciously decides not to follow a rule, and knows exactly why. That’s how you create tension, character, and difference, even within structured systems.

What becomes dangerous is following rules blindly, just because they exist. The more global and standardised brands become, the more important it is to make conscious, sometimes uncomfortable decisions. Structure is not the enemy of creativity. The absence of intention is.

You told me that brands are “more than visuals”. What do you mean by that?

A brand is not what you see on a website. It’s what people tell each other about it over coffee. Brand is the experience people remember, not just the visuals they consume. We often forget that brand happens outside the channels we control.

That can be challenging, but it is incdedibly powerful if you understand this and get it right. It also means everyone inside an organisation shapes the brand, not just designers or brand managers. A great brand today is like a living, breathing system. Always growing, always evolving.

You work on a platform that is itself a system. How does Frontify allow for these living systems to come to life?

We think of brands as orchestras. Many people play different instruments, but they need a shared understanding of the piece. Frontify is built around that belief.

Our goal is not control. It’s clarity. We want to make brand knowledge visible and accessible so people feel confident acting, not afraid of doing something wrong. A good brand system doesn’t tell you what not to do. It helps you understand why things work.

Real empowerment comes from understanding the brand DNA, not from enforcing rules. When people understand the core of a brand, they can experiment without losing it. Frontify helps you build this understanding and gives you the tools to cultivate and grow it.

Brand systems today need to scale globally, yet still feel local and human. Is that realistic?

It has to be. Culture moves too fast for static guidelines. Formats change, platforms change, attention changes. What brands need now is not tighter control, but confidence, a deep understanding of who they are and what really makes up their identiy.

Consistency today doesn’t come from enforcement. It comes from shared understanding.

You speak a lot about cultural relevance. Why is it so critical right now, you think?

Attention is scarce. Brands are no longer just competing with each other, they’re competing with everything. Cultural relevance is not a nice-to-have anymore. It’s a survival skill.

What’s also important is that cultural relevance is no longer defined only by Western markets. We’re seeing powerful brands and identities emerging from South America, Africa, and Asia, often rooted in heritage and local culture. Global brands need to listen much more carefully than they used to in order to stay globally relevant.

Is there a risk in “playing” too much as a brand?

Of course. Experimentation always carries risk, but pretending is far more dangerous. Chasing trends that don’t align with your DNA can do real damage.

In this sense, play only works when it’s grounded in authenticity. People sense immediately when something is fake. Brands should behave more like humans: curious, imperfect, sometimes wrong. But most of all they have to be honest.

If you could remove one rule from brand work tomorrow, what would it be?

I’d get rid of the endless approval loops. Every review smooths something out, I’ve seen so many great ideas go lost in processes. Sometimes it protects quality, but it can also remove the soul of an idea. Trust and ownership will always produce better work than consensus.

Finally: where do you personally go to play?

The theatre. Being on stage reminds me what it means to be human; we are ultimately all beautiful, awkward, flawed. There’s a beginning, an end, and a shared moment. That’s incredibly freeing, and helps me stay in touch with myself, and by extension, also my work.

The article on Frontify also appears in mcbw magazine 2026.

Frontify