There's a scene that repeated itself in 2025 and is repeating in 2026 across the international branding world. Big and visible brands — Burberry, Pomì, Mulino Bianco, Burger King, Heinz, Lego — are returning to maximalism. Saturated colors. Exuberant illustrations. Rich typographic hierarchies. Packs that speak loudly.
In the same period, Italian SMEs — who should be watching and learning — are doing the exact opposite. They're slipping, one after another, into anonymous minimal: geometric sans-serif, palette reduced to beige and black, packaging with the name written small in the center, rarefied photography.
The effect, on the shelf and online, is that all mid-sized Italian brands are starting to look alike.
It's not an aesthetic observation. It's a commercial problem. Because a consumer who finds themselves in front of fifteen products that look alike chooses based on price. And on price, Italian SMEs usually lose — because someone always costs less.
This piece is a compass to understand when minimal serves you and when it's sinking you.
Why minimal had been the right thing
For honesty's sake, it's worth remembering why minimal became dominant in 2010-2020.
Three real reasons:
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It was different. In the '90s and 2000s Italian packs were heavy: illustrations, shadowed letters, three overlapping colors. When the first few brands simplified — Apple first, but then also in Italian food and fashion — they stood out from afar.
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It was credible. Minimal signaled self-assured quality. A product that doesn't shout has the air of not needing to. It was an elegant positioning move.
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It was global. It worked in Italy, in China, in the USA, in Brazil. Italian SMEs that wanted to grow abroad adopted minimal to "shed folkloric Italianness" and speak a universal language.
All three reasons were valid. For fifteen years.
Then what always happens, happened: everyone did the same thing. And the thing stopped working.
What changed in 2024-2026
Four converging phenomena.
1. Visual saturation. In 2024-2025, Italian supermarket shelves became a near-monochrome zone. Beige, cream, black, some accent of soft color. The organic shelf is almost indistinguishable from the gourmet one, which is almost indistinguishable from the premium private label one. Three different categories, one aesthetic.
2. Generative AI. All generative AI tools produce, by default, minimal-elegant images. It seems like good news for those who want to save on design. It's actually very bad news: it produces visuals indistinguishable from those of competitors using the same tool. See the May 18 piece on this topic. Visual differentiation, in 2026, costs money and talent again.
3. Generation Z. Consumers under 28 have had enough of minimal. They grew up with the algorithmic aesthetic of Instagram and TikTok, where color wins. They look for brands that make them feel something. Anonymous minimal leaves them indifferent.
4. Rediscovery of heritage. For historical brands — Italian above all — historical archives have become a mine. Packs from the '60s-'70s-'80s, forgotten palettes, vintage illustrations. It's distinctive and free raw material (it's yours), and it works wonderfully for the generation seeking visual warmth.
Result: brands that noticed the change (Burberry returned to the "horse", Pomì with the 2024 change, Mulino Bianco with "rich" sub-brands, Heinz with all the emojis and side packs, Lego with the new colored grammar) are growing. Brands still inside generic minimal are struggling to be noticed.
Four signs you're in the wrong minimal
A quick checklist. If you recognize yourself in three of these points, there's reflection material.
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Your logo is a black geometric sans-serif on white. (With no details reminding who you are.)
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Your packaging is "elegant" but your customer can't describe it. (When you ask them "what colors do you associate with our brand?", they hesitate.)
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Your creatives on Meta are indistinguishable from those of the direct competitor. (You put them side by side and have to read the logo to tell who's who.)
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Your art director "stopped proposing things to you". (You always receive the same type of proposal, because they now know your approval filter.)
These four signs, together, indicate a brand that got stuck in minimal. It became the default pose, not a conscious choice.
What going back to maximal does NOT mean
Important. It does not mean making a pack full of everything, screaming with saturated colors, putting three different fonts on a page. That's the bad maximal of the early 2000s, and it's not coming back.
The 2026 maximal — the one that works — has three characteristics:
Chosen richness. Not everything, but precise distinctive elements. A palette of 4-5 specific colors (not infinite ones). A proprietary illustration system (not a stock library). A primary typography + a secondary one with personality.
Coherence with substance. Maximal works when the brand has something to say. If the story is interesting, the graphics can raise the volume and be heard. If the story is generic, maximal becomes noise. Burberry can do the horse because it is Burberry. Your local pasta brand can be maximal only if it has a story justifying amplification.
Systemicity. Maximal isn't "I decided to put a bright color on the packaging". It's a complete system: pack, site, social, POP materials, secondary packaging, uniforms. Everything coherent, everything distinctive. If it's only the packaging, it's a cosmetic move. If it's the whole system, it's a brand move.
The question to ask in September
When you come back from vacation, a single question.
"If tomorrow one of our customers saw a shelf with 12 products from our sector, would they recognize us from afar, without seeing the logo?"
If the answer is yes, you're in good shape — whether you're minimal or maximal.
If the answer is "maybe, depending on the light", there's a recognizability problem. Your brand has slipped into the gray zone.
If the answer is "no", there's a problem. And September 2026 is a good time to address it, before 2027 comes with the same questions but worsened sales numbers.
A note on Italian taste
A consideration close to our hearts. Italy, historically, has an average taste for color and illustration that is among the highest in the world. Mulino Bianco, Bialetti, Olivetti, Brio Blu, Carapelli, Galbani — Italian 20th-century design knew how to mix richness and order like almost no one else.
The anonymous minimal of the last fifteen years is largely a poorly digested import of a Scandinavian-Californian aesthetic school. It worked in California and Sweden. In Italy it works less, because we work against a rich visual history the Italian consumer recognizes, even unconsciously.
Returning to a certain well-done Italian maximal isn't a return to the past. It's reclaiming an axis of national competence we left halfway. For many Italian SMEs it's precisely this move that takes them out of the anonymity zone.
Thursday, July 30 we close July with an operational SEO piece: The end of "easy" SEO traffic: how to rebuild a realistic-driven plan. Keyword volumes have become unreliable indicators. A methodology to redesign the content plan on intents and opportunity cost.
Are you noticing that your brand looks like the competitors? We work with Italian SMEs on visual identity and brand system reconfigurations — without breaking the bank, without throwing away the work done. Let's talk.