Debbie Millman on how brands can decode their DNA

Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, “one of the most influential designers working today” by GDUSA, and a “Woman of Influence” by Success magazine, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, designer, and podcast pioneer. Millman is the host of the Webby and Signal award-winning podcast Design Matters, one of the first and longest running podcasts in the world; Chair of the first-ever Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts; Editorial Director of PrintMag.com; and the author of eight books. She is currently a Harvard Business School Executive Fellow. Here, she explores how diving deep into brand DNA can create distinctive branding that resonates.

One of the most visible threads running through this year’s D&AD Awards was a quieter kind of reinvention. In a field where trends tend to come and go faster than we can evaluate them, some of the most noteworthy work originated with brands that resisted the gravitational pull of the trendiest aesthetic. Instead, they looked inward, mining their own histories for inspiration.

Brand DNA isn’t a novel idea. But I believe it’s overdue for a deeper reckoning. For years, we’ve seen heritage treated as a decorative layer, a faint watermark to suggest legitimacy without real substance. In 2025, the most compelling work reframes Brand DNA as an intentional strategy – one rooted in an era where audiences are rightly sceptical of surface-level change. When done well, it produces ideas that are both grounded and inventive. When it falls short, it’s less an evolution and more a cosmetic refresh that leaves a brand’s deeper, more soulful questions untouched. The best examples this year didn’t just preserve history for its own sake; they interrogated it, reshaped it and found ways to make it relevant to right now.

Frederico Gelli, Jury President of the new Brand Identity Refresh category, described this approach as “the connection between originality and origin”, and this definition captures its potential. But the connection must be active, not decorative. Even D&AD’s introduction of Pencil Gothic, a typeface drawn from the organisation’s most recognisable icon, is more than a stylistic exercise. It treats the Pencil as raw creative material, as opposed to a relic to be kept pristine. The continuum between authenticity and authorship ran through many of this year’s Brand DNA Pencil winners.

Coca-Cola’s Thanks for Coke-Creating campaign incorporated unofficial, locally adapted versions of its logo into a global initiative. Rather than dismiss local, unofficial reinterpretations created by shopkeepers and artisans, Coca-Cola embraced and amplified them. The campaign included films and interviews with store owners across Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia and the U.S, and it was refreshing to see a company of their size make space for creative freedom. Too often, global brands sanitise grassroots creativity in the name of ‘brand consistency’. Here, the reinterpretations retained their grit and texture, proving that corporate identity doesn’t have to come at the expense of local voices.

For the Tiroler Festspiele Erl, a centuries-old Austrian music festival, the design team drew from a thorn motif in the town’s coat of arms. The redesign is sharp and contemporary. The challenge in work of this nature is determining whether the historical reference adds real depth or merely performs ‘heritage’ as a visual cue. Tameko, a Danish textile brand, found a tangible link between past and present and made typographic decisions that echo the tactility of its products, ensuring form follows material truth.

LEGO extended its most fundamental product truth – that every brick is part of something bigger – into a broader brand story with its Building the Full LEGO Set campaign. It’s a neat narrative, though one that must be continually pushed in new directions to remain fresh. A brand truth is only powerful if it surprises us in its application, not just in restatement. In a very different register, Colombian brand Ramo’s Blurred Unboxing activation demonstrates how a blurred logo in a TikTok video can be transformed into a brand statement, proof that even in hyper-digital spaces, a brand’s DNA can be a playground, not a prison.

What unites these examples is an understanding that the visual and conceptual DNA of a brand can become a renewable resource, particularly when practitioners are willing to experiment rather than depend on fixed, reliable assets. After a decade of flat, interchangeable minimalism, specificity feels like a relief. In a time of deepfakes, AI content and widespread mistrust, heritage cues can signal credibility. But they work only when the reference is alive, and when it’s allowed to grow, bend, even misbehave. In a global market where one-size-fits-all branding rarely works, strong DNA allows for localisation without eroding recognisability.

But beware: there’s a risk in treating Brand DNA as a cure-all. When the work is timid, the result can be a nostalgic veneer that fails to nudge the brand forward. The most successful work this year didn’t restage old narratives; it treated history as something to be deconstructed, remixed and reinvigorated in service of a stronger, more expressive idea. That takes courage. It’s far easier to hide behind the safety of heritage than to use it as raw material for change.

If minimalism is about reduction and disruption about divergence, Brand DNA is about finding intrigue in continuity. It is a reminder that every brand has an inheritance – not just of symbols and stories, but of values, flaws and unfinished questions.

The best work treats that inheritance as a living resource. A brand that can hold the tension between where it’s been and where it’s going is far more likely to resonate and last. The winning work in this year’s D&AD Annual proves that originality and origin can be partners in invention, but only if both are willing to be altered in the exchange.

Check out D&AD’s Brand DNA theme in this year’s trend report, where we delve into how rather than leaning on trends, or established design codes, 2025's Pencil winners connected brand heritage and modernity and boldly experimented with form.