Make the most important element stand out

If everything looks the same, nothing gets noticed, let alone remembered.

That’s why your most important element, say CTA button or key message, should visually break the pattern.

Tip: Use a contrasting color or unusual shape for your call-to-action. If your website uses mostly blues and whites, try a bold orange button.

Even today’s sponsor Neurons does this on their landing page:

See how the “Book a demo” button and product brochure button are purple? These cold colors are juxtaposed with warm and neutral colors that dominate the landing page, so they stand out.

This is not only applicable to landing pages. It applies to product packaging if you’re displaying a product in a store, for example.

If you want your product to stand out on the shelf, you better know what the shelf and competing products look like… and you better be different.

Or, if you’re placing a billboard, you might want it to contrast with the environment. You get the idea.

Be a pattern-breaker

Our brains ignore the expected.

That’s why messages that follow the usual rhythm get tuned out. But break that rhythm, and suddenly people pay attention.

What to do: Introduce something that doesn’t belong. This could be a surprising headline, an image where people expect text, or a different change of the ordinary.

For example, some brands will deliberately use orange or yellow when advertising on Facebook or LinkedIn to break the pattern of its blueish-white interface while you scroll:

Deliberate or not, Notion decided to go against LinkedIn’s blue feed. They broke the scrolling pattern.

Use Von Restorff Effect when targeting younger people

Fun fact: The Von Restorff Effect isn’t as effective for older folks.

That’s based on multiple studies building on top of Von Restroff’s work, such as this study from 1995, or this one from 2008.

All these studies confirm that older adults may have less ability to process novelty or detect deviations from expected patterns, possibly due to age and reduced memory capacity.

So if your target audience skews older, relying purely on visual distinctiveness might not be as effective.

At the very least, you may have to compensate by reinforcing your contrast or differences through repetition or some other technique.

But for younger audiences, The Von Restorff Effect works quite well.

Take Spotify-wrapped, which targets younger audiences like Zoomers and later millennials:

In a feed full of polished, brand-safe graphics, Spotify Wrapped uses clashing neon color schemes and unexpected data visualizations.

This distinct visual and tonal style breaks the year-end content clutter, and especially targets Gen Z and Millennials.

We might learn something from them.