An Object Lesson On Effective Branding

The evidence of the power, organization and extent of the Roman Empire is everywhere in Europe, from Italy up through France--such as here in the Gaulish capital then known as Lugdunum--and Germany as far as England.

("All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?")

But it struck me, as I was wandering around the ruins of part of the Gier aqueduct out in the woods, that the Romans were far ahead of their time in organizational branding.

You can go anywhere in the former Roman Empire, visit the local Roman ruins or museum, and find that, across the breadth of the continent-spanning empire, before the advent of mass communication or mechanized printing-- they always used the exact same font.

Twenty centuries later, I can't even get my colleagues to use the same damned PowerPoint slide template for their presentations.