#4: The number 3

Uthara
2 min readJan 22, 2022

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Clocking in a quick, lazy one for day 4. Saturday, amirite?

A friend shared an article today on Visa’s rebranding strategy (linked below). “From the brand symbol, we derived a simple rule of thirds”, the article mentions.

Hmm, rule of thirds. I always knew this rule of thirds exists in photography composition. My brain instinctively applies this rule of third when I’m clicking pictures myself. I’ve never really given it conscious thought as to why it does that.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with this number “3”. Ever since I was little (maybe 3, even), whenever anyone would ask me what my lucky was, I’d always say “3”. I felt a funny sense of attachment with the number; still do.

Apparently Pythagoras considered the number 3 as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. It was also considered to be the the number of time — past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end — it was the number of the divine. I feel you, Pythagoras.

If you think about it, the number 3 is all around us. We’ve grown up with it in stories — the magic lamp and 3 wishes, 3 little pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 bears. There are 3 golden words — sorry, please, thank you. It is the first number that forms a geometrical shape — the triangle. There are 3 primary colors — RYB. Did you fail twice? Well, third time’s the charm! Seasons are 3, so are the seasons in Succession (can we get Season 4 soon?). We always give cheers in 3 .We see the world in 3 D, or at least used to way back in 2019. There are 3 doors in the Monty Hall problem, and therefore in Khul Jaa Sim Sim, too.

Three is the number of The Holy Trinity — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. ‘Aum’ is chanted 3 times, ‘Shanti’ is repeated 3 times — one for the body, one for the mind and one for the spirit. Shiva has 3 eyes symbolizing the sun, the moon and fire. Buddhism has Triratna, the 3 jewels — Buddha, the dharma (doctrine), and the sangha (community). The Big Three — the 3 most powerful Gods in Greek mythology- Zeus, Poseidon, Hades.

We count down to 3…2...1…GO!

Where I’m going with all this is…is it really that unreasonable for 3 day weekends to become the norm?! *Wince*

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Some of the parts:

Visa rebranding (such well thought-out, well-executed and well-explained rebranding stories are hard to come by): https://wearemucho.com/project/visa/

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