 Despite the apparent uniformity of design, individual buildings varied considerably in the detail of their designs in effort to express their particular identities, the Peoples Gas Building using texture and the Railway Exchange Building's white terracotta, for example.The process of building skyscrapers became more sophisticated, starting with the acquisition of the real estate needed for the site.Brokers working on commission would secretly acquire the individual lots of land required for a project, operating under a variety of names to avoid having the price increase once a planned build became known.