Most people know my notes, and my personal icon, the Wanderer
Since 1999, I’ve had a relationship with the metaphor of a path chosen in a wandering, winding, wended pathway, a quest for answers and insights that is particular to a non-linear way of thinking—rather than a straight line, I respect, and inspect, a way that is intentionally non-tensile in the principle of wayfinding.
Walking known pathways?
Nope.
In my personal adventures and journeys of discovery, I walk in a way that is contemplative—a meditation in the moment—observational, it is:
“what’s here, what’s that, where was I, where am I?”
One might ask, “wait, how does this relate to a branding blog?”
It does come down to design thinking—does one metrically define a creative solution exploration
that is a closed loop of investigation, or are there insights in the wending journey that newly awaken possibilities?
The best answers don’t come from a booklet of questions,
but questions that are founded on the meander of curiosity.
You wander.
My brother died in 2001, and he and I were both wandering explorers, investigators in the outward, global pathways.
His departure from this plane, was a wander in itself, a rescue mission for Unicef in a Russian helicopter over the snowiest plains of Northwestern Mongolia. He died out there.
That idea of roving for ideas—or any quest in discovery—was surely one that we shared.
However, I found the Wanderer in an earlier solo trip, to Southeast Asia and the South China Seas—Java and points east. I had Matt in mind. I had a kind of general itinerary, but it was vague. During this trip, and in others to other parts of the planet,
I would see figures—
single walkers—out on the horizon, usually with a remote horizon.
This visioning played to a singular journey-making, and I began to believe in
the archetype of the journeyer—I called them, then—Wanderers.
Envision a lonely single figure—far out there—
on the edge of adventure, or striding into the beginning of one.
Here’s an additional backstory on the Wanderer at Tim.Girvin.com.
You’ve seen them yourself—the person, striding out there.
You might ask, “where are they going?”
I’m now working on a book, a folio, a print of all 32 Wanderer cards,
a small book, a poster and containment—a shippable merchandiser— a carrier.
As evidenced in the video above—the head of this blog,
I was interested in using this archetypal rendering
as the inspiration for a typeface.
But that I would draw this like a wanderer—
a completely off-the-cuff rendering,
and drawn in the manner of the illustrative styling of this figure.
I just drew it, like a wanderer—an improvisational, alphabetic saunter.
You can see the rough work before the font, below—and, being freehand—it’s meandering on the page.
In a month, to be finished as a key-strokable digital font.
Think, as well about the spirit of the Wanderer as a state of “lostness.” While we are journeying, we are in a state of being lost, on the route to being found—or, our finding.
As a designer, I was using the same tool to draw the Wanderer figure, as I drew the font.
Tim | OseanStudios + GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
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Keep a look out for your Wanderer.
