Examining the shopfronts, façades and skins of South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida. Signing design: strategies of visualization as an emotional storytelling.
The evocations of deco. Take me someplace that feels right.
There are levels to signing. On the one front, signs are signets of direction – they are lettered compasses — they point you somewhere. On the other, they are emblems of the lost, and of the found — so in a way — you’re either here, or need to be there, and signing is a de-sign system to support that movement. For years, I’ve shot signing around the world — little details, to big installations, super sleek and slick, to the handmade and artful.
The bigger notion to signing design, the planning of finding “ways” is about the concept of simplistic formality and textualism — you need to understand where you are, and where you’re going — or where you’d like to go. The character of signing is the singing of the dream — it’s not just about that, it’s how it feels when you’re getting there.
How many times have you been in a situation where you’ve gotten lost, following signs? Right now, driving, I can tell you that I’ve nearly gotten in a accident following signs and the scrolling mapping of Magellan Navigator. What about being in an airport with elaborately organized signing that lets you get lost — consistently? Name that tune.
I ponder signing and hospitality. The concept of the sequencing of experience, for one entering “a place of hospitality” starts some hundreds of yards or meters back — that lends itself to the beginning of the story, from a distance. That distance is the beginnings of the imagining. “That place, what is it?” The psychic impression would surely be: “what’s it feel like?” Or better, to the now evaluated self conditioning — “I like how that feels: cool.” Drawn in, the visitor.
Spending time working (and playing) in Miami, I’ve studied the legacy of the Miami Beach | South Beach sense of hospitality design, that ranges from the insanely fabulous (strategy, detail, design, experience) to the inanely tragic (emulative, unresolved, sloppy, deadening). That’s been cleanly documented — I was interested in reaching to something that was less obvious, or formerly well depicted, so I gathered up this grouping — exploring dreamier evocations of signing and fixtured brand renderings for storytelling in the context of deco experience design. Façade is everything — it’s the beginning of the story, the welcoming reach — the bringing into the contextualism of place. The context is the stitching of the story.
Herein, stories stitched in visual stringing.
All Girvin images. Kindly credit us, in reuse.
In taking the theories of hospitality design and drama — the spectacle of spell-binding — that sequencing is about enchantment, the song and soul of brand connection: what draws the experiencer there? Music, lights, sound, quiet, scent, people, taste, miracles. That spills to the framing of the passage of procession — coming in: what happens? What is the holding – the enticement, the embracement, the expectation, the engram of unforgettability?
All can be considered, thought through, designed and engineered for holistic continuity.
Come back to me, babe.
T I M
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DEFINING BRANDS THAT ARE ABOUT HUMANS | S t r a t e g i e s
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