The Legacy of the Eagle Scout Award
This year, the badge and legacy of the Eagle Scout reaches back a century. In the Girvin family, this is a potent tradition. All of the Girvin brothers are Eagles. And the tradition of scouting runs passionately deep in our experience. Every season — we’d pack up our gear and head out, the hiking path, pitching camp, wandering and explorations wild. 50 mile hikes were set as consistently as the turning of summer.
The Eagle Award isn’t easy, it’s a lot of work — there is a sash-full of 21 “badges” — each, an exploration of a trade, a vocation, a skill. In my own experience, each badge taught me something unforgettable. I was talking to a client about tiering messages in marketing communications — and I realized this core Girvin principle, really came from meeting with a journalist newspaper editor about how the newspaper works, the research of reporting, organizing content founded on newspaper design strategies, information architecture [to page] and “what people will read.”
This principle I’ve recalled and held as real and presently applicable — for 40 years.
Eyes scan for relevance + resonance to:
Headline >
Sub head >
First sentence >
Body text >
Content closure and conclusions
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The First Official Tim Girvin Sign
Every eagle has a project, to win the award. Mine was building, carving [or routing out, by hand] a sign on a water trough that had been long abandoned and likely completely unknown, to hundreds of thousands of drivers, touring past Manito Park, and Grand Avenue, Spokane, Washington.
The point for me linked to what is now a foundational process of thinking about signing and environments —
research, messaging development — writing a messaged, registered in line length to fill the measure [see the right and left block copy registration], siting and design, drawing or scribing the message, incising, painting, affixing the design and, finally, building [or supervising] the installations.
These principles still apply, to our thinking about signing, environmental graphics — and how people “get messaging.”
During a time when many brands are celebrating their anniversary — from 10 years to centuries of staying power — I look to my personal experience in scouting, and the process of the Eagle Scout rank, to be one of the most powerful, and deeply meaningful, in the milestones of my life — the learnings there, unforgettable, to this day.
Tim Girvin
Eagle Scout &
Founder | Chief Creative Officer
GIRVIN | Strategic Branding
Founded 1976
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T E A M S l o c a t e d i n :
Seattle | NYC | San Francisco | Tokyo
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G I R V I N STRATEGY | THE MESSAGE IS THE VOICE
DESIGNED TEXTUAL CONTENT: THE BREATH OF SOULBRAND