by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Places | Jan 8, 2015
“This is what I expect to pay.” Earlier in my life, during my entry into the Japanese market, I studied Japanese with an assistant professor of Asian Linguistic Studies from the University of Washington. He would come down, twice a week, for 2 hour speaking and study...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts | Jan 6, 2015
Brands that are deep. In my journeys in meeting with brand leadership around the world, I watch for telling signs — the tell of a brand might be: How does the leader talk to their colleagues? Humane, cordial, supportive? How old, or new, is this brand? Is there a...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places, Scent | Dec 30, 2014
THE SMELL OF EXPERIENCE: THE HISTORY OF EMPIRE & THE DESIGN OF SENSATION I was talking to a friend and client about the notion of brand in sensationalism — the holism of experience strategy. That comes down to one point, a reflexive point — how big do you feel? We...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Designers, Storytelling, Trends | Dec 24, 2014
The Principle of the Search: More Beauty [Photo: Dawn A. Clark, AIA Leed AP] In our life journey, as creatives — people that create — we listen, absorb, gather, interpret and make meaning. We work to import and deliver content in a manner that is compelling to a...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Interior Design, Places | Dec 23, 2014
HOW ATTENTIVE ARE YOU? As you think about design, and the creation of designed experiences, the point might go two ways: how attentive are you? and how attentively will your experiences be received? People come into a place in the construct of impressionistic...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Concepts | Dec 18, 2014
Isn’t art work? There’s an interesting proposition that art, aligned with leisure, is something relaxing and “easy.” I might offer that the making of art, the impassioned creativity, is never something easy. But instead, with the exception of those in the throes of...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling | Dec 16, 2014
EBOLA AND BRANDING OR REBRANDING. I was talking to a GIRVIN colleague about the CDC’s management of the Ebola viral spread — from Africa, now stateside. That might be a question to rebranding [the CDC — to reliability,] as well. We’d talked about the legacy of their...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts | Dec 11, 2014
3M: Memory, Mental and Meaning. Sometimes we push a proposition in our work on brandspace that fails to take into consideration the bridging to a human scenario of mindfulness, meaning and the context of memory. All are — as would be obvious — aligned. But the notion...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places, Storytelling | Dec 9, 2014
The Use of Writing as a Talismanic Device in Architecture When GIRVIN had an office in NYC, off 26th and Broadway, I used to walk around, looking in on shops and restaurants. I found a little curiosity shop, a dealer in ancient antiquities and I spied some familiar...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Concepts, Designers, Storytelling | Dec 4, 2014
Design Mysticism When you go deep. As a designer, you might meditate on your work, what you’re doing. And your being in that doing. There might be a brand strategy, and the unfolding character of tactics and deployment. But making marks is a legacy that is thousands...
