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 | 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 | Brands, Concepts | Dec 2, 2014
Brands that give, brands that don’t. I was studying this wall-bound piece of type, and contemplated the unassuming air of its drawing — nothing too formal — outlined then in-filled in a casual, if not happily energetic manner. In the emotionality of typography, the...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling, Trends | Nov 20, 2014
The Hatching Stroke and the Ubiquity of Archetypal Design Thinking # I was walking the beach near my studios and found the above mark, cross-hacked into a log, the proverbial “pound” or number sign. And I wondered about it. “When this type of mark is made, what...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Retail | Nov 18, 2014
Brands that come from nowhere that surprise, alarm, and boom on the scene as spectacle. Or breeze in, quiet as the fog, a shadow of revelation. What have you seen that came on you as a surprise — out-of-the-blue, amazing, extraordinary, marvel-making and wonderment?...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Marketing 2.0 | Nov 13, 2014
Is Your Brand Truly Open? I went into a shop that I was interested in, excited about — selling mostly Asian antiquities and art. The response was about as welcoming as a bucket full of ice water. I was looking at a site, and I tried to place some things in a “cart,”...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling | Nov 6, 2014
Can you fight? Perhaps you’ve had some exposure to boxing? You know what comes of it. The movement is a dance — it’s a whirling and spinning spar — a jumping and explosive hip hop to reach out in a ring, ‘round you. All of the training is about speed and stamina —...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling | Oct 28, 2014
There is a sign, and beneath that sign is another sign. Brands and palimpsest, the layers of content. When I was working in Paris, I marveled at the old shopfronts and the signing on signing — a new sign, on an old sign. You’ve seen them in your town. An old sign...
