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...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts | Oct 23, 2014
And the Emotions of The Skin The realm of touch and brand holism. There are people that talk about their 360º branding experience. I talk to them, walk a ways with them. And watch. When you think about brand experience, the query point will be what feeling does the...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling | Oct 9, 2014
Who are you, anyway? In several recent conversations with client companies, there has been a gesture to a kind of invention — like: “make me something I’m not.” “trying to look, speak, sound and feel like something” else. “I don’t like how we look.”...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts | Oct 7, 2014
In the game of games, resilience, strength, perception matter. So too in brands. To the allegory of sports, as a gamesman, I tend to contemplate allegory, conceptual alignments, metaphors. Think poetry. Flow. Focus. Speed. Strength. Perception. Flow: In the grace of...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Retail, Trends | Sep 30, 2014
Brands, Logos, Communities Being in the business of design, and with a long history of work in the translation of the storytelling of brands into graphical interpretations, the logotype is at the center of brand style. And while there might be many layers of...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Interior Design, Places, Retail | Sep 22, 2014
Exploring Retail Architecture, Metaphor and Magic. I had a chance to observe the strategic evolutions of Nordstrom’s brand presence in my friendship with Dawn A. Clark, AIA LeedAP — lead architectural strategist and team leader in the newly evolving architectural and...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Storytelling | Sep 9, 2014
Brands That Have Nothing To Say. As a designer, I think about layers. And I think about messages. Content. Holism. Contentment. Direction. There is a sign, but it’s empty. It has nothing to say, no place that it points. It’s nowhere. Like experiences that move from a...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Retail | Sep 3, 2014
Brand Medicine, 101. In our history, there are times when brand, their organic systems, begin to falter. — They don’t speak to a community, or they forgot who they were talking to, what they were relating, carrying a story and a product to a certain audience. As in...
