by Tim Girvin | Concepts | Sep 25, 2025
I was talking with an AI-focused electrical engineer about the sound, the signal of electricity. What one person might describe as “static,” another might refer to as the AC’s actual flow through transformative magnetic fields, particularly ferrous or other magnet...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts, Interior Design, Places, Retail | Aug 22, 2025
Are you a touchy-feely person? From a GIRVIN book of mūdra, symbolic hand-poses— the universal language of gesture. I’m very much about touch. And feeling. The realm of the GIRVIN brand work is about hand-craft, making brands by hand, grasping digital interpretations...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts | Aug 14, 2025
You I’ve been workshopping, talking, and listening to, people about their brands, and the notation of distinctivity—the characteristics of differentiation. Of course, as any brand strategist, designer, steward, you might be thinking, “yes, I work on a brand— but,...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places, Retail | Aug 5, 2025
The Nuance of the Hand-Wrought Being a handworker—a person that, over the last half century, has utilized my hands as a consistent pathway to the articulation of ideas, I tend to look for, and create in, the spirit of those things. You—being a creative person—know...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Cool People, Storytelling | Jul 25, 2025
Using history and allegory to explore what lies beneath I was teaching a client and friend the particulars of Asian brush work, how to draw and paint using the vocabulary of two intertwined forms of Chinese-based, Japanese painting, suiboku-ga and haboku. With my...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Storytelling | Jul 16, 2025
The roll of the sea, the waves of change, and riding the future. Where I surf the waves are irregular and wild—they gather steam from global swells and mix up in a frothy mix that is distinctly inarticulate on the Northerly shores of the Washington coast, by...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts | Jun 26, 2025
We tend to think allegorically about the work that we do— brand as fire, design as transformation, and markings as magic. And plenty of the clients that we work with think of their enterprises as deeply metaphorical and soulfully intentioned —light bringers, wellness...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts | Jun 18, 2025
Developing Hand-crafted Symbols as Deep Metaphors During my college years, I studied calligraphy with Lloyd Reynolds— the maestro of the calligraphic arts that inflamed Steve Jobs, during Steve’s limited foray at Reed College. And a core precept—this would be the I +...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts, Storytelling | May 30, 2025
Brand Chains, Ropes, Knots and the Entwinement of Meaning As a Boy Scout—even out to the rank of Eagle—I always had a fascination with knots, ropes, lashing, sea-and-water craft in the tradition of sailing. In scouting there is an expectation, as I’ve noted earlier,...
by GirvinIT | Concepts, Places, Storytelling | May 2, 2025
A Journey in Design Explorations. When I first went to Japan to present my work as a designer, I was advised that I should be bringing gifts, and that I should offer the greeting–introducing myself, as well as the offer. This went like this, Hajimemashite, Tim...
