by Tim Girvin | Interior Design, Places, Storytelling | Sep 30, 2020
When you make a place, what gives it soul? Authenticity, material utility, legacy of use. Humanity in play, ingenuity of unexpected applications. Soulfulness wouldn’t support a clinical cleanliness or synthetic manufacture, soul— by its very etymology—refers to sea,...
by Tim Girvin | Brand Mysticism, Concepts, Places, Storytelling | Jul 15, 2020
The Ecology of the Forest as an allegory for community, audiences and customers. We spend a lot of time studying people—watching them, listening to them and studying them in use contexts wrapped around brands. We look at how people use things, bring brands into their...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Interior Design, Places, Retail, Scent | Jul 10, 2020
THE LAYERING OF STORIES In decades of work in the market space of fragrance, there are stories in the construction of perfumes—the tiering of memories; there are stories in the layering of ingredients and there are stories in the marketing of how scents are delivered,...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Interior Design, Places, Retail, Trends | Jan 29, 2020
BRANDCODING® EXPERIENCE DESIGN Designing environments with brand language and patterning built into the experience design strategy. What if there was an intention to create a pattern language that could guide consumers, renovate places and simplify guest movement and...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Cool People, Marketing 2.0, Places, Retail | Oct 25, 2019
EVERY JOURNEY HAS A BEGINNING—ITS END IS MERELY ANOTHER BEGINNING. In my history with Dawn Clark, my best friend, design partner, consulting collaborator, surfing mate, it’s been a long evolution of watching her ideations of the Nordstrom store-wide redesign, from her...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places | Oct 23, 2019
Notes on signing, wayfinding, alphabets and recognition. When you are lost, where do you go, what do you do? Some would say, “I’d look at my phone.” Or “I’d look at the Sun. Where is it, anyway?” You can, metaphorically, look for a sign—some augury that...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places | Oct 16, 2019
THERE IS A PLACE: YOU’RE IN THE PLACE. HOW DO YOU DESIGN A PATHWAY FOR FINDING? What is the way, found? We were thinking about this. In the context of the work that you do. And what we do. We’ve wondered about that, the character of being lost, being found. Finding...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Places, Storytelling | Feb 27, 2019
DESIGNING PLACES: EXPLORING THE DEEP METAPHORS, SYMBOLS AND ARCHETYPES IN PLACES MADE RETHINKING EXPERIENCE STRATEGY In the journey of designing guest enchantment pathways, customer experience procession, there is one path to consider—step by step, what is the...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Brands, Cool People, Interior Design, Marketing 2.0, Places, Retail | Sep 19, 2018
SYNAESTHETIC EXPERIENTIALITY AND DESIGN LEADERSHIP As a journeyer of decades of design, all over the world, and in partnering with many adepts in that journey, it’s interesting to study different models of design leadership. There are collaborators and team-builders,...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Motion Pictures, Places, Storytelling | Apr 19, 2018
EXPLORING INDUSTRIAL DESIGN AND ENTERTAINMENT — HOW IS A STORY DESIGNED? Do you even know about this show? — [Image above from Netflix] You’re probably too young to even recall it, but when I was younger, “Danger, Danger, Will Robinson,” was one of my favorites lines....
