by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Places, Retail, Scent | Jul 1, 2014
Designing a Pathway of Personality, Fragrance and Their Retail Perfume Portal. In a note forwarded by retail strategist and architect, Dawn A. Clark, she notes Selfridges’ newest innovation — a Perfume Laboratory [Videolink]. As has been pointed out by many,...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Places, Retail, Scent | May 8, 2014
The Design of Fragrances From The Forest Sometimes, it’s a ritual. A gathering of clans, spirits, prayers and reaching to another place, the plane of the unseen. Sometimes, it’s just fire, smoke and the vapors of translation — from woods and grasses...
by Tim Girvin | Places, Retail | Dec 2, 2013
Designing Signing Message Strategies: the Beginning, and the Ending, of Storytelling. Every story has a beginning, and an ending — each of us has a story, that has one beginning, and another start, and another initiation — and perhaps an ending that we all...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Retail, Scent | Nov 19, 2013
The Imagination of Designing Fragrance Perfume is a storytelling — it’s a layering of tellings that translate to the alchemy of ingredients. Woods, resins, tinctures of flowers, aromatic leaves, natural ingredients, all combine to build a story that allows...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Designers, Motion Pictures, Retail | Oct 21, 2013
Identity, Story & Experience Design When you think about a game, it invariably is about play. Play and game. And, are you having fun? A quick play: see Girvin’s gaming movie and specially commissioned sound track. What is play? What is game? Play is an old...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Cool People, Retail, Storytelling | Jul 30, 2013
When You Get Out There. For the Curious, More Can Be Found. Doors opened, entries walked, the pilgrimage taken. When you get out there, closer to the heart of the story, the feeling of it: the place, the brand, the people, the story, can be found. For nearly 20 years,...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Brands, Cool People, Retail | Jul 25, 2013
PRODUCT DESIGN, CAPTIVATION AND THE APPLE SIGNATURE I was talking to a young engineer about the principled ideation of Apple industrial design; that certain details are not only innovative not only in terms of product design creation — they didn’t exist...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Luxury, Retail, Storytelling | Jul 23, 2013
THE HAND CRAFT OF RETAIL DESIGN IN THE BEGINNING, RETAIL DESIGN GOES BACK TO ONE SIMPLE PROPOSITION. “WHY SHOULD I BUY FROM YOU?” The implications of retail speaks to retelling — that is, there is a story, and another story, in a story — and...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Retail, Storytelling | Jul 1, 2013
Conceptualizing holding, in the context of relationship, experience and brand. I was working as a charrette leader on brand for a beauty and wellness start-up. We talked about — “why, who, where, what?” The big questions. And we talked about the...
by Tim Girvin | General, Places, Retail, Trends | Jun 20, 2013
A Place has a Pattern, a Brand has a Chromosomal Character, That is Evinced in Visual Language; and so too, Language is a Patterning. I’m looking for patterns; I’m always looking for the patterning of things that I know on the surface, and the patterns and...