by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Cool People, Marketing 2.0, Places, Retail, Trends | Sep 13, 2016
ARCHETYPAL SYMBOLOGY AND THE DESIGN OF PLACE Design thinking and the exploration of deep metaphors When I was working as a brand / design strategist on Procter & Gamble, on brand innovation, I’d partnered with a closely-aligned and roving colleague there, Iain...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Brands, Cool People, Designers, Human brands, Trends | Aug 25, 2016
IN SEARCH OF THE SKULL: THE FLAME, THE ROD | DON ED HARDY AND VON DUTCH Brand explorations of choppers, hot rods, tattoos, pin striping and the art of kustom kulture: Don Ed Hardy and Von Dutch. How might that alignment be imagined — a link between the above? I’ve...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Marketing 2.0, Retail, Trends | Jun 30, 2016
Exploring the branding of hyper-caffeinated power drinks; what image is presented — what story found? And yes, why do I drink them? Montages by R.Bird In the last 20 years, I’ve had plenty of experience exploring drinking in Asia.From Tokyo to Seoul, from Bangkok to...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Marketing 2.0, Trends | Apr 14, 2016
LOOK BACK TO FIND MORE As a designer, many of us watch the trends of design, over time — we look back 10 years, 20 years — 30, 50 years. We think about the cool airspun design of the 50s. Or we jump back to the 20s and 30s, we study post martial, WWII...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Trends | Jan 5, 2016
Sometimes the best path Is the slow and watchful. Recently, I’ve been asked to design some signs — which, on a remote road, ask kindly: “Please Go Slower.” Sometimes in the planning of strategy, for your life, brands and other enterprises — striking out the...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Cool People, Human brands, Trends | Aug 28, 2015
Tim Girvin and Jack Larsen, at his Park Avenue Studio A fashion archetype, reconsidered. It’s good to hear that the bow tie is coming back. Somewhere around ten years back I’d moved past that detail — the suit, the oxford shirt, the bow tie. That was a legacy fashion...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Cool People, Designers, Retail, Storytelling, Trends | Aug 20, 2015
LEGENDARY CULTURES AND BRANDING: LEGACY BRANDS WITH SOUL Brands with soul, brands that tell authentically-founded stories, true brands that people care about. Are they invented, built, restored, or managed as a legacy? All of these, and more. LEGEND BRANDING: What is...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Marketing 2.0, Storytelling, Trends | Mar 31, 2015
Brands That Survive on Stealth, Secrecy and Intrigue I was sitting on a jet with a talkative neighbor, a US Marshal, who coincidentally spoke to me on the theories of the layering of police, detection and intelligence — I thought, “how intriguing.” And then wondered...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Scent, Trends | Jan 13, 2015
Perfume and Persona — the categorization of demography by scent. I heard this conversation about 10 years ago — one of those rare moments when you have a chance to listen in on people’s impressions of you. That’s happened a couple of times, and in both, it was a...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Designers, Storytelling, Trends | Dec 24, 2014
The Principle of the Search: More Beauty [Photo: Dawn A. Clark, AIA Leed AP] In our life journey, as creatives — people that create — we listen, absorb, gather, interpret and make meaning. We work to import and deliver content in a manner that is compelling to a...