THE WHORL OF IDEAS AND INSPIRATIONS.
A brand is like a spiral—could be a channel, could be the opening of a drain, could be a spigot pouring forth—but in one way or another—it’s a channel: outflow, inflow. Its success will be the fluency of its convergence—the creation of content, the outflow of that storytelling. What’s told and who loves it?
It’s one thing to presume that the journey to the center of a brand, like an adventuring quest is core to the reach-in to find the soul of an enterprise—which is about the why of the work, the relevance of the offer, and what, in the beginning and end, would be the resonance—the embracement and “I love this brand relationship.”
We call that
the R’s.
And we call that
the E’s.
But in that query string,
there is the real question would be: “who cares?”
In the journey of finding the heart and center-point of brand relationships, community-building, social explication, hybrid brand storytelling, we’re always asking that questioning string: “what’s the story, who’s telling it, what’s it look and sound like?”
And most importantly—
“who cares?”
What we all know is that we wish that all of our brands are sensationally robust—they feel finely tuned. They’re tuned to who we love and those that we wish would love us and our brands. In the reflectivity of any brand, it’s about that proposition of mirroring—“this is my brand, I can tell you a story about it, my brand, my story…”
and they become inextricably linked.
Love counts as a story, well-held.
Doesn’t always work that way—in any audience, the cynicism of bored disdain—“I’ve seen that already,” is a continuing and challenging refrain: “I don’t care about that; why would I?”
And that, the care, is the most important part of that proposition. As the steward, you have to make the choice about working on, around, and with brand enterprises that you care about.
They care about what they do—
they love the work that they make and there is care in the making of it—that too, reflective and mirroring.
As marketers, strategists, brand stewards, designers, we need to be living and working here—the deeper care of the relationship-building—it’s a loving commitment.
As we scout around for referential examples, this comes out to observers
as “what do we care about?”
For GIRVIN, that would be the core of brand revelation—the revealing as a key sigil, the central signal of formative positioning —“there’s the brand, there is the central visual—everything comes from that.
The key, for brand experience strategy, is the first message: brand identity—the central idea, the key persona, it can be the key mnemonic light of the brand—that beam can be the logo—a typographic rendering and potentially a symbolic armature, hinted with color as an emotional finish. It’s the first beacon.
One part of that strategy, the narrative impressions—the story, which comes out as a packaged set of content—logo, positioning, imagery, message and coloration: these conceptions of identity in storytelling, could be framed in the kind of work that we engage in for the entertainment space—movies and theatrical design.
What we’re looking for is the center-point—the wellspring of the brand, the human dream and idealized future-visioning. And it—this visioning—is about this: the passionate heart, the heat of commitment—brandfire, that lies within the conceptions of enterprise—the gears of commerce, and how, in that measured movement, the gear synchrony, they relate to people; and how people relate to them—psychically, physically, emotionally.
That drawing of the word—the naming of a thing, and how that is drawn-out—the font, the color, the arrangements.
Could that be rendered beautifully? A beautiful authenticity.
Could the storytelling of the brand be a beautiful thing?
We think so—it’s our exemplar.
Do it beautifully.
In a manner, the very essence of calligraphy, at its profoundest place, is about spirit. And the work that we do, as designers—brand thinkers—ignites in the place of the lustration—the polishing of ideas—and bringing them to luminous life.
So, too, that people can relate to them.
The Greek: καλλιγραφία—kalligraphia: kallos [beautiful] +graphein [writing,]
is about bringing beauty to that transaction.
To do that, you’ve got to range, inwardly—towards the center, where the pulse originates. And flow, then, outwardly—the markings made. And, in capturing that sentiment, that quintessential framing of brand presence, or human ideal, you need to speak the language, have the design vocabulary of 4,000 years. Not two or three decades.
The sparks of textual design, that—literal—context of creative construction are broad wildfires — they can sweep long stories into the night. Stories that people see, sense, relate to. And finally share.
We look beneath, to find what’s now; we look back, to find the archetypal pulse of the heart and the place that can be made; I look forward, to hear the lessons of the past — one tide, another, surging forward.
The openings, to the future:
Tim Girvin | GIRVIN OSEANSTUDIOS