ON MAKING
M A K E Y O U R W A Y S BRAND SPACE—THE STRATEGY OF MAKING—STORYTELLING, PLACE-MAKING, THE PERSONAL JOURNEY OF THE WORK—WHAT YOU MAKE AND THE WAY YOU MAKE IT. Isn’t it so that our journey—as creatives, designers, wordsmiths, strategists—is a stride towards finding?...
WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE? | BRANDS AND BELIEF
WORKSHOPPING LOVE AND PASSION I was talking to a colleague about “love,” the notion of letter-writing and love-worthy thoughts expressed in a hand-notated missive, one human to another. To that, we were talking about stamps—particularly this love stamp I’d designed...
MEDITATIONS ON SPEED: FAST BRANDS, SLOW BRANDS— WHAT’S BEST?
IS EVERYTHING SLOWER NOW? In the purported aftermath of the Covidularity—[right, invented,] it’s been a persistent experience for me for things to be slowing down. Items of the trade that we’re in, strategy, design and production—paper, for example—hard to find, some...
THE SEARCH FOR BEAUTY AND THE SHOCK OF WOW
As designers, we’re looking for memorable impact—design solutions that are memorable, laden with ineluctable magic, surprise, wondrous artfulness, amazing and happiness-creating, or—more particularly, treatments that invoke the sense of wow! Wow is unforgettable. Tim...
THE STRATEGY OF ZEN, MARKINGS AND MEANING
SIMPLIFYING THE CONCATENATION OF BEING. Sometimes, simply being is—just by itself, complicated; it’s trying to be good to oneself, respectful of others, following a plan and a pathway, and doing good. Sometimes, it feels like it’s all a little bit much—then again, in...
THE QUEST FOR GRAPHICAL BEAUTY
Obviously, the question of beauty doesn’t propound solely a complicated design— instead, it could be profoundly simple—so delicately balanced and restrained that it catalyzes disciplined elegance. But when one calculates the etymology—in reverse—of beautiful graphics,...
THE X FILES: ALPHABETICAL SYMBOLISM AND THE CROSSROADS OF CONTENT
DESIGN STRATEGIES, DEEP BRANDING, METAPHORICAL NARRATIVES Of course, we have a different way of thinking about the alphabet—as designers, as brand fire starters, letter crafters and identity theorists. If you’re thinking about a letter—what’s your favorite? Me? X. As...
THINGS SHALL GET BETTER, THE UPLIFT OF OPTIMISM: YES TO IT!
BACK IN SPOKANE, I FOUND THIS PANEL THAT I DREW FOR MY PARENTS; STILL THERE, NEXT TO THE PIANO. THE MEDITATION ON THE ANSWER OF UPLIFT—YES! I went to Spokane to see my family—my Mother and Father, for a check in—both in their 90s, there has been a health-related...
BRAND COMPONENTRY | LINKING BRAND DESIGN VOCABULARIES, PATTERNING[S], PREMISES AND PRINCIPLES
Designing for perfume—the detailing of scent-related *experientiality: D I P T Y P Q U E. When I see things, invariably I smell them. When I touch things, I hear them. It’s a trait of curiosity—it’s one thing to see things, it’s another to touch them, still another to...
BESPOKE BRAND VISUALIZATIONS | THE TYPOLOGIES OF THE LETTERFORM
MEDITATIONS ON THE SHAPE OF CONTENT In the moment of inspiration, everyone “thinks” something and converts this to some framing of expression. Could be handwritten, a journal entry, a sketched missive, drawn on an iPad or typed out. It’s the shaping of content that...