Tom Ford | Grey Vetiver
Tom Ford in Tokyo. Photo By Akiko Sameshima Exploring the human brand, story, product development, scent and visioning. Obviously, I've got a thing with Tom Ford. There are layers there. One, meeting him, talking to him, interviewing him -- and learning from him. And...
Humanitarian Brand Development | Cause Related Marketing Development — it’s all about love.
What if your brand is about a cause? What if your brand is humanity? What if your real messaging reach is love? This is an overview of Girvin's strategic thinking about the nature of humanitarian and cause-related branding strategy and tactics. There have been a...
The mystery of the book: my encounter with Jorge Luis Borges
The mystical character of a man, a letter and an inspiration For a long time, I've been exploring the realm of the mysterious. Perhaps my whole life. But mystery is something that speaks to the character of that which is merely unseen. It is what is hidden. Being a...
The First Microsoft Store
Image from TechFlash Taking pictures of Microsoft's opening retail with iPhones. Sometime back, a friend of mine offered to introduce me to the new leader of Microsoft retail. I won't mention either name, since it's pointless now -- I never connected, either by phone,...
The cycle of the brand story | Kellogg’s at 100 years
Exploring brand, story, reconnection in community 10 | 1909 > 10 | 2009 There are a variety of moves, to the motion | notion of celebration in the anniversary of actions in legacy. An anniversary can be a month, a half year, a year, or two, five, ten, twenty five,...
Movie titling design: the craft of the hand
Customized type face design, font development and motion picture design Over the course of the last 3 decades, Girvin has designed literally hundreds of identity design strategies with hand-drawn typefaces for motion picture main titling design, one sheets, posters,...
Story: brand, humanity, entertainment
The string of imagination -- never underestimate the connectivity of the right telling The concept of the story relates to the string; and that string can be a brand sequence just as well. The point is that the imagining of the telling really doesn't need to be...
The Journal, the Kindle and the Library: the sensuality of the book
The real of the senses: a journey into the heart of the book, experience design and the librarian instinct of content. I won't pretend to be a scholar on this matter, let alone offering anything but the obvious. But this past week, working in Bend, speaking at the...
Exploring the construct of humanitarian branding
Brand strategy in cause related marketing Every brand begins with a human, and that sense of the "human-ness" is aligned with intentionality. Humanitarian brands -- those which espouse the notion of aid for other human beings -- are intentionally focused on actions...
Notes on brand, strategy, story and hybrid messaging
Brand strategy exploration: Yves Saint Laurent | Girvin: 2007 For a presentation on entrepreneurship, branding and emotional content to the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore GIRVIN'S FOCUS has been directed to the concept of brand development and innovation...