The new Starbucks store prototype: Heritage @ 1st & Pike | Seattle
A return to the spirit of store one. I've worked in the Seattle coffee brewing experience for several decades. And all the while, I've been a lover of coffee -- and the coffee sensate experience. There are two favorites for me. One, coffee made, "cowboy style", in...
Water rations: boxes are better?
Boxed and cartoned water, newly watered solutions? What freight, now? When I was working in Paris, I came in contact, as a consultant, with an intriguing group: Suez. Interestingly enough, this group was founded on the building of the Suez Canal -- this 19th century...
Art Wolfe | Exploring a human brand of curiosity, discovery, love
Art Wolfe | Wikipedia imagery file The brand that is a living, loving being. Art Wolfe and I go way back -- decades; but my personal relationship with him goes back further -- into the recesses of my younger years, being in the ramshackle melange otherwise known as...
Neil Fiske | Eddie Bauer and seeking the heart of brand story
Several years ago, at a WWD | CEO Summit, in Miami, I met Leslie Wexner, the fabled CEO of The Limited Brands. Actually, he was waiting to speak at the event, and I went to him, to ask some questions. One questions burned in my mind. Simple, but compellingly powerful...
H.E. Mohammed Bin Ali Al Abbar | The vision(s) of the Burj Dubai
Exploring the concept of the place, made in the mystery of building, the poetry of the world around it. I've been looking at, and exploring building design for decades. And, being in the neighborhood of architects, also for decades, I've learned to look at them...
Apple Retail Design Photographs | Retail oriflamme: Apple Store+Story | NYC
I found this story, and thought I'd post it. It's from a couple of years ago, but it is still layered with details about how I see this store. I offer this grouping of images, shot at Apple's new store in NYC on 5th and Central Park South, as a kind of oriflamme to...
New brand, new city, new place
The concept of the personal brand, in place - what makes a city's identity? Spending time traveling, as I have now, for the last three weeks straight, I'm now coming to the positioning of questioning my own identity, in the whirring of place. Where am I -- what city,...
Exploring the Spa Brand: Story, fire, passion and place.
A presentation in London | Professional Spa Conference + Beauty Summit. I've been thinking about the concept of wellness shared -- and the communing offering of spa well-making and health generation. Generation, is that the right word -- to generate health fullness?...
Designing Icons | Chanel
Form language and brandstory: Coco Chanel There are living icons, human brands, and there are others, that create that character after their passing. Gabrielle Chanel is someone that I should write about, considering the concept of the human brand. But not now. What...
Movie titling sequences, stories and brand
The line between the story, the visualization, the brand. Story -- told. Story -- visualized. There's a thread that runs between the original telling, and the next telling in story -- and the next, and the next, and the next. One person tells a story and so does...