Star Trek 2009 | JJ Abrams, the Brand, the Story & Identity
Several years ago I got a call from Paramount Studios to work on a project for JJ Abrams. I'd never heard of him, embarrassingly enough. Nancy Goliger, EVP of Advertising, told me to check out his TV shows, "Lost" and "Alias". I watched all of them. And I became...
Sebastian Professional | Reframing Story, Visualization, Brand
Any brand is human. A brand fire is started by a person. It comes from a human spirit and mind: it's made for humans. Human brand. Interestingly enough, this simple equation is sometimes forgotten. People focus on transactions, engineering commerce -- and they just...
The Bird’s Nest, Beijing & the Weaving of Energy & Ideas
8*8*8*8 -- weaving numbers & ideas, energy & good fortune, art & architecture. Reflections on the design of Herzog & DeMeuron and the Asian Basket collection at Girvin | Seattle. I've made some notes in the past on the concept of the bird's nest -- but...
Exploring Jean Nouvel | A Classical French Architect & Designer
Examining the identity, specificity in design, architectures of light -- and the creation of place-making: holding and containment in space. This blog is a journey. I find myself exploring architecture a great deal. Pretty much, all the time. What I'm curious about is...
Robert Piguet | Designer, Scentmaker, Legend
Examining the line between design, fragrance and the mystery of making. There's a mystery between the concept of design, creativity and the magic of concocting and sequencing outcomes, whether in the visualization of clothing, style, or in the mystery of scentmaking....
Tableau 4.0 | Christian Chabot, Evolution & the New Apple
I went to see what Christian Chabot, CEO of Tableau Software, has been thinking about. Someone in the blogosphere alluded to Tableau becoming the new Apple. What's that? But rather, I believe that it is the attitude of Apple -- that's new. It's always new. And others...
Customized Font Design | Brand Identity Perfected
Notes on making typography by hand, for perfectly tailored applications -- a Girvin legacy. For decades, Girvin has been making typefaces by hand, completely customized to our client project applications. It's a story that is surely understood internally within our...
Branding Batman | The Dark Knight Advertising Campaign
Exploring brand in the context of experience design and impression: movie picture brand strategy. I've liked Christian Bale's impression of Bruce Wayne since the beginning; but I'm anticipating that Christopher Nolan drives a great deal of the visualizations of how...
Jil Sander | Raf Simons | Germaine Kruip | Federico De Vera
Exploring store design -- a collaboration between designer Raf Simons and artist Germaine Kruip -- and a contrary study in contrast: De Vera. At the corners of Howard & Crosby: NYC. The hyper minimalist white space and laboratorium that has entered the retail fray...
L’Officina Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella | Brandstory & Legacy in Fragrance
Exploring brandstory, legacy and fragrance in a venerable enterprise of 700 years. I have been exploring Santa Maria Novella for about 10 years now. And largely the opening of my exposure has been Jon Bresler -- and his group in NYC, Lafco. The opening captivation was...