Yves Saint Laurent | the personal, the person
I'd worked for Yves Saint Laurent to explore the story in the context or retail design and brand strategy a year ago -- working under the leadership of YSL President Laura Lendrum and her EVP | Retail Design, Claudia Cividino. The work was a gathering, a collective...
Luxury | Tom Ford | Moscow | IHT
I had the chance to listen to Tom Ford, and to meet him, at a CEO Summit for WWD | Beauty | Miami. Nice man. Incredibly articulate thinker, as well. And this was, formally, before the announcement of the Tom Ford brand. Shirin Von Wulffen, a person I worked with at...
Umberto Angeloni | The New Truth in Luxury (and everything else)
I am looking for truth. Looking at finding truth. Looking for businesses -- and people -- that are about truth fullness. That the story that they tell is a robust expression of the inherent character of who they are. And in exploring that premise, I came across...
Michael James Hawk | Green light
There's person that works with me, at Girvin, Michael James Hawk. He's an able researcher: need some added content, a reflection on a new client, gathering presentation material, managing Google research, studying the inbounds on Girvin.com -- he's the man. All that....
Direct marketing and brand identity
As a developer of campaign theming, in direct marketing development, ranging from department stores to retail products, theatrical marketing to entertainment design, the soul of the direct marketing story can lie in the very heart of the conceptual visualization --...
Small business branding basics
The issue of branding is more about gathering differentiation; it's a way of telling a distinctive story that positions the company in a way that is discrete from the competitive fray. And it just might be that -- a story. What do you really remember about a person?...
True Stories | framing narrative in brand, story and experience
The brand story as a communications tool, in brand management and experience design. What is brand, what is story, what is message, what is experience? What changes are emerging in the concept of branding, storytelling, community and communications? What direction, if...
The American Western: The Myth & the Meaning
Or, how I've loved the Western Film -- as a story concept -- since I was a child. A couple of weeks back, I went to see No Country for Old Men in NYC. A.O. Scott reviewed it: http://nytimes.com/no-country Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss But whether he'd (A.O.Scott)...
James Turrell | Roden Crater
I first met James Turrell in the 70s. Maybe early 80s. And back then, along with Jim Olson, Carol Fuller, and the COCA board, which was just a little group of us, we'd conceived the idea of bringing James Turrell to Seattle to do an installation. And that he did, on...
360º Brand marketing
J. Emilio Flores for the NYTimes (Paramore, the brand, the band) The concept of 360º brand strategy isn't so unique; in fact, the concept of considering the brand as a warming touch that reaches out in every consumer-linked direction is relatively common...