The Long Route | Getting Out There To The Brand New World
A stride at Bláskógabyggð, Suðurland, Iceland I was questioning a brand client—and we were talking about the notion of soul, the spirit of the brand a human enterprise—and the mirroring of a human maker, and what they make in the journey of a brand. Everyone knows, if...
The Fall Guy | The Metaphor of Failure
I was listening to a podcast by David Duchovny the proverbial Fox Mulder of the X-files--on failure. As he notes in his overview—a summary of his podcast— “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Duchovny recites to WPR’s host Doug...
Symbolic Placemaking Strategies in Experiential Design
As you walk a journey—there are symbols in the path of your stride. As a person that has history in building places, thinking design in destinations, I tend to think about everything as a migration of symbolic content. Surely, simply, contemplate walking in a door—you...
Be Brave | The Character of Courage
The interplays in life, heartfulness and the courageous spirit. Thinking about the heart—and life journeys—in talking to my mother; we were walking the idea of courage. People, friends, family—they come and go—as we all do; it’s one in a string of challenges that we...
Brand Magic | Enchantment and the Magnetism of Attraction
I was working in a team-collaborative session, a BrandQuest, Soul Summit—an innovation forum, and we were discussing the implications of attraction. As brand strategists and designers, you know about the implications of product attraction. As we put it, first there...
Seeing deep | close and near—brand farsight
Deep perceptions, brand metaphors and the avian sentience. For most of my life, I’ve been a student of the birds. I admire them from the perspective of their calligraphic flight, fluttering and drifting, flourishing in elegant strokes in the air. I’ve cut them in...
Brand symbolism | The Cairn
Thinking metaphorically, there are plenty of symbolic allegories between the notion of brand building, design strategies, messaging and storytelling. You—brand designer, brand thinker, theorist, strategist—when you think of brand, the notion of a constructed and...
Get your hands off that! Don’t touch!
How many times—thinking about it personally—have you been told that? Don’t touch! Hey, don’t even think about touching that! Hand’s off—not for you! Please, just look—no touching! Mostly, these days, I don’t ask, don’t look around for approvals, I just touch— unless...
Brand Feel | Emotionalism in Branded Sensations
Feeling in the realm of design thinking, sensation and brand. I took some old Italian handmade paper, folded it, tore it with a bone folder, punched a hole in the head of the strip, and strung red binding thread into the opening and hung it in the trees, amidst the...
Diving deep | Brand Soul: Journey, Inspiration and Spirituality
The Strategy and Design of Mystically-Inspired Brands In our history, we’ve had a string of opportunities to collaborate with brand partners who are different in their visioning of their enterprises— rather than focusing, for typical partners, on the notion of “how...