EARTH MADE HARD
WALKING THE LONG WAY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY MEDITATIONS ON YOU AND YOUR EARTH. Each of us has a relationship to the Earth, what we know of her, how we’ve traveled her pathways, what doors we might have seen and how, perhaps, we have opened them....
LISTENING TO A ZEN MASTER
ROSHI HARADA SHODO THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF STORYTELLING IS LISTENING. Sometime back, I drove up to Mukilteo, took the ferry across to Whidbey Island, and at 3.00pm had tea with the Zen Master, Sōgenji Abbot, Roshi Harada Shodo. I had been introduced to him at a...
BRAND MAGIC: DESIGNING SIGILS, SIGNETS AND SYMBOLS
Design as a Transportive Tool ––––––– We’ve talked about sigils. Most of you might know about the sigil as a House Seal in the Game of Thrones. And I’ve written long about them — the sigil, the signal, the signature, the signing. The seal and the signet. I reach back...
YVES SAINT LAURENT: A JOURNEY OF DESIGN, SOUL BRAND, STORY AND RETAIL RETELLING
There is a time, in the momentum of a moment, when a cycle returns; there is a flash of discovery, and that patterning of illumination returns, when your journey, as experiencer cycles back to reveal itself again to the watchful — what goes around, comes around. But,...
THE METAPHOR OF THE WAVE: SURFING AND BRAND STRATEGY
THE ALLEGORY OF THE DEEP WAVE, THE WATCH, THE BOARD, THE TREND AND THE CURL. Some know that I have a persistent fascination — an engagement — with large expressions of salt water and where she comes from — the Deep Sea. My first exposure to waves was when I was about...
YOU CAN DO NOTHING | MEDITATIONS ON SOLITUDE AND QUIETUDE
SPACING-IN AND THE ART OF NOTHINGNESS. What if someone asked you to do nothing, all by yourself — just slow down, do nothing? Get quiet? Could you do that? Drift? But space-in, instead of spacing-out? In the frenzy of our present experience, we all struggle with the...
Brand Signature
SIGNING A BRAND: BRAND SIGNATURES, HUMAN HANDWRITING AND ATTRIBUTION Examining the idea of brand, signature and personality I was thinking about the idea of hand-writing and the character of the person. By a typical extrapolation, I’d liken the brand to the human — in...
THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY OF THE ALPHABET: SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION, SCRIPTED PORTALS OF IDEA, VOICE AND MEANING.
The Alphabet and Evocation; drawing the letter; voicing the calling. Like anyone, I look for inspiration where I can get it. Even a letter. I got a note from some friends at the Oxford English Dictionary. It was about this word: “abracadabra” — and perhaps you’ve got...
SEXUAL FLAVORS | DESIGNING SEXUALITY IN SCENT
The Sense of Scent in the Most Profound and Personal Encounter The design of the scents of evocation and emulation, storytelling legendary experiences. A BOLD QUERY TO MEMORY AND MOMENTS, PSYCHIC AND PHYSIC INTERMINGLING. UNFORGETTABLE? WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT SCENT AND...
DIRTY PERFUME: THE SCENT OF EARTH
AT THE HEART OF THE EARTH, FINDING THE SOUL OF SCENT. When I think about perfume, I invariably go dark, deep, underground, forested root and wood-bound, roughshod and animalic — the low notes, the bass, the lower boom of perfume. Even as a teenager, some decades back,...