The beauty, the letterform, the commitment: Memories of Hermann Zapf
Alphabet Odyssey | 1976 Earlier in my life, late 1970s, I’d reached to Hermann Zapf about a possible visit, with him and his wife, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse, in Darmstadt, Germany. I’d made the connection through the leadership of the Klingspor Museum, in Offenbach am...
YOU ARE WHERE YOU ARE
Contentment, placemaking and presence. Sometimes I study the context of people in their place. What is it for them? How are they doing? What are they being? That examination works in the context of brands, enterprise and leadership. What is the culture of a place, and...
THE HIGH AND LONG WAVE | BRAND SURFING
THE ALLEGORY OF THE WAVE WATCH, THE BOARD, THE TREND AND THE CURL. My first exposure to waves was when I was about 4 years old — my father was a Captain of Surgery, stationed at Fort Monmouth. We used to go to the Jersey shore — and Dad would run me down to the beach...
The History of the Hammer
The Tool, the Allegory, the Legend I’ve been using hammers. And collecting old hammers. Have you tried working with multiple hammers, their wood and metal shafts, their weighted mallet heads, explored how they work? The weight, the heft, the swing, the balance, the...
Who Do You Love?
Love Brands: Relationships, Commitments and Storytelling. I did this installation, out on a cliff, away from everything, looking out — the deep blue sea. And the sun. And I was “looking through L O V E,” thinking about that ancient question: "who do you love?" "And...
The Script of Being | Drawing Words and the Orienteering of Alphabets
The Draft of Knowing — Stroke on Stroke, Journey to Journey, Line to Lineage. [a b o v e] Presentation wall, with calligraphic drawings and educational references, photographic brand boards, working tools, broadsides and flow examples. [FIRST POSTED 2010] A couple of...
The Aesthetics of Rust
Wabi Sabi and Beauty There is a perspective that things that have lived for a long time are worthy of respect and admiration. Old is more beautiful. You can’t fake old. Wabi Sabi. That Japanese principle of beauty in age comes to a reflection of two principles —...
The Shimmering
A Person, a Presence, a Brand I was working outside of the city, treasure-hunting. Actually, I was working inside a brand, their teams, looking for treasure — those glimmering and glistening points of compassed reference, the surveilled pin-pricks of a brand mapping,...
I’m Lost
The Beauty of Being Lost and Finding Found The signs that point to nowhere. Earlier, I was in Paris — I was working in an area that I was relatively familiar with — off Musée du Louvre, not far from the Seine. I’d been there, staying there, working many times,...
The Watch and the Sphere of Focus
The Study of Watch Fullness, Surveilling the Terrain Around You. Really, what are you looking at? In the real construct of study, what are you really looking at? I look for allegory and metaphor, inspiration and insight in the journey of the day. Every day, a journey....