IS IT BIG ENOUGH?
SIGNAGE, MESSAGING, SCALE AND BEAUTY. I’m not saying that we’ve not designed massive signage. We have, we’ve created signing that can be seen for miles. Yes, Vegas. And other places. But what I admire are more elegantly restrained solutions. What one might think are...
The Labyrinth of Being
Design explorations, teaching and creativity We know what we know by virtue of where we have been, and what we recall of that pathway. As designers and creatives, everything comes from journey. It’s where we’ve been and where we’re going. There are symbols that are...
What Are You Looking For?
The Quest for Knowing In a manner, we’re all trying to know more. And you are what you know. You shall be what you shall be, as you make your way. When it comes to the pathway of design, we forget about human-ness, the conditions of our sensuality. Finding the...
Going Deeper
Spelunking Brands There is a patterning that one can see in caves, the geolocational strata, stones, layers, sediments, ice, water, rivers and concretions — as an explorer of caves, it’s kind of like mountaineering inside mountains — interior alpinism, as in the...
FOCUS | CLARITY | PERCEPTION
WATCHING, LISTENING, ATTUNEMENT In the intertwining of life, work and brand, there are keys to actualization and mobilization. In my experience, the notion of attention and focus are at the heart of how people either reach-out, or reach-in — it’s how the exchange...
Wander and Wonder
Finding A Way Out, That Could Be a Way In This, above, is a sign from my office; it’s from the London Underground. And below, another example. What I liked about it — the image at the head of this missive, and put a photo in my journal, is the inverted rendering of...
The Symbolism of The Chain
The Nature of Interlinking, Knotmaking, Braiding and the Entwinement of Storytelling. As a journeyer in brand, and the fire making of its fluency in community, I find myself in the study of the under-layments of how it works. As noted long back, it’s a storytelling...
Signs and Meaning
The Context of Message, Framing of Context and Visualization I look for signs that aren’t signs — in a conventional sense — they tell another deeper story, but sigils that signal a message that stand for the nature of a place. Cairns, ovoo, iwakura no mononoke,...
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...