In the realm of the senses, brand space and holistic thinking
I gave a talk at Procter & Gamble’s hall at Building One, downtown Cincinnati. This talk was about spherical thinking, brands and storytelling, a way of looking at the narrative of brands as narrative concatenations—knots and threads of woven tellings, that...
Fire-Breathing Brand and Placemaking Development by GIRVIN
Hello, Year Of The Dragon Dragon, Ubud, Bali There are symbols that repeat themselves, the cycle in, return, vanish and reappear in other places—and symbolic language, as in the earlier blogs on brand archetypes. Isn’t it so that there are devices, objects, that...
GIRVIN’s Legendary Branding | The Hero Brand Archetype
When I was young, my Mother belonged to a Jungian Study Group—she, and a group of colleagues, friends and professionals would meet to explore Jung’s theories. What I took from this—in my pre-teen years--was that there was something interesting there, if they were...
Hello 2024
Brand Magic, the Succession of Time, and the Portals of Perception The very nature of brands is entirely wrapped around people—“who built the brand, and for whom did they build it?” Otherwise, to GIRVIN’s parlance:“what’s the story, who’s telling it, who’s listening,...
Brand Weaving
The Interplay of Ideas, Visuals, Tiering and the lnterlacement of Branded Conceptions You might know, when you contemplate the sensation of brand experience, it’s not one element alone that is memorable, it lies in the layering of tiered, experiential moments that, in...
The Art of the Nomen | Brand Strategy, Naming and Innovation
Your name is your apex point of recognition—it’s the first thing that your audience sees and hears—it’s the hello: “my name is, here’s what I do. And here’s what I can do for you.” We know naming. GIRVIN has a quarter century of active naming experience, with a...
Listening With The Eyes | Seeing With The Ears, The Art of Curiosity
Exploring Observations: Curiosity in Conversations. Asking Questions in the Quest for Creative Answers. I, like my brothers, Mom and Dad, like to ask questions of people—to learn more about who they are. Talking to an elder shopkeeper, learning from her as to where...
Partnering with John Jay, Bloomingdale’s, Retail Design Programs, and Campaign Thematics
The Art of the Shopping Bag It was a reminder from friend Steve Heller, the Design Editor in Chief at Print Magazine, that recalled the legacy of former Bloomingdale’s Chief Creative Officer, John Jay— in the following notation from the Magazine: “Jay’s bags also...
Illustrative Brand Transitioning: The Walking Dead | Years in Evolutionary Design Strategy
Some observations on the strategy of illustrative brand identity transitioning. I know this is a reach for many of you—as a watcher of the series— but it’s the season, so a reference: happy halloween. Perhaps also likely, you wouldn’t be caught “dead” watching any...
Scare Tactics | Designing Fright Brands for Clive Barker, John Carpenter, Tim Burton, Wes Craven and Tony Scott
How to build brand storytelling for terrifying design narratives Clive Barker It was roughly 40 years ago that I read Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood,” which struck me as a remarkably distinctive turn on the horrifying—as expertly fear-inducing storytelling. Stephen...