The Perfume of Books
Studying the Holism of Textual Contemplation [Reading]. In a manner, everything we do as designers comes back to an attribute of reading — that is: how we hold something, how we touch, taste, smell, hear, seek balance and intuit content are all manners of reading...
7 YEARS: The iPhone and Vogue
PRODUCT STRATEGY, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, FASHION, AND THEIR INTERTWINEMENT I was thinking about my relationship with the micro-camera, which — for years, that was a folio of 10s of 1,000s of photographs. After clearing out my files, and reducing the collections, I’m still...
Icelandic design
Exploring Design | Culture | Place: Iceland and a Graphical History In the journey of anyplace, anywhere, there is a re-counting, as you walk back in time, you count your moments and you gather up your steps, in recounting. And sometimes that striding will take you...
THE QUEST FOR HEAT | ICELAND
THE VOLCANIC IMPETUS. ONCE IN MY LIFE, I’D TRIED TO BUILD A PLAN TO RUN [HIKE AND SUMMIT] THE VOLCANIC CIRCUIT ON JAVA, THE GREAT ISLAND OF INDONESIA — TO HIKE THE SPINE OF ONE OF THE GREATEST VOLCANIC ARRAYS IN THE WORLD, THE SO-CALLED “RING OF FIRE.” I hiked a...
You Shall Seek, and You Shall Find
And In Your Search, What Have You Seen? I was thinking about people that I’ve talked to — to learn more about their history. Not what they’re doing, what their job is, but rather — where have they been, and what have they seen? Scene, seen? [Image above: T R A I L E R...
Magical Alphabets: Mystical Letters, Meaning, Voice and Message
The Alphabet and Evocation; drawing the letter; voicing the calling. I got a note from some friends at the Oxford English Dictionary. It was about this word: “abracadabra” — and perhaps you’ve got the same one, since you might have friends there too. Earlier in my...
Designed Magic
The Strategy of Marks, Meaning, and the Transportation of Magic: Intentional Transformation In my history, and a string of blogs, I’ve commented on the notion of design, magic and their intertwinement. It’s been pointed out by some that such a discussion is infertile...
The Cult of the Sigil
Designing Magic: The Draft of the Letter as the Quest for Mystery Everyone knows that occult really means hidden. But in that, one might surmise that the Cult of the Occult would be nothing more than the quest for the hidden. I probably live there, in more ways than...
Is there a story, in a story, in a dream, in another telling?
The Fire of Brand: Is there a story, in a story, in a dream, in another telling? Years ago I was talking to a innovations forum, a large confederated brand team at Procter & Gamble about the layering of brand, in story — this was downtown Cincinnati, Building One...
The World of Books
The compulsion of building libraries -- collections of books and the perpetual love of books, more books and books piled high — everywhere. My daughter, Gabrielle, is the official library Matrix of GIRVIN. Since she’s been working there at our Pike Place Offices and...