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Magical Books, Calligraphy as an Agency of Power
The Talismanic Alphabet, Mystical Calligraphy. It's been said that the roots of the alphabet aren't a scientific and archaeologically sequenced discovery, but rather a revelation, something from the magic of meaning, the scribing of the psychic underlayment to mind....
Designing for Cowboys
The Craft of the Hand, the Story, the Image Over time, legends come into play. And if you work the craft, follow your inspirations, you can get to where you want to -- the legends, the myths, the stories. But any quest won't be without travails, challenges, thorny...
The Turn of the Gesture
The Beauty of the Mindless Walking a construction site, I was studying the siting notes and install corrections. What I note, in watching the drawings, writings and notations of others is that in that sense of mindlessness. The doodle, the swirl, the twist, the check...
BIG thinking | A visit, NYC
Exploring Creative Place | Design, Teams, Innovation BIG ARCHITECTURE|DESIGN | NYC Traveling the world, as a designer, if one is so motivated, studying working environments, culture and vibe should be part of the practice of seeing into how design thinking happens....
The Threading of Ideas
The Metaphor of the String I was thinking about the symbolism of weaving, having met with some weavers. Ephesus | Weavers Collective I watched them set the foundational warp, and then shuttling, back and forth, the patterning of the weft. It's delicate work. And like...
The Alchemy of Perfume | Mandy Aftel
A Journey into the Craft and Mystery of Making Perfume. Some years back I'd read Mandy Aftel's book, I was struck then by her link to the presumptions of aligning alchemy and the making of perfume. Theoretically, it works -- but, in her application, the spirit of her...
Looking at Skins
Studying the Face of People and the Buildings that they Make In the past, we've talked about the modeling of a brand relationships -- the relating [the carrying, the holding and the retelling] of that content, product or story in a manner that it can be acted on, and...
Finding the brand soul of Chihuly
Digging in, the brand archaeology of art, the person, the persona. When you work on a brand, people are involved. Sometimes, companies forget -- they think: logistics, operations, planning, transportation, targets, quotients and quotas. For us -- and we're sure -- for...
The Pink that is: "indescribably pink."
Color, Brands, and the Layering of Experience, Memory and Recognizability Some say -- "stop calling the FT pink!" According to the color standards at the Times, the real color is a "so-called" Salmon Pink. But being an inveterate traveler, and persistent worker in...
Imagine that it’s raining, but you’re not getting wet.
rAndom International at MOMA. Reinterpretations of cold digital design It's been suggested by Random that their work isn't about typical programmable environmental installations that are inherently "unfeeling" and cold, but rather interactively human[e]. In years of...