by Tim Girvin | Artists, Concepts, Designers | Mar 8, 2017
The Scribbling of Design Theorems — Drafting With Navigational Instruments The word scribe to script, as a verb, is a “scratching, a scribble, a marking.” Describe comes to mind, for in that scratching, definition and articulation of idea becomes manifest — and in a...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Cool People, Designers | Apr 19, 2016
Branding Buildings | Building Brands — Aligning Typefaces With Architecture In my earlier years I lived in a neighborhood laden with architects — like when I was 12 years old, in Spokane, Washington. I lived in a MidCenturyModern house [the one at 42nd & Perry]...
by Tim Girvin | Artists, Concepts, Designers | Mar 22, 2016
Sometimes you go back to go forward There’s a noun that is oftentimes used in contemporary parlance: “creatives,” as a description for those that work in creative and maker space. It’s an interesting idea, using an adjective as a noun, but it works. I was sitting at a...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts | Jan 23, 2016
According to the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) website “The purpose of National Handwriting Day is to alert the public to the importance of handwriting. According to WIMA, National Handwriting Day is a chance for all of us to re-explore the...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Designers | Dec 10, 2015
Focusing: the Flow of Ideas, Strokes and Inspiration: Teaching Calligraphy and Designed Exploration A study of letterforms, the calligraphic drawing of educational references, paleography and alphabetic history, photographic brand boards, broadsides on rhythm and...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Cool People | Jun 6, 2015
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...
by Tim Girvin | Brands, Concepts, Cool People | May 6, 2015
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...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Retail, Storytelling | Nov 11, 2014
The Script of The Multi-Stroke Brush Lettering Old-style Grocery Signage Script When I began my career [1975,] I was a lettering artist, a sign-writer. I wasn’t a designer, I was more to a kind of tradesman. I had no idea about what design was, per se — I knew about...
by Tim Girvin | Concepts, Storytelling | Apr 22, 2014
When you draw a letter, what happens? A drawing is a drawing out; draw a letter, the string of story unspools and it’s something more. A letter is a map, an anciently originated succession of markings, a thought cartography, a seared, scarred, scratched, penned,...
by Tim Girvin | General, Human brands | Jul 9, 2013
Designing the Hand-made Letter Craft of a Human Brand What the person is, show shall his signature tell his story. The signature is a graphical amalgam of emotion, traits and experiences that craft the character of the hand, the gesticulation of time, the musculature...
