Of course, as a brand person, a place-maker—as you are—we’re thinking: “if you’re not here, and not over there, then where are you? Do you know where you are? Or are you nowhere?”
I’ve been talking A LOT about placemaking—and planning spaces, making places—since I’m walking around the edge of a move of one GIRVIN brand
space to another GIRVIN brand place. Creating our own brand
storytelling in place.
These moments—the legacy of 50 years of movement—of course, tend to be contemplative, since any moment is imbued with meaning. Where was I, where was GIRVIN, and where am I now, since…
And I think—let’s see—since I started out, GIRVIN began on Murray Court Road, off Cooper Point, Olympia, WA, and next—Bainbridge Island—Winslow, WA; then the Maritime building on the Seattle waterfront—the 3 spaces there, then Elements with Steve Darland, Gerald Kumata Architects, Anne Fisher Interiors, and teams at the NWIndustrial Building, then the 2nd+Pine Building, Broadacres—two spaces. And next 121 Stewart and various offices in 3131 Western, not discounting two office locations in Manhattan, a partnership location in alliance in Roppongi, Tokyo; and all in, that’s 15 environments.
There are two ways to be thinking about it—one, what could this possibly mean in relationship to branding? There’s a simple answer there, if you’re running an enterprise, the brand exists in a place—be it digital or built—but in the minds of the consumer, it’s a place, it’s conceived of as a idealized, even imagined environment. Think about it, a brand that you know—“just where is that brand located, what’s it like there, what kind of environment are they situated in, ‘where do they live?’“
I consider, VF Corp—a modern campus; I recall my visit to Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, NYC—in a warehouse near the Upper NY Bay, Brooklyn, and I visualize Estée Lauder, a string of corporate floors off Central Park and 5th Avenue, Johnson&Johnson Innovation & Design HQ, south of Hell’s Kitchen.
Whether you’ve been to these, or any other brand that you know—you might’ve been there, or perhaps not—but real or imagined, they are a place, a built environment, or a pixelated narrative.
And two—where the brand is in time, its history, a storytelling legacy,
community relationships, fiscal character, growth and evolution?
There’s the place of a brand in built place-making,
and digital place context, and finally, its synchronic location.
Moving out there in the wide horizon, contemplating brand
and messaging, I’m looking for signs.
I was on a New Mexican journey to a Monastery in the Desert,
crossing the state.
On the way there, I saw a sign—
running of a far-off road, out the route of a road with no-end, on a with a view beyond to the mesa of the south.
I was struck by this sign, which seemed to be saying—“here: there’s something to be seen.”
But the sign was so old, there wasn’t any writing—it was blank, its writing was long lost in the sun, wind, rain and snow out there.
It was a remote and lonely—surrounded in the silent majesty of the distant pasture, mesas, desert and scrub lands.
I’m compelled by—and attracted to document—signs that have nothing to say. I seek them out. Signs of nothingness. It’s a good metaphor for having something to say, or nothing to say—which is the branding query, core to GIRVIN’s BrandQuest®.
As I’ve pointed out, there is a story in a story—the teller, the listener and
the retelling of the recanted tale. And there is a sign in a sign.
There is the message of the sign, the way and place of a sign—and: a blank sign in an important place can say something as well—its very silence could be pointing in a direction.
You’re here. You could be there.
You could be no where.
Same with a brand—it’s here, it’s there; or it’s nowhere. It needs to be, to have, to create a place for its being.
The sign asks: “you’re looking at me like you think I know where to go. But you’re the one looking at me, this sign—
and the question would be: where would you like to go?”
“I’d like to go that way.”
Or someplace quieter than here.
The point of the message might—to the pointing nature of “the sign”,
brand or otherwise—be interpreted as answering the question
“what’s here?”
Nothing is here. Oh yes, there is something, but you’ll have to find it.
“it’s not to be told, it’s for you to see it, sign it, your self.”
This sign points to what, for you? The sign of your brand—what’s it saying, where is it pointing, directing a narrative, an approach?
As you think about the brand and its place, what is the sign for the visitor. It might be, “look out, there.”
Seeing it, that was my recollection—this sign is nowhere, but it’s saying something, by the fact that it says nothing.
And the apex of this telling would be—when you see a sign, there’s more to it. Like a story, there’s more to it.
t | roving on a New Mexican contemplative journey
TIM | The Long Branding Road
….
We can help with the signs, finding them, and what they say, where they point.
GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
Digital | Built environments by Osean | Theatrical Branding
Projects in strategy | story | naming | messaging | print
identity | built environments | packaging
social media | websites | interactive
Finding and making signs for Pearl.
