A stride at Bláskógabyggð, Suðurland, Iceland
I was questioning a brand client—and we were talking about the notion of soul, the spirit of the brand a human enterprise—and the mirroring of a human maker, and what they make in the journey of a brand. Everyone knows, if you know me, that the origins of the word soul reaches back 2500 years—and is born of the word “sea,” as in the longer everyone’s journey—across the sea of life.
Ὁ βίος βραχύς,
ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή,
ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,
ἡ δὲ πεῖρα σφαλερή,
ἡ δὲ κρίσις χαλεπή.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Vīta brevis, ars longa, occāsiō praeceps,
experīmentum perīculōsum,iūdicium difficile.
Which, in other words would be:
Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting,
experimentations perilous,and judgment difficult.
H I P P O C R A T E S | Aphorismi
What I’ve found, in any journey would he real work, sometimes, is getting out there.
When we were working with National Geographic,
one of the executives told me when that they think of “getting out there,”
they see the journey in incrementally striding tiers of time.
There’s “the two hour jump, there’s the half day, there’s the full day, and it keeps getting further and further out”—but what if your jump to get out, to know more, to get further away from where you are, to where you could be, is more like “you’re starting with a flight, and that’s nearly a day, then you’re on a bus, then a small plane—and finally you’re there.” That’s not the 12-hour marker, it’s not the 24-hour increment—it’s the 48-hr index—you’re that far out. Then you’re really out there.
While you’re looking-out, traveling the distant vista—a long road, the living of a running life [the look-out there] — the journey shall continue. And in reality, for most of us, that journey could be merely the walk of a morning, a day, a week, month or season—and the stride of years.
To that a brand’s soul journey could be short—or hundreds of years, depending on the resonance of its utility—the long-ranging usefulness and connection for one person—or generations of relationships.
The walk out there—by foot, from one sector of a place of knowing,
to another place of unknowing.
And in this new moment, knowing more.
Or standing still.
Thinking about this in the context of branding, like the soulful journey—the humanized narrative of enterprise—people make things, make ideas—they start a life and they grow and follow their own plot arc. As a brand person, you know that there is a story in the heart of brands—tell a story, and perhaps your community will make it their own story, and their own shared journey.
New Mexico, USA.
And who said it would be easy?
What we think is that the experiment and experience of getting out there, risking the potential to learn more, get out there, satisfy your curiosity and engage—learn more—is crucial to the journey. Working on brand-design-related challenges, if you think that you can get through doing your best work is by working remotely—perhaps, even never meeting your relationship in commerce: your client—it is a way of thinking about communication that is inextricably caught up in commodity-typed thinking. You are devaluing the humanity of your community and your ability to communicate.
That is:
“we don’t really need to know these people to do something
meaningfully memorable—
we can just do it.”
Yeah, right.
Not so.
The challenge is, you’re missing out—you’re losing out on “the where of people, the who of place, the how of experiencing more of the story well told.”
Of course, that changes you—since you invariably will meeting others on the road, well-traveled. And it’s every-one in that journey that counts towards experience. And in experience—the burgeoning of expertise—also two words aligned.
You have to try. Get out there further. Find more. Dig deeper. Know more.
Craft, “conscious care” in the making of anything, building the outbound relationships to people, in the truth of authentic creativity, will be fraught with failure. Tries and trials, and circumstances wrestle what was once a straight path into something of a twisted labyrinth of knotted wanders. And really, getting lost is better than simply presuming you know everything, to get out there—the delivery of design, messaging, brand results.
Try harder.
Stick to it, the trials, the trying.
Thinking about the story of living the journey of design, brand reconnaissance, tactical solutions, it can be about the struggle in finding the right path to the answer—not every answer will ever be the same; but that challenge will be [could be] in a set of failures, in getting to the next bend in the path.
Then, rightness could be found—there’s a new stairway to go: forward.
wishing well, the journey > Tim | Old Queen Anne Hill
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