While I was walking in the woods, the ancient layers told me their stories.
[Image above by Justin Kern,
altered by Dawn Clark, AIA, LEED AP]
When I was young, in NY, my parents took me to
the New York City Museum of Natural History [AMNS.]
This was a whim reaching to a noticeable interest, on my part, in small things.
A love of the Skull | Alexander McQueen
The End that is the Beginning | Brands & Death
It might be said that the idea of associating the creative essence of the late Alexander McQueen with a skull is a mistake — a slide off the backside of a brilliant man, who passed in the swirl of an astonishingly feverish, fantastical creativity — a sheer volume of work that could’ve been produced in a multiplicity of lifetimes, he did, in one.
Courtesy of Alexander McQueen. Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce
Designing new worlds | The Launch of Trion + SyFy’s Defiance
Building brand identity around story, environment and experience
The design of a gaming world is a multiple year commitment, and a spectacular investment — especially when the notion of a gaming world coincides with the conception. Some never make it, fueling out funds with massive teams committed to building those worlds. We’ve been caught up in those burn downs,
when we’ve not been, as they say, “watchful.”
The Dark Portal of Design | Star Trek Two
Star Trek Two
Working in the motion picture business, as a designer for theatrical advertising, the potential of working comes from making introductions, reaching out: connecting.
It’s always a journey, the explorations, the examinations, the labyrinths of
time, talent and story, that bring us together
to new layers of that pathway,
crossing-stones to the fluency of creativity.
Exploring the heart and soul of brand, story and personality
There’s a journey in getting to the heart of brand, and in a manner, it will be about finding the light that lies at the end of that voyage, or in the center of that conclave.
I’m always looking for Light.
And the people that make it, have it, and illuminate others.
In the proposition of brand, the metaphor of light can be an expression of inspiration.
Thinking about it, what’s an inspired brand?
Inspiration might suggest the notion of
breath – the inhalation, the exhalation of ideas, principles, directions and visions.
My inspired brands are:
uniqlo — holistically, an inquisitive and persistently exploring brand + story + retailer. Girvin notes.
Cirque would be another — in its range, the very offering in entertainment might be inspiring others. Work, that space.
Malle would be another inspired brand — mostly to the take that his work, Frederic Malle, spectacularly modest as he offers, is about celebrating the work of others, in the editorial range of perfume. Our stories offer these intimations.
Locally, I’m inspired by Blackbird and Nicole Miller. Courage, she has.
Seeking the Wisdom of The Sage, the Leader of the Brand
In any journey,
you’ll go further if you go to the heart,
the center, the fire of the leadership chamber –
it is about the path to knowledge.
When you work on,
or inside,
a brand,
when you take a journey to learn, to explore,
how far do you go?
How deep?
GOING FOR THE HEART, THE HEAT OF BRAND
Exploring brand culture, in a circumspect study
I was talking to a client about getting into a place –
“when you’re in, what do you see, what do you sense?”
And the implications to brand, strategy and the target
It’s been noted that, with the avid consumption and viewership of everything Jennifer Lawrence, the “Hunger Games” and Jeremy Renner’s rendering of “The Avengers” Hawkeye as a bow-wielding defender of the good, there is a return to the hipness of archery. Still, an ancient weapon — and one imbued with symbolic character that wasn’t lost on
poets and philosophers thousands of years ago.
The Power of Touch in Reimagining the book:
“Ink on Paper – design & concepts for new publications”
The Book as Sensate Storyteller
It’s been said that the book is the most perfectly designed object for “reading.”
That is according to earlier conversations with book and type design legend,
Bill Hill,
typographic theorist and book / tablet
reading and UX scholar at Microsoft,
then an explorer on his own, before his untimely passage in 2012.
Menus, the calling card of brand storytelling: restaurants
Menu design as a core element
of legend-making in
crafting food & beverage experiences
A friend sent these along to me, and I’m not sure where they came from, what collection. Apologetic for not defining their provenance.
But it reminded me of another missive, from another friend that I’ve seen, just last night.
