There’s a story in a story, a strategy inside a design, a psychic layering in the intention of the reach-out to community.
Any good brandwork lives in the deeper, psychic space of fluency
in visual and written narrative. There is a persuasive intention.
Isn’t branding a kind of psyops?
We persuade. We change. We influence. We are working around the conception of illustrating a story, or a—in this blog—certain trail of cinematic storytelling.
As a strategic branding design agency, how does one design visualized storytelling of cloaked, political crimes and thematic secrecy and shadowy espionage—secret agencies on a hidden mission.
I’ve read many movie scripts of this storytelling type in manifold variations. And each is a kind of psyops, an influential persuasion in captivating storytelling and portrayal.
It’s about changing perception and embracement. In GIRVIN’s theatrical branding history such is the sequence—go deep, study the incoming swells, surveil the horizon and ride the wave of the ideals to the shore. Surfing.
We’ve studied the legacy of brand strategy and design for secretive, albeit protective agencies, worldwide,
as in: this GIRVIN overview. But, in many instances as we know,
they operate in dark spaces, frequently and opaque.
I started earlier in my legacy of visualizing this type of plot line,
designing narrative—if not theatrical brands—speaking towards spy work,
secret intelligence, hidden agendas and shadowy litanies.
Some examples:
GIRVIN’s brand logo development effort crossed to Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, leadership at the CIA and the nation-driven entanglement and the nuclear nature of “The Sum of All Fears,” designed to push an implacable, assaultive attempt and a jump to the thriller’s edge.
As well as our logo design contributions to “Clear and Present Danger”
—also Jack Ryan.
And GIRVIN’s brand logo renderings for Clint Eastwood’s
Secret Service portrayal “In The Line of Fire.”
That speaks, too, to the underlayment—this time elegantly “corporately elegant”—of our
brand stylings for “The Firm,” corporate, manipulative and surveillant power
which walks the street of counterintelligence in
our logo for “K-19 | The Widow Maker,”
and the shadowy super agency of a PTSD-affliected
rogue operative in our logo for “The Hunted.”
The GIRVIN strategies of style
in the political concealment of “Jade.”—
Our logo sprawling their murderous entanglements;
And the ultimate committee of contra crime, a packed classical
custom font work for our logo rendering of—“The Untouchables,”
And a similar lockup in my
redrawn Bodoni rendering, upscale and suspicious—
the dangerous, familial legacies of interlaid criminality,
GIRVIN’s logo for
“Good Fellas.”
Speaking of psyops, the criminal surveillance of “Sliver,” another GIRVIN hyper-classical custom font—
with an impaled spear.
And of spy craft and espionage, we have long history, 1996, in setting the stylistic orientation
starting with our first efforts with Cruise and Paramount—the early group of films–
we designed core logo typographic brand genetics of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
What it all comes down to is the storytelling of an identity package that packs the compressed power of a complex narrative experience. People read—and the logo becomes a nexus for that storytelling reach-out.
To the touchpoint principles of psyops—visual readings and graphical nuances—
the message expresses the influences of change-making and persuasive commitment to a new view.
Influence.
Change.
Persuade.
The counterpoint of a visual campaign, oftentimes, lies in the
targeting reach-out of the typographical rendering
of the logotypography which speaks
to the gravity of intention, traction and captivation.
And the deep thrill of the new vista.
Back then, they thought that way—now: they think our way.
Working in this brand space, and in this line of the raconteur’s art,
I was studying another “brand storytelling.”
What about storytelling “war”?
Speaking towards the darker side of warfare—and our history in designing logo storytelling graphics that relate
to this place—of PsyOps—the nature of influence and counter-“intelligence.”
There’s a US Army produced video that, in a rather spooky way, depicts their mission, and in this, a
vividly artful portrayal of the nature of influence and deception, and it reminds me of the dozens of scripts I’ve read
for movie theatrical design efforts: global crime, political skullduggery, underhanded legal maneuvers,
and deception peddling.
In our work, we’re always looking at brands as soulful enterprises, there’s a story in the story, there’s
a psychical layering—reaching deeper into the emotionality of being, soulfulness, and the narratives that unfold.
And what’s remembered? What captivates traction, recollection and change?
A compelling story.
The branding of psyops, and the psychological
implications of strategic brand work—they interplay.
In this study, I later noted a story in Military Times by Marine Veteran, Rachel Nostrant
that asks the reflective metaphorical query in the PSYOPS training trailer towards,
itself, a psyops operation—who’s beguiling who? Who’s pulling the strings?
The trailer is a psyoperational employment pitch that has
a holistic theatrical riff to it, with mysterious whistling, a dreamy vocal soundtrack and a
smoky undertone to its narrator.
As Rachel intones,
“The Army released a new recruiting video for its psychological operations career field this month
that can be best described as a psychological thriller movie trailer made by a conspiracy theorist with a Cold War fascination.
The video kicks off with a quote from Sun Tzu’s Art of War and cyclically transitions from footage of modern-day cities, a forest and a black-and-white cartoon, to 20th Century conflicts and speeches all tied together under the concept of being ‘a ghost.’”
Anyone who knows my own martial history, knows of my draft status in the call to enlist for the Vietnam War—and would wonder, why would I know about this? As a son of a captain of Surgery in the US Army, with family members and friends, as well as clients—in, or from—military operations. I watch, I listen, I remember, I create.
I follow Stars & Stripes, the Military Times, Early Bird Brief, Veteran candidates, and given the current state of affairs in the current political milieu—it’s worth paying attention. Being a designer, I look around a lot—
my journey is constantly catalyzed by curiosity.
As a brand-specific strategist and chief creative officer at GIRVIN, I’m constantly looking at how stories are positioning themselves in the landscape of marketing narratives, the arc of their plot lines, and the tactics of their depictions.
In case you missed the link, take three minutes.
Some screen capture observations:
Message and brand first.
Drawn to premise.
This speaks to integrative action, storytelling tiers, visuals and intermixtures of messages and sound, woven together.
In the work of our branding, you and I, my teams, your products—
it does come back to that core question: “what’s memorable?”
What is the work that we’re doing that is unforgettable
in the eyes, mind and memory of the beholder?
That would be: “change, influence, persuade.” Which happens to be the positioning motto of the PSYOPS division of the USArmy. As Rachel notes, “it’s also hard not to view this PSYOPS recruiting video itself as a bit of a PSYOP aimed at an overseas audience.”
Tim Girvin | Strategic Maker of Marks | Queen Anne Studios
GIRVIN | Strategic Design
Theatrical Branding + Movie Identity
And, as a finish, a gesture to “we, the people,” in a poster
I designed for Stan Richards, the founder
of “the Richards Group,” now TRG, Dallas TX
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