The Art of the Nomen | Brand Strategy, Naming and Innovation
Your name is your apex point of recognition—it’s the first thing that your audience sees and hears—it’s the hello: “my name is, here’s what I do. And here’s what I can do for you.” We know naming. GIRVIN has a quarter century of active naming experience, with a...
Listening With The Eyes | Seeing With The Ears, The Art of Curiosity
Exploring Observations: Curiosity in Conversations. Asking Questions in the Quest for Creative Answers. I, like my brothers, Mom and Dad, like to ask questions of people—to learn more about who they are. Talking to an elder shopkeeper, learning from her as to where...
Partnering with John Jay, Bloomingdale’s, Retail Design Programs, and Campaign Thematics
The Art of the Shopping Bag It was a reminder from friend Steve Heller, the Design Editor in Chief at Print Magazine, that recalled the legacy of former Bloomingdale’s Chief Creative Officer, John Jay— in the following notation from the Magazine: “Jay’s bags also...
Illustrative Brand Transitioning: The Walking Dead | Years in Evolutionary Design Strategy
Some observations on the strategy of illustrative brand identity transitioning. I know this is a reach for many of you—as a watcher of the series— but it’s the season, so a reference: happy halloween. Perhaps also likely, you wouldn’t be caught “dead” watching any...
Scare Tactics | Designing Fright Brands for Clive Barker, John Carpenter, Tim Burton, Wes Craven and Tony Scott
How to build brand storytelling for terrifying design narratives Clive Barker It was roughly 40 years ago that I read Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood,” which struck me as a remarkably distinctive turn on the horrifying—as expertly fear-inducing storytelling. Stephen...
The Pace Of Things | Speed Down, Slow Up. The Road And The Drive
Highway 109 In the pace of the work that we’re all engaged in—for my readership, brand marketing space—I offer a meditation on the concepts of speed and pace—in the relationship with projects, and anyone, anywhere, anyplace. A question—observing conversations, “do you...
From The Grounds Up | GIRVIN’s Coffee Brands | Caffeinated Brand Storytelling
With our coming into 50 years of continuous involvement in brand strategy and integrated design— and as coffee connoisseurs—we’ve savored this brewed beverage all over the world, from Seattle to NYC—Maui too, LA to Vancouver, Java and Bali. We’ve studied coffee...
Bespoke Identity & Hand-Crafted Brands | A Legacy of GIRVIN’s Wine Work
GIRVIN’s 50 years old—speaking of finely-aged, so we have history, and it runs back to wines that we’ve produced ourselves, gifted wines and wine brands we’ve built for enterprises in the US, Asia and Canada. Wines are, as everyone knows, particularly challenging...
Talking about you, GIRVIN’s Premise of Deep Branding | Part III
Talking about you—Personal Journeys, Discovery, Creativity and Making It’s about the work—the work that you’re doing, and what you’re thinking about the work that you’re doing. As a practitioner of brand thinking, strategy and design since 1973, I’ve been thinking...
Talking about you, GIRVIN’s Premise of Human Brands | Part II
In case you’ve missed it, check out “talking about you” from last week’s entry. This blog is built out of one of a series of talks I’ve given on equating brand, enterprise strategy and human-based characteristics. It’s a pretty simple premise. Brands are made by...