Packaging Arts in Asia, the Furoshiki
A Journey in Design Explorations. When I first went to Japan to present my work as a designer, I was advised that I should be bringing gifts, and that I should offer the greeting--introducing myself, as well as the offer. This went like this, Hajimemashite, Tim Gabin...
GIRVIN’s Ideator® Naming and New Brand Development Toolbox
GIRVIN’s Ideator® Naming program came into being with Garden Botanika, the first process-driven naming solution created by Tim Girvin and his team. This led to 18 stores that GIRVIN designed for Garden Botanika and more than 400 SKUs, organized in channel groups,...
Humanized Technology with GIRVIN’s Soul Branding
The GIRVIN | Strategic Branding & Design team have a long history in creating pathways to humanize the strategic impressions—and tactical outcomes, in technology brand experience—for enterprise employees, community relationships and customers. In a legacy of...
GIRVIN’s BrandQuest® | Workshopping Brands Since 1994
Solving brand challenges in a collaborative innovation summit I created the first BrandQuest® a registered IP for GIRVIN in the request of an unusual challenge by a team from IBM, fronted by Nobuo Mii in 1993—a mission to build a microprocessor-powered personal...
Hand-drawn fonts | A custom type face for the icon | Tim Girvin’s Wanderer
Most people know my notes, and my personal icon, the Wanderer Since 1999, I’ve had a relationship with the metaphor of a path chosen in a wandering, winding, wended pathway, a quest for answers and insights that is particular to a non-linear way of thinking—rather...
Letters from an Eagle Scout
Notes on scouting and the meaning of the Eagle Scout legacy. Sure, some of you are Eagle Scouts—you know the drill, the years of Scout journeying, 30-milers, 50-milers, growth in the transitioning from Tenderfoot beginnings, Second Class, First Class, the move to...
Designing for Clint Eastwood
It’s been an intriguing pleasure working at the behest of theatrical “stars.” Surely, thinking about it—acting, or directing, is a complex expectation— the hours are demanding, the scale of the commitment is enormous, the creative expansiveness is deep. During...
GIRVIN’s Snow White | A First Time Movie Poster for Disney
Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All? Any study of this film’s current premise and promotion, the pitch and proposition— critical notes from the social community—might be up for a overload of remarkably acidic commentary. People, apparently, are...
Bespoke Books and Calligraphic Font Design
Above, speaking of scripts, a Girvin stylistic expression: a broadly splayed opening capital, a hairline accentuation, a strike stroke from the opening character in its initiation, a bounced baseline and jumped x-height, an unexpected ligature, widely varied pen...
Brand Design and the Game of Chess
The study of moves on the board. I was talking to a client about chess strategy, the moves, the personality of the players—the tactical delicacy of the moves. Are there archetypes in the game? Yes, player archetypes. First off, the legacy of the game is roughly 1400...