The Scent of a Woman, Imagined

The Imagination of Designing Fragrance Perfume is a storytelling — it’s a layering of tellings that translate to the alchemy of ingredients. Woods, resins, tinctures of flowers, aromatic leaves, natural ingredients, all combine to build a story that allows...

Flow

Optimizing Experience. In the management of any project, when there is the feeling of all-open creativity, everything’s working, all systems are go, communications are excellent. How does that happen? • First off — the link to the client side. Clear...

The doorway

The Opening of the Next Portal I went through the door from the darkened interior to the light. There is some historical significance to the door — I think of every door step as a metaphorical movement. The door is a symbol, like a window. It’s a movement...

Are You Here Yet?

Hereness, Thereness, Whereness? Or are you a way? In the meditations on way-finding, finding a way, and designing experiences to help people to find their way, there is a point to which you ponder “am I lost? Or have I found my way?” There is an alignment...

The Stage of a Journey: Rest

Meditations on Respite I was thinking about a remark from Tom Ford, that, to him, the greatest luxury is “sleep.” According to Dawn Mello — in a dinner conversation with her and her pal, Dawn A. Clark — when she was working with Tom Ford, at...

I’m Okay, You’re OK.

What is Okay, anyway? I was thinking about the notion of OK, what’s that mean, really? The state of Okayness seems mediocre — it’s a condition where things are simply “all right,” alright. All is right? What’s rightness, a place of...

The Sound and the Fury

The Acoustical Messages of Place In my study of experience narrative design and the experiencer in place — for me and for others — I ponder the notion of sound. As a designer of places to be, to tell stories, to share ideas and products, to evoke comfort,...