The Dark Force | The Return of Myth in Brand Design
Exploring the concept of an emerging dark luster in design, it might be more so about the exhausting confusion and difficulties of the present market -- and the swirling chaos of the near future. What's happening now? Is the end nigh? Or night, near? What is wrong...
Buzzing, twittering, twitching | New media community
Buzzing, twittering, twitching: Exploring community development in online new media launches. When I was at TED | Aspen, last month, I found myself in a world of people -- my age and younger, late 30s, 40s, 50s -- who were communicating with each other in interesting,...
Exploring identity: Stop-Loss | Kimberly Peirce
Girvin worked on the identity design for a new Peirce | Paramount Studios + MTV film. Kimberly Peirce is remarkably patient. It's been nearly 10 years since her last effort, "Boys Don't Cry", shown here, in the center, with her stars, Chloë Sevigny and double Oscar®...
Koolhaas | Generic architecture and the spirit of place
Rem Koolhaas A new vision in Dubai is an amalgam of the plain with the bold -- OMA & Rem Koolhaas "Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas revealed his concept of “the generic city,” a sprawling metropolis of repetitive buildings centered on an airport and inhabited by a...
Finding the heart and soul of Starbucks
Store one: Pike Place Market: It's clear that Howard Schultz is loved, given the rousing support he received at the shareholder's conference, this past week in Seattle. Even k.d. lang was there, savoring the melange of several thousand people, singing out. But what's...
Modernism | Decoration and patterning in placemaking
For a number of years, I've been exploring the idea of patterning in design. Patterning in brand, patterning in architecture, patterned treatments in art. That ranges from the idea of using layering -- and pattern -- as a kind of subdued code in branded applications:...
Frida Giannini | Gucci NYC | Strategic retail designer?
Gucci before, above -- and now, Gucci anew: Been here: blog.girvin.com/?p=323 I've been studying, though not buying, the work of Frida Giannini. I've heard she's an interesting person. I reached to her. Wrote about some ideas and never heard from her. I'm not sure...
Yves Saint Laurent | St. Sulpice, Paris
I was favored with the opportunity to partner with the leadership of Yves Saint Laurent | North America in the development of a brand retail strategy for their flagship store, to be rolled out nationally. How done? We used Girvin's proprietary BrandQuest® methodology...
Scent, Memory, Package | The Perfumed Equation
Everything smells. Every thing -- scents. There are layers to scent in experience. It's all about what you remember, what you hold -- what scene, seen? What there was, in experience, that lent you to some level of exposure. That recalls -- that calls, you back home to...
Wired Magazine | Part 3: Chris Anderson | Free!
I'd been prepping myself to connect with Chris Anderson, since I'd worked remotely on the cover. Seattle | San Francisco | NYC. I keep jumping. The work's there -- I work anywhere that I need to. Find something, work on it. Go there. Nice person, Chris Anderson is,...