Brand Groves | Allegorical Brand Strategies and Symbolic Thinking
Anyone can think symbolically—and likely, we all do. You see something and think, "that reminds me of a…” Living in a creative space, the memory palace of explorations, memories and meaning—the imagination swerves to new pathways, neural leaps to stringing ideas...
Branding Crime Stoppers | Design Against Criminals
The world of brand extends to crime-fighting. In our history, we’ve consulted for various police agencies, patrol and security groups, building brands around protection of assets, people and their communities. It takes a particularly assertive sense of...
The View from Below And Perspectives of the Sky Rim
Dome Symbolism, kinæsthetic CX design strategies The View from Below and Perspectives of the Sky Rim I’ve been to three places where the architecture of the ground—the footprint of the structure—is remarkable, but the study of the built sky above it is far more...
The Leap of Imagination | Brands, Change, Fear and Risk
The leap of adventure in the movement of brands, spirit, soul and destinations— the risk to get out there, go further, get farther. In a recent set of GIRVIN brand soul summits, brandquest® workshops [how we work to get somewhere new as a team-based collaborative...
Keep Your Brand on a Swivel and Watch Your Six
The Nine Gates of Brand Intelligence In the long watch of the brand shepherd, steward and sentinel— it’s important to consider a 360º surveillance of territories. In a kind of mirrored language, it shall be called outlook and look out. If you visualize your brand as a...
Holistic Brand Design for Hospitality | A Guide to Placemaking
Spherical Design Holism for Hospitality | A Manual for Brand Placemaking Integration for Experiential Strategies and Tactics The Deployment of *Experientiality Earlier in my career, I worked on a string of projects for Disney, working with the Disney Imagineers and...
The Long Route | Getting Out There To The Brand New World
A stride at Bláskógabyggð, Suðurland, Iceland I was questioning a brand client—and we were talking about the notion of soul, the spirit of the brand a human enterprise—and the mirroring of a human maker, and what they make in the journey of a brand. Everyone knows, if...
The Fall Guy | The Metaphor of Failure
I was listening to a podcast by David Duchovny the proverbial Fox Mulder of the X-files--on failure. As he notes in his overview—a summary of his podcast— “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Duchovny recites to WPR’s host Doug...
Symbolic Placemaking Strategies in Experiential Design
As you walk a journey—there are symbols in the path of your stride. As a person that has history in building places, thinking design in destinations, I tend to think about everything as a migration of symbolic content. Surely, simply, contemplate walking in a door—you...
Be Brave | The Character of Courage
The interplays in life, heartfulness and the courageous spirit. Thinking about the heart—and life journeys—in talking to my mother; we were walking the idea of courage. People, friends, family—they come and go—as we all do; it’s one in a string of challenges that we...