Alphabetica Geometrica | Designing Fonts on The Premise of Geometric Perfection
The Scribbling of Design Theorems — Drafting With Navigational Instruments The word scribe to script, as a verb, is a “scratching, a scribble, a marking.” Describe comes to mind, for in that scratching, definition and articulation of idea becomes manifest — and in a...
THE SCENT OF WOOD: THE ART OF SPLIT TIMBER
AND THE PERFUME OF ITS MAKING THE DARK RESINS OF FIRE AND WOOD — AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF PITCH, BURNING, ASH AND THE INCENSED DUST OF FRAGRANCE. I live and dream in the forest — an old sitka grove out on the coast, washed in fog from the sea. Perfume is a way of...
BRAND REACTIVITY: THE INTUITIVE RESPONSE IN INSTINCTUAL RECOGNITION IN BRAND STRATEGY
HOW’S THAT FEEL? Girvin BRAND REACTIVITY: THE INTUITIVE RESPONSE IN INSTINCTUAL RECOGNITION IN BRAND STRATEGY THESE ARE THE DAYS OF EXPERIMENTS: EVERYWHERE, EVERYTIME. AND GREAT IDEAS, INSPIRATIONS, AND ANSWERS — COUPLED WITH THE WISDOM OF EXPERIENCE — CAN CLICK IN AN...
THE LEAP, THE JUMP TO RISK
THE LEAP, THE JUMP TO RISK The Grand Canyon There is a path of the straight and narrow. And there is a path of an unexpected roadway. You can take either, depending on your expectation of outcome. There is an easy way, and there is another, that breaks the normal...
Flint and Spark: Branded Enterprises that Flame on!
FLINT + SPARK = FLAME ON! THE ETYMOLOGY OF BRAND, INNOVATION, CULTURE + FIRE BRANDFIRE | THE ENTERPRISES THAT ARE FIRED BY PASSION As a designer, presuming strategic intention, the practice of designing — buildings, print, objects — is never about what’s on the...
EARTH MADE HARD
WALKING THE LONG WAY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY MEDITATIONS ON YOU AND YOUR EARTH. Each of us has a relationship to the Earth, what we know of her, how we’ve traveled her pathways, what doors we might have seen and how, perhaps, we have opened them....
LISTENING TO A ZEN MASTER
ROSHI HARADA SHODO THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF STORYTELLING IS LISTENING. Sometime back, I drove up to Mukilteo, took the ferry across to Whidbey Island, and at 3.00pm had tea with the Zen Master, Sōgenji Abbot, Roshi Harada Shodo. I had been introduced to him at a...
BRAND MAGIC: DESIGNING SIGILS, SIGNETS AND SYMBOLS
Design as a Transportive Tool ––––––– We’ve talked about sigils. Most of you might know about the sigil as a House Seal in the Game of Thrones. And I’ve written long about them — the sigil, the signal, the signature, the signing. The seal and the signet. I reach back...
YVES SAINT LAURENT: A JOURNEY OF DESIGN, SOUL BRAND, STORY AND RETAIL RETELLING
There is a time, in the momentum of a moment, when a cycle returns; there is a flash of discovery, and that patterning of illumination returns, when your journey, as experiencer cycles back to reveal itself again to the watchful — what goes around, comes around. But,...
THE METAPHOR OF THE WAVE: SURFING AND BRAND STRATEGY
THE ALLEGORY OF THE DEEP WAVE, THE WATCH, THE BOARD, THE TREND AND THE CURL. Some know that I have a persistent fascination — an engagement — with large expressions of salt water and where she comes from — the Deep Sea. My first exposure to waves was when I was about...