The Pursuit of Designed Magic
The Letter form and the Design of Talismans Over the past several months, I've been talking to a younger person about the idea of the place of magic in a sub-current of popular culture [Supernatural;] in a manner, the interest in magic is an ever-popular sentiment of...
The love of Science
The love of Science, especially explosive science. Exploring the home laboratory Over the Christmas break, I was talking with family about my earlier days of exploring fire, chemistry and explosives. The key to any learning is about being close into it -- closely...
SERIOUS
REAL SERIOUS -- AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? Someone said, "this is real serious" and I contemplated that, the meaning. Looking at words, I wonder, what does that really mean? Seriously. What it comes back to, etymologically, is "weight." "That's heavy"...
The Restaurant for Guillermo Del Toro | Gitane, San Francisco
The Restaurant for Guillermo Del Toro The Vibe of Gitane, San Francisco Spending time studying the production design sketches of writer, visual stylist and cinematic director Guillermo Del Toro suggests a certain "spanish" visualization that moves from the gracefully...
Restaurant naming and positioning strategies
Building a brand around legacy and re-integrating authenticity in brand storytelling. I first met Jeff Chandler, speaking in a string of workshops for "young presidents [YPO] and executives on the notion of the "humanity" of brands, building brands around humans. That...
The Layering of Patterning
Retail Brand Language: The Layering of Patterning. The design language of brand patterning. Brand patterning, psychic patterning -- the hidden and the obvious messaging of place-making and experience, designed. I was watching some people in a place, and watching how...
Wellness, windowed
Windows as the Eyes of the Soul of Wellness The tradition of windows in the merchandising of ideas. At the street level, a building's windows are, in a manner, the eyes and soul of the bridge between the heart of the building, its occupants and the brand that might be...
S P I R I T S & D I S S O L U T I O N
Fire & Water Isn't it so that the making of spirit -- the ethanol-effused outcomes of herbal, vegetal, fruit-based titration and filtration -- the quintessential search for the soul of boosted and intense flavoring -- is one of perpetual dissolving [dissolution?]...
Meditations on Manners
When I was in Bhutan, high in the misted Himalayan mountains, I'd spied a remote monastery and spoke to my guide, Tsewang Nidup about "getting up there." We did get up there, like nearly every other lonely vista we aspired to summit -- centuries-old crag-balanced...
The strategy of the menu — designing storytelling and brand experience: the starting point.
How to plan and design a menu? Key is close collaboration -- and knowing the diner, the experience strategy, the character of illumination, stylistic consciousness, and the budgeting of items in relation to the financial strategy of the brand. A menu, like the...