The love of Robert Irwin
The sense of place, design, imagination and spectacle. The seeing eye, touching place, designed inspiration of Robert Irwin Earlier in my life, I was on the COCA team that ideated bringing James Turrell to Seattle -- decades before, "seeing the light inside"-- his...
1201 Third, Branding buildings, building brands [and selling them]
Signing [and storytelling] buildings = building brand, branding buildings: Designing customized retellings of the principle of buildings, their architecture and way finding. And selling them. Earlier, in our legacy, opening forays into signing systems, we worked with...
Brand Evolutions | Wendy’s
Quickshift: the value of fast change Speed of change counts, there is surprise value in accelerated shifting from one modeling to another. Working with the teams at Starbucks, learning from their move to the next, the new -- the effort was rarely casual; usually...
How would you improve life in NYC?
Doing good, as a contributor to community, in design -- could be "helping me, helping you." How would you improve life in NYC? How can you help? Anywhere? As a pro bono designer? There's nothing [as it seems to me, these days] as challenging as the balance between the...
Who is the Mayor of Mars?
Curiosity, where are you? Are you the Mayor of Mars? Yes -- to the Mayorship. But to the geo-synchronism of FourSquare, the point might be journey, story, relevance and place. I'm here. I'm there. I'm no where. Mars Curiosity at Gale Crater Became mayor! 1 hour ago...
The Deep Scent: Alcoholic Spirits, Perfume, and Distilled Essences
The perfume of booze: strategy, story, packaging Partnering in Paris, Tokyo and NYC with Pierre Dinand, we talked about -- and worked together on -- the idea of enchanted containment, ideating iconic containers of concretized, luxurious value as being a symbolic, even...
Jimmy Jane & Fluke Corporation
Cross promoting brand disparity in new conceptual alignment Frankly, knowing the leadership at Fluke Corporation, I can't imagine that they saw, or were offered a comment on the use of their video promoting vibration sensing for a grouping of exceptionally well...
Tom Ford, James Bond and Design
Theatrical design, costumery and captivation Who's the man? There's always been a supreme masculinity in the legacy of the mythic, Ian Fleming archetypal character and the theatrical playing power of James Bond - perhaps never better evidenced that in the persona of...
The power of graphically reorganizing and mapping information
Rethinking how ideas are shared The explanation of ideals, mapped in a navigation of content. "Where am I going, how will I get there -- being lost, I don't "get where I am" -- "having a map, with information, I have a map, a visualization of way, found." It might be...
Working with Steve Jobs
The design strategy of simplification A friend, Stuart Balcomb, a musician and composer in Venice, California, reminded me of something, to design -- and Steve Jobs. I worked as a consultant to Apple, at the behest of Steve Jobs in the late 70s, early 80s. I met him...