Stories, myths, legends, tales—the link to humanity
If there’s a story
about a person,
which might be
a legacy,
as in a family.
It could be a product—a brand—and the perennial GIRVIN question would be: what’s the story, who’s telling it, who is this story for, what’s it sound like, feel like, and most critically—who cares?
There are chains, coils, rings that sync and bridge the connections of one to the many—they synchronize a gravity, a pull, traction in the telling. It’s a device of propulsion—it moves the viewer, the reader, from one place to another. Starting the narrative, the experiencer is in one place, then reviewing, they are transported to another plane of perceived place. And this comes back to the metaphor of the chain, interlaced, there are narratives inside stories—a weaving of moments, memories and their momentum carrying forward the ideas and ideals.
The viewer is taken someplace else—a new arrival in the intermingled layers of the storytelling. But in the meditations on the work that we do—the poetry of it—the practice of creating things that connect people, we’re constantly thinking about how those alchemical attachments and those stamped amalgams work. Where is the linkage, the glue? And in the work, brandspace, one link leads to another, one story reaches out—one to one—one to one billion. A proverbial chainmail.
As a designer, in making things that link people together, that admixture is a chainmail, a hammering of many rings that form the new idea—or the story that could be for just one person. That one person — in the chained linkage — holds that story like the ringlet of the personal place that rings round them. From this ring — the personal space, the circle around the person—there are places of touch that connect one to another.
That story could be just for one person—and they hold it, in their own way—and they relate to it, carry it, the telling becomes theirs. In the chain allegory, eventually there will be a retelling—the chained cable holds taut. The legend becomes a telling that is held by the many. That myth spreads generations of experience and knowing—and the yarn is spooled as a mystery, one to another, later, know one version of the story that has been recounted in multiplicity.
It’s theirs now.
Like a brand,
“I am this product, the product is me, I carry the brandstory well-told as my own.
It’s my life, and this product is part of my life, it’s my story.”
For you, what would that be? People have told me, their special, heartfelt “link” to a product would be:
A Spalding baseball glove. Or personally, an Andy Spade messenger bag—a Million-miler carry-along. The Black and White Led Zeppelin album—in the original vinyl. Disneyland—first time, all the time. That perpetually durable, reliable and well-worn Nike FIFA regulation soccer ball.
What about you, what’s your link?
The Etymology of the Link
Any link will be about the strength of that connection—strong links last.
Link is an ancient telling. I go back.
Recounting the word, as an allegory of connection, begins at the bridge to the English language in the middle of the 15th century, “one of a series of rings or loops which form a chain.” It’s been suggested that this is derived probably from Old Norse *hlenkr (and by comparison — Old Swedish lænker “chain, link,” Norwegian — lenke, the Danish lænke). But the beginnings might be Proto Germanic — *khlankijaz (as in the German — lenken “to bend, turn, lead,” or gelenk “articulation, joint, link,” and later, the Old English —hlencan (pl.) “armor”). The most ancient seed for the word sound comes from the mist of the Proto Indo European lexicon — the base: *qleng– “to bend.” The word group — missing link — between man and apes dates to 1880.
The point of the study is the meaning behind the meaning. And being designers, strategists, writers and those that reach into the ephemeral bridge between emotionality and conscious choice the character of the deeper meaning of words will transcend time and create links between foundational ideas and the inspirations of their evolvements.
The allegory of the link — even in the context of the ringing of armor — relates to the character of connection. In designing a story, brand or otherwise, the nature of the telling finds a symbolic bridging.
The Allegory of the Link and Brand Storytelling Development
The chain, the ring, the rope, the knot—forging stories as metaphorical connections from, and to, people.
What is the type of telling (riveted, butted, or welded)?
What is the material that is used (iron, bronze, or steel)?
What is the density of the weave? The tighter the woven character, the more “impenetrable” it is.
And the thickness of the “ring.”
As a roving designer, and researcher, I was struck, while working on the bridge, early on in the first bridge between Marvel and Paramount Studios—
and, studying Tony Stark’s armor—working towards logo treatments for Iron Man, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of art, to study their armor collection—and, given materiality, I was struck by the detailing, the bridging between hammered steel and the chain link craftsmanship.
Which inspired GIRVIN’s logo design treatments of the Iron Man saga.
Thinking metaphorically about what this might represent in terms of messaging and framing—would be:
-
- In building the bridging—is this story something that is a series of connected, attached (rivet) stories (social media ring-making or digitally connected rippling)—like this Cannes case study, Heineken’s “The Closer.”Or perhaps one chain-linked story fitting to another (butted), one story “chaptered” to another—like filmed branding, always pushing Vans, another GIRVIN client in our fashion series.Or welded—one long storytelling—built into epics—like GoPro’s Million$Challenge. This campaign starts as a gauntlet thrown, and is connected as a threaded framing, an invitation—intermedia.
- Materiality—whether iron (malleable), bronze (mixable), or steel (super “hard”). These might relate to the discipline of their making—one sequence might be more casually-framed, another grouping could be combinant media; and “steel” might be a superstructure of highly organized media.
- The hardness of the ring? In any storytelling—there are tales that are synced to a precisely-knit meme or grouping of people, adhering to self-held ideals. And then there are other tellings that reach out, the long running—to another great mass of humanity. How close the ring, and how hard its measure?
Speaking of rings in a story, this might be the best exemplar, in our legacy of movie logos, like our design solutions for Lord of the Rings logotypography, a start that built a legend—a rippling of storytelling rings.
The link is an element of human design, that might find inspirations in natural expressions and biological design systems (which are inherently more profoundly loose in their assembly. The organic “ringing” is something that allows rings to fit together, in whatever magnitude might be discerned. And to that discernment—understanding these could be beyond the scope of our imaginings. The ring, the chainmail armour, the rippling of interconnectedness and interlacement—stories are alive in that they are human made. Humans touch them, share them, and they are influenced by their interconnection.
These symbolisms might be lost on the media planner—but, as ever, abstract and wandering—I’m thinking big picture and a deeper allegory, walking into the psychic, archetypal, and even a mythological mindset.
Big story. Large idea.
And—to our take at least—what lies beneath?
And how beautiful is the chain of interconnection?
Tim | In the Woods at the Ocean
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GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
Design for Hollywood | GIRVIN Digital | Built Environments by OSEAN
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