Everyone has stories about logo projects.
[For example, our Kettle story?]
As every reader knows, the core strategy of brand development, as an outreach to humans, enterprise development and commerce, is that those people embrace the brand
to create their own personal interpolation
of the narrative structure.
They own the stories—their brand relationship is crafted by their own storytelling,
“literally, this brand changed my life—
in fact, it’s part of my life,
I am better because of it.”
I hear this all the time in GIRVIN’s BrandQuest® workshops, executive explorations of brand pupose, soulful intention, core inspirations, dreams and burning desires, and fierce creator passions; in other words: the why, the what, the where, and the how—all in the construct of distinction and the unique premises of the offering.
“We made this brand differently.
We are the only one
that does
this.”
On the other hand, there are stories about making logos, the visualizations of the brand’s imagery, the styling of the voice of sight, the letter-made presentation of the key ideal.
Every brand is a convexity, a curved arc in a wonderment of vision. It’s the far-reaching stake in the ground of—mostly— a leader-ship, the vessel of a founder’s profoundly personal story. As a designer, you have to listen to get close to the heart of the holistic narrative; this is the singular, key signal, as most brand worker’s know—it’s the start of exploratory leadership, it sets the tone for everything that permeates
the brand’s story as a central sigil.
There are a couple of stories that come to mind, in each of them, they are tendrils to the roots of my legacy as a designer, calligrapher, and letterman.
Clint Eastwood
I wrote a note to Clint Eastwood, a handwritten missive, a congratulatory gesture—
I can’t recall, quite, what it was about—what the admiration was, at that point.
He called, out of the blue, [office-paged as “Tim Girvin, line 3, Clint Eastwood”] and said, roughly, to memory: “I got your note and I might have a project. I’m calling from Alberta, on set and I’m working on a western-type story, but this is one about redemption. My character, William Munny, has lived a hard, cruel life as a gunslinger, and he treated others with the same hardbitten spirit. Now he’s just a hog-farmer and working a miserably hard life. But there was a calling—a reach-out for aid, and he transformed himself, he went back to his legacy to embolden justice. It is going to be a stark and gritty portrayal of the old West, and I need something I don’t normally ask for. A logo. Mostly, my poster work is handled by Bill Gold.
But I’d like to give you a shot here.”
I told him my logo designs were based on period typography, 1880s, wood type inspired, but a hand-drawn inspiration, cut and barb-wired, gesturally illustrative, but not over-illustrated as
a specific palaeographic reference.
This is the final logo I designed, and drew, for the Oscar®-winning film, “Unforgiven.”
Interpretive.
He selected one design approach
—“this one is right.”
He called later saying, “and I have an image that we shot on set, in Alberta,
Munny holding the weapon that forged his life. What do you think?
What could you do with that?”
GIRVIN created a design and titling animation package for his production group, Malpaso, as well as other films, like “Space Cowboys” and “In the Line of Fire.”
Giorgio Armani
Working in Manhattan, the mid-70s, I was talking to a Giorgio Armani colleague about the logo-typography for his brand.
He said, “you know Mr. Armani is here, you could talk to him for a moment.” Armani was a striking figure, a commanding presence.
Slightly shorter than me, but classically Italian. I’d mentioned his use of the Bodoni familial font group—including Didot, which was varied
and somewhat undisciplined—I’d suggested to him then, “perhaps it would be better to stick with one standard font vocabulary that is specifically kerned—particularly the “ARMANI” and customized, as in:
Sergio Leone
I got a call from theatrical advertising legend Tony Seiniger, the godfather of motion picture promotions; and he said, “Sergio Leone wants your help for a pitch booklet, he’s got his biggest film planned and he’s looking for a logo for his pitch booklet for presentations to investment groups.” By this time, Leone had developed a masterwork—ten hours of footage that was progressively reduced to a palatably comfortable, US viewership length, at just over 2 hours. He said “this is my biggest story, it’s an epic and needs a logo with this scale, a sense of larger than life, American historical storytelling.” Working with Sergio Leone and Tony Seiniger’s team, we designed solutions—and created the master logo for
“Once Upon A Time in America.”
It was his last film.
Sharon Stone
Sherry Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Studios, reached out to ask for my aid for her friend. That turned out to be Sharon Stone.
I’d worked with her tangentially on Casino and Sphere, earlier, as well as her Western shoot-out with Sam Raimi. I designed the logo for “The Quick and the Dead.”
And, speaking of logos, the favor that Sherry was requesting, was working on Sharon’s film production group—Chaos. We talked. Designed an ideal around layers, classical engravings and upscale font work, a custom type face that we designed for Chaos Production.
This same line of thinking—a transecting spike was exemplified
in another expansion—personally directed as
a solution pathway in collaboration with Sharon—
we designed the logo for the movie, Sliver.
And finally, later, a live meet-up at her Beverly Hills compound for
the most complex production ever, Sharon Stone’s wedding.
George Lucas
I had another conversation—in this string of discussions with designers, brand thinkers and storytellers—about my history with Star Trek, which is an entertainment property of the highest proprietary secrecy.
Working on these films with leadership at Paramount is strictly protected, scripts can only be read onsite in locked reading rooms on the lot. In meeting with J.J.Abrams, then his production designer, Scott Chambliss, we discussed his set design strategy, which ultimately led to a stylistic advancement of the core original director’s Gene Roddenberry font, heavier and slightly more condensed.
Then the design team conversations moved to another question to Star Wars, speaking of sci-fi, had I done anything there? And another celebrity story—working on the beginnings of a Ewok franchise spin-out on the Star Wars character expressions. I was invited to the 4,700 acre Skywalker Ranch, George’s research libraries, workshops, sound mixing and recording compound outside Nicasio, California—an estate of Victorian and Craftsman, Greene & Greene-styled, American village-type estates, an upscale country “town.” I met George, introduced as the guy that was going to design the logo for Ewoks—which I designed for deployment.
The Wachowskis
Joel Silver called, through his project administrator, Daniel Cracchiolo, and asked “I need you to come to my offices on the Lot at Warner Brothers tomorrow morning to meet with the Wachowskis to do a walk-through on their new movie. I don’t know if you know about them, but their debut as filmmakers is “Bound,” which is a pretty outrageous piece of work—maybe you’ve seen it? This is big. See you tomorrow morning.”
I spent the day on the lot at in Glendale at Silver’s offices, with the Wachowskis walking through the script, preliminary drawings, storyboards and reference and mechanical drawings and production design, then I spent the next three months designing the logo for the Matrix, monograms, custom fonts and key art renderings.
Mel Gibson
Conversations with Mel Gibson about his directorial debut and key role in the Oscar®winning film “Braveheart” led to “this is an epic, a huge story that is larger than life—it’s the real narrative—it’s got to be different, powerful, almost louder—it’s a battle cry.” The logo we designed is a custom, hand-built font, detailed and slightly heightened.
Donald Trump
In another conversation, recently about an appointment of the US Czar of Design, the questions came up among a group of designers.
This was a two-faceted commentary, one about the POTUS’s comments on the Cracker Barrel fiasco [we discussed our strategies in heritage brand refreshment, Cheerwine, for example]—the other about the Airbnb founder as the Design Creative Director of the United States. Another stated, “well, would you take that job?” As a person that’s never had an employer ever—literally, I’ve never had a job—the answer was: no.
“Well, then, what about Trump,
have you ever worked for him?”
Yes.
Here’s an old-style “paste-up” mechanical assembly of
a study, with a GIRVIN custom font and
hand-tailored monogram.
I met him in a conversation with Sirio Maccioni, the founder of Le Cirque 2000, among other hospitality efforts and dining experiences. I’d talked to Sirio about the idea of a memoir and Trump was in the same line, behind me. Earlier, I had a string of discussions with him and the DT team in Atlantic City, looking at refreshments of The Taj Mahal Casino Resort—disciplining and upgrading the logo-typography, as well as Trump Plaza in leaner, more sophisticated logo renderings.
In our recent move, I sorted through hundreds of paper project files from GIRVIN’s history since our founding in 1973. This round of introductions started in a boxing fight poster for the Tyson vs. Spinks fight, touted as the so-called “bout of the century,” I designed the Tyson Spinks Fight Poster for Trump’s group, along with an illustration by the stylistically definitive LeRoy Neiman.
And onwards,
to other stories.
What’s next?
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Tim
I collaborate.
GIRVIN | Strategic Brands
Old Queen Anne Hill Offices, Libraries and Gallery
Building projects in strategy | story | naming | messaging | print
identity | built environments | packaging
social media | websites | interactive since 1973
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