Sandra Collins
The Challenge
Multi-layered identity
Artist and longtime client Sandra Collins first approached us for an identity and strategy for her gallery in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Decades later, she came back on a personal quest to infuse her identity into her new house to make it a home.
The Solution
One artist
Then, as now, we took time to listen to her vision. Pulling inspiration from her own artistry, we were able to craft meaningful personal and professional storytelling that felt uniquely “her.”
Strategy
Identity
Environmental
Packaging
Print
Sandra Collins wanted to create an intimate, luxury-oriented gallery environment for arts and crafts for an international clientele. We integrated Sandra’s story through all expressions of identity, visual merchandising, signage, print, and advertising.
Sandra Collins embarked on a major personal project to add custom design touches to her new house. This also entailed merging two lots into one park-like compound that features carefully considered landscape design welcoming area wildlife. She enlisted GIRVIN to provide artistic direction to make this place her own.
Starting with the exterior, we began with a custom-designed mailbox at the foot of her driveway that complemented the modern simplicity of her new house. From there, we took inspiration from the landscape to develop a luxurious yet restrained stationery set. Indoors, we oversaw the installation of a sketch come to life: an inlaid metal dragon sculpture.
Familiar with Sandra’s curatorial and artistic legacy, we began with an exploration in drawing metaphors for her work. Tim Girvin’s sketch of a dragon turned into the creation of a steel dragon sculpture. Coordinating with Sandra’s builder, we found the perfect place for it: inlaid precisely in a sinuously draconic meander into the wood floor of her new home.
“
Over 40 years ago, when I met Tim Girvin, little did I dream that we would journey together through life collaborating on various projects. There were years when we did not keep in touch but whenever our paths did cross, projects were creative, challenging and rewarding.
For my recent and most personal project, Tim was asked to design signage for the grounds of my new house, stationery and an artistic piece to be inlaid into a winding area of white ash flooring. It was very important to me to make a statement of my personal direction at this point in my life. Discussing ideas with Tim and his team, we came up with signage that reflected my contemporary house and with stationery inspired by the surveys done of my 4-acre property. The image of a 5-clawed, 8-foot dragon cut into quarter inch stainless steel was selected for my artistic symbol and using different grinders, the details emerged into a most powerful, writhing piece of steel; the dragon was born and my house became my home.”