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Brand Groves | Allegorical Brand Strategies and Symbolic Thinking - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Anyone can think symbolically—and likely, we all do. You see something and think, “that reminds me of a…” Living in a creative space, the memory palace of explorations, memories and meaning—the imagination swerves to new pathways, neural leaps to stringing ideas together in new ways, the brain re-circuits and new paths are created. Working earlier, […]
Branding Crime Stoppers | Design Against Criminals - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The world of brand extends to crime-fighting. In our history, we’ve consulted for various police agencies, patrol and security groups, building brands around protection of assets, people and their communities. It takes a particularly assertive sense of presence—something, as a brand that is, shall we say, gripping and powerful. Things go around, and they come […]
The View from Below And Perspectives of the Sky Rim - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Dome Symbolism, kinæsthetic CX design strategies The View from Below and Perspectives of the Sky Rim I’ve been to three places where the architecture of the ground—the footprint of the structure—is remarkable, but the study of the built sky above it is far more compelling. Why, one would ask, is this relevant? In my experience, […]
The Leap of Imagination | Brands, Change, Fear and Risk - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The leap of adventure in the movement of brands, spirit, soul and destinations— the risk to get out there, go further, get farther. In a recent set of GIRVIN brand soul summits, brandquest® workshops [how we work to get somewhere new as a team-based collaborative exploration] we talked about a brand’s spirit, the nature of […]
Keep Your Brand on a Swivel and Watch Your Six - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Nine Gates of Brand Intelligence In the long watch of the brand shepherd, steward and sentinel— it’s important to consider a 360º surveillance of territories. In a kind of mirrored language, it shall be called outlook and look out. If you visualize your brand as a landscape—a palace of dreams, a lighthouse, a mountainous […]
Holistic Brand Design for Hospitality | A Guide to Placemaking - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Spherical Design Holism for Hospitality | A Manual for Brand Placemaking Integration for Experiential Strategies and Tactics The Deployment of *Experientiality Earlier in my career, I worked on a string of projects for Disney, working with the Disney Imagineers and Park Strategists at Disneyland—designing experiences, brands and their integrated strategies in Orlando and Anaheim. It […]
The Long Route | Getting Out There To The Brand New World - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
A stride at Bláskógabyggð, Suðurland, Iceland I was questioning a brand client—and we were talking about the notion of soul, the spirit of the brand a human enterprise—and the mirroring of a human maker, and what they make in the journey of a brand. Everyone knows, if you know me, that the origins of the […]
The Fall Guy | The Metaphor of Failure - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
I was listening to a podcast by David Duchovny the proverbial Fox Mulder of the X-files–on failure. As he notes in his overview—a summary of his podcast— “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” Duchovny recites to WPR’s host Doug Gordon. The finale of that quote serves as the title […]
Be Brave | The Character of Courage - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The interplays in life, heartfulness and the courageous spirit. Thinking about the heart—and life journeys—in talking to my mother; we were walking the idea of courage. People, friends, family—they come and go—as we all do; it’s one in a string of challenges that we all face. Courage plays out as the movement—a song—in all, going […]
Symbolic Placemaking Strategies in Experiential Design - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
As you walk a journey—there are symbols in the path of your stride. As a person that has history in building places, thinking design in destinations, I tend to think about everything as a migration of symbolic content. Surely, simply, contemplate walking in a door—you were on the outside, now you’re on the inside. What […]
Brand Magic | Enchantment and the Magnetism of Attraction - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
I was working in a team-collaborative session, a BrandQuest, Soul Summit—an innovation forum, and we were discussing the implications of attraction. As brand strategists and designers, you know about the implications of product attraction. As we put it, first there must be relevance—any needful brand has to have utility, it has a place as a […]
Seeing deep | close and near—brand farsight - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Deep perceptions, brand metaphors and the avian sentience. For most of my life, I’ve been a student of the birds. I admire them from the perspective of their calligraphic flight, fluttering and drifting, flourishing in elegant strokes in the air. I’ve cut them in steel, as above—a celebration of their call. And I’ve drawn them—for […]
Brand symbolism | The Cairn - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Thinking metaphorically, there are plenty of symbolic allegories between the notion of brand building, design strategies, messaging and storytelling. You—brand designer, brand thinker, theorist, strategist—when you think of brand, the notion of a constructed and managed enterprise, integratively disposed—what comes to mind for symbolic alignments, brand + X? I think of cairns. In traveling the […]
Get your hands off that! Don't touch! - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
How many times—thinking about it personally—have you been told that? Don’t touch! Hey, don’t even think about touching that! Hand’s off—not for you! Please, just look—no touching! Mostly, these days, I don’t ask, don’t look around for approvals, I just touch— unless it’s a museum, gallery or antiquities shop. Or, perhaps, a place where I’m […]
Brand Feel | Emotionalism in Branded Sensations - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Feeling in the realm of design thinking, sensation and brand. I took some old Italian handmade paper, folded it, tore it with a bone folder, punched a hole in the head of the strip, and strung red binding thread into the opening and hung it in the trees, amidst the rain, snow and storms—salt air, […]
Diving deep | Brand Soul: Journey, Inspiration and Spirituality - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Strategy and Design of Mystically-Inspired Brands In our history, we’ve had a string of opportunities to collaborate with brand partners who are different in their visioning of their enterprises— rather than focusing, for typical partners, on the notion of “how we’re going to make money,” but rather, how “our brand will be deeper, it […]
The Light Inside the Brand - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Person, the expression of Presence and the Brand Every time that you’re working on an enterprise, the proposition of brand, it’s always about people; it’s the people that built it, those that work in and around it, and finally, the community that is in thrall to that presence, that presentation—and, that person, those people. […]
Crickets, why cry? we all go that way. - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
A contemplation on gratefulness Notes on the death of my father, George W. Girvin, 7.05.2024 “Why do you have skulls around you, everywhere?, I mean, you’re always wearing skull scarves, rings, all that.” Someone asked me this question. I have a long history with skulls, skull art from México, Bali, Tibet, Bhutan, other countries—and, perhaps, […]
Embracing change | Brand Strategies for Innovation - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Quest for the New, in Remembering the Past Contemplations on brand innovation and evolution patterning I bought a new car in Portland, Oregon, and I recalled my days working down here. Time goes by. And back then, I was working with Lloyd Reynolds—and later, a swing by with David Kennedy, co-founder of Weiden+Kennedy, the […]
Rare Brand Magic—Uncovering Unknown Enterprise Storytelling - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Brands That Live in the Shadow, But Are Full of Light Do you have a brand relationship that is, to your thinking, your personal secret— something special, marvelous, your happily loved and savored place? Is there ever a brand that lives on the quiet side, unknown, unseen by many but to a select few—and quested […]
GIRVIN [and Tim Girvin's] Legacy of Calligraphy - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Dance of the pen—the drafted thought—and the illustration of language It’s an intriguing observation—the idea of the rhythm of speech—people talking, listening to words and expressions of thinking—the journey of minds, and the trails of their contemplations: the voice of the mind, transcribed graphically. Still, the translation of this vocalization comes back to the […]
The Peaceful Brand Warrior | 360º Strategic Intentionality - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
There’s a word that GIRVIN uses as a way to define the thoughtful design of brands in the context of a 360º sentience—experientiality. It’s a spherical watchfulness—in one classical reference, keep your “head on a swivel, watch your six” way of approaching a place, and savoring that experience, wholly. It’s a way of being for […]
The Integrated Philosophy of Branded Placemaking | Steiner and Jannard - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Conceptions of Brand-related built environments for storytelling in contextual community. First off, a reference to the Oakley Headquarters—an environment designed and dedicated to the spirit of innovation that drives the brand and the creation of their products; built tough. Entry | Oakley HQ | Located here A note on GIRVIN’s core philosophical principle—towards holistic impression […]
NGISED Backwards | The Proposition of Design Thinking - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
When we study “design thinking, it comes back to a sequence of thoughtful evaluations and engagement with analysis—but too, an exploration of the context of emotion—as tactics are framed to capture feelingness, which flow into the humanity of brand, untethered creativity and the processes of design management.” The image above, Shu Uemura at Japan Beauty […]
A Cascade of Mysterious Messaging | Finding a Meaning - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
A Meditation in Abandoned Signage There is a It is in the everyday—that you walk by—or on. There’s a message in that which is here. And that, left behind. The message could be: look here. No, up there. Or behind you. And while you look. Watch out, better still, be aware. Sit back, take a […]
Into the Rave[n] - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Quest for Creative Inspiration, Imagination and Personal Iconography I photographed this bird in the Himalaya— in Bhutan, a place of the Raven Gods. As some know, I have a long history with Ravens—the birds. This comes from earlier, childhood and mystical encounters with these birds; in fact, my fascination extends to the entire class […]
Bespoke Identity | Custom Fonts for Motion Picture Branding - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
In my history, I’ve often thought, looking at, literally, any logo—“that could be better.” Or, “why such an off-the-shelf solution—there’s nothing distinct, ownable or registrable with this asset?” Of course, all of us, as brand strategists, designers and logo aficionados think, “I could do that better…” But the key question is, “just how would you […]
Branding the Poetic Instinct | Dancing with the Dead, the transformation of Bill Porter and Red Pine - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The presumptive nature of design is that it’s magical. We’ve commented on this proposition extensively. Design as interpretation Design: it is a transformative tool that translates content from one tier of comprehension to something new—a altered plane of understanding, that is a transmogrification—and it could be a complete transition from one layer of perception, wholly […]
Fútbol | Linguistic Virology, Brands and Community - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Exploring the word, the history, the meaning of infectious content. Over the last couple of days, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about soccer—both in outreaches to the soccer-playing community, team owners, well-making soccer-related foundations in support of children, friends and family—and, of course, looking at a lot of videos. And live games, as […]
Culturally Specific Branding | Beauty Brand Design for Asia - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Designing brands for consumer profiles in only one geography. Most brand shops have experience in developing brands that are global in nature, they start in one area—likely the geographic origination of the brand creation, then they expand to other regions in the world. We’ve been there, particularly to Camay—which started as a localized assignment in […]
The Path and The Wind, The Serpent and The Stone - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
The Brand, the Allegory, the Symbolism and the Story Our history is our story, it’s the nature of our wandering in the winding course of our lives, our explorations and poetic discoveries. The question might come to the nature of the wander—and what is that, just a rambling foray in whatever way the wind carries […]
Crowd Control | Brand Workshopping and the Deep Metaphors of Brands - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
You can always think poetically—“there’s a poem somewhere in this work.” There’s an allegory inside this brand—it’s the tiny enterprise, climbing the massive mountain towards a new vista—a new view to the world, and the community of their offering. There’s no easy path, it’s always up, there is risk of falling—failure to summit the crag—but, […]
Listening to the hand - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Seeing stories in Brands, Design and Gesture. As a leader of workshops, and team-related branding sessions, I tend to watch my teams very carefully. My last blog spoke to listening, and appreciative observation— how to study the evidences of emotion in the gestures of experiencers’ body language— how awake are your participants—and what’s happening with […]
Listening - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Paying attention, appreciative perception and the emotionality of listening Isn’t it interesting, the way people lean-in? Leaning-in, they’re paying closer attention— why is that, is it a hearing expression? “I lean-in so I can hear better?” In running brand summits, business strategy forums and soul-searching quests for enterprises around the world, I often stand for the […]
Brand design and feelingness - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Emotional strategies in sensate brand integration Brands ask, “touch me more often, be my friend, speak to me, stay in touch.” Talking to an executive brand team, I reach-out in a simple question—“what’s the point here—what’s this workshop really about?” And the answer from them, brand leadership, comes around to our side, which speaks to: […]
The Theory of Love, Brand Strokes, Fire and the Filament of Being - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
A Wanderer’s Journey, Sensing the Heart, in Memory—From Afar In a bitterly cold subway channel, during a time when the ice was hanging stalactitic from the ceiling girders of the NYC Metro—and wind whipped so cold up the railed canyons of the running lines that eyes teared in the sheer intensity of the frost—and there, […]
In the realm of the senses, brand space and holistic thinking - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
I gave a talk at Procter & Gamble’s hall at Building One, downtown Cincinnati. This talk was about spherical thinking, brands and storytelling, a way of looking at the narrative of brands as narrative concatenations—knots and threads of woven tellings, that interplays the emotional lives and psychic spaces of those that built the brand, their […]
Fire-Breathing Brand and Placemaking Development by GIRVIN - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Hello, Year Of The Dragon Dragon, Ubud, Bali There are symbols that repeat themselves, the cycle in, return, vanish and reappear in other places—and symbolic language, as in the earlier blogs on brand archetypes. Isn’t it so that there are devices, objects, that repetitively reveal themselves— during the course of your journey, your work? These […]
GIRVIN's Legendary Branding | The Hero Brand Archetype - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
When I was young, my Mother belonged to a Jungian Study Group—she, and a group of colleagues, friends and professionals would meet to explore Jung’s theories. What I took from this—in my pre-teen years–was that there was something interesting there, if they were talking about this person, Dr. Carl G. Jung. I looked at Mom’s […]
Hello 2024 - Girvin | Strategic Branding & Design
Brand Magic, the Succession of Time, and the Portals of Perception The very nature of brands is entirely wrapped around people—“who built the brand, and for whom did they build it?” Otherwise, to GIRVIN’s parlance:“what’s the story, who’s telling it, who’s listening, what’s it look like, feel like and —most critically, who cares?” And, if […]