DRIVING, AND SHOOTING, IN A JOURNEY OF 4 HOURS.

SPONTANEITY AND IMAGERY.
I SPEND A LOT OF TIME LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHY — AND I WRITE ABOUT IT, DESIGN AROUND IT, SHOOT IT. AND I PACKAGE AND DESIGN OTHER PHOTOGRAPHER’S WORK.

DOING THAT, GIVES ONE A RESPECT FOR THE REAL ASPIRATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHERS. What are they really shooting for, what’s being documented, why — the effort? What’s the point of it?

I BELIEVE THAT PHOTO-GRAPHY — THE MARKINGS OF LIGHT — EVINCE:
• light impressions — what shadow falls here?
• knowing the dark, the light, and the grey – in all things?
• emotional moments — seeing that, it reminds me of?
• recollections of things that have been scene – exploring the power, place?
• seen that, been there — moment, memorialized meaning?
• experiences — heartbreaking beauty?
• experiencers — emotional garlands of moments, unforgettable?

And surely the idea of emotion is about being moved — “I was so struck by that imagery that I couldn’t look away — seeing that photograph, I’ll never forget it.” I know that I have photographs that I’ve purchased, that have just this measure. I know them, I know who shot them, I know when, and I know what they mean to me. But I could hardly expect to know more of the work of those that made them — that’s their call, and visioning alone.

Let me offer these meditations. Shot, while moving, car-bound, across the state:

At the beginning, the West Queen Anne Condo, mist bound.

A lighthouse, quieted.

What lies beyond light, that range?

Climbing there, still I wonder, return?

With clap and whirling curl, clouds cusped from the Cascades’ lips — light spit.

Could that be — sight, site unseen — limited?

That barn — out there, within one mile, there is no other.

Talking with my Father, about listening for trains –
and walking from the farm out to the tracks –
a line appeared on the horizon.

As I was thinking about Pendleton blankets, I found that store, driving by.

In Sprague, for gasoline, this array of trucks, waiting.

Down the alley, heading back to the high way, I pass the farmer’s co-op, grain elevator.

The detailing of the metal seam — driving by — sanded by hand or storm?

The staggering of the type, on brick, endlessly repainted.

Tom Moore, a slightly softened san serif, bolstered by a sharp-cut cigar.

Better low, than high.

Galvanized granary, sitting alone.

Whorled wheat — as installation.

A sheet metal hermitage.

These, along with 35 others — too repetitive in their light and conceptual bracketing to be willing to bother you with. To the brand, and the image — I struggle with the gathering of the “why” of imagery and brand — how to push that deeper, so that as I consider the concept of the brand, the story, isn’t it possible that this telling could be emotionally rendered in an image of breath-taking beauty and arresting content, that just might fall out of the typical basket of “stock” and load imagery of the digital catalogues. I’m thinking so.

It’s possible that in driving by — something might be captured in the sheer haphazard nature of the draw, to bring you a new understanding. Kindly prep yourself — as you see something emerging, set your camera at the ready, calculate your shooting angle, and fire away — knowing that of the one or three or five snaps that might be grabbed, there will be one that speaks the loudest.

Use your leg as a brace on the steering wheel.

Tim
––––
Exploring drive by shooting. Try it.
http://tim.girvin.com/Entries/?p=470

Presentation wall, with calligraphic drawings and educational references, photographic brand boards, working tools, broadsides and flow examples.

Yesterday, exploring the hand drawing of letterforms, with a team from Girvin, Inc., and it was about finding motion, gesture, the curve, the light and the dark, what is seen and stroked, and what is left blank — untouched. I’ve been teaching calligraphy, once again. For now, it’s a cadre of Girvin designers.

During that same day, I had a reconnection with friends from the past — long past.

Working sheet and demonstration of fundamental 15th century Italian alphabet, a quick sequence of letters, working sheet and gesture monogram knots.

These were friends, fellow students, from the Evergreen State College. On Tuesday, I’d gone back to the Evergreen State College, reconnecting with the Media Lab there — which is now newly named the LyndaLab — there’s a room that’s especially dedicated to her contributions to the school. Lynda, along with her husband, Bruce Heavin, founded Lynda.com. More on her, here: http://www.womenandbiz.com/2008/09/16/interview-lynda-weinman-founder-lyndacom/. And her site is here:http://www.lynda.com/. Along with Lynda and Bruce, there was Linda Stone. And the story on Linda Stone — also an Evergreener — can be found here:http://lindastone.net/. All amazing people.

All of them came to the office, and we spent just an hour, exploring books, design, the office, meeting people, exploring ideas.

In a way, it all comes back to the idea of how is the story told — one, the breath of the teller, recalling the tales of the experiencer; another, two, the transcribing of that story — what is called beyond and carried into a point of new certainty, it has a place. And three, the imagination of the listener — a listener that might be sitting, sifting into the telling of the story, to another, who is reading and embracing the telling of a story.

A calligraphic knot, along with the original worksheet, from the Girvin / Evergreen State College workshops, 1975.

Beautiful — what was old, what was new, what could be found, and what is recalled — and newly discovered.

The letter form is a bundling of the idea, curves and black, light, openings, structuring, the architecture of speak, the thought, scribed.

tsg | olympia, washington | The Evergreen State College
….

the arc of heaven

TSG | decatur island

On Mar 27, 2010, at 10:52 AM, Gregory Furman wrote:

spring storm umbrellas

BRANDFIRE

As a designer, presuming strategic intention, the practice is never about what’s on the surface alone, but more to what lies beneath. The legacy of any design decision lies in historical experience — it is about the story of what has been, what story might be told now, and how that story could extend to the future. For each of us, exploring the idea of design might be to the link of the signature — the “signing” of a solution in the original use of the word. For every design might be just that, regardless of the transparency of interpretation, it is a filtration of personal spirit and character.

In reaching into the heart of the translation of design, the center of a relationship — the challenge of finding a solution — the spirit of the designer, the signature will be seen. Anyone committed to the ethos of creativity will reach into the soul of experience, and expertise, to bring forth something that is profound in the power of solution. That sense of soul driving the path to the answer will be about passion.

Passion is fire. Passion is pain. Passion is empathy — the reaching into the heart of a relationship, to a problem, an idea, a question that is holistically embraced. That sense of embrace will mean more to the sentiment of captivation, being consistently driven to get closer to the flame of the challenge that is set, to seek the exhilarating freedom of the ideal response. But that response will always be tinted by the person that creates that answer. Surely, in any design problem, there will be consistency in understanding the issues at stake, the nature of the question, the character of the audience, who’s listening to the story — but always, in the end, the spirit of the finding the actual signature of the outcome will be touched by personality. The hand draws from the soul.

That idea of fire is a compelling patterning in my experience, working with leaders from around the world — who, in that game, is really in it? Who is really entranced by the problem that needs to be seen, in scene, and newly discovered. 319 The person in front — the one who leads — needs to be inflamed with that sense of profound and continuing commitment to explore the nature of the pathway to the design answer, but as well, what lies beneath that exploration of discovering. Every answer yields another question — and then another answer. As a person that focuses on the brand as a form of communicating to relationships, the ideal leader is one that touches and contemplates every detail of that resolution; it’s not the glancing overview, but the details that make this approach to enterprise memorable.

To think about the concept of brand, it’s important to toss out the conventional definition of what that trapping means, and go beneath, into the primordial history of words. Brand, the word, is first spoken at least 4,000 years ago — its etymology is embedded deep in the roots of Indo European language — and there, in the beginning, the spirit of the word is fire. The translation of this expression really only found its home in the west during the last millennium, first scribed in a monastery off the coast of Scotland, a refuge from the battery of that tumultuous time.

In working on brands, my work is always with the leadership of that brand — and in that entwining, the idea of brand and the human spirit that lies in the heart of it — there is a kind of genetic mingling. The human brand. And in most of the powerful brand stories that are attached to the presentation of design as a key ethos of value, the human leadership is the fire that burns at the soul of that encounter.

In the early days of my career, then successively afterwards, I was exposed, firsthand, to Steve Jobs — working at Apple. While some of the team then defined Steve as a terrorist, for me that opening encounter was about passion — and the fire of the details in getting things right, down to the microscopic shading of a industrial design detail, the form language of a returning curve of an object, a screen interface, or the touch of handcrafted typography. That initial encounter lead to others at Apple in which the same passion — the fire of the brand, that sparks and ignites that inspiration — is voiced in everything. You are either part of the flame, or you are extinguished by it.

So too in speaking with designer Tom Ford — a man in which every detail of the Tom Ford brand has a sense of the touch of his passionate fire. He designs to create what he doesn’t see in the market — and what he wants to see in the market. He designs, literally, for himself. That fire is a blazing trail — a signature. And finding that opening, the obsession to create, is something that continuously empowers every decision of experience.

Anyone who works at Apple, or at Tom Ford, or any culture of brandfire, will tell you the selfsame truth — the power of the brand story is about that fire of a flammable signature; each touch — a gesture of fire.

Tim Girvin is the founder of GIRVIN | Strategic Branding, one of the longest-running, privately held design organizations on the West Coast. Girvin believes in passionate curiosity, collaboration, languages, wandering and working with leaders around the world in telling brand stories to newly voice and visualize their presence and experience.

tsg
….
Exploring the human brand:
http://www.girvin.com/subsites/humanbrands/

Tim Girvin | GIRVIN
c. 206.890.0621
New York City + Seattle | Tokyo

Those of us that have been around…crows, rooks, ravens, jays, magpies and jackdaws.

Have known and loved the raven, and family, in all manifestations for years. Why now, would there be such renewed and continuing enthusiasm about the crow — which, familial to the smartest bird group in the world — is essentially a black bird. For me, it’s a continuing saga that goes way back, so a love of this family is nothing even remotely new. But the saga of the raven — literally, the legend — is indeed something that goes back, thousands of years.

Perhaps, in opening, the real point is about the beauty of black — which, also for me — is a favored garment of color; it’s the easiest to travel in. Wear black, and you can go anywhere, forever. Same with Corvids, I’d guess. And surely they do — arising early in the morning, flying in dispersal from the rookery (and that’s everywhere in the world that I’ve been) to returning home, to roost, just approaching the darkening evening. I see it. I watch it. I wait for the call — the coming; and I wait for the departing — and watch them go home.

What I’ve been noticing, as well, that the raven people ( a group of ravens as you know is a “storytelling”) — a storytelling of raven’s (people) are collecting. You’re finding them online — and twittering in. I’ve gotten, recently, a reach from the team at SeattleCrows - the twitter link. And, really, this is about a crow counting event attached to the University of Washington, here. There’s a link, there, to the CrowCamera, documenting the hatching of eggs — meanwhile, apparently, the Mother Crow stays, while the fledglings have fled (Vancouver, BC) — there’s advertising by Iams, for “healthy dogs”, too. More than 5,000 views, and — all told — 3313 hours, 32 minutes, people watching crows on the CrowCamera.

Why, yet again, would I write another piece, aside from the numerous added crow and raven imagery that I’ve gathered (pretty much all the time)? Just because it keeps popping up. And, this weekend, there’s more on the crow, the planet of crow, in Crow Planet, as reviewed in the NYTimes.

Liesl Schillinger writes about the newest contributor to the storytelling of raven | crow…Lyanda Lynn Haupt, who comments on the kind of passion that seems to relate to the birds, like ‘em, or hate ‘em. “Like human beings, Haupt explains, crows are one of the “few prominent, dominant, successful species” that prosper in the modern world. Their hardiness means they will outlast more fragile ¬species. Before we revile them, she suggests, we ought to understand that there are so many of them because there are so many of us. Because we have built, they have come, and crows and humans today must coexist in the “zoöpolis,” the “overlap of human and animal geographies.”

For me, the study of the bird is something that pretty much goes on all day; it’s the number one distractor for me, standing and working in the office, then, as well, being in other parts of the planet. On and on; keep looking, and it goes on. Here’s where I look, have looked, and have written, on the storytelling of ravens, the murder of crows, the band of jays, a charm of magpies, a clattering of jackdaws. All of them, smart, attentive, playful.

But what I really focus on is: attention. Paying attention. There’s the biggest learning for me. Watching them. Watching us.

Write, here — to my measure:
Crows seeing people.
Personal bird brands.
Ravens, Himalaya.
Ravened, stone.
Tim+Raven
Raven’s storytelling, grouped.

One day, you’ll get it. Them.
Pet one, maybe.

tsg
….
GIRVIN | S E A T T L E: moved
our new address
121 Stewart Street | 212 | 98101
http://blog.girvin.com/?p=2961

Notes on installations, surprise and the awakening of beauty, discovered.

I’ve written about the idea of poetry on the wind, words that gesture to an impression, that tied to a string, written on handmade paper or the stock of recycled paper bags, flutter and turn in the breeze.

For me, that fluttering bespeaks leaves, that are turning; and in the etymology of the word, liber — the foundational character of the library, tells, from circa 1374, from Anglo-French, going back in time: librarie, then from Old French: librairie “collection of books,” noun use of adjective — librarius “concerning books,” from L. librarium “chest for books,” from liber (libri) “book, paper, parchment,” originally “the inner bark of trees,” probably a derivative of the Proto Indo European base *leub(h)- “to strip, to peel”. The idea of leaves, books, trees of knowledge, branches of thought, is a familiar range of allegory. And there are surely deeper levels of symbolism.

Traveling in Bhutan, Tibet, Mongolia — you can see the prayer flags, from the broad plains of Mongolia, to the high windswept passes of Tibet, to the monastic Dzhongs of Bhutan, the prayer evocations breathe blessings.

But I’m curious about creating discoveries — things that people find, that are just a moment of surprise.

That could be a cairn, aligned just right, on a mountain path.

Or that could be an arrangement of branches, beachside.

Or something standing in a way that perhaps it shouldn’t, or couldn’t be.

Surprise takes one out of oneself, to surveil something in a new way — an abrupt contemplation.

So these WindWords do that. They flutter, looking like leaves, and then there’s the realization of something on them, that then is something more: writing. This too, is something more — yet another deepening in exposure. To a new vision — a momentary reflective insight. Placing these things, I like to study the reaction of people, coming by. And they do just that. Stop for a moment. Talk about it. Then perhaps, move on — changed, in the instant.

I tear up old paper bags, fold the top end, curl it back, and punch a hole, leaving an opening for twine. Wind, rain, sun, the salty sea — each has an effect, the aging of the object. And that aging is as much to the beauty of them than anything. Eventually, they dissolve, break apart, fall away. And they are gone. Perhaps some number of weeks, in wintering storms, or months, in the calmer seasons.

Someone asked me, sometime back, why didn’t I write a book? About what, I ponder? And I believe, in a way, that it’s more to the notion of what could I contribute, meaningfully, to writing something, rather than pushing it out in some massed theorem. What could I contribue that could be meaningful? Something beauty full, I’d surmise. That would be what I could offer.

More beauty.

All ways.

tsg
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tgirvin
….
work: http://www.girvin.com
truth: http://www.tim.girvin.com/
reel: http://www.youtube.com/user/GIRVIN888

blogs:
http://blog.girvin.com/
http://tim.girvin.com/Entries/index.php

The recollection of a face, reflections on corvid recognition.

I’d offer this: these days, there’s more interest in the corvid population than ever before. Why? Because we’ve all learned about the degree of intelligence that is connected with the family. And somehow, there’s some disconnection from an earlier proposition that perhaps the corvid clan of birds are inherently linked to evil.

Now, there’s a positioning that actually the “renegade raiders” are something that are more interesting, worthy of study, and less so to the issue of rampant garbage gatherers. Being a person that is seen as a corvid champion, people are frequently reaching to me, with yet another story. The idea of corvids having an extraordinary recollection of facial characteristics is fascinating — especially given our challenges in recalling visages. That story, here. That’s one year ago. Now, back again: here’s something to the notion of following faces — even chasing them down (forever), here.

Try it yourself, here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111040421

Doesn’t stop there, of course. Rooks work out other forms of challenge recognition, like classical puzzles, shown in this story: One of Aesop’s fables may have been based on fact, scientists report.
“In the tale, written more than 2,000 years ago, a crow uses stones to raise the water level in a pitcher so it can reach the liquid to quench its thirst. Now a study published in Current Biology reveals that rooks, a relative of crows, do just the same when presented with a similar situation.”

And, wouldn’t you know — there’s more in line with the thinking here, exploring the bird brains:

SEE ALSO
Rooks reveal remarkable tool-use
26 May 09 | Science & Environment
Meet the brains of the animal world
07 May 09 | Science & Environment
Clever crows are caught on camera
04 Oct 07 | Science & Environment
Cleverest crows opt for two tools
16 Aug 07 | Science & Environment
Magpie ‘can recognize reflection’
19 Aug 08 | Science & Environment
Rooks team up to solve problems
31 Mar 08 | Science & Environment

I’ve linked up plenty in the past, just to the space of personal reflections. My beginnings, with the crow, ravened class. There are other Girvin tellings, of the love of the bird — a personal brand icon, perhaps. Adventuring. Ravening, inspirations. Crows at TED, perhaps one of the most sophisticated forums on design, technology and entertainment in the world. There, to the mere opening, crow|twitter sites. That’s good to know, the community has cawed to another form of quork, like these: ACrowCity; Seattle Crow Project, Crow reports, Crow sightings, Crow Planet, or Crow Society.

Super hip, crows.

tsg
….
Ravens | love | humans:
http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=361
reel: http://www.youtube.com/user/GIRVIN888

blogs:
http://blog.girvin.com/
http://tim.girvin.com/Entries/index.php

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