A Field Guide to Brand Imagination

The Power of Memory

Think of a space where you felt completely at ease. What materials, colours, and forms surrounded you? Could they shape the visual language of your business?

What object from childhood still lingers in your mind? How might its texture, weight, or essence manifest in your work?

Cultural Juxtapositions

Which two cultures or eras seem to clash yet hold an undeniable pull for you? What would their collision look like in your design?

If your brand were a piece of furniture, would it be a Shaker stool, a Memphis chair, or something entirely new? Why?

The Weight of the Everyday

Consider an object you use without thought—your coffee cup, your coat hook. How could its form or function be reimagined to hold significance?

What quiet, daily ritual aligns most with your business? How could its materiality inspire your design?

Emotional Topography

What feeling do you want people to have when they encounter your brand? If it were a physical landscape, would it be a windswept moor, a dense city warren, or a sunlit clearing?

How does your customer’s first interaction with your business feel in their hands—smooth, rough, weighty, delicate? Could you heighten this sensation?

The Nature of Things

Step into a garden, a park, a field. What textures underfoot and overhead resonate most? How can they be translated into your work?

If your business had a patron plant or mineral, what would it be? How might its resilience, fragility, or rarity inform your creative choices?

Story Layers

Is there a myth or fable that mirrors the ethos of your business? What symbols or archetypes could be woven into your visual world?

What part of your business’s story feels most tactile—like it could be folded, hammered, or layered? How might that narrative become an object?

Assemblage of Influence

If you were to build a tableau of everything that inspires you—artworks, found objects, textures—what common threads emerge?

Imagine curating an exhibition of your brand’s soul. What materials, forms, and arrangements would make it unmistakably yours?

Design as a Language

If your brand spoke without words, what would it sound like? A whisper, a hum, a crackle? How does this translate into its visual rhythm?

Consider typography. Is it bold and utilitarian, like industrial machinery, or soft and human, like a handwritten note? How can it carry your message?

Temporal Anchors

If your business were a relic unearthed in a thousand years, what would people infer about its purpose? How might design invite this sense of timelessness?

Which era does your business belong to? A bygone age? A speculative future? How can design embody this temporal displacement?

Material Dialogues

What materials do you instinctively reach for—paper, clay, metal, wood? What do their weight and texture say about your values?

If your brand had a single raw material at its core, what would it be? Could it be pressed, polished, or weathered into something transformative?

A House for Your Brand

Imagine your brand as a structure. Is it a monastic stone refuge, a glass pavilion, or a cluster of nomadic tents? What elements of this architecture can live within your design?

What objects might fill this house? Consider their placement, their patina, and their relationships to one another.

Provocation and Play

Where could your business introduce an element of surprise—a design choice that feels like an inside joke or an invitation to play?

What if your product or service had an alter ego? What form or material would it take?

Layers of Time

What traces of age—cracks, wear, fading—feel honest and beautiful to you? How might they influence your design ethos?

If your business had a patina, what would it look like? Could you design with the intention that it will only improve over time?

Assembly and Disassembly

Think of your brand as a toolkit. What are its essential components? How might they be rearranged to create something unexpected?

Could your design invite customers to participate in its construction, giving them ownership of the experience?

A Quiet Revolution

Where can you reject convention? In your materials, your forms, your processes? How might this rebellion be subtle yet profound?

What part of your brand feels like it could whisper rather than shout? How might design amplify this quietness?