Here’s a notation that references something I’d found in the way of conversations at the Typophile forum. The follow up, here:

Hey, Typophilics — this is an old thread, http://www.typophile.com/node/6777, but it’s funny because I just found it. I was looking for something else, and this came up. To the nature of the font, it’s not Trajan — it’s a customized Girvin titling font; surely, it’s based on 1st century epigraphy, but not on Twombly’s Trajan. Trust me, I’ve had so many of my logotype renderings converted into Trajan solutions by agencies, it’s a joke.

I’ve been working as a designer for motion picture marketing since 1978-79, and Apocalypse Now, Francis Coppola. And what happens is that you create solutions that are endlessly juried and judged by either the directors, the studio leadership, the talent, whomever is involved in the proposition — and toned down. The art fullness, diminished. So, doing a rendering of the Last Samurai, or Lord of the Rings, Gladiator — The Ghost and the Darkness — or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, each of these treatments is entirely customized — tuned and built by hand. And if there’s an agency conversion, the customized solutions move to easily built imitation solutions by the agencies, and...the work is gone.

More here on that: http://www.girvin.com/portfolio/identity/matrix/matrix.php, or here: http://www.girvin.com/portfolio/identity/beowulf/beowulf.php. Or this notation on process: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/05/08/story8.html. I’m not touting, I’m talking. http://blog.girvin.com/?p=997, or: http://blog.girvin.com/?p=712

Nuff said, as they say in the comics.

I started working on Lemony Snicket as a production designer for Count Olaf’s eyes — which then became part of the logo, then from there, building out the fonts and related work to create the master — for a committee and client team of 15.

Rough, but done.

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Tim Girvin | Seattle+NYC+Tokyo