I often ponder the following…”In a digital world, why is it important to collect physical things? Why should a brand collect? What’s the immediate, mid-term, and long-term ROI on this investment? And in an increasingly digital world - how are we connecting the IRL with URL?”

Admittedly, I love stuff… like, LOVE stuff, not in a hoarding kind of way, but in a learn, research, hunt out real examples, acquire mindfully, present beautifully, and use daily - kind of way. I think I’ve always been like this. Maybe that’s why twenty years ago I started working in museums and continued my career building archives for brands, and now with tech that supports the future of brand archiving and preservation.

Here’s the thing - my love of stuff, art, designed objects, products, and ephemera has always been about looking forward, not back. This forward-facing approach to brand archive work included investing in the right applications and platforms that made the work more relevant for the business, and enter Enwoven stage right. The platform’s ability to curate, contextualize and present a digital archive, heavy on visual storytelling, was game-changing.

So recently when the Design Museum Everywhere asked me to write about how to build a future-ready product archive, for their recent footwear issue, I was up for the task. The article gives a first-hand account of how the Reebok Brand Archive was built and how tools like Enwoven were transformative in its success.

Please give the following article a read! And if you’d like, support their work by purchasing a copy of their magazine here.

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