Multisensory Design & Sensory Branding • Carolin Vedder

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Design for a World in Motion.

Across time, across senses, and ahead of change.

the choreography of perception

What moves us shapes us.

Design is expanding across media and spaces, yet differentiation still follows single-sense logic. Visual styles can now be generated and copied at unprecedented speed. Attention is scattered between screens, formats and surroundings. And what is created today may reach people in a very different world tomorrow.

This makes the relationships between what we encounter and how we perceive it increasingly important. They set how people interpret information, form expectations, assign value and make decisions.

Let's expand our understanding of what design can do and what it should become.

When you enter a space, you feel the atmosphere, hear the sounds, notice the smells. You react to the temperature before you see a logo. These feelings decide whether you want to stay, whether you trust what you see and whether it all makes sense to you.

What are we actually designing?

We design what we perceive.

The world does not reach us as it is. Our senses and expectations decide what we notice and remember. Sound influences how we perceive an image, color and smell how we interpret a situation. As in music, we can compose across the senses, choreographing perception over time.

Focusing on visuals alone is like composing a symphony using only violins. Technically possible, but fundamentally incomplete. Multisensory design is the full orchestra. It requires knowing when to introduce each instrument, create harmonies, use silence and build tension through what we leave out.

What becomes possible?

We make identities unmistakable beyond the visual.

Brands and spaces become recognizable without their logo: by sound, movement, scent, temperature, material and shape. Together, they form a perceptual signature across every medium and encounter.

What makes it different?

We build for the conditions ahead.

By the time designs are encountered, technologies, habits and expectations have changed. Instead of reacting to what is, we decide what will be.

What value do we create?

We create for genuine appreciation.

We design for understanding rather than persuasion. Consistent sensory information supports trust. Accounting for differences in perception makes products and experiences accessible to more people, in more ways.

By designing sensory reality in a simulated world, we let people connect through direct experience, according to their own preferences and needs.

The experience happens inside the person, not in front of them.

the science

Nervenkitzel

When everything can be generated, content multiplies while differences disappear. Brands, spaces and media compete constantly for attention, become interchangeable and are quickly forgotten. Spread across countless platforms, their parts rarely connect. Screens reduce experience to sight and sound, while the other senses go unused.

Yet identity extends beyond the visual: once learned, color, sound, scent, material and shape each trigger recognition in memory. On their own, they are shared by many; orchestrated together, they form a signature that points to one source only. Congruent input across the senses raises presence and memory more than added visual detail, and channels coordinated around one perceptual signature produce a combined effect larger than the sum of their parts.

the person

I am Carolin Vedder.

I design
how senses
interact.

I connect art, design, perception and futures research with almost 30 years of design for broadcasting, brands, cultural events, science and film. I've created time-based designs for clients like MTV, Nickelodeon, ZDF, ORF, Mercedes, VW, Siemens, Douglas, BMW and Audi. I have composed sad and happy scents for sad and happy music, I developed the Bauhaus Missing Scents prototype and animated Dark Matter for CERN.

My work ranges from multisensory experience strategies for cultural engagement to sensory branding and researching how sensory information, including scent, emotion and materiality, can be translated, encoded and communicated physically and digitally.

the transformation

From
change to possibility.

Reading cultural, technological and behavioral shifts early lets us detect how they influence perception, expectation, meaning and value. I work with brands and cultural institutions to translate that change into direction for brand, culture, media, exhibition and space, deciding what to amplify, what to redirect and what to resist.

To find the right answer, I first change the question.

Change

What is shifting in technology, behaviour or culture?

Experience

How does that change how people perceive and remember?

Design

What does that demand of the design?

Possibility

What can now be offered that was not possible before?

the offer

Strategy.
Concept.
Design.

Brands, media and spaces need more than visuals.
They increasingly compete through emotion, immersion, storytelling, authenticity and sensory presence.

I develop the strategy and original concept behind how brands, media and spaces are experienced.
Across time, across senses, and ahead of change.

Concepts & Strategies

Creative Concepts · Design Strategies · Cultural Futures

Connecting developments across culture, technology and human perception to identify emerging patterns and develop new possibilities, priorities and directions.

Experiential & Motion

Multisensory Experiences · Audiovisual Design · Animation · Sensory Composition

Composing sensory elements and time-based narratives for brands, spaces, media, exhibitions and cultural environments.

Sensory & Scent Branding

Perceptual Signatures · Sensory Identities · Olfactory Concepts · Signature Scents

Developing distinctive perceptual identities across color, sound, motion, scent, material and space.

Digital & Interactive

Vibe Coding · Creative Development · Interactive Experiences · Experimental Interfaces

Identifying gaps in production and interaction, and developing purpose-built applications, digital tools and interactive systems.

Talks & Teaching

Keynotes · Lectures · Masterclasses

Exploring multisensory composition, human perception, creative thinking and design futures through teaching, discussion and interdisciplinary exchange.

Interdisciplinary Labs

Collaborative Exploration · Creative Problem-Solving · Concept Development

Working with teams across fields on existing challenges, questioning assumptions and developing new approaches and ideas worth pursuing.

Events

Participatory Formats · Multisensory Experiences · Curated Encounters

Designing participatory events and immersive multisensory experiences that bring ideas, people and disciplines into exchange.

Research & Development

Crossmodal Translation · Perception Design · Sensory Encoding · Digital Scent

Investigating how sensory information can be described, encoded and translated across modalities, and developing original frameworks, methods and experimental systems.

the collaboration

YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON

I am here
to challenge
boundaries.
To redefine
what is possible.
Let's talk about
the future. And how to build it.