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.

Visual styles can be generated and imitated at unprecedented speed. Attention is scattered across media and environments. 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.

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.

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.

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. From what people see to how human experience develops across senses, time, memory, expectation and context.

I develop new approaches to design thinking that connect disciplines, challenge established assumptions and address emerging signals.

My work ranges from composing multisensory experiences for cultural engagement and sensory branding to 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 technological and cultural currents early gives us the agency to decide. I work with cultural institutions and brands on 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.

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

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.

YOU ARE HERE FOR A REASON

For commissions, interdisciplinary research and collaborations.