Designteam

At the heart of Designteam solutions are guiding pillars we consider and work with to shape and detail every project we undertake. One of these core pillars is Emotion. For our very own Head of Experience Design Strategy & Brand, Adam Mortimer, designing for emotion sits at the core of creating memorable experiences. By asking how you want audiences to feel we can cleverly design to elicit those specific feelings.   “In many ways, a large part of the industry treats emotion as decoration - a music cue, a lighting shift, or elements added onto a plan that was never designed to hold it. That's not emotion. That's set dressing.” Adam Mortimer. Emotion is the catalyst for connection where long-term memory making requires an ecosystem view to be successful: - Does your messaging truly resonate? - Can your front-line teams tell an engaging and compelling story? - Are we attracting the right quality audiences – or just filling space? Emotion is what causes audiences to lean in, to hold on and to remember. It is the felt sense of being seen and engaged – not just entertained. Entertainment asks: did the audience enjoy it? Emotion asks: did audiences leave feeling different? World-class experiences answer the second question. The first takes care of itself. When it comes to the design of experiences understanding the emotions you want to create within an audience turns a good experience into a powerfully impactful one.   We believe that designing for emotion is what makes experiences memorable: changing behaviour and creating stronger relationships between audiences and brands. With audiences increasingly seeking human, tangible, analogue and authentic connection, experiences have become a critical part of a balanced marketing mix. Advertising tells people what a brand values whereas experiences allow audiences to feel it firsthand. Those emotional connections become memory-making anchors, shareable and more likely to influence long-term behaviour. Some of our own solutions that prioritised designing for emotion from the outset include our activation for the pioneering Polestar AFLW Melbourne Demons sponsorship, the Polestar 5 Australian Launch, and our cultural experience for the Queensland Holocaust Museum and Education Centre. The Polestar 5 launch themed ‘story space’ centred on emotion by moving audiences from viewing to feeling: designed to connect the heart and the head. The AFLW sponsorship activation designed for emotion by centring on belonging and human connection through the power of play. While the Queensland Holocaust Museum leaned into guiding audience members through curated zones and emotional stories and back through safely. #TogetherWeCreate #ExperienceDesign #Emotion #Brand #Strategy

At the core, experiences are about people. A pioneering first for the City of Melbourne is the Melbourne Experience Summit, designed from the ground up to bring together experience economy leaders and creators to explore the future of experience design through a research-led and insights-driven Guiding the end-to-end process through our Experience Design Canvas (XDC), Designteam shaped and structured a program that focussed on people: we prioritised connection and collaboration - enabling open discussion and shared understanding through a process of research and stakeholder consultation matched to local and global industry benchmarking. A ‘hands on’ feature for attendees was the Summit workshop we designed and facilitated in collaboration with the WXO - World Experience Organization. We set out to creatively and digitally enable all attendees the global exchange of original ideas that would essentially reimagine the Melbourne Experience. We achieved this via a live cross to London with an AI-powered session with Henry Coutinho-Mason VisuAIse Futures to promote creative thinking, knowledge sharing and the development of new ideas powered live by all Summit attendees. Our congratulations to the City of Melbourne project team for the vision and belief - the Summit aligned a broad section of industry leaders from Melbourne’s diverse experience economy around a shared vision. The sold-out Summit established a platform for ongoing collaboration, helping position experiences as a key driver of connection, innovation and economic growth. #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #Connection #Summit,

“We need to do more with less - and still deliver meaningful outcomes, every time.”    Greater focus on budgets and performance combined with expanding expectations and increasingly diverse audience needs are placing pressure on how experiences are conceived and delivered. The new era for experiences forces efficiencies to compete directly with creativity and connection. It’s a balancing act to be designed for from the outset because when cost optimisation becomes the dominant lens, the quality, depth, and emotional impact of experiences can be compromised, directly reducing the experiences' ability to deliver quality results. Leadership focus in this context is on reframing budgets as investments in value creation rather than bottom-line expenditure, ensuring every allocation is intentionally tied to results that matter. Success is measured through leaner delivery models that generate greater return in experience quality, brand effect, and business performance per dollar spent.    You understand that financial constraints must be balanced with quality experience outcomes – but do you know how to design and structure for efficiencies in ways that perform, rather than limit, ambitions?    Efficiencies and constraints as the driver of quality experiences.    DESIGN EXPERIENCES WITH A SMARTER USE OF BUDGETS AND RESOURCES  Prioritise fewer, higher-quality experiences over fragmented activity that dilutes impact or fails to deliver a meaningful return. This curated and performance-based approach ensures that every investment is intentional, focused, and capable of generating stronger experiential and brand outcomes.    STREAMLINED DELIVERY MODELS  Reduce duplication across agencies, suppliers, and markets by simplifying how experiences are delivered end-to-end. An operating framework designed for clarity and consistency: lowers operational friction, and ensures aligned resources are used more effectively across all areas.    OUTCOME-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING  Direct investment toward experiences that are proven to influence brand and business metrics. Work from the outset to ensure creative and operational choices are grounded in measurable value creation. Alignment strengthens accountability while reinforcing the strategic and valuable role of experience design. #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #MakeIt #Efficient

In Saxton Global Agency’s insightful ‘future of business experiences’ report, one of the pillars explored is a leading trend shaping connection. More than half of event professionals report a stronger desire for connection and networking as the number one audience and attendee behaviour shift. As an industry it's timely to move away from accidental networking and toward intentionally designing spaces and opportunities for connection. Currently, legacy event formats treat person-to-person connection as something that happens in the gaps between information sharing – however, it’s felt that a chat over lunch is not enough. “People say ‘content is king’. I disagree. It comes down to human connection” – Sherrif Karamat, President and CEO of PCMA. An example of designing for connection is our solution for OPPO Australia. For their milestone Anniversary event we focused on designing a shared experience that intentionally deepened and created relationships between the audience. Using interactive installations and stations we enabled connection through shared play, discovery and exploration. The design of the event also focused on sensory experiences to unite the audience in a collective narrative and allowing space for mingling, as well as individual and group discussion valued by the audience. We see that people want to enjoy the numerous benefits of connecting live - with each other. Perhaps that connection should be designed and planned for with the same priority that is given to the speaking agenda. View the ‘Future of business events 2030 and beyond’ report on Saxton’s website. #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #Future #BusinessEvents

Experience vision: move beyond static product displays - deliver an immersive, experiential environment designed to build advocacy. For the JB Hi-Fi Mega tech show, we partnered with Retail Safari to bring Meta’s pioneering augmented and mixed reality products to life for over 800 JB Hi-Fi retail sales associates from over 210 stores nationally. Designed for impact and connection, the layered solution showcased the suite of Meta Quest Mixed Reality and Meta AI-integrated Wearables. Meta’s tech was given a platform through interactive demonstration stations showcasing gaming, fitness, and productivity applications of the devices. Inclusive by design, the solution engaged both surrounding viewers and passersby as well as the users of the device, we designed the space so the vision from the headsets was mirrored to monitors in real-time for the surrounding crowd to also engage with the experience. One experience. Multiple viewers. With the ultimate goal of making customer facing teams sharper, faster, and more effective on the floor, we needed to boost confidence in the JB Hi-Fi staff in recommending Meta’s suite of products. Using hands-on trials, we created understanding and brand connection through the power of experience: directly driving staff recommendations in-store. Feedback confirmed that the hands-on solution for the Meta space was a show highlight for staff - delivering engaging product education and creating in-store advocates.   #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #Meta #JBHiFi #MemoryMaking

Designing with depth.    The challenge and opportunity for measurement.    Courage, play, belonging, freedom, reward and care: emotional signals that tell us if people will engage with an experience.    A featured DRUM piece: “It’s been emotional, hasn’t it?” covers why emotional responses are one of the clearest indicators of whether experiences engage and create lasting value.    In some ways, brands measure the value of experiences the wrong way: often like a digital campaign [impressions, reach, social mentions] or assessing an activation purely on the number of transactions. It’s as if presence, story and connection don't count unless they convert on the spot. A physical experience isn't a website, and it isn't a showroom floor. Experiences behave differently, so impact must be measured differently.     Traditional measures like satisfaction and recommendation scores don’t explain what people felt during the experience or which moments made them feel that way – and which moments will be recalled in the future.    The true value measure of a physical experience is whether it's still doing something in the memory of the audience long after the event is over.    “To understand the value of experiences, marketers need measurement that captures not just enjoyment, but how those experiences make people feel and what that means for future engagement.”    Experiences are inherently designed for emotion. That’s their super-power. Emotions directly influence the ways in which experiences are recalled. It’s key to design and shape experiences for emotional impact: moments valued by audiences in ways that create ‘peaks’.    “Experience metrics are evolving. Perhaps engagement time matters more than headcount, because it informs who chose to stay, not just that they happened to pass through.”.     What audiences do in the weeks after an event matters more than what they did at the event, because perhaps that's the difference between a moment and a relationship.     Whether someone can describe a story unprompted, in their own words matters more than whether they photographed and shared it, because a photo proves it looked good, not much else. And perhaps we design so that audiences leave caring more about the brand than they did when walking in – in some ways everything else is just the mechanism for getting there...” says Adam Mortimer...    Emotional engagement and recall influences recommendation, repeat attendance, long-term connection and advocacy. For experience creators, shaping moments that create emotion gives a clearer direction for what to improve, what to invest in, and for the design of the moments that create memories.    #TogetherWeCreate #ExperienceDesign #MemoryMaking #Emotion 

Designing for success – the new era for experiences. When it comes to experiences: for audiences and brands, expectations are resetting. Expected to build trust, strengthen culture, support brand positioning, connect people more meaningfully and contribute to broader business goals.    Events are no longer just calendar moments.   They are now being treated, rightly, as strategic business tools.  Brand leaders are facing pressure to deliver more value.   Audiences expect more.   The new financial year marks an excellent point in time for leaders to pause. To take control over the design and performance of upcoming campaigns and programs.  Designing with confidence - we know a structured way of thinking can help turn complex problems into clear steps towards a successful and industry-leading experience campaign.  While the idea of guiding frameworks can initially seem creatively restrictive, they create a standardised and systematic approach to solve complex problems and to unlock potential: where creativity, data and business needs are balanced to build a complete customer journey – often uncovering otherwise hidden details early on so that brands can effectively tell their stories and be their best.   Meaningful.  Memorable.  Measurable.    At Designteam, we use an evidence-based framework shaped in partnership with the WXO - World Experience Organization: the Experience Design Canvas (XDC). Designed for programs both big and small, created to help our partners design meaningful and memorable experiences. We bring clarity and confidence to complex opportunities, helping ambitious brands level up expectations for their most important audiences. Designed experiences that create engagement. In an era of experience expectation reset the opportunity exists to guide the entire system: optimising for performance, reducing mistakes and making programs more impactful. If you’d like to learn more about the XDC framework, get in touch: https://lnkd.in/gxvHcCsf #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #Performance 

June in review. Another month of creating spaces, experiences and moments that bring brands and people together. #TogetherWeCreate #MonthInReview #Milestones #Designteam #Pioneering #Experiences

A solution designed for a global mobility and innovation leader to shine. Partnering with Brembo for a leading industry event, we aimed to reposition the brand from being a traditional manufacturer of hardware components to a high-tech solution provider leading in the new mobility era. The brand vision for the project centred on “turning energy into inspiration”; integrating data and technology into advancing the driver experience. Design shifted the physical presence from static product displays towards a layered digital, connected and interactive conceptual brand environment valued by audiences. Elements featured interactive displays as the specialised OLED surface for the GT Upgrade Line providing audiences with deeper levels of technical understanding. Digital layers introduced into the experience such as integrated QR codes allowed for streamlined 1:1 engagement and vital product information and brand story sharing to suit visitor needs. One brand space. Multiple messages. Experience architecture was specifically designed to physically manifest Brembo’s three core brand pillars: 💡 inspiring solutions 💡shaping the future 💡 overcoming limits. The integrated approach ensured both the product and brand narrative was cohesive and engaging across all areas. Brembo: a unique identity both in terms of aesthetics and performance... Artful design: a standout for the project was the featured custom “Caliper Wall,” a specialised suspended iconic caliper display designed as a visitor focal point that cleverly celebrated Brembo as a style icon. The space also featured a premium architectural palette ensuring global brand consistency while maintaining a distinctive high-tech look and feel. A solution created for visitors to engage in purposeful technical exploration through interactive workstations and display desks that encouraged guests to move from curiosity to active participation. The pioneering solution was strategically designed to emphasise and bring to life legendary Brembo performance, ensuring that visitors flowed naturally towards key touchpoints and relevant zones – driving both engagement and deeper understanding. #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #ExperienceMarketing #BREMBO #AAAE

Creating memorable experiences. For successful brands today leading in competitive markets and providing a service or product is not enough to guarantee success. Demand for authentic experiences is at a peak and whether it’s an event, an expo, or a brand activation, designing experiences people remember is the key to engagement, loyalty and standing out from the crowd. While traditional marketing informs customers about a product, experiential marketing invites them to participate in ways important to them. Transforming them from customers, to audiences and into active participants in a brand’s story. Audiences are hardwired to connect through the power of story - actively shared moments rather than purely one-way information. Brands can design for success with this knowledge: inspiring audiences to become repeat customers and ultimately, advocates. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eNnmfHCV #TogetherWeCreate #Pioneering #Experiences #Insights