Affective Design Overview
Affective Design:
Interactive/ Immersive /
Performative
Affective Design Overview
Affective Design:
Interactive/ Immersive /
Performative
INtroduction
This area of my portfolio showcases an overview of currently featured projects and research that explore affective (emotional) resonance through the integration of sound, light, and interactive/spatial design.
Nurobodi
Nurobodi:
Affective DEsign Research
Nurobodi
Nurobodi:
Affective DEsign Research
Nurobodi
#AffectiveDesign #UX #Interactive #SpatialDesign #Research #Environments #SystemsThinking #Innovation #ProjectManagement
Introduction:
Affective Design Refers to the intentional creation of products, systems, or experiences that recognize, evoke, or respond to human emotions. It moves beyond functional or aesthetic considerations to embed emotional resonance as a core aspect of interaction. In affective design, emotional states are not seen as secondary outcomes but as primary drivers that influence user experience, decision-making, and connection.
At its core, affective design integrates insights from psychology, neuroscience, cybernetics and interaction desirn to craft interfaces, artifacts, or environments that anticipate and adapt to users' emotional needs—either passively (through careful emotional tone-setting) or actively (through real-time emotional feedback systems).
Overview:
Nurobodi is a long-form research and design project I founded in 2017 to investigate how adaptive audiovisual feedback environments can support mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. It bridges disciplines — affective (emotional) design, sonic interaction, colour perception psychology, and mindfulness — to prototype interactive systems and environments that support heightened awareness and regulate cognitive-emotional states.
In short, Nurobodi’s design principles are not passive — they facilitate interfaces and experiences for emotional and cognitive alignment.
Take a deeper dive into some Nurobodi UX Case studies here 👈🏼 or,
See a summary of some Affective Design projects below on the page 👇🏼 or,
RMIT VX ROBOTICS LAB (Industry)
RMIT VX ROBOTICS LAB:
Co-Design for Networked
MultiScreen Arrays
RMIT VX ROBOTICS LAB (Industry)
RMIT VX ROBOTICS LAB:
Co-Design for Networked
MultiScreen Arrays
Empathy Design for Multi-SCreen Arrays
#UX #XR #Interdisciplinary #Strategy #Research #Course Design #SpatialDesign #SystemsThinking #Innovation #ProjectManagement
Introduction:
This project showcases my interdisciplinary capability in pioneering innovative uses of RMIT’s Virtual Experiences Laboratory (VXLab), specifically by integrating technical development of the advanced tiled display technology within the GOV Lab as an immersive distributed yet synchronised collective co-design expression. Collaborating directly with Dr. Ian Peake, Technical Manager of VXLab, I strategically extended the lab’s media capabilities for XR-enriched industry, creative and educational experiences.
Overview:
Collaborating closely with RMIT VX Robotics Lab manager, Dr. Peake, I proposed and implemented novel methods and use case to the VX Lab’s multi-screen array. My role involved agile project management, technical exploration, and effective communication with stakeholders, including students and technical staff. This approach ensured that creative and educational objectives aligned with existing technical constraints, delivering innovative multimedia experiences.
Summary:
The core objective was to explore and maximize the VX Lab's technical and operational capabilities whilst simultaneous utilising the Lab to demonstrate extended design and social context for overlapping pedagogical and industry collaborations.
The outcome was a suite of custom-developed tools and an immersive audiovisual design exhibition, enabling both technical and creative use of the Lab’s multiscreen array. This facilitated unprecedented creative opportunities for students and extended the technical functionality of the VXLab itself to better serve industry relations by demonstrating:
System design and testing research for industry partners with complex combinations of systems, design models and tests
Distributed, collaborative design, prototyping and troubleshooting requiring multiple views of complex data;
Prototyping and development of novel visualisation networking
High resolution and live immersive audiovisual rendering of layered image/colour/sound.
Student UX Affective Design Mapping
Composite Empathy/Identity Testing
Audiovisual Affective Production Design Lecture
Deliverables:
Interdisciplinary Design/STEM strategic project modelling
Interdisciplinary Design/STEM technical/creative design research and course design
Co-Design, development and deployment of custom tools and methods for ultra-high-resolution multi-screen array integrations.
Agile management of student learning pathways and project assets within technical resource limitations.
Innovative integration of advanced A/V technologies into overlapping Design/STEM educational contexts.
Enhanced immersive multimedia learning experiences above and beyond benchmark standard visual practice.
Behind The Scenes:
Key Insights:
This initiative highlights the effectiveness of interdisciplinary and strategic design thinking in navigating resource constraints to innovate educational technologies. It exemplifies how agile project management and effective communication among interdisciplinary teams and stakeholders can foster significant technological advancement and amplify institutional capacity for Design/STEM integrations as a way to meet evolving industry demands and foster creative education and research innovation.
TCRE (Industry)
RMIT Digital Design:
Transformative Colour
Resonance Environments
TCRE (Industry)
RMIT Digital Design:
Transformative Colour
Resonance Environments
Transformative Colour-Resonance Environments (TCRE)
#AffectiveDesign #DesignPsychology #ColourPsychology #AudioVisualDesign DesignByResearch #UX #ProcessMapping #ProductionDesign #IterativeDesign #QuantativeAnal #QualitativeAnal #ExhibitionDesign #DigitalMediaCuration
Introduction:
Resonance and Colour, as spectrum languages for designing and conveying impactful emotional experience, are more often than not subconsciously tied to memory, social constructs and dominant cultural or utilitarian functionality. This learning design, training and assessment course provides a structured design by research methodology which applies comparative analysis of empirical and quantitative studies of audiovisual-colour resonance and how modulations and transformations are affective. Individual user-research pathways are integrated within broader fields of UX/interaction design as technical and creative resonance and colour theory and research.
Overview:
With a strong conceptual and research focus on developing procedural, persuasive, informative, technical and research writing and design documentation frameworks for presenting both process and performative digital media. Outcomes contextualise and integrate resonance and colour based on the general foundations of data/science and behavioural psychology in an innovative, creative and explorative way. Finally, exploration of process documentation of practise based research as emergent multi-sensory environmental design outputs is realised through exhibition curation as an expression of immersive and interactive folio presentation.
Deliverables:
skills development focuses on:
Researching conceptual and practical integrations of resonance and colour, based on the scientific foundations of each, as well as learning about and applying foundational behavioural psychology in a creative and explorative way
Developing design psychology skills, with a particular deep research focus on understanding relationships between resonance and colour.
Innovate beyond current benchmarks for digital media practice and build on ways to add tools and approaches to enhance applied design thinking.
Designing platform-based virtual gallery experiences of project research, design, and development
Key Insights:
Quality and refined accumulation of TCRE research expressed and communicates overarching creative and technical cohesion of innovative approaches to strategic design thinking and practice. Highly polished audiovisual work(s) that clearly demonstrate iterative development of both final outputs and both qualitative and quantitative user research that inform outputs.
Skills development also demonstrates proficiency utilising a software agnostic interdisciplinary design approach to project-specific briefs, including exhibited process/workflow as design outputs.
RMIT Capitol Theatre (Industry)
RMIT/Capitol Theatre:
Bridging Physical and Digital
Affective Environments
RMIT Capitol Theatre (Industry)
RMIT/Capitol Theatre:
Bridging Physical and Digital
Affective Environments
Digitising the Capitol Theatre in 360 For Immersive Affective Design Video
#AffectiveDesign #UX #Interactive #SpatialDesign #Research #XREnvironments #360Video #Innovation #ProjectManagement
Introduction
In an era where hybrid cinematic experiences are reshaping audience engagement, this project asked: How can we extend the cultural presence of historically significant venues like the Capitol Theatre into virtual realms, while also enabling student filmmakers to prototype within immersive production environments?
Responding to this challenge, students were embedded within a real-world simulation of a film production studio, assuming professional roles across all stages of the production pipeline. My role as Lecturer involved directing the project while serving as Director of Photography (DOP) and Production Manager — ensuring students navigated both the creative and technical complexities of XR filmmaking.
Overview
Digitising the Capitol Theatre in 360 was an immersive learning initiative that integrated cutting-edge volumetric capture technologies, cinematic storytelling, and extended reality (XR) postproduction workflows. The project formed part of a blended learning pipeline designed to upskill students in emerging media practices through a practice-based research framework. Using the Insta360 Pro 2 camera system, students worked collaboratively to reimagine Melbourne’s iconic Capitol Theatre as an experiential XR canvas.
Project Summary
The workshop unfolded in three distinct but interlinked phases, each designed to scaffold both technical competency and conceptual fluency:
1. Preproduction (Location-Specific)
Students visited the Capitol Theatre to scout the space, develop spatial storyboards, and identify key cinematic perspectives. This phase emphasized production design for 360° capture — a unique challenge requiring spatial choreography and non-linear thinking.
2. Production (On-Site Filming with Insta360 Pro 2)
Using the Insta360 Pro 2, students executed location shoots in 8K stereoscopic video, engaging in:
Camera rig operation and spatial blocking
Sound spatialisation and ambient audio capture
Data wrangling and file management in a multi-terabyte workflow
Students also learned to convert raw 8K footage to 4K for accessible postproduction editing.
3. Postproduction (Remote/Hybrid)
The final stage explored an innovative technique: embedding students’ standard UHD video projects within the Capitol Theatre’s virtual cinema screen. The result was a layered spatial montage — their own narrative short films premiered inside the virtual Capitol. This simulated the prestige of screening at an iconic venue, while maintaining a fully immersive 360° environment.
Deliverables
360° digital twin of the Capitol Theatre interior
Student-led immersive short films, premiered within a virtual theatre screen
Collaborative production logbooks documenting roles, workflows, and reflections
Exported immersive videos suitable for VR headsets and web-based XR platforms
Practice-based research reflections for each student, focused on role-based learning and spatial design insights
Key Insights
Spatial storytelling changes how students understand screen direction and audience agency. Working in 360 forced them to think beyond the frame and into spatial experience design.
Emergent pipelines require interdisciplinary coordination. The film production company model helped students understand the interplay between direction, DOP, postproduction, and digital asset management in new media formats.
Simulating real-world prestige environments creates affective motivation. The act of ‘screening’ their film within the virtual Capitol theatre had a powerful psychological effect — making the experience tangible and emotionally resonant.
Blended learning supports real-world readiness. The combination of in-location production and remote post workflows mirrors contemporary XR production pipelines used in the industry.
Digitising the Capitol Theatre in 360 not only introduced students to extended reality filmmaking but also provided a framework for collaboration, creative ownership, and spatial literacy in digital storytelling. The outcome was more than just immersive content — it was a generative learning environment, equipping students to prototype the future of cinema itself.
A Virtual Tour of the Capitol
This is an example of an RMIT alumni student work, Lucy Ryan, that captured a creative approach to an immersive audiovisual tour of the Capitol Theatre. It serves both as documentation and preservation of cultural place/space but also doubled as a medium for designers to explore augmentation and bridging of virtual and physical space in an immersive, interactive and there
VICSEG
VICSEG New Futures Training:
Digital And Architectural Branding
VICSEG
VICSEG New Futures Training:
Digital And Architectural Branding
New Futures Training – Branded Window Design
#EnvironmentalDesign #WayfindingDesign #VisualIdentity #GraphicDesign #BrandingDesign #LargeFormatDesign #SpatialBranding #DesignForPlace #DesignLeadership
Introduction
New Futures Training is the educational and vocational training arm of VICSEG, supporting newly arrived and multicultural communities through pathways into essential community and care sectors. As a registered training organisation (RTO), its mission goes beyond education — it’s about creating equitable access, cultural belonging, and professional opportunity.
This project focused on designing a branded architectural intervention at one of their new Melbourne campuses — not just as a visual identity exercise, but as a collaborative spatial storytelling process. The work extended beyond design execution to become a co-designed act of cultural visibility, welcoming every learner through a threshold that reflects their values, their communities, and their aspirations.
Project Overview
The brief was to design both integrated photo-graphic designs for digital/web as well as large-format branded window treatment that would transform the physical frontage of the campus into a visual interface for care, inclusion, and new beginnings.
Key goals included:
Creating a visually distinct, emotionally welcoming presence that celebrates community diversity
Enhancing public visibility while ensuring students inside feel secure and respected
Establishing visual alignment with VICSEG’s broader identity while expressing the unique role of New Futures Training
Embedding gentle cues of transformation — not just brand marks, but signals of support, momentum, and trust
I led the project across creative direction, visual communication design, and interdisciplinary project management, collaborating with internal teams and external production vendors to realise a concept that was both aesthetically bold and affectively sensitive, all delivered on a tight turnaround schedule.
Deliverables
Large-format, vector-based window mural design, aligned to site-specific glazing layouts
Production-ready files with precise paneling, bleed, and transparency considerations
Visual mockups and environmental elevations for stakeholder co-approval
Digital extensions of the brand treatment for social media and internal learning communications
Full project facilitation, including stakeholder co-design sessions, print liaison, and onsite installation coordination
Key Insights
Co-design deepens resonance — by involving stakeholders throughout, the resulting visual identity felt owned, not imposed
Architectural branding is emotional infrastructure — it tells people they’re welcome before they ever walk inside
Digital and environmental branding must be reciprocal — each strengthens the other when built as one system
This project demonstrates how place-making, visual identity, and human-centered collaboration can intersect to create environments that support not just learning, but becoming
Mergenesis
Tony Yap COmpany- Mergenisis:
>Interactive AFFECTIVE Installation
>XR & DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS
Mergenesis
Tony Yap COmpany- Mergenisis:
>Interactive AFFECTIVE Installation
>XR & DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS
MERGENESIS
#AR #3dScanning #InteractionDesign #InstallationDesign #LightingDesign #SoundDesign #ProductionDesign #CreativeDirection #Videography #PostProduction
Introduction
This two-part body of work was produced in collaboration with performance artist Tony Yap, and a guest artist, Brendan O’Connor, carried out at Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, in January 2021 and post produced in 2022.
Part 1 Overview - Interactive/Performance/Installation/Environment
Part One of Mergenisis explores dynamic and responsive sound-colour resonance to inform and influence performance. In addition to performance, it showcases my custom built interactive light/sound installation and also my 360 camera cinematography and post production.
Creative Direction
Installation Design
Digital Media Production Design
3D Scanning and acquisition of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) assets
3D post-production and design
Rendering and curation of digital environment selected stills
Production design thinking and planning for further iterative development including image/digital XR assets
Sound Design
Music Composition - ‘Holding Pattern’
Both video examples here were produced using 360 camera tech to acquisition both 360 video (for VR or interactive browser experience) as well as morphed 16:9 ratio. The combination of 360 cameras and post production for standard HD format produces a unique perspective on both object and environment. Both Spectrum 1 & 2 were recorded in 5.7k (VR) to be outputted at 4k resolution for screen. Here, they are a lower res MVP demonstration example.
Part 2 Overview - Lidar/AR/Virtual Environment Design
Part Two focuses on digitisation of affective performance motifs via XR Lidar post-production processing & Augmented Reality (AR) prototyping
Methods for design and production I utilised in this project are:
The practices and techniques I applied in Part 2 are:
Creative Direction
Digital Media Production Design
3D Scanning and acquisition of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) assets
3D post-production and design
Rendering and curation of digital environment selected stills
Production design thinking and planning for further iterative development including image/digital XR assets
Sound Design
Music Composition - ‘Holding Pattern’
Music Composition
My focus for the following scenes are to depict the dualistic collapsing and expanding nature of virtualising representations of digital self, in dialogue with dual-masculinity as a singular entity non-binary entity.
It is important for me as an artist beginning to challenge and explore more deeply aspects of ‘masculinity’ and ‘masculine’ beauty when confronted with the void that technology presents to the human form, consciousness and nexus of co-existence across physical and digital space.
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Scene 10
Tony Yap Co - Mad Monk
Tony Yap COmpany- Mad Monk:
AudioVisual/INteraction
Production Design
Tony Yap Co - Mad Monk
Tony Yap COmpany- Mad Monk:
AudioVisual/INteraction
Production Design
Mad Monk - Audiovisual Production Design
#AffectiveDesign #LightingDesign #SoundDesign #AudioVisualDesign #ProductionDesign #LivePerformance
Introduction:
Tony Yap, born in Malaysia, is an accomplished dancer and a multidisciplinary artist. He has been a distinct figure in intercultural discourse and received Asialink residential grants spanning a decade from 2025 and is also a Dance fellowship recipient from the Australia Council for the Arts. Tony is the founding Creative Director of Melaka Arts and Performance Festival–MAP Fest. Tony continues in his contribution significantly to the development of contemporary dance & performance practice, bringing a non-Western perspective to the palette of work being created. His practice is grounded in Asian philosophies, sensibilities and forms
Summary and Deliverables
The Project “Mad Monk” featured as part of FRAME: A biennial of dance at Temperance Hall. My role as the production designer for live performance included:
Lighting/Stage Design
Performance Interaction Design
Colour Design
Sound Design
Live Audiovisual Production Design
Live AV Interaction Performance
Key Insights
This work was included in a broader biennial of dance Curated by Temperance Hall’s Artistic Associate Luke George and included an epic line-up of some Naarm’s most electric artists working in dance, sound, visual installation and costume design amalgamated as ‘ALIENS OF EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY’
The biennial event ALIENS was inspired by Luke’s time living in Brooklyn, New York City between 2010-2017, and his collaborations and participation in the many grass-roots and community/artist-led performance events organised, enacted and attended by expansive and diverse artists and queers of New York.
ALIENS OF EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY takes its title from the bizarre name of the artist-visa required for a creative to enter, reside and work in the USA. These happenings intend to reclaim “othering” and transform such through an art gathering which celebrates the electric, inclusive and spontaneous energy of Melbourne’s incredible alternative queer party scene.