The workshop on sensory experience in environment design turned into jovial mayhem as Tim Kelly of Blue Sky Exhibits demonstrated the power of sight, sound and touch to develop a mood and create emotions. The overall atmosphere of whimsy created by soap bubbles and noisemakers resonated well with the mostly student audience and created a nice counterpoint to the deadly seriousness of portfolio review and jobhunting.

The key point of the session was to watch out for mixed messages among the sensory factors in a design. Tim defined the differing approaches to environment design and product design by saying that "the user touches a product but an environment touches the user." Personally, I think that employing this environmental approach in product design, thinking about how a product touches the user rather than vice versa, would serve to enhance the emotional impact of product design as well.

Rather than the expected museum exhibit or theme park examples, Tim used samples of his trade show exhibits to demonstrate how to apply sensory experience to a marketing environment.

Tim Kelly, Blue Sky Exhibits