Immersive design
Encyclopedia
Immersive design describes the new generation of designers who work inclusively across all story-driven media, from film and interactive media to live audience environments. Immersive designers deal simultaneously with virtual and dimensional environments and who and what they contain; and with time-based narrative
and story space.
Alex McDowell
coined the phrase 'immersive design' in 2007 in order to frame a new discussion around a design discipline that uniquely addresses story-based media within the context of digital and virtual technologies. Together McDowell and museum director Chris Scoates co-directed 5D | The Future of Immersive Design conference in Long Beach 2008, laying the ground for immersive design to be a distinct design philosophy
and thus be subject to wider scrutiny, development and promotion. 5D has since become a forum and community representing a broad range of cross-media designers with its intent based in education, cross-pollination and the development of an expanding knowledge base.
The immersive design process attempts to describe two simultaneous entwined tasks:
Many in the industry believe that it is recent developments in technology that have enabled both of these aspects of immersive design to exist; technology consisting of design tools that create a virtual workspace (an intuitive three-dimensional design language and vision) that allows for non-linear workflows, broadening the opportunity of what can be created. However, others argue that both of these aspects have always existed, believing that recent developments in technology have simply allowed these aspects to fit more easily into conventional mainstream production workflow. It is probably true to say that the designer has always harnessed the best tools available, but that the potential of design tools based in digital technology and allowing for the interaction and manipulation of dimensional space fundamentally advances the craft.
One issue within the philosophical discussion of immersive design is how much immersive design should define itself by new technology, and by doing so, whether it narrows down its own possibilities as well as broadening them. What is clear is that technology will keep changing, and that the designer must become increasingly adept and adaptative while remaining focused on the creative intent.
Having only been actively promoted as a design philosophy
to be discussed internationally in recent years, immersive design is very much in its infancy, but as a term it has already been appropriated for the purposes of describing design for narrative media and the process of Worldbuilding
. The rapid rise and recognition of transmedia and virtual production emphasises the need for immersive design as the single most fluid cross-media discipline.
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
and story space.
Alex McDowell
Alex McDowell
Alex McDowell, RDI is British production designer and film producer.McDowell was born in Borneo to parents of English origin. He wanted to become a painter and studied at the Central School of Art in London. He founded Rocking Russian Design in 1978 and started his career designing album covers...
coined the phrase 'immersive design' in 2007 in order to frame a new discussion around a design discipline that uniquely addresses story-based media within the context of digital and virtual technologies. Together McDowell and museum director Chris Scoates co-directed 5D | The Future of Immersive Design conference in Long Beach 2008, laying the ground for immersive design to be a distinct design philosophy
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
and thus be subject to wider scrutiny, development and promotion. 5D has since become a forum and community representing a broad range of cross-media designers with its intent based in education, cross-pollination and the development of an expanding knowledge base.
The immersive design process attempts to describe two simultaneous entwined tasks:
- To design intact worlds that are coherent, have an interior logic, contain history, geography, surface, metaphor, respond to and drive narrative, and allow an audience to be fully immersed in both environment and story. By definition an immersive designer is engaged in the embedding of story into environment, whether for passive or interactive media, in virtual or physical worlds.
- To put in place a non-linear immersive design process that provides a fully collaborative, often digital and virtual production environment for creators and the work that they are creating.
Many in the industry believe that it is recent developments in technology that have enabled both of these aspects of immersive design to exist; technology consisting of design tools that create a virtual workspace (an intuitive three-dimensional design language and vision) that allows for non-linear workflows, broadening the opportunity of what can be created. However, others argue that both of these aspects have always existed, believing that recent developments in technology have simply allowed these aspects to fit more easily into conventional mainstream production workflow. It is probably true to say that the designer has always harnessed the best tools available, but that the potential of design tools based in digital technology and allowing for the interaction and manipulation of dimensional space fundamentally advances the craft.
One issue within the philosophical discussion of immersive design is how much immersive design should define itself by new technology, and by doing so, whether it narrows down its own possibilities as well as broadening them. What is clear is that technology will keep changing, and that the designer must become increasingly adept and adaptative while remaining focused on the creative intent.
Having only been actively promoted as a design philosophy
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
to be discussed internationally in recent years, immersive design is very much in its infancy, but as a term it has already been appropriated for the purposes of describing design for narrative media and the process of Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. The result may sometimes be called a constructed world, conworld or sub-creation. The term world-building was popularized at science fiction writer's workshops during the 1970s...
. The rapid rise and recognition of transmedia and virtual production emphasises the need for immersive design as the single most fluid cross-media discipline.
See also
- NarrativeNarrativeA narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
- Human-centered computingHuman-centered computingHuman-centered computing is an emerging, interdisciplinary academic field broadly concerned with computing and computational artifacts as they relate to the human condition...
- Immersion (virtual reality)Immersion (virtual reality)Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial. This mental state is frequently accompanied with spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and...
- GesamtkunstwerkGesamtkunstwerkA Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so...