What first drew me into design was the desire to make beautiful things. Illustration, static design and photography formed the starting point. Working with still images showed how composition, contrast and detail anchor perception. Over time, this simple motive opened into a deeper question: how do people actually perceive what we create, and why do certain configurations feel pleasing or meaningful?

The next development came 1999 at MTV Networks in New York with motion design. The focus shifted from static composition to temporal logic. Since then I have created channel identities, film titles, exhibitions and immersive formats for MTV, Nickelodeon, ORF, ZDF, VIVA, Pro7, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW, Siemens, Douglas and CERN. Motion made it clear that people do not perceive visuals in isolation. They perceive transitions, tensions, delays and resolutions. Timing, rhythm, memory and expectation guide perception long before form does. This period became an intensive study of sequence and meaning: how design constructs experience and narrative over time.

A decisive turn came through scent. Around 2013, while working with olfactory materials, I recognised that I “smell” color, a form of synesthesia. This disrupted the boundaries of design and initiated a sustained inquiry into perception and neuroscience. If the brain can translate color into scent, then crossmodal translation follows rules that can be examined, mapped and applied.

To understand these mechanisms, I studied sensory substitution and binding. Substitution shows how information can move between senses when the structural pattern of the signal remains stable. Binding explains how separate sensory streams are combined into one perceptual event. Together, these fields clarified how crossmodal translation becomes functionally interpretable.

The Bauhaus Missing Scents project (2019) emerged from this line of work. Treating scent as a missing parameter within Bauhaus Gestalt principles demonstrated that full crossmodal translation is possible. It showed how altering one modality reshapes the meaning of the others and exposed the absence of a structural map for how modalities relate, influence and transform.

This insight led me deeper into neuroscience. I studied how intensity, timing, texture, space, temperature, valence and arousal integrate into unified perceptual states. At this stage the work shifted from practice alone to practice and theory. The aim became to formalize these insights and make them usable for designers. Multimodal thinking was almost absent in design. It needed frameworks, systems and logics that could guide practice and the future of design.

From this emerged the Sensory Code, the conceptualization of sensory modalities as a digitized information state, based on a complete multimodal translation map: a system that defines stable perceptual axes independent of medium. In 2025 I published research on non-molecular scent transmission, exploring whether perceptual states could encode “digital smell” without relying on chemistry.

Today I work at the intersection of perception, design and foresight. I examine how sensory input becomes identity and experience, how perception interacts with media and attention, and how design must evolve to remain perceptually relevant. The practice treats perception as the primary site of design and integrates applied research with composition across modalities.

I develop frameworks for multisensory understanding, crossmodal translation, perception design, sensory coherence, digital scent theory and the future of design. I teach how the sensory system shapes interpretation, how algorithms influence cognition and agency, and how brands and institutions can work with perceptual states deliberately rather than leaving them to chance.

The work moves from understanding the structural properties of how we perceive to composing new perceptual experiences, for brands, films, institutions, and immersive environments.

MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, ORF, ZDF, VIVA, Pro7Sat1, ARD, TUM x CERN, Siemens, Douglas x Peter Lindbergh, Paris Autosalon, European Film Awards, SEAT, AUDI, Mercedes, VW, BMW, Ipsen, ARAG, Linde, Wacom, Ferrero, UBS, Dr.Best, Universal Music, Sony Music, Prime, BMEIA, Ö1, Mythos Mozart, Registan Festival Samarkand 

Awards for the Mercedes A-Klasse "Eine gute Idee" design project: Communication Arts Annual, One Show Interactive, Red Dot, ITVA, Ottocar, Grand Award, NY Festival, DDC, Epica, HOW Interactive Design, HOW IA Annual, IAAA, iF Design, D&AD Annual, D&AD Award, Cresta, ID Magazine

> Filmography,  Broadcast, Identity and Title Design