Current Research
Cognitive Architecture and Decision Structure
Structural model of cognition focused on threshold dynamics, consequence feedback, storage modulation and manipulation resilience.
Non-Molecular Scent Transmission
Theories for transmitting olfactory effects without physical molecules.
MULTImodal Translation Models
Mapping system enabling sensory translation across modalities.
Multisensory Design Systems
Development of operational frameworks for designing perception across multiple modalities, including the Modal Mapping Atlas and applied cross-sensory orchestration.
PercepTUAL SIGNATURE Branding
Positioning and brand identity through perceptual structure, based on five non-redundant processing axes.
Temporal Logic in Design
Use of time as a structural design parameter to shape attention, processing and encoding in motion, spatial and identity systems.
Neuroaesthetic Thresholds
Study of perceptual thresholds that govern salience, signal load, attraction/repulsion patterns and their manipulation in media and spatial design.
Design-Relevant Cognitive Operations
Formalizing core cognitive processes as tools for design application.
Focus: how perceptual mechanisms structure design outcomes.
The MULTImodal Translation Model
by Carolin Vedder
A structured method for composing perception
across sensory modalities
The Case for Systematic Crossmodal Design
Just as the color wheel provides designers with systematic relationships between hues despite individual variations in color perception, multisensory design requires standardized methods for translating between sensory modalities.
The Problem
Sensory design today lacks shared operational tools. Visual, auditory, olfactory, and spatial systems are often treated separately, leaving no method for aligning perception across modalities. This absence blocks consistency, interaction, and innovation in multisensory design.
Neuroscience confirms that human perception functions as a multimodal system. Without technical methods to translate between these modalities, design remains disconnected from how perception operates.
The Model's Foundation
The Multimodal Translation Model establishes measurable relationships between sensory modalities (like, color, sound and smell) through shared perceptual properties: intensity, duration, temporal dynamics, spatial characteristics and rhythmic patterns. These properties function as translation anchors, allowing designers to construct coherent relationships across different sensory channels.
Core Functions
The model operates through four defined translation functions:
Binding
Aligning multiple sensory channels using shared perceptual anchors
Substitution
Replacing one sensory channel with another
while maintaining perceptual equivalence
Modulation
Adjusting intensity values across different modalities
Sequencing
Structuring time-based sensory interactions
across multiple channels
A fast, sharp visual input can be mapped to a high-frequency auditory tone or a short, intense olfactory burst because they share temporal velocity and intensity patterning.
Purpose
The Multimodal Translation Model provides a design system for translating between sensory modalities using shared perceptual properties. It defines stable relationships across inputs such as color, sound, motion, scent, space, and tactility.
Presentation and Next Steps
The Multimodal Translation Model will be presented for the first time at REACT Vienna 2025.
It will be published as a book, taught as a working methodology, and developed into a digital toolset. Informs emerging workflows in perceptual brand systems, multisensory design workflows and multimodal experience mapping.
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unFORM – SYSTEMS IN FLUX
01 Josef Müller-Brockmann
When form resists finality.
Form is no longer a fragment.
It constructs the narrative behind the moment.
Modernist design sought order.
It imposed structure, balance and control.
But what happens when the grid is no longer static?
When typography ceases to be placed and instead performs?
When structure is no longer a container, but a process?
unFORM - SYSTEMS IN FLUX is a kinetic design research series and evolving exhibition ready concept.
It explores how modernist systems collapse, shift and evolve through motion and space. By translating the rigid logic of Swiss typography, the force of Constructivist energy and the adaptability of parametric grids into fluid, time-based structures, design itself becomes movement.
01 Josef Müller-Brockmann
When form resists finality.
Form is no longer a fragment.
It constructs the narrative behind the moment.
Modernist design sought order.
It imposed structure, balance and control.
But what happens when the grid is no longer static?
When typography ceases to be placed and instead performs?
When structure is no longer a container, but a process?
unFORM - SYSTEMS IN FLUX is a kinetic design research series and evolving exhibition ready concept.
It explores how modernist systems collapse, shift and evolve through motion and space. By translating the rigid logic of Swiss typography, the force of Constructivist energy and the adaptability of parametric grids into fluid, time-based structures, design itself becomes movement.
´THE ART & DYNAMICS
OF NEO KINETICISM
THE KUNST & DYNAMIK
VON NEO KINETISMUS
Neo-Kinetismus is a system I developed to dismantle the divide between stillness and motion. It redefines design as an active force, shaped not only by style, but by perception, rhythm and spatial presence.
Where traditional identity systems remain static and animation follows illustrative logic, Neo-Kinetismus treats all media as temporal, responsive andperceptually alive. A visual can shift. A scent can structure space. A system can adapt to attention.
I apply this logic across motion design, AR, scent, typography, spatial composition and atmosphere. Not to add movement, but to build perceived presence throughtime. Creating form that moves with the viewer. Design that breathes, sharpens and resists fixation.
Neo-Kinetismus enables evolving and multisensory identities. It is both a visual grammar and a design methodology.
