The Experience Book: For Designers, Thinkers & Makers

Contrary to what one might imagine, there is no such thing as an experience designer. At least not in the sense that we might talk of an individual recognised as such. To make experiences is to be human. Shaman, architect, food engineer – you name it, they are all experience designers. Informed by an understanding of people’s needs and wants – our stories, our rituals, our myths – the beautifully designed experience has the power to transform lives. The Experience Book is an ode to that power.

Essentially, it is a book about time and how we use it to design and make experiences that define the spaces we live, work and play in. Divided into a guidebook and a sourcebook, it begins by explaining what it is about the human mind that so deeply feasts on the notion of the experience, and then employs this knowledge to suggest a method or framework for designing experiences. The guidebook done, the sourcebook serves as inspiration for the art of experience design, with precedents drawn from the past 35,000 years’ worth of transformative experience making.

One of the first publications about the attributes that together make what is fast becoming a recognised discipline, The Experience Book is beautifully presented. Comprised of a wonderfully eclectic range of written forms, illustrated by a fantastic mix of drawings and photography, and backed by historical and contemporary examples from the worlds of architecture, branding, fashion, music, art, sport and business, it introduces the maker of experiences as part ethnographer, storyteller, master planner and performance artist.

Challenging the orthodoxy of function, reasserting process over monument and product, delighting in the unexpected, and championing the spectator over the spectacle, this is a book for anyone interested in the power of design, be they creator, communicator or consumer.

An architect, stone mason, designer and teacher, Adam is something of a polymath and has won a number of Cannes Lions, not least for Blackpool’s Dune Grass, the tallest freestanding kinetic public art installation in the world. Along with Dave and his team at FreeState, working with some of the world’s greatest brands, urban planners, developers, architects and place activators, he has helped pioneer the concept of experience masterplanning for the likes of NIKE, Sony, Google, MTV, Manchester City Football Club, The Crown Estate, University of Glasgow, University of Melbourne, Network Rail, Transport for London and Melbourne Airport. It is an approach designed to help architects and developers properly meet the needs of the people they are designing and building for. As well as hosting the FreeState podcast, Adam’s experience, knowledge and eloquent advocacy for the transformational experience make him a sought-after keynote speaker, host and judge. In addition to helping design Central Saint Martins’ narrative environment curriculum, Adam is a visiting lecturer and mentor at the renowned London-based arts and design college.

Dave is a writer, design strategist, teacher and one-time whisky aficionado. Having spent many years writing on the side while working as a primary school teacher, he set up his own copywriting company in 2010 and cut his teeth as a design, travel and drinks writer soon after. Following a revelatory experience visiting a distillery in Islay, Scotland, he became a budding whisky enthusiast, authored Whisky: The Knowledge (2015) and was, for a time, a world whisky awards judge. Having worked with Adam since his teaching days, much of Dave’s work in design is experience-based and is today largely and similarly focused on ensuring that architects and urban planners build the things that people need and want. He is co-author of House Paint & Other Stories (2014) and the architectural monograph From Now On (2020).