What is emotional design and why does it matter? In an exclusive Dribbble Video, we sit down with the talented team at Laxalt & McIver, a creative design studio, to learn more about how they lean on empathy and emotions to problem-solve and design better solutions. Get inspired to infuse more emotion into your own work as the team sheds light on their tried-and-true philosophy for design.
Peter Laxalt: My name is Peter Laxalt, and Iām one of the partners at Laxalt & McIver. Weāre a multidisciplinary studio based out of Brooklyn, New York, and Reno, Nevada.
What is Emotional Design?
Peter Laxalt: Emotional design is kind of a philosophy we take internally at L&M. For us to approach these projects in terms of trying to zoom out and see it from another lens, allows us to kind of infuse what we call emotion into the design.
Kylie Souza: Every business has a goal that is to help humanity some way or benefit the world or put their thing out there. I really want to be able to see things from their perspective of how they want to help others and where that feeling comes from. How are these people feeling and how do they want other people to feel when they interact with their product or website?
Peter Laxalt: To kind of give an example of thatādesign is a super contextual thing. If weāre going to do some designs for a hiking company, maybe an immediate thought is doing trees and doing stuff that you would think outdoors. But what we try to do, and one thing that we really do try to push and inspire each other internally in the company is, what does it smell like? What are the actual parts of hiking and camping? Is camping something thatā¦ are you remembering the trees? Are you remembering dancing naked around the campfire or staying up late drinking whiskey?
Thereās these different contexts of what other people feel when you talk about those experiences. Taking the figurative instead of the literal route is a really key point that we really try to inspire each other to do. Taking the conceptual route rather than just saying it flat out.
Designing through the lens of an artist
Peter Laxalt: I think for us, what weāve kind of tried to harness over the years is approaching design as artwork because good art isnāt just a visual piece. Good art is a feeling that you take away from that piece that lasts way longer than just the instant satisfaction of seeing it.
Matthew McIver: Thereās so much noise and clutter out there. And oftentimes, weāre just so distracted with all the technology that we have in life and thereās just so much opportunity to get your art out there. And if your artās not stopping somebody in their tracks or really making them think or question or create curiosity, I feel like weāre not doing our jobs.
Peter Laxalt: The more that we can kind of uncover that, whether itās in code or whether itās in doing illustrations or custom typography, itās like if weāre able to show the emotion that weāre feeling when weāre designing it, itās going to be more likely that the viewer is going to feel the same emotions that weāre trying to kind of infuse into the artwork.
How to design with empathy and emotion
Peter Laxalt: Thereās this balance between work emotion and personal emotion and itās obvious that itās going to start intertwining between stuff. But thereās this skill that I have encouraged everybody to learn over the years, which is feeling other peopleās emotions, being empathetic, and that kind of allows you to design and solve these problems for these projects by feeling what the other person is feelingāwhether itās pain, whether itās happiness, if theyāre passionate about somethingā¦ feeling and trying to put yourself in the shoes of how they feel it.
Kylie Souza: Thereās research at the beginning of any project, but in that research, thereās also emotional research. Thereās also asking a lot of questions that might not seem directly related but kind of end up revealing more of the story and more of the meaning behind some of our clientsā goals.
If weāre working with a medical intelligence company, I may not know the logistics that go behind that sort of thing. But I can relate to wanting a healthy community and wanting to be a part of a healthy community, and that feeling of wanting to be sure about something and kind of calm someoneās worries.
Peter Laxalt: A great example on the hiking noteāI grew up in Reno, Nevada. So for me, Desolation Wilderness or Lake Tahoe, itās not about beautiful trees or anything, itās about listening to silence and itās about putting myself in the shoes of when I was like fifteen and running around in the mountains. And thatās the feeling that I have. But how can I convey that to other people?
And that gets challenging when new projects come in. Like a surfing company that we worked with in Portugal. I never grew up surfing. None of our team has really surfed. So how do we emotionally feel that same exact feeling of a surf company or being a surfer growing up in it?
So what we do is, whether itās watching surf movies, itās not even about doing research and finding mood boards. Itās like watch a surf movie, read a surf magazine, look at vintage surf, what was the feeling, why do people do it and try and empathetically understand where theyāre coming from so you can accurately convey their emotion.
Matthew McIver: You know, at the beginning and the end of the day too, we all have our personal battles and struggles in life, and we do encourage people to kind of leave it in the burden basket at the door. Like donāt bring in that emotional drama, but use that to empower yourselves. Use that to take your design to the next level and kind of use that creative outlet as a way to shift that energy.
Peter Laxalt: There are two types of memory that people are going to remember. Theyāre going to remember visually what it looks like, but I think a longer feeling, what people are going to remember is what it feels like.
This video was shot and produced by Matthew Kadi.
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