Nico Guillin

Every time we start a new project, my first thoughts inevitably drift towards this question: How to connect with our audiences and ultimately hope they form memories from the experiences we create?

This foundational and exciting question becomes: How are memories formed? Can we guide that process? A lot of technical information is available about the four stages of memory creation, which is a great way to enter the subject, but it needs to be translated from the theoretical into a tangible way of approaching the work with an experiential design lens. I came across the work of Francisco Mora, who stated “Without emotion there is no curiosity, no attention, no learning, no memory.” There is so much packed into that sentence, it transformed my way of thinking.

After further research, it ultimately led to the proposition that cognitive and emotional experiences, together form memories. Layered and modulated properly, these experiences also lead to further sustained visitor attention—an amazing added benefit in a world rife with competition for every millisecond of our conscious time.

Through examples of past and recently opened work from Local Projects, under my creative leadership, let’s invite a conversation around this complex and exciting topic.