SONIC
EXPERIENCE
DESIGN

Make your services, products, and spaces accessible.

Sound changes everything™

Identify how sound and acoustics help or prevent access to your products, services, and spaces. Then, tune them so disabled people can use them with confidence.

HOW WE WORK WITH YOU.

1. Assess.

Identify barriers and start with what matters most to your disabled community.

2. Co-design.

Test solutions with disabled people and your team, so decisions are supported by real‑world evidence.

3. Implement.

We manage the rollout of your new accessibility solutions for you and your community.

Services.

Music therapy
Assistive sound design
Accessible spaces
Museums & experiences

Music therapy & rehabilitation

Deliver the program you want to deliver.
Ensure your instruments and apps are accessible to all disabilities so everyone experiences your program's full potential.

Customize your equipment to suit cognitive, sensory, and physical preferences. Combine sound, light, vibration, and texture to make your equipment relatable, fun, and intuitive.
Explore our solutions.
Adaptive instruments
Clinical research program
Workshops & webinars

Assistive
sound
design™

Deliver critical information to the millions who rely on audio alerts, notifications, and reminders for safety, navigation and guidance.

Transcend language with these powerful memory triggers and shortcuts to the brain. Enable people with cognitive, sensory, sight, and hearing disabilities to navigate your products, services, and spaces effortlessly.
Explore our solutions.
Banking
Transit
Airports.
Telehealth.
Get an accessibility assessment

The disabling effect of noise in spaces.

Noisy spaces make it hard for customers with sensory, cognitive, sight, and hearing disabilities to use devices, keep up with information and find their way around.

For some, the noise is just too much, so they just won't come.

Manage the clashing announcements, echoey spaces, and distorted communication interfering with assistive devices, obscuring your messages, and locking disabled people out of your space.
Explore our solutions.
Stations & mobility hubs
Airport terminals
Hospitals & healthcare facilities.
Neurodivergent workplaces.
Get an accessibility assessment

SONIC EXPERIENCE INFORMATION MAPS.

Eliminate the nasty surprises and stress that lock people out of your spaces. Help people sensitive to sounds prepare for noisy environments by experiencing audio maps of your airport, transit hub, or mall.
Learn more

Museums & experiences.

Design safe and personalized spaces where everyone can connect and interact with your exhibits, regardless of disability. Elevate inclusive experiences with soundtracks tailored to accommodate a wide range of sensory needs. So everyone gets a go.
Explore our work

Introducing

Sonic experience information maps.

Eliminate the nasty surprises and stress that lock people out of your spaces. Help people sensitive to sounds prepare for noisy environments by experiencing audio maps of your airport, transit hub, or mall.

Get a quote

About.

Sound changes everything™

Guide, reassure, excite, calm, celebrate. Get attention — Fast.

Audio alerts, reminders and notifications are powerful shortcuts to the brain. Transcending language, they guide people with disabilities through your products, services and spaces.
Twenty years ago, Marcel began working with young people in the vibrant multicultural suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, supporting them in changing systems affecting their lives.

He then worked with Government, cultural institutions, and brands. Using interactive experiences, sonic branding strategy, spatial sound, and music to change people's behavior, mood, and perception of brands and environments.

Coming full circle — he combines his social sciences background with interaction and sonic experience design to make it easier for people experiencing disability to express themselves, use your products, services, and spaces, and connect with your brand.

Our process.

1




Focus on people's goals, not their disability.
Ask, "What gets in their way?"

2




Map your customer journey.
Ask, "What helps you find your way?"

3




Test . Measure
Decide

Solve complex accessibilty problems with systems thinking and design.

Solutions look great on paper and at the demo. Then, everything changes in real life.

That’s why we analyze your customer journey and how the interaction of your environments, systems, technology, and information affects how sound creates and breaks barriers for your disabled customers. Pinpoint the causes. Then, work with you and your vendors to build the right solution ecosystem for you.
Your environment
Your systems
Your people
Your technology

"Hey Marcel, it looks and IS amazing, everyone loves it!!''

Jacelyn Hawkins . Flock Agency.

Squeeze Me Lightly for Prada at the Sunglass Hut Summit.

"In a world not designed by them, Marcel creates platforms with people with disabilities so they can design their own experiences."

Carmen Madisson . Boilover Inclusive Performance Ensemble. Sunbury Cobaw Community Health.

Accessible Teleconferencing

"Not only did Marcel break down what was working and not working in terms of interfaces and the responsiveness and character of sounds, he explored how they hindered or helped them achieve their goals."

Wendy O'Neil . Art Centre, Melbourne.

Sound expression. Designing accessible music interfaces for people with disability.

"Marcel was indispensable to us and the success of the project, with that rare combination of practical know-how, a hard-work ethic, and inspired creative vision.''

Brian Rupp . Brand Timbre & Rumblefish. [USA]

The Academy @ NAB

Speaking & workshops

World Music Therapy Congress . Japan

Sound Design — Designing Interactive Music Interfaces for Disabilities

Cato Brand Partners

Holistic Sonic Branding

National Australia Bank . Clemenger BBDO

Brand Identity workshops

RMIT University . College of Design and Social Context. School of Fashion & Textiles

Designers on the extreme guest series

Microsoft . The Garage

Curiosity, Empathy & Meaning: Human-Centred Sound Design for Accessible Products Workshop

BVN Architecture

Interactive spatial sound design in built environments

Latrobe University

Guest lecturer - Sonic Branding

Artcenter College of Design . California

Industrial design for Accessibility

Awards

O-1B VISA

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Individuals with an extraordinary ability in the arts or extraordinary achievement in motion picture or television industry.

High commendation

World Architecture Festival. Interior and Fitout. 2010

Winner

Council of Educational Facilities Planners Victorian Chapter. Award for Education Initiative. 2010

Commendation

Interior Design Awards. Corporate Design. 2010

Commendation

Council of Educational Facilities Planners. Australasia Chapter Educational Facilities Awards. ‘Education Initiative/Design Solution for an Innovative Program’. 2010

Winner

Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout. MAGNA. 2017

Winner

Museums Australia (Victoria) Award for Large Museums. 2017

Best in category

Premiers Design Awards. Communications design. 2017

Press

Brandchannel.com

India Turns Up the Volume on Sonic Branding — Khicha, Preethi.

The Economic Times

Surround Sound: Advertisers Play Right Notes To Woo Customers

AV Magazine

Sonic Branding for the NAB

LSN: Global

Synaesthetic selling

The Future Lab Trend Briefing

The Tomorrow Store

Special World: for special education teachers, therapists, and schools everywhere

Note Perfect

Ragtrader

The New Rules . Music and Fashion Combine

Australian Creative

The Amber Theatre joins forces with Where Lovers Lie in a unique fashion creation

The Age

Zany Stunts with the office cutie — Christofis, Lee

Popular Music as Promotion: Music and Branding in the Digital Age

Leslie M. Meier

Ticker news

Making the world sound more accessible

Speaking . Workshops . Press
Get in touch

Let's talk about your requirements.

Book a call with Marcel




Or, send us an email with your questions

Contact.

Marcel de Bie
Marcel de Bie

+1 310 270 8012
marcel@marceldebie.com
Book a call with Marcel