SONIC
EXPERIENCE
DESIGN

For accessible brands, products, and spaces.
We work with people experiencing disabilities to identify where sound helps and hinders them use products, services, and spaces.

Services

Accessible

BRANDS

Build accessibility into every part of your customer journey.

From your ads, podcasts, apps, and voice assistants to your products and spaces.

63%



People who said a brand's efforts to be accessible would influence their purchase decisions.3

Know what to do, when.

With sonic profiles, you'll know how to adjust your sonic logo, voice, and music to different situations and people's needs. Then, use your sonic style guide to keep your agencies on track.

$645B



Disposable income of disabled adults in the US.4

Make it easy for disabled people to connect with you.

Understand how the sound you use helps or hinders their experience of your communication, products, and spaces.
Get in touch

Accessible

PRODUCTS

Use audio UX in your products & services to

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

Accessible sound design makes discovering, learning, and using your products and services faster.
Make your products & services effortless to get around.

Discover how

Accessible transit.

Help people get to where they need to go.

Use sensory cues like in-app sounds and voice to provide critical information for people with cognitive, sensory, sight and hearing disabilities .
Get in touch
Learn more
Build products & services everyone can use. Equally. Easily.
The new sonic logos—mnemonics, interface sounds, and haptics are powerful memory triggers, shortcuts to the brain motivating, guiding, and helping people learn and use products.

Workshop — Inclusive design.

Designers' assumptions about disabilities create products that won't let people use them how they want.
Discover the research and co-design methods that uncover peoples' unique capabilities, fuelling new use cases for flexible products people want to use.
From $4875
Get in touch

Accessible

SPACES

Design spaces everyone can share.

The sound and silence around us transform our perception, behavior, well-being & access.

Noise in spaces.

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

Manage the sounds preventing disabled people from using your spaces.

Airport terminals
Train stations

Work

BRAND

SONIC BRANDING

National Australia Bank . Unifying the brand journey with sound.

Case study

PRODUCTS

ACCESSIBLE TELECONFERENCING

Designing digital & physical spaces that work for disabled people.

Case study

ACCESSIBLE DESIGN

Art Centre Melbourne . Make musical interfaces work for kids with disabilities.

Case study

ACCESSIBLE ADAPTIVE INTERFACES . PROTOTYPING

Textile interface for communication, home control, and music therapy that adapts to people's preferred gestures and position.

Case study

SPACES

INTERACTIVE INSTALLATIONS

Where Lovers Lie . Store Activation

INTERACTIVE INSTALLATIONS

Melbourne Fashion Festival . Penthouse Mouse . Body Image / Cyber bullying

WORKPLACE INNOVATION / RESPONSIVE ENVIRONMENTS

The Academy @ NAB . Transforming architecture into an instrument of change.

Case study

EVENTS / ACTIVATION

Prada at the Sunglass Hut Summit . Interactive textile sound and light sculptures.

Case study

EXPERIENTIAL ENVIRONMENTS

Melbourne Museum . Children's Gallery . Transporting kids to new worlds so they can explore theirs.

Case study

MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN

play_circle_filled
pause_circle_filled
Hey everyone
volume_down
volume_up
volume_off
AUDIO #1 — "Hey everyone"
play_circle_filled
pause_circle_filled
You're muted
volume_down
volume_up
volume_off
AUDIO #2 — "You're muted"
play_circle_filled
pause_circle_filled
You've Been Un-muted
volume_down
volume_up
volume_off
AUDIO #3 — "You've been un-muted"

ACCESSIBLE TELECONFERENCING

Translate gestures to audio emojis for intuitive communication.

Case study

ACCESSIBLE TELECONFERENCING

Make video calls clearer with Audio Spotlighting™

Case study
For the best 3D audio experience,
use headphones.
Into The Depths
Dots
Frisky the Frog
Rockets & Planets

EXPERIENTIAL ENVIRONMENTS

Melbourne Museum . The Mind Gallery . Consciousness Couches

About

Sound changes everything™

Transform feelings, behavior, and wellbeing
Stir memories . Build belief and recognition
Ignite action . Bring people together
Twenty years ago, Marcel began working with young people in the vibrant multicultural suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, collaborating, understanding, and 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.

Now, he's come full circle — combining 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.

"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

Microsoft . The Garage

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

National Australia Bank . Clemenger BBDO

NAB Brand Identity workshops

Cato Brand Partners

Holistic Sonic Branding

BVN Architecture

Interactive spatial sound design in built environments

Latrobe University

Guest lecturer - Sonic Branding

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

Designers on the extreme guest series

Awards

O1-B 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

Ticker news

Making the world sound more accessible

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

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

Note Perfect

Speaking . Workshops . Press
Get in touch

Contact

Now based in America.
Marcel de Bie
Marcel de Bie
+1 310 270 8012
marcel@marceldebie.com
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