A future for multidimensional thinkers

For decades, design followed a singular truth. Whether it was the insistence that “form follows function” or the later pivot toward “form follows emotion,” the industry tended to adhere to a simple formula for design thinking: Find your North Star and follow.

But that formula does not fit today’s reality.

“Form follows X” is no longer a clean equation, because X isn’t a single variable. It’s a constellation that refuses to be reduced to one guiding idea. Modern design across brands, products, and experiences must use a multidimensional approach, speaking to function, feeling, context, narrative, culture, and experience, all at once.

HUMAN EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Some of today’s biggest brands are already accomplishing this balancing act.

Rivian offers a clear example of a brand showing up consistently across form, function, and feeling. At its core, Rivian builds electric vehicles, but the brand’s shift from product to experience is evident far beyond the car itself. From the thoughtful utility of the vehicles, designed for both rugged performance and everyday life, to its immersive retail spaces (“think playground, not showroom”), and community activations, Rivian operates at the intersection of engineering, lifestyle, and narrative. The result is a brand where technology, adventure, sustainability, and culture weave together to form a truly unique and modern design.

Meanwhile, Netflix released the final episode of Stranger Things in theaters over the holidays, inviting people off their laptops and into the real world to watch the wildly popular show surrounded by super fans. This, combined with its multi-award winning shows in the West End and on Broadway, not to mention the newly launched Netflix House, is a great example of multidimensional thinking.

For these brands, the new formula is clear: Consumers want experiences that operate on multiple dimensions at once.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL DESIGN ARCHITECTURE

To build for this new landscape, designers must move beyond linear thinking into a multidimensional approach, resting on three core pillars:

1. Anchored in narrative

As in-person and digital environments continue to merge, narrative consistency becomes the glue holding an experience together. The brand story must show up authentically, whether someone is scrolling an app, walking through a flagship store, or entering a fully immersive activation.

Nike does this beautifully. From its Run Club to House of Innovation stores to SNKRS drops, every dimension reflects the same core story: aspiration, movement, self-betterment. Each touchpoint has its own texture, but the spirit remains intact.

2. Breaks skill silos

Multidimensional experiences emerge only when traditional design silos are intentionally broken.

Architects, filmmakers, digital designers, spatial designers, game creators—each carries a different perspective, discipline, constraint, and freedom. It’s only when these ways of thinking converge that the richest experiences emerge.

Disney Imagineering stands as perhaps the most iconic example of this intentional barrier breaking, bringing engineers, artists, storytellers, and technologists together to create environments where narrative, architecture, and emotion coexist seamlessly.

3. AI as the new experience engine

AI is accelerating this shift, giving designers tools to create experiences as adaptive as the people who move through them. Picture entering a space that gently responds to your state of mind—lighting softens when you’re overwhelmed, or the physical environment adjusts like a host who senses what you need before you do. Multidimensional design thinking is building worlds that feel both impossible and inevitable.

Both Spotify’s AI DJ and DeepMind’s Genie 3 hint at what’s coming: hyper-personalized experiences that meet every individual in real time. It’s the next frontier of design (and of hospitality).

FROM NORTH STAR TO CONSTELLATION

Multidimensional design recognizes that humans aren’t one-note, so our products, environments, and stories shouldn’t be either. The designers who thrive will be those who can move fluidly between dimensions, choreographing function, emotion, story, and technology into something deeply human.

Brands like Netflix and Rivian are just early examples of what’s possible when we embrace every dimension of lived experience.

Andrew Zimmerman is CEO of Journey.

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