anjana.padmakumar

[3.2]

Multi-Touchpoint System Design

Applied Experience Design

GD 303, Juniors

Pennsylvania State University

Theoritical Anchors

STUDIO PROJECT

Students design an integrated brand campaign that lives across multiple touchpoints, working through four design sprints over the first half of the semester. Sprint 1 establishes the brand and audience through discover-and-define research. Sprint 2 builds user maps and the campaign's first touchpoints. Sprint 3 develops core touchpoints and a social media promotion strategy. Sprint 4 brings the system together as a coherent, integrated campaign. The assignment treats the brand as a system that performs across media.

Pedagocal Approach

The sprint structure trains students to design under iterative pressure rather than perfecting a single artifact. Each sprint produces a working version that responds to research and critique, which shifts the studio from polishing toward integrating.

Insights

Students often arrive expecting a brand to mean a visual identity. The work of the assignment is moving them from identity as logo to identity as system: a coherent set of decisions about voice, audience, and behavior that holds across every touchpoint. The strongest projects emerge when students treat the social media component as a genuine extension of the brand rather than a checkbox at the end. Working in sprints also surfaces a discipline most students have not yet built — the ability to release a working version, take feedback, and revise without starting over.

STUDENT WORK

01 Ode - A Technoclub

As a traditional Berlin-style techno club, Öde's job is to create an atmosphere for its customers that is welcoming, energetic, and true to their interests. Öde is located in an abandoned building in New York City, originally home to Jumping Jack Power Plant. The bare-bones quality o f the venue creates a traditional experience for clubbers, contrasted with the high-energy lights and technology throughout the space.

02 The Third - Garden Kitchen

Our mission is to create a space outside of work and home where people in all walks of life can ground themselves and disconnect from the unhealthy habits we so closely cling to.