UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Gabe Kean, a 1995 graphic design alumnus, will return to campus on Thursday, Feb. 6, to share his experiences as the founder and principal of Belle & Wissell, Co., a Seattle-based studio that specializes in crafting responsive and immersive visitor experiences in public spaces. “Setting the Stage to Design and Deliver: A Practical Workshop on Experience Design” will be held at 2:30 p.m. in Stuckeman Family Building North Forum (third floor) as part of the Stuckeman School’s 2019-20 Lecture and Exhibit Series.

In his talk, Kean will share his studio’s recent work and its unorthodox approaches to creating responsive, technology-rich visitor experiences.

Since graduating from Penn State, Kean has led teams in the creation of participatory experiences that combine inventive design with technology. Clients such as the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Amazon, the Art Institute of Chicago, Adobe, Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle Public Library and the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago have turned to Kean for his expertise in experiential design.

Visitors to museum exhibits and public installations continue to expect more and more, therefore designers must incorporate new methods to effectively connect with them. Kean founded Belle & Wissell in 2003 as an intentionally cross-disciplinary team that experiments through a form-follows-function prototyping process. The independent studio now collaborates with clients and partners worldwide to create and guide audiences through memorable, interactive experiences.

Kean’s work has received awards and recognition from Communication Arts, Print, How, Society for Experiential Graphic Designs, The One Show, South by Southwest (SXSW), American Alliance of Museums MUSE Awards, and Museums and the Web. Kean is also a recipient of Penn State’s Alumni Achievement Award. Prior to Belle & Wissell, he founded and led award-winning Born Presents, a non-profit organization dedicated to evolving the creative process through collaboration.