Searching from a Designer's Perspective
for Beyond Market Research

SIGNALS evolved from CREATIVE RESEARCH, a Creative Center initiative that has been ongoing for over a decade. As a design research project, it aims to inform design proposals by exploring future trends and emerging signals.

"The project was well-received internally, and when we published some of our activities online, we got positive feedback from outside the company as well, leading us to publish them as SIGNALS," explains Fumitaka Ozaki, Research Producer at Sony Group Creative Center and SIGNALS Project Leader.

The Creative Center's design scope has grown beyond traditional industrial design to include UI/UX, service, spatial, and brand design. To support this expansion, CREATIVE RESEARCH aims to enrich design practices by embracing broad perspectives—ranging from global megatrends and emerging "weak signals" to the possibilities that lie beyond them.

Insights Born from Combining
Different Perspectives

The fieldwork and interviews are conducted by Sony designers from around the world, working alongside researchers.

"The research process begins with a multivariate phase," Ozaki explains. "To identify general trends, we review books and reports that highlight key patterns, and we consult with futurists and external trend researchers."

This process is carried out by designers in each region working in parallel. They then consolidate their findings to identify region-specific trends and common patterns. "As we organize this information," notes Ozaki, “research focus points naturally emerge.”

Once the focus points are clear, fieldwork begins. Based on the research results, the team makes a list of cities to visit and people to interview. What's crucial here is visiting locations in person. When designers, who are highly sensitive to trends, conduct research themselves, they gain insights that conventional market research or UI/UX research cannot capture. This detailed understanding from real-world experiences allows designers to later incorporate the experiences into their own designs. Such experiential knowledge, which cannot be obtained from written materials alone, enhances design quality.

After completing the field research, the team gathers and reviews their findings, engaging in discussions to identify compelling case studies and recurring patterns. Through this process, they name and categorize various signals, insights, and trends. Key to this process is having designers with different backgrounds, specialties, and interests. "By letting the designers' innate curiosity guide the investigation, unique perspectives emerge, sparking unexpected insights and adding depth to the research," explains Ozaki. "And even though individual perspectives might be biased, having multiple participants from various countries and regions ensures balance is maintained and synergy achieved."

Signals of Future Entertainment
Seen by Designers from Around the World

What insights emerged during the research? We asked the designers who participated in the project, focusing on insights that couldn't be fully covered in SIGNALS.

In your Southeast Asia research, you visited various IP exhibitions, as well as game development studios. Could you tell us what impressed you most?

My conversation with Shawn Toh of BattleBrew Productions was particularly illuminating. As a developer creating games for mobile and console platforms in the Southeast Asian market, Shawn told me how it was necessary to tailor narratives and game concepts specifically for regional audiences. What I found especially compelling was his insight into how certain thematic elements resonate more powerfully in the context of Southeast Asian culture. Food, for instance, proves to be an exceptionally well-received motif. Shawn mentioned that culinary themes hold a personal significance for him as well, noting how food culture plays an important role in his identity.

One particularly profound experience was the exhibition Olafur Eliasson: Your Curious Journey. Visitors entered a vast, dimly lit oval chamber, where laser projectors traced the illusion of a ceiling overhead. With the help of carefully timed smoke effects, shifting patterns emerged, both hypnotic and ephemeral. Instead of relying on spectacle, the installation offered something far more meaningful to me as a designer: a moment of deep emotion and quiet reflection. It was the kind of experience that couldn't be captured through some medium—no photograph or video could ever do it justice. You simply had to be there to truly feel it.

What insights did you gain from this research as a designer?

One thing that really stood out to me was just how important it is to understand your audience's cultural, historical, and ethnic background—especially in such diverse regions as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The creative scene in places like Singapore is under serious pressure, with local designers finding themselves up against big names from the US, Europe, and China. In that kind of environment, having a unique, culturally sensitive perspective isn't just nice; it's essential.

At the end of the day, it's about creating work that actually speaks to the people you're designing for. I've been in situations where we've crafted something with a very European aesthetic, only to be told by the marketing team, "This won't land with regional audiences." That kind of feedback really reinforced something I've always believed: you can't afford to ignore your audience's mindset or leave people out just because they don't fit your ideal customer profile. Cultural relevance isn't a bonus—it's foundational.

Entertainment in China seems to be flourishing and taking various forms. What did you find particularly impressive in your research?

China's first immersive theater theme park in Henan Province left a deep impression on me. This extraordinary event space comprises 21 individual theaters, each offering a unique experience. Among them, the circular theater proved particularly transformative. In this innovative space, the audience occupies the central area while the actors encircle them on a ring-shaped stage. The actors perform behind a translucent veil made of a fishnet-like material with irregular textures and patterns. As projections illuminate this textured surface, the resulting effect is a merging of blurred, abstract visuals with live performance, creating what feels like a journey into someone's dreamscape.

What makes this experience remarkable is that it doesn't rely on cutting-edge technology—just conventional theater spaces and standard projectors. Its brilliance lies in the fresh approach to theatrical design that creates a deeply dreamlike atmosphere. Even the performers' deliberate chaos serves a purpose: evoking the historical turmoil of wartime. This carefully orchestrated sensory experience moved me to tears.

This captures the essential value of location-based entertainment (LBE): an experience deeply rooted in the physical. It becomes inseparable from the space itself—the textures of the materials, the feel of the floor beneath your feet, the distinctive scents in the air. These layered, multisensory impressions can only be fully appreciated directly through physical presence and active engagement.

From a designer's perspective, what insights did you gain through this research?

I've come to better appreciate the creative field's vital role in today's consumer-driven world. China's younger generation, in particular, has a remarkable ability to recognize and celebrate work driven by genuine passion. Take Black Myth: Wukong as an example—a phenomenally successful Chinese game developed not primarily as a commercial venture but as a labor of love by creators prioritizing their artistic vision over market concerns.

This principle extends seamlessly to design practice more broadly. When you fully commit to creating content that resonates with your own values and sensibilities, it naturally connects with like-minded communities. I'm now convinced that pursuing your craft with genuine passion and enthusiasm inevitably attracts an appreciative audience. In the end, authenticity becomes a magnetic force, drawing in those who can recognize and value sincere creative expression.

As a European research leader, you've visited the Nordic countries, the UK, and France. Which places were you especially taken with?

The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks at the Lightroom in London was an especially nice experience. Despite the space being so large—a huge cube with a very high ceiling—the exhibition feels really intimate. That's because of two things: Tom Hanks' personal narration and the stories the exhibition tells. The content is a mix of historical facts relating to NASA's Apollo program, stories about the astronauts involved and insights into the current Artemis program through candid photos of the Artemis astronauts and their reflections on their hopes and childhood dreams.

In the Nordic countries and France, you also interviewed local creators and artists. What insights did you gain from them?

My biggest takeaway was that major success in this field is always based on collaboration. It's not something one can achieve alone; it's only through a combination of different companies and people, different abilities and assets, that wonderful results are achieved. Something that particularly stayed with me from an interview in France was the statement, "In France, we don't talk about entertainment, we talk about arts and culture." This gives their activities a different weight and importance.

Fieldwork in Nantes, the home of the Les Machines de l'île art project, featured in SIGNALS, was also very impressive. Starting with the activities of Les Machines de l'île, Nantes promotes art as an aspect of the entire city. I was able to see how creators engage in education for all citizens, while also implementing specialized education for design and other artistic professionals, how they exploit this within the city, and how they view it as an asset for urban development. The specialized educational institutions in Sweden also support strong communities, and it was impressive to see how they cooperate with each other, build networks, learn from each other, and provide mutual support.

What was the most impressive thing about your research in Europe?

That would be the interview with Christian Faber, Creative Lead at WAVEBORN, the developers of the Rebel Nature IP. This ongoing project is one that deeply integrates sustainability themes into its narrative.

Set in a futuristic world where nature, technology and humanity are at odds, the IP explores the idea of being an AI responsible for raising your future child. A scenario where players' actions and decisions directly shape the world around them, it's not just about survival; it's about understanding the ecosystem and restoring its balance.

Faber's approach to storytelling is unique. While most games focus on winning—whether through total victory or defeating your enemies—his game revolves around balance and evolution. Allowing nature and rogue AI to evolve in unpredictable ways, it reflects real-world ecological and technological shifts. As games evolve, they often need to adopt new technology (like AI or interactive elements) to support complex narratives and tell those stories in an innovative way. And Rebel Nature embraces this evolution.

Faber also shared his perspective on young people's creativity and potential. He believes they need more than just rules and guidelines: they should be empowered to create their own stories. Rather than providing them with boilerplate answers, he encourages them to explore, experiment, and find their own solutions. It's a strategy that presents a hopeful, innovative vision of the future—one where creativity, technology and sustainability come together in a way I want to know more about.

What insights did you gain as a designer?

This research made me realize you can be consistent without limiting yourself. It's all about creating a cohesive experience while leaving room to be flexible and creative. This means that storytelling through visuals is just as crucial as branding, shaping how audiences connect with your message. What resonated most with me in the interview with Faber was his conviction that laying down rules isn't enough and that designers must be free to explore and experiment, allowing them to create their own solutions. This mindset can be applied to design in general. Whether it's a website, an app or a campaign, your goal is to invite the audience to interact and to discover and shape their own journey rather than simply consume content passively.

In your research in Japan, you focused mainly on uniquely Japanese forms of entertainment such as manga, VTubers, and theme parks. Did anything in particular grab your attention?

What I found especially impressive was the Seibu-en Amusement Park's Godzilla the Ride attraction, which had wonderful immersion. The wide field of view and the seats moving forward create a feeling of being inside a sphere. With ordinary hemispheric displays, you might see the feet of people sitting above you, but here attention has been paid to such details, resulting in a high level of immersion. The seats are enclosed and move forward with your feet floating, which, combined with an instability like that of a suspended roller coaster, increases the sense of fear. As mentioned in SIGNALS, I also found it interesting that the director Takashi Yamazaki revealed he used a lot of what he learned from Godzilla the Ride in his film Godzilla-1.0.

You were also in charge of research in the Middle East. In SIGNALS, we feature a column by Akira Takatoriya, the Middle East coordinator who guided you.

We researched various places in the Middle East, including locations that didn't reflect the concept of transmedia entertainment. The region is developing entertainment by leveraging its financial power to bring in overseas creators and utilize their skills. Entertainment was being cultivated by harnessing foreign IPs and creative talent, and events and facilities such as the Museum of the Future and the E-Sports World Cup were cutting-edge.

Did you gain any insights from experiencing entertainment in both Japan and the Middle East?

After experiencing various forms of entertainment including Godzilla the Ride during this research, I realized how important the quality of craftsmanship and consistency of worldview are. This means paying attention to detail and devising ways to delight the senses through sound, scent, and images. For example, at a certain immersive restaurant, I thought, "This feels a bit cheap." When I considered why I felt like that, it was due to minor things like visible projectors or the use of artificial flowers. I relearned that attention to such details is essential in creating a breathtaking worldview. In addition, many forms of entertainment in the Middle East are on a much larger scale than those in Japan, and I felt that this sense of scale also made the entertainment more immersive and satisfying.

As a North America research leader this time, you visited various entertainment spaces and events including Sphere in Las Vegas. What particularly caught your eye?

I'd say the interactive exhibition Omega Mart in Las Vegas. It's one of the projects by Meow Wolf, who refer to themselves an "art production company" that brings together art appreciation and puzzle-solving in a supermarket setting. What I found so impressive was their attitude of not being fixated on the latest technology but uniquely combining existing technologies. Like a form of lateral thinking with aging systems, they harness current technologies in their own unique way.

Also, there was a DIY culture with workshops in the backyard where they could immediately fix any issues. Furthermore, the exhibition was excellent in leveraging local context, which is considered difficult in LBE [location-based entertainment]. They actively hired local artists whose individuality harmonized well with Meow Wolf's worldview. This was a way to build a consistent worldview while drawing on local characteristics. It's hard to express in words, but by encountering it first-hand, I felt that such a sense could be applied to my work as a design researcher.

The COSM entertainment facility, which opened in 2024, was also impressive. As described in SIGNALS, it offers an experience where content such as sports events is live-streamed onto a giant, dome-shaped screen and can be viewed while enjoying food and drinks. The essence of COSM is "shared reality"—that is, sharing excitement together with friends and others. This shared reality of excitement cannot be understood without actually experiencing it.

What insights did you gain from this research?

Through this research, I realized that the concepts of worldview and world-building could become part of a common language for entertainment, business, and design. In fact, we already use the word "worldview" daily in design practice. Communication designers create style books to convey a product's worldview, and UI/UX designers need to build worldviews when depicting future user scenarios.

Building worldviews helps deepen mutual understanding within the project. This can also be applied to building a corporate vision. For example, let's say you have a vision such as "creating a prosperous society through technology." The problem with this is that different stakeholders may interpret "prosperous society" differently. When the vision is expressed simply in words, it becomes abstract, and there's a risk that not everyone will understand it the same way. If this happens, your different business strategies may fail to harmonize, causing the company to lose its sense of unity. This is where world-building techniques come in. By answering questions like "What kind of society is a prosperous one?" and "What if such a society were realized?" or by visualizing the answers, you have to consider the vision from various perspectives. As a result, you can map the vision out as a concrete blueprint that generates business. In addition, since world building is an entertainment technique, I believe it creates a vision that's exciting and relatable.

What synergies can your expertise as a design researcher create through world-building?

There might be subtle differences in how the entertainment and design industries each interpret the term "worldview," but I feel that, in essence, they share a common understanding. Designers' ability to visualize and give form to their thoughts lies at the heart of building worldviews.

Finally, how do you hope to leverage this year's SIGNALS for the CREATIVE RESEARCH project?

Expanding into such areas as entertainment has shown us the need for a more open approach. This is especially true of the entertainment business, which cannot develop unless we collaborate with many creators from outside the company—for instance, film directors, game developers and singers. By publishing the results of our latest research as a book in which we present insights gleaned from the research, we want to spur conversations on new values with people across the creative spectrum. In the process, we hope to inspire collaborative storytelling that takes us closer toward a brighter future.

SIGNALS Creative Research No. 01 ZINIO link