You walk into a space and the atmosphere shifts. You can’t put your finger on it, but in that moment when you walked in, your body had already decided that place was special.

That doesn’t happen by chance or even by the owner’s taste. That's design working exactly how it's supposed to.

We often discuss interior design in terms of aesthetics: the right palette, the trending finish, and the statement piece that photographs well. And yes, all of that matters, especially in hospitality spaces.

But the ones that stay memorable, that guests rave about, and that earn five-star reviews operate on a different level entirely. They go beyond the aesthetics into the experiential.

They feel like something and remind you of something, the moment you walk in.

Apart from experiential designers, film production designers also understand this concept well. And last Sunday, five extraordinary set and production designers were up for an Oscar.

The 98th Academy Awards nominees for Best Production Design include the teams behind Sinners, Frankenstein, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, and Marty Supreme.

These are five wildly different films with meticulously constructed emotional worlds. None of these sets was created only for the cinematic effect. Every material, every shadow, every sight line was chosen to ignite specific emotions in the audience and immerse them in the film.

That is experiential design, and it's exactly what separates a forgettable hospitality space from a fully booked one.

As Jessica Lightbody's 2026 hospitality design guide puts it: "Luxury hotels now prioritise how spaces make guests feel, not just how they photograph. Emotional comfort, privacy, and authenticity sit at the heart of successful hospitality interiors."

The idea that the most effective design is invisible, atmospheric, bodily, is something production designers have always known. It's the insight this article is built on.

Whether you're a homeowner reimagining a room, an Airbnb host competing in a saturated market, or a micro-resort owner building a guest experience from the ground up, this is for you.

Because the gap between a space that's decorated and a space that's designed isn't a budget gap, but an intention gap.

Let's close it.

Every production designer on this list started with the same thing: self-knowledge. They understood the emotional world they were building before they began designing their sets.

Designing Beyond Aesthetics helps you do the same. This guided workbook takes you through a reflective experiential assessment to uncover your unique Emotional Design Profile — the patterns, memories, and rhythms that shape how you experience space.

Because before the palette, the furniture, and the mood board, there is you.

So stop decorating around the edges of your life and start designing from the inside out.

Here's something you should know: a production designer never asks "what should this space look like?" That question comes later. However, the first question, the one that drives every single decision, is always: "How should this space make you feel?"

The production designer's job is to translate a story's emotion and narrative into a visual experience. They are, in the most literal sense, professional feelers. Before the furniture is chosen, paint colour is selected, or a single prop is placed on a shelf, they have already created an emotional brief.

Think about what that means in practice. Production designers make meaningful and purposeful design choices to ensure that the audience is immersed in the story being told.

More crucially, good production design is subtle. It constructs a mood and immersive experience almost unknowingly for the viewer. When it's working, you don't notice it. You just feel it.

That's the part that every homeowner and hospitality host should think about.

Because here's what separates a production designer's approach from the way most of us think about our spaces: they build worlds, not rooms. Production design adds depth and texture, breathing life into the story and transporting the audience to a different time or world.

The set isn't a backdrop to the action; it is part of the action. The set environment shapes how characters move, speak, and feel, and also shows who they are. Similarly, your establishment or home shapes how your guests move, speak, and feel, whether you've designed it that way or not.

We can use the same process as a production designer to design our spaces, with research and intention.

The production designer reads the script and develops an understanding of the overarching vision. They work out the mood, tone, and overall atmosphere before making any design decisions.

For you, the "script" is your guest. Who are they? Why do you want them to choose your space over the dozens of others available to them? What do they need to feel the moment they walk in: rested, inspired, held, transported? That is your brief.

Then comes the craft: ensuring that all visual components interact and flow cohesively, so that tone, mood, and atmosphere are effectively communicated. Everything in conversation with everything else, and in the service of one feeling.

Experiential design, like production design, can create a convincing, emotionally resonant space within a budget, as long as every element serves the story rather than filling space with unnecessary decoration.

Read that again! Experiential design is not about how much you spend, but how intentional you are.

Last Sunday's Oscar nominees have each built an entirely imaginary world: a haunted gothic laboratory, a sweat-soaked Mississippi juke joint, a medieval English village alive with grief and wonder. These are five films, five emotional worlds, and five sets of lessons waiting to be borrowed.

Let's start with the two production sets that were favourites to win.

Hannah Beachler, the first Black woman to win an Oscar for Best Production Design for Black Panther in 2019, is back at the Academy Awards this year for Sinners. There’s something she said about her process recently that we should consider regarding our spaces:

"It's the small things that you don't necessarily think changes the way an audience sees something. Even if you don't see it on film, the actor sees it. If I can harness and control and detail the world, they're really going to respond and react to the space that they're in. So, it was a slow education of how these small details, whether you see them or not, sort of shapes what people feel and think when they walk into the space."

Read that again, but now swap the word "actor" for "guest." Because that's exactly what she's describing.

Sinners is set in the 1932 Mississippi Delta, and Beachler didn't begin her design with mood boards. Instead, she started with research. She immersed herself in the time period, learning what the economy and the region were like in the Jim Crow- era Mississippi Delta.

Then she built a world where every detail carries meaning. The oak trees that shelter Annie's home reappear as the columns holding up the juke joint. The white wall in the third act is a deliberate callback to the white church. None of it was just decoration. All of it was intentional.

This is the principle your space needs to borrow: places that feel layered, researched, and rooted in their environment provide an authentic atmosphere that you can’t create without intention.

Before deciding on a style or shopping for furniture, ask yourself: What is the emotional language of my space? What region, history, or material culture does it draw from?

Some of the world's best hospitality properties apply exactly this thinking. For example, Nekajui, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Costa Rica, has built its entire design language around the Indigenous Chorotega culture of the Guanacaste region.

It features local woods, hand-carved panels, and custom tiles made by regional artisans. Guests experience the design intention in the use of local materials, the native language words to name the various spaces, the cuisine, and the architectural details.

You don't need a Ritz-Carlton budget for experiential design, but you do need that starting point. A coastal property with locally sourced ceramics and vintage nautical charts isn't themed, it's rooted. A mountain retreat with rough-sawn timber and hand-stitched textiles isn't rustic, it's authentic.

If Sinners teaches us to research our spaces, Frankenstein teaches us to compose them.

Tamara Deverell and Guillermo del Toro didn't start Frankenstein with an aesthetic. They started with several trips. On their first scouting visit to Scotland, standing in front of Edinburgh's wet cobblestone streets and marble-clad villas, del Toro turned to Deverell and said: "We have our colour palette."

Everything, including 119 sets, thousands of crew workdays, and an entire gothic world, grew outward from that moment of clarity.

Everywhere they scouted, Deverell and del Toro would find textures, colour palettes, murals, even entire buildings to incorporate into sets. Nothing was arbitrary, as every design element was chosen for its contribution to the film’s emotional tone and narrative.

For example, let’s consider how the colour palette was central to the film’s emotional tone. The natural, hand-hewn textures of the Mill House and the forested areas symbolise the creature’s connection to nature. This is in contrast to the marble and glossy wood floors of the Frankenstein villa and the cold stones used in the lab.

Then there's red. It's the mother's colour, appearing in her casket, her bedding, Victor's gloves during the creation scene, and finally on Elizabeth's wedding dress. A single colour, threading through every space in the film and carrying the same emotional weight every time it appears.

Frankenstein gives us three tools we can use immediately.

Build a colour system, not a colour scheme. A colour scheme is a palette applied once. A colour system is a thread that moves through your entire space — a shade that appears in the entryway, reappears in a cushion, and lands again in a piece of art. One colour, tying your entire space together and building a sense of intention every time the eye finds it.

Choose a repeating motif. It could be an arch, a material, or a shape. Choose something that recurs just enough for guests to register it without naming it. It doesn't need to be obvious, but it just needs to be consistent.

Let your spaces progress. Guests shouldn't feel the same thing in every room. Design for contrast between spaces; rough then smooth, dim then bright, intimate then open. And don't be afraid of a little imperfection. A worn edge, a visible grain, a surface with patina; these are the things that give a space character and authenticity.

Guests don't fall in love with spaces that look staged. They fall in love with places that feel real.

Here's what every production designer on this list did before they designed and built their sets:

They developed their design brief around one question: how should this space make someone feel?

Hannah Beachler asked it in the Mississippi Delta. Tamara Deverell asked it in the cold marble villas of Edinburgh. Fiona Crombie asked it in a grief-filled Elizabethan home. Jack Fisk asked while standing in front of a 1950s New York colour chart. Florencia Martin asked it in a redwood forest.

You don't need a film budget, massive construction crews or tons of custom-made furniture and decorative elements. You need the same starting point they all had: clarity of intention before action.

So before you repaint, reupholster, or refresh your space, consider how you will answer the question. How should a guest feel the moment they cross your threshold? Rested? Rooted? Transported? Held?

The answer is your design brief. Every design choice you make is just the answer made physical.

Design is felt before it's understood.

Last Sunday, five Oscar nominees proved it, and now it's your turn.