Psychologically based innovation and design development
DE | EN

As your strategic partner, we support you in developing psychologically grounded innovations, designs and communications that bring you closer to your customers and ensure your success in the market.
We are Monika Heimann and Michael Schütz, an interdisciplinary team of experts in psychology, design and innovation.
We accompany you through the entire innovation process, from initial exploration to market-ready prototypes. Without handovers or unnecessary translation losses. Always in focus: the deeper needs of your customers.
This not only results in viable solutions in a short time. Our collaborative approach also ensures that all relevant stakeholders participate in the innovation process with their heads and hearts and actively help shape it.
The basis for this is InsightArt®—our agile, interdisciplinary research and development concept developed over 15 years, which translates psychological insights directly into concrete ideas, designs, and implementation-oriented solutions. To this end, we think and work beyond the box: For us, psychological-artistic research, strategic thinking, and practical creation are part of a holistic process.
We accompany you according to your objectives

Design Guide: communication development
We support you in the development of creative and at the same time strategy and target group conform designs for communication, packaging, product or store.
more…
When designs optimally ‘dock’ with people’s psychological motives and inner visual worlds — their ideas, wishes or desires — they can achieve the communication goals and solve the relevant marketing tasks. Design-led research and research-led creation therefore link up right from the start.
In workshops or individual interviews with the target group, the relevant image motifs, stories, color spaces, keywords, etc. are determined as part of the depth-psychological exploration, using special psychological-design methods such as co-design or a visual trigger analysis, supported by the selective use of generative AI. From this, the relevant design code and the relevant search fields for the desired design are developed, if necessary supplemented by a design analysis of the competition.
An InsightArt®manual in “design language” contains all relevant design components as well as prototypical design drafts in addition to the psychological basics. It is inspiration for the development of the final designs: in collaborative InsightArt®teamLabs, in cooperation with your lead agency, external creatives and designers or directly from us. If required, they can be tested for final optimizations.
less…

Innovation Guide: Product and offer developmen
Together with you, we “destroy” old thought patterns and develop product and offer ideas that are innovative and at the same time customer-centric.
more…
By taking a deep look at people’s motives and using creative invention principles, we consciously leave behind old paths. This creates space for inspirations and ideas that are novel or even disruptive and at the same time hit the right nerve with consumers.
InsightArt®research uncovers the deeper needs ‘behind’ the superficial desires of consumers and provides the pivotal point for idea development, the “psychological code”.
A SWOT analysis and conversations with your employees reveals potentials and opportunities of your company and your team and connects the internal with the external view.
In an InsightArt®manual we map the possibility space and show the most promising innovation directions.
Ideas and prototypes on a high creative level are developed in InsightArt®teamLabs, among others by using professional creative strategies and generative AI. Prototypes are tested again on consumers if necessary.
less…

Concept Guide: Marketing concept development
We support you in the development of marketing concepts and mockups that are centered on the needs of your customers.
more…
In iterative loops of systematic mockup creation and customer feedback including psychological analysis, as well as team reviews with all stakeholders, we work with you to develop a customer journey, advertising material or online interfaces.
The results are available after approx. 2 weeks of intensive, agile and practice-oriented collaboration — in the form of prototypes that can be used directly in marketing (with slight adjustments by Brand if necessary). Psychologically sound, they create more conversion and enable you to present them more convincingly to internal interfaces.
less…

Future Guide: Psychological future scenarios
We make cultural trends transparent and support you in developing scenarios and future concepts.
more…
Concrete opportunities and risks can be uncovered and new business areas and strategies for your own company can be developed. Because despite all the uncertainty that the future holds, psychological needs are a reliable constant.
A psychological culture study related to your business sector is expanded with methods such as lifeworld collages, culture samples or science fiction narratives. Developments in the current world of consumers’ lives and imaginations can be understood in depth in this way. This is supplemented, for example, by utopias/dystopias or the creation of images of the future.
An InsightArt®manual “Trends” with probability evaluations for different future scenarios gives you inspiration in addition to more security for planning. Based on the scenarios, we develop innovative concepts for future business areas or the reorientation of existing ones for the future together with you in an InsightArt®teamLab.
less…
The approach is designed individually for each innovation project and the tools used are adapted – or new ones are invented if necessary.
Our book on design psychology
2nd edition (2025)

Monika Heimann, Michael Schütz:
Wie Design wirkt. Psychologische Prinzipien erfolgreicher Gestaltung
Rheinwerk Design 2025
After selling 14,000 copies of the first edition from 2016, it was time for a 2nd, expanded and revised edition.
more…
What’s it about?
It’s about Maluma and Takete, and about Apollo and Dionysus and the Mona Lisa’s crooked smile. It’s about hopes and fears, life and death, light and shadow, suspenseful arcs, golden ratios, and forbidden symbols. The new edition also features plenty of atmosphere, vibe, and sound, and even more “body” that exists “in the world.” The story turns around wicked attractors and affordances and ultimately even arrives at a legendary “theory of mankind”, or at least a bit of “joint attention.” But even that comes only through a lot of swiping, scrolling, and swiping, and with a bit of AI, which, however, will ultimately prove bitterly disappointing.
Who is this book written for?
For designers, advertisers, design and market researchers, and professionals in marketing and UX design. For anyone interested in design and psychology. For anyone who creates and wants to understand and connect with people. For the curious, the ambitious, the doers, those who want to understand, and for forward thinkers.
Where can I buy the book?
It’s best to buy it directly ➔ from Rheinwerk Verlag. They ship quickly, and Jeff Bezos already has enough money.
less…
InsightArt® Design Guide on video
(English subtitles)
Project examples (anonymized)
- please swipe -