Joe Stansfield

Joe leads our global design services at Charcoalblue Experience.

As a Managing Director at Charcoalblue I set the vision for our global Experience Design and Strategy services. I’m proud to lead a team of talented Experience Consultants, bringing expertise as Design Strategists and Design managers, Creative and Technical experience designers and Digital Designers.I’ve over 10 years’ experience as a designer, team leader and Director at Charcoalblue, starting with a technical design background, my own specialist knowledge has been built from the ground up – consulting on large scale theatre & performing arts projects, to integrating digital technologies into event spaces, projection systems, broadcast cameras and large-scale LED displays and web based digital design projects. I’m very visually orientated as a designer and love to work collaboratively whiteboarding, modelling and sketching. Any moments to combine creative concepting with technical innovation, with user experience centric thinking to create amazing spaces and is what motivates me!

What Excites You Most About Your Work

I love designing spaces and we’re so lucky to be able to work on some of the most amazing venues and projects in the world. Seeing and experience or space come to life from collective design and concepting is what drives me. Great design needs clear foundations and defined purpose, with user experiences in mind, early experience master planning and brief development is crucial.

What Brought You to Charcoalblue

Starting my professional ambitions to work in music production and recording but maintaining a keen passion for design and architecture – being a design consultant working on creative and performance spaces saw both worlds collide for me!

A Problem You Love Solving

I love to unlock a challenging spatial user journey, mapping peoples routes and moments of engagement through a space – adapting spatial design and user flow for a cohesive user experience, whilst finding key moments for creativity in design. For interaction, digital engagement and collective experience.

What We Won’t Learn from Your CV

Spending time outdoors and exploring, particularly around the coast and on water! I’m a keen surfer, sailor, windsurfer and open water swimmer. Combined with a campervan, I never seem to have enough watersports hobbies

Cultural Value You Most Identify With

Creativity and innovation is a core value to me, it drives both how we approach our work and services as well as the output and ideas we have as designers on projects, for me, Charcoalblue has always been looking to what’s next, looking to what’s new, exciting and undiscovered. Seeking moments for design innovation myself and being inspired by colleagues bringing Creativity and innovation into what we do is what motivates me.