Experience design agency HUSH expands its already robust talent roster by bringing on artist, strategist, and project manager Tonian Irving as Senior Producer.
Over her career, Irving has excelled at transforming public spaces into engaging installations. Her work focuses on projects that merge physical and digital design, content, and interactivity to create impactful experiences for top-tier institutions and brands. At design studio Unified Field, she oversaw production and creative strategy for major exhibitions and installations. She then worked with the MIT Museum as the exhibition development lead and project manager for Lighter, Stronger, Faster: The Herreshoff Legacy, an exhibition about nautical design and engineering legend Nathanael Herereshoff. Irving was also a collaborating artist and producer for Life Underground, an interactive documentary installation, created by Hervé Cohen, about subway riders around the world. The project was shot in over 15 cities, across 4 continents, and in over 10 languages. Bold and affecting, the experience garnered an International Documentary Award nomination.
She is also the Co-Founder of Offshore Residency – an organization that takes artists on inspiring week-long, collaborative sailing journeys. Now in its fourth year, Irving’s project has already grown into an international program.
In addition to her varied expertise across art and exhibitions, strategic planning, business development and UX design, Irving brings a commitment to HUSH’s ongoing mission of designing experiences for the most dynamic organizations in the world. As Senior Producer, she will juggle multiple responsibilities ranging from client and team management to creative strategy and quality assurance for HUSH’s innovative projects.
For Irving, the transition to HUSH proved to be a natural next step in her evolving career and skill set. “I’ve been working in experience design for what seems like forever, though there wasn’t always a language around the discipline like we have now,” she explains. “As industries began changing and converging, so did my professional and creative interests. Now we’re in this full-tilt experience economy. It’s a really exciting time to be doing what we do.”
“Experiential design and data-driven design are having a shared moment. There’s a lot of great work out there,” she continues. “The difficulty is cutting through all the noise and making something useful and meaningful. Something that doesn’t just function, decorate, or entertain, but triggers reflection, impacts behavior, and contributes to shared knowledge or understanding. HUSH does this really well.”
According to HUSH Founding Partner David Schwarz, Tonian’s experience and versatility from a creative, production standpoint make her a natural fit for HUSH and further reflects the company’s continual growth and evolution. “Tonian brings a world of knowledge to our experience design practice. With a background in the arts, filmmaking and experience design for institutions and cultural organizations, her addition helps us better communicate with an even broader range of clients. She shares many of our cultural values – being incredibly communicative, curious and collaborative – and I’m very excited for what’s to come!”
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About HUSH:
HUSH is an experience design firm.
Our mission is to design experiences for the most dynamic organizations in the world.
We leverage creative technology to help our clients communicate their mission, stories, products and services. What we design is both beautiful and functional, and has impact on the spaces people work, invest, explore and learn.