One of our recent Friday “Around the Web” roundups of unearthed arcana mentioned an article in Print magazine that cited the top trends in experiential design for 2023. Since experiential graphics is a major application area in display graphics and signage, it seemed worth hoisting the item from Around the Web and looking at what a leading experiential design firm sees as the top tropes and technologies for this year.

First of all, let’s back up a sec. What do we mean by “experiential graphics”? Also sometimes called “environmental graphics” (but see below), it can best be thought of as the intersection of signage and décor, comprising such print applications as interior wall graphics, window graphics (both outdoor-facing as well as interior windows like conference rooms and offices), wayfinding, decorative accents like graphics applied to elevator doors—or, basically, graphics added to virtually any surface. (Check out a handful of previous articles here, here, and here.) The broader term “experiential design” includes display graphics, as well as all the other aspects of an interior design.

(I’ve discovered during some recent conversations with sign shops and vendors that the term “environmental graphics” has come to be associated with sustainable materials, not necessarily types of applications, so for clarity’s sake, I’ll continue using experiential graphics.)