Driven by curiosity, craft, and collaboration, Nicole McDonald shapes stories that invite people to feel, explore, and engage. This page offers a glimpse across her constellations of work, from narrative and brand experiences to visual identity and interactive projects. Each celebrates the joy of discovering how stories can flourish in the medium they were meant to inhabit.
NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT
Story systems designed to move fluidly across film, performance, and spatial experiences.
LITA ALBUQUERQUE STUDIO, Co-Writer | Creative Director | Editor | Installation Architecture
Since 2019, I have collaborated closely with visionary artist Lita Albuquerque, translating her poetic language, astronomical research, and ritual gestures into cohesive cinematic and spatial storyworlds. Beginning with Liquid Light, I shaped over twenty hours of raw footage and a single poetic premise into a five chapter, 27 minute film tracing a 25th century female astronaut’s journey through illumination, rejection, and transcendence. The work premiered at the 59th Venice Biennale (Biennale Arte 2022) and was presented as an immersive, large scale triptych installation I designed, later continuing its international life at Museo MAXXI in Rome.
My work with Lita centers on translating her poetic language, astronomical research, and ritual gestures into cohesive storyworlds. This includes creating short films that document her installations and live performances, including NAJMA (She Placed One Thousand Suns Over the Transparent Overlays of Space) (2020), which premiered at Desert X AlUla; Najma Returns (2021), performed at the base of the Pyramids in Egypt; and The Sea Is Within Me (2025) at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern in Houston, alongside the development of installations at Caltech and Arcosanti. My role focuses on maintaining continuity across mediums, with each work contributing to Lita’s larger mythic continuum.
FUTUREKIN, Co-Writer | Editor
My narrative work also spans speculative and character-driven filmmaking. In 2022, I co-wrote and edited Lucy McCrae’s Futurekin, a short film set in a post-CRISPR world where a group of women seek bodily autonomy by developing the ability to gestate children outside the womb. I structured the film around quiet, observational vignettes that reveal the characters’ lives, labor, and rituals, deliberately leaving the purpose of their work ambiguous, at once scientific, ceremonial, and intimate. Grounded in repetition and ambiguity, the edit treats science as provocation rather than solution, creating space for audiences to reflect on power, autonomy, and future possibility.
THE HOME, Concept Development | Pitch Strategy | Installation Architecture
I also collaborate at early development stages with directors and production companies to shape immersive, live, and real-world experiences. One such collaboration was The Home, with Annie Saunders, an emotionally powerful installation for Santander Bank. I helped articulate the core concept and develop narrative, spatial, and technological frameworks that guided both the pitch and final experience. Staged as a one-person, headphone-based journey inside a reconstructed suburban home at the World Trade Center transit hub, the installation offered a visceral window into financial abuse within domestic violence contexts. The project received international recognition, including a D&AD Yellow Pencil, and is archived in MoMA’s Department of Film.
LIT BY THE MOON, Concept & Visual Development | Proof-of-Concept Director
I additionally work on proof-of-concept development for film and television, shaping tone, narrative structure, and visual identity for pitch-ready projects. One example is Lit by the Moon, a grounded, darkly funny drama about a musician rebuilding her life in Los Angeles. I co-developed the narrative and emotional tone, designed the visual pitch deck, and directed a short proof-of-concept film to establish the series’ cinematic voice.
YEDI, Brand Development | Visual Development Identity | UX & Product Designer
For Yedi, a technology company reimagining public restroom access through data and emerging technology, I developed the brand identity, manifesto, product design language, and digital experience, creating a cohesive system that aligned messaging, product, and design in preparation for investment and market launch.
CIRQUE DU SOLIEL, Immersive Design Development | Concept Development | Experience Designer
Between 2012 and 2016, I worked with Cirque du Soleil on internal, future-facing projects exploring the intersection of live performance and digital interactivity. I developed narrative frameworks, immersive systems, and audience engagement strategies that bridged physical and digital worlds. On MJ ONE, Cirque’s theatrical tribute to Michael Jackson, I designed a second-screen smartphone experience that synced via Sonar to deliver visuals, animations, and POV sequences directly to audience phones. Choreographed by seat location and responsive to onstage action, light, and sound, the integration deepened audience connection and expanded the narrative beyond the stage.
FLOWER & TRIM, Brand Development | Visual Development Identity | UX & Product Designer
I led brand development for Flower & Trim, a cannabis lifestyle brand celebrating modern cannabis culture through the lens of trendsetting women. From research and psychographic profiling to visual identity, digital platform, and content strategy, I helped craft a cohesive, elevated, and playful system that speaks directly to a diverse, underserved audience while providing a scalable foundation for licensing, product development, and immersive experiences.
LE PALIZ, Brand Development | Visual Development Identity
As the sole designer for Le Paliz, I crafted a refined, tactile visual identity spanning logo, packaging, and promotional assets, balancing artisanal heritage with contemporary restraint to position the brand in the premium market.
ADVERTISING INTEGRATED CAMPAIGNS
Narrative-driven campaigns that balance cultural resonance, craft, and measurable impact.
CORONA, Creative Director | Brand Strategy | Experiential Design
As Creative Director at CAA’s Observatory, I led La Cerveza Más Fina, a landmark campaign celebrating 90 years of Corona’s cultural connection to Mexico. Central to the campaign was The History of La Cerveza Más Fina, a Spanish-language stop-motion film narrated by Gael García Bernal and inspired by Pedro Friedeberg’s surrealist art. Featuring 421 handcrafted miniatures, eight detailed sets, and over 350 hand-painted bottles, the film was animated at 24 frames per second and scored with a 50-piece orchestra. The campaign became the most successful in Corona’s 100-year history, generating over 1.7 million mentions, driving brand power to 18.4%, and improving key perceptions.
BRAND & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Building brands from the inside out, shaping identity, voice, and product expression.
TOYOTA, Creative Director | Brand Strategy | Interactive Design
As Lead Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, I conceived and led Yaris. It’s a Car!, a bold, digital-first campaign for the 2012 Toyota Yaris that embraced the car’s simplicity as its central creative advantage. At the heart of the campaign was itsacar.com, an experimental HTML5 microsite starring comedian Michael Showalter, where users embarked on a looping, gamified tour of the car’s features with deadpan humor and absurdist commentary. The site incorporated WebGL, real-time physics simulations, CSS3, adaptive sound, and multi-user socket communication, creating a responsive, interactive world that even allowed users to explore the source code.
Deliberately digital‑first and targeted at younger, web‑native audiences, the campaign expanded into a rich ecosystem of custom Funny or Die sketches, satirical unboxing videos that parodied tech culture, interactive games, and playful social extensions that reinforced the Yaris’s self‑aware, no‑frills spirit By February of its launch cycle, Toyota had already achieved 80 percent of its annual Yaris sales goal, a direct result of engagement and buzz generated by the campaign. The work was recognized for digital innovation, including a feature on Google’s Creative Sandbox, and stands as an example of how humor, interactivity, and technical experimentation can elevate an integrated campaign and redefine consumer conversation around a product.
MICROSOFT, Creative Director | Brand Strategy | Interactive Design
For Microsoft, I led Free the Night, a VR experience to launch Windows Mixed Reality. Set at twilight over an iconic cityscape, audiences physically “liberated” light, transforming street lamps and buildings into reactive particle swarms through gesture-based interaction. Developed alongside Microsoft engineers while the platform was in early stages, the project combined poetic storytelling with technical innovation, premiered at Future of Storytelling 2017, and was later presented at SIGGRAPH, positioning the brand as playful, human-centered, and technologically forward.
BRAND EXPERIENTIAL
Physical and digital experiences where story, interaction, and space converge.
EXPO 2020, Creative Director | Lead Experience Designer | Interactive Design
For Expo 2020 Dubai, as Creative Director and Lead Experience Designer, I oversaw a suite of interactive kiosks developed with Hexagram. Using computer vision and augmented reality, the installations transformed conventional displays into responsive portals that encouraged exploration, movement, and playful engagement, reaching tens of thousands of visitors with memorable, personalized experiences.
WING LUKE MUSEUM, Art Director | Lead Experience Designer | Interactive Design
At the Wing Luke Museum, I served as Art Director and Lead Experience Designer for Be Water My Friend, an interactive exhibition exploring Bruce Lee’s philosophy. The exhibition highlights over 2,000 books from Lee’s collection, offering a deeply personal lens into his lifelong curiosity and philosophy. Through layered storytelling, responsive interactivity, and thoughtful design, the experience invites visitors to engage with Lee’s mind, body, and spirit while reflecting on their own paths of growth, creating a deeply immersive and meaningful journey for museum audiences.
MAGIC MIKE LIVE, Creative Director | Lead Experience Designer
I also led creative vision and narrative development for Anything For You, an AI-powered concierge experience for Magic Mike Live. By redefining pre- and post-show engagement through immersive experience planning, interaction design, and brand voice, the platform elevated the entertainment journey, improving guest satisfaction and loyalty while extending the show’s brand presence beyond the stage.
PETITE SENSATIONS OF JOY, Creator
Petite Sensations of Joy is an immersive exhibition blending mixed reality, storytelling, and multi-sensory haptics to spark awe, joy, and human connection. Grounded in neuroscience, it intentionally stimulates the body’s Vagus Nerve, helping ease stress, lift the spirit, and foster empathy, emotional resilience, and shared wonder. The exhibition is amplified through collaboration with the Orchestra of the Americas and Otis College of Art and Design, and is currently fundraising for a planned premiere at Venice Biennale Cinema 2026, following my participation as a Fellow at Biennale College Cinema 2023 and in the Venice Production Bridge 2023.
PERSONAL WORKS
Independent projects that explore storytelling as a living, participatory system.
HUE, Creator
HUE, is an interactive tale about a man who has lost his ability to see color. It tells a universal story about how it feels to be sad and how to communicate with sad people. Hue’s journey began in 2015 and had the honor of being selected for the 2016 Sundance Frontier Lab. From there, with the help of Framestore, a prototype was created and premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, the Festival De Cannes, and was a finalist at the Future of Storytelling Prize: People's Choice Award. The project is actively seeking production partners for AR, VR, and interactive streaming.
LITTLE WONDER, Creator
Little Wonder began in 2019 with development funding from Magic Leap to explore narrative in the "Metaverse." Over 15 weeks, we built a five-minute mixed reality experience pushing spatial computing to its limits. The project tested head and eye tracking, hand gestures, frustum placement, graphic thresholds, and occlusion, while integrating particle-based spatial design, positional audio, inverse kinematics, string-and-balloon physics, live mic input, and surface recognition. Every element responded dynamically to audience movement, creating a playful, immersive narrative that evolved in real time.
These additional works remain private or in active incubation, including Melody, a shared-reality dome experience driven by music and audience participation; Joy Finder, a kinetic platform game designed around procedural joy; and Viv and the Illuminator, an interactive film weaving parallel coming-of-age stories across human and natural worlds. Across all projects, my focus is building living storyworlds that invite curiosity, emotional connection, and meaningful participation.