“What if we designed for all our senses? Suppose, for a moment, that sound, touch, and odor were treated as the equals of sight, and that emotion was as important as cognition. What would our built environment be like if sensory response, sentiment, and memory were critical design factors, more vital even than structure and program?” – JOY MONICE MALNAR & FRANK VODVARKA
design
“Even if you could capture the smells, sounds, tastes, and feel of a place, digitize them, and send them down a wire, you’d still never get near the sensation of ‘being there’. Why? Because we humans are not so dumb. Our minds and our bodies are one intelligence.” – JOHN THACKARA
“One simply cannot turn up one’s nose these days at the role of scent in design.” – ASHRAF OSMAN, CLAUS NOPPENEY & NADA ENDRISSAT
A recent exhibition on perfumed objects and images provides the context for a few remarks on the role of flacons. Even after the finassage the catalogue deserves more attention.
Graphic designer Sarah Hyndman thinks that the shape of a letter can impact the way stuff tastes, smells, and sounds. To her, typefaces are multi-sensory experiences that affect the way we interact with the world around us.
In addition to light, sound, color and other design dimensions scent is increasingly used to influence human emotions and behavior. Aromatherapy is the discipline that has developed this expertise and knowledge of centuries. Scent Marketing is currently an obvious case. But there are also non-commercial contexts as this story from Eindhoven reports.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will present “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision” . In the 1980s the Swiss design thinker Lucius Burckhardt coined: “Design is invisible“.
We have fleshed out some of the guiding ideas for Scent Culture Institute in our contribution to Designing with Smell: Designing with Smell: Practices, Techniques and Challenges – an impressive volumen honoring the work of Victoria Henshaw : Culturalizing scent!
The other way of wearing scents – not with flowers, say it with fragrant molecules!
The international foundation of design and creativity has taken the world of fragrance to heady new heights with its latest project, a threefold approach to the world of fragrance.
Scents can be tough to describe in words, which makes them perfect for mood boards.
Young London designer Hee Park manipulates space using smell, sound, and touch.
Larry Shiner, a philosopher in the field of aesthetics, published a must-read academic treatise on piece by Larry Shiner on the confusing but ever-relevant subject of perfumes & art (Shiner 2015).
The evacuation suit is part of Catherine Sarah Young’s Climate Change Couture project.
The Lucerne School of Art and Design is the oldest college of art and design in German-speaking Switzerland. In fact, it is celebrating the 140th anniversary of its foundation throughout this academic year. Thus, the school reflects on the history and prospects of art and design education and organizes a sequence of keynote lectures titled: Craftsmen and Visionaries: Art and Design Education between Social Responsibility and Freedom. Here is the program: Ringvorlesung Symposium 2015. In this context, Claus Noppeney has been invited to explore olfaction as an innovative field in art and design (education). Being strongly rooted in craftsmanship, traditional perfumery takes a cultural turn. Innovative products and services (see our Scent Culture News) show how the sense of smell steadily becomes a design parameter. Moreover, the olfactory dimension is increasingly part of contemporary artistic practices.