PROCTER & GAMBLE 2023

In 2023, I was a Digital Design Co-op for Procter & Gamble Beauty Care. While most of my work is confidential, I created and pitched a passion project during my time there which involved Design Research, UIUX Design, Branding, and more. Fellow Industrial Design Co-op Alex Ernsell hopped on this project to create the physical prototype. Full deck available upon request. Disclaimer: this was a creative hypothetical pitch to P&G Beauty, *NOT* an existing product.

OBJECTIVE

Design a brand and its digital commerce platform that sells niche regional nostalgic scents from around the world. Define the brand, execute research, build the interface, and create a physical product prototype. Reminiscent is a hypothetical digital commerce sub-brand of P&G focused on delivering nostalgic niche regional scents that can be added to any P&G product to enhance user experience.

Defining the two target user groups for reminiscent: those who want to reminisce and those who want to discover!

The “buzz” level of categories concerning scent, personalization, throwback feelings, and moods are at an all-time high. I studied how other companies incorporate sensory experiences into their commercial products. 

WRONG ANSWER...OR WRONG QUESTION?

I wrote and distributed a survey to gather information and experiences from Immigrants about nostalgic scents. The first time I did this, I wasn’t getting accurate answers. Instead I got vague responses that were almost there, but not exactly what I wanted. I learnt that I had to rewrite my questions and give adequate framing to get the answers I wanted from my survey respondents (which I knew they had all along, but couldn’t get to!) What an interesting experience in human interaction.

                   

Some people can smell color! Trend research on synesthesia (Myriad) studies popular associations between certain scents and places and their corresponding colors, allowing us to stylize each custom scent in the Reminiscent brand with their representative color gradient.

BRANDING

Since Reminiscent is about regional niche nostalgic scents, location is a huge factor to the brand. After ideating, I began thinking about topographic maps. They show an area’s location and geographic qualities through contour lines. This line detailing combined with the nostalgic color gradients made up the package branding. Each regional scent would therefore be branded with their unique topographic pattern and a unique color gradient.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF SCENT?

What other products can incorporate scent into their holistic design experience? What if digital picture frames could emit nostalgic scents with pictures of memories? What if movie projectors emit fabricated scents of fictional lands of Tatooine or Middle Earth? What if Reminiscent was housed in an International supermarket like Jungle Jim’s? The consumer base of Jungle Jim’s is already interested in international cuisine and experiences, so perhaps they’d be interested in international sensory experiences.