Kenneth Hirst, Hirst Pacific03.16.15
The allure of fragrance is as strong as ever and why we use fragrance remains both as mystical as it is substantiated. What changed however are our choices, with the plethora of prestige fashion and celebrity brands to the swelling number of masstige fragrances available on store shelves and on our online devices. Our desire for such a product is primarily emotionally grounded in the perceptions we have of ourselves, our peer groups and our idols and, our connectivity to the culture we live in.
Fragrances are still dreams in a bottle, a dream we desire and a dream that, one-day may come true. The positioning of a fragrance brand, the smell of the scent and the design of the bottle are all conjured up to tap into these deep psychological needs we have to satisfy our fantasies, our moods and how we want to symbolically present ourselves to the world at large. The competition to connect with consumers’ emotions and find that magical element they just have to have has become fierce, making the importance of building brands with compelling, relevant and albeit necessary stories absolutely paramount.
Jafra Cosmetics International, a global direct selling beauty company, has done just that, and partnered with us at Hirst Pacific Ltd to create a collection of fragrances each built around its unique emotionally charged and aspirational story.
Prolific Design
Over the course of 18 months, Hirst Pacific designed eight new fragrances for Jafra, five of which were created in a five-month period. Hirst Pacific now calls these fragrances our Jafra Fragrance Collection. Each fragrance was a brand unto itself uniquely positioned to target a range of male and female consumer demographics.
This ambitious program was a brilliant gamble to freshen up Jafra’s “House of Fragrances” with its aim to launch a new range of fragrance brands that focus on popular trends evolving out of an array of cultural genre; fashion, film, music, youth culture, nostalgia as well as selected influences developing in the fragrance market such as “fresh, cool and clean.”
The program began by designing the first two fragrances—Ice-Zone for men and Latin Fire for women—both targeting a 25-plus consumer. Then, after allowing time for these to get into production, we designed the first of five additional fragrances, completing all of them over the following five months. And with a break of a few months, the creation of the final brand for the new fragrance collection was completed.
Getting Started
From the outset, the marketing goal was to produce a series of fragrances with each fragrance design founded on its own exclusive brief. As with all of Hirst Pacific projects, based on each individual brief, we start by researching the brand positioning of the new fragrance concept and visually explore areas of inspiration with imagery that will bring to life the character of the brand. They look for visual cues and codes that might best express the idea and build a library of colors, textures, materials and forms that can be translated into their final vision of the design both graphically and structurally.
The Challenge
When designing multiple fragrance brands during the same period, the objective is to ensure each brand stays unique and true to its individual goal. Hirst Pacific’s experience, process and ability to produce prolifically all come into play. The process that ensures each fragrance is unique and tells its own proprietary story is the translation of the brand positioning into a tangible and exclusive visual language.
The inspiration derived from this brand territory dictates a distinctly different solution each time, exuding its own unique story. The richer each fragrance story is, the easier it is to find the form and visual language that make the new design distinctive unto itself.
And so the creation of these fragrances has been as much about storytelling and exploring ideas that bring the story to life as it has been about the design.
Hirst Pacific’s prerogative is to create great design and great quality that leads to perceived great value. This is both their dream and the dream of their marketing executive clients.
Creating a unique and compelling new fragrance brand is the least of the challenge. The biggest challenge is always around the cost of goods, especially, when the cost of goods is low. From the bottles’ perspective, the issue is taking a beautiful, elegant design and adapting it to the cost requirements for manufacturing with the least impact on the aesthetic and perceived quality of the design. This may involve reducing glass weight or altering the bottles’ form so that it runs as efficiently as possible down the production line or reducing the number of components in the cap and utilizing less expensive materials and finishes.
At the outset of this process, to ensure designs matched the production cost targets, Hirst visited the glass manufacturer, to discuss the best ways to achieve a range of unique fragrance bottle solutions that could be produced within the client‘s financial guidelines.
Behind the Design
Silver Canyon’s target consumer is male, age 25 plus years. The fragrance taps into the classic country/cowboy market trend. The cowboy is the symbol for independence, strength, endurance and passion. He’s passionate about what he does and he’s passionate about life. He’s masculine and sexy. The universe of the vaquero (Spanish for cowboy) became the inspiration for the bottle. The form comes from a hip flask and the silver cap references the silver found up in the canyons and the metallic elements that adorn the vaquero’s belt and boot spurs. The cap’s texture is detail found on the flask’s closure. The deep rich brown liquid mirrors a shot of hard liquor taken at the end of a tough and dusty day on the range.
Latin Fire aims to capture female consumers, between 28 and 45 years old, by targeting the strong, confident and sexy side of women—and tapping into the dance trend and a fluid ethnic style dress. The bottle mimics the energy and movement of a Latina flamenco dancer while the red cap and bottle gradient color express the fiery emotions symbolic of the performance.
Wild Femme looks toward females, age 25 plus years, and sets out to satisfy every woman’s inner-animal via the animal print trend and the dare to be wild. Africa provided the inspiration for this bottle. The wood cap with its cluster of carved beads is similar to the exotic carved vessels from indigenous tribes, the bottle’s neck evokes the long slender neck of an African woman, while native pottery forms inspired the glass base. The fragrance color reflects gold and the golden light of the savanna. The leopard’s piercing eyes on the carton represent the window to a woman’s wild inner desire and primal instinct.
Nerina hopes to captivate women between 18 and 25, luring them to escape to another world where they are happy, free—and the most beautiful living creature, expressing fresh, freedom, summer, water and the mermaid fantasy. The bottle portrays symbols of the mermaid, her fishtail and symbols from the sea, a pearl and the ubiquitous scallop shell depicted in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The bottle has been sprayed with the azure tones of a shallow tropical sea.
Rock’n Soul targets men from 18 to 25, with the rock star dream and the rock music trend where one gets lost in the music and lives without rules; to be symbolic of rock music and its energy, which is sexy and cool. The bottle is the shape of an electric guitar neck detailed with frets. The sleek form feels good in the hand, as does the neck of the guitar. The black and blue color palette reflects the darkness of a rock venue; black is the irreverent color of rock and roll and combines with the blue hue and energy radiating from the stage lights.
Geared to men 25 years and older, Ice-Zone follows the super cool, freshness trend that can energize life. The rectilinear bottle and crystal clear cap are masculine and strong, with the icy coolness of glacial ice cut into the back surface of the glass.
More info: hirstpacific.com
Fragrances are still dreams in a bottle, a dream we desire and a dream that, one-day may come true. The positioning of a fragrance brand, the smell of the scent and the design of the bottle are all conjured up to tap into these deep psychological needs we have to satisfy our fantasies, our moods and how we want to symbolically present ourselves to the world at large. The competition to connect with consumers’ emotions and find that magical element they just have to have has become fierce, making the importance of building brands with compelling, relevant and albeit necessary stories absolutely paramount.
Jafra Cosmetics International, a global direct selling beauty company, has done just that, and partnered with us at Hirst Pacific Ltd to create a collection of fragrances each built around its unique emotionally charged and aspirational story.
Prolific Design
Over the course of 18 months, Hirst Pacific designed eight new fragrances for Jafra, five of which were created in a five-month period. Hirst Pacific now calls these fragrances our Jafra Fragrance Collection. Each fragrance was a brand unto itself uniquely positioned to target a range of male and female consumer demographics.
This ambitious program was a brilliant gamble to freshen up Jafra’s “House of Fragrances” with its aim to launch a new range of fragrance brands that focus on popular trends evolving out of an array of cultural genre; fashion, film, music, youth culture, nostalgia as well as selected influences developing in the fragrance market such as “fresh, cool and clean.”
The program began by designing the first two fragrances—Ice-Zone for men and Latin Fire for women—both targeting a 25-plus consumer. Then, after allowing time for these to get into production, we designed the first of five additional fragrances, completing all of them over the following five months. And with a break of a few months, the creation of the final brand for the new fragrance collection was completed.
Getting Started
From the outset, the marketing goal was to produce a series of fragrances with each fragrance design founded on its own exclusive brief. As with all of Hirst Pacific projects, based on each individual brief, we start by researching the brand positioning of the new fragrance concept and visually explore areas of inspiration with imagery that will bring to life the character of the brand. They look for visual cues and codes that might best express the idea and build a library of colors, textures, materials and forms that can be translated into their final vision of the design both graphically and structurally.
The Challenge
When designing multiple fragrance brands during the same period, the objective is to ensure each brand stays unique and true to its individual goal. Hirst Pacific’s experience, process and ability to produce prolifically all come into play. The process that ensures each fragrance is unique and tells its own proprietary story is the translation of the brand positioning into a tangible and exclusive visual language.
The inspiration derived from this brand territory dictates a distinctly different solution each time, exuding its own unique story. The richer each fragrance story is, the easier it is to find the form and visual language that make the new design distinctive unto itself.
And so the creation of these fragrances has been as much about storytelling and exploring ideas that bring the story to life as it has been about the design.
Hirst Pacific’s prerogative is to create great design and great quality that leads to perceived great value. This is both their dream and the dream of their marketing executive clients.
Creating a unique and compelling new fragrance brand is the least of the challenge. The biggest challenge is always around the cost of goods, especially, when the cost of goods is low. From the bottles’ perspective, the issue is taking a beautiful, elegant design and adapting it to the cost requirements for manufacturing with the least impact on the aesthetic and perceived quality of the design. This may involve reducing glass weight or altering the bottles’ form so that it runs as efficiently as possible down the production line or reducing the number of components in the cap and utilizing less expensive materials and finishes.
At the outset of this process, to ensure designs matched the production cost targets, Hirst visited the glass manufacturer, to discuss the best ways to achieve a range of unique fragrance bottle solutions that could be produced within the client‘s financial guidelines.
Behind the Design
Silver Canyon’s target consumer is male, age 25 plus years. The fragrance taps into the classic country/cowboy market trend. The cowboy is the symbol for independence, strength, endurance and passion. He’s passionate about what he does and he’s passionate about life. He’s masculine and sexy. The universe of the vaquero (Spanish for cowboy) became the inspiration for the bottle. The form comes from a hip flask and the silver cap references the silver found up in the canyons and the metallic elements that adorn the vaquero’s belt and boot spurs. The cap’s texture is detail found on the flask’s closure. The deep rich brown liquid mirrors a shot of hard liquor taken at the end of a tough and dusty day on the range.
Latin Fire aims to capture female consumers, between 28 and 45 years old, by targeting the strong, confident and sexy side of women—and tapping into the dance trend and a fluid ethnic style dress. The bottle mimics the energy and movement of a Latina flamenco dancer while the red cap and bottle gradient color express the fiery emotions symbolic of the performance.
Wild Femme looks toward females, age 25 plus years, and sets out to satisfy every woman’s inner-animal via the animal print trend and the dare to be wild. Africa provided the inspiration for this bottle. The wood cap with its cluster of carved beads is similar to the exotic carved vessels from indigenous tribes, the bottle’s neck evokes the long slender neck of an African woman, while native pottery forms inspired the glass base. The fragrance color reflects gold and the golden light of the savanna. The leopard’s piercing eyes on the carton represent the window to a woman’s wild inner desire and primal instinct.
Nerina hopes to captivate women between 18 and 25, luring them to escape to another world where they are happy, free—and the most beautiful living creature, expressing fresh, freedom, summer, water and the mermaid fantasy. The bottle portrays symbols of the mermaid, her fishtail and symbols from the sea, a pearl and the ubiquitous scallop shell depicted in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The bottle has been sprayed with the azure tones of a shallow tropical sea.
Rock’n Soul targets men from 18 to 25, with the rock star dream and the rock music trend where one gets lost in the music and lives without rules; to be symbolic of rock music and its energy, which is sexy and cool. The bottle is the shape of an electric guitar neck detailed with frets. The sleek form feels good in the hand, as does the neck of the guitar. The black and blue color palette reflects the darkness of a rock venue; black is the irreverent color of rock and roll and combines with the blue hue and energy radiating from the stage lights.
Geared to men 25 years and older, Ice-Zone follows the super cool, freshness trend that can energize life. The rectilinear bottle and crystal clear cap are masculine and strong, with the icy coolness of glacial ice cut into the back surface of the glass.
More info: hirstpacific.com