Scent Design: An Aromatic Approach to Interiors

There’s a new question on the lips of interior designers: What should this space smell like?

Scent design is gaining mainstream market momentum with commercial, retail, hospitality and even residential clients opting for fragrant spaces.

It’s not as simple as a fragrance plug-in and unlike the strategy of supermarkets injecting bakery smells for sales or the popcorn aroma at the cinema, this new scent wave is known as olfactive branding.

In olfactive branding, a scent developed form the olfactive process is customised and is aligned to a brand strategy or a “feeling” a company may want consumers to evoke when they enter the space.

Today, a brand can have a Pantone colour and a scent.

In a society which is overwhelmed with visual branding, digital connectivity and messaging, scent offers an emotional connection to spaces which is in many ways more powerfully engaging.

Toronto-based Tracy Pepe is a pioneer in the olfactive branding space and is founder and scent designer of Nose Knows Design – the design wing of her company Classic Aromatics.

While Pepe established her company in 1994, she believes the market remains in its infancy, though the rising trend is now being  supported by a global movement toward cooking and food.

“Society is now paying attention to scent,” she said.

My full interview with Tracy can be read here.

Below are also a few beautiful images of the scent process and products. All photography by the talented Yanni Tong.