Project Brief
Most homes rely on a mix of candles, diffusers, sprays, and plug-ins, because each one has to compromise great aspects of the other. One sets the mood, another lasts, another works instantly, but none covers every need at once. This project explores a home scent brand built to end that trade-off: one considered experience that brings projection, intensity, longevity, health and sustainability together.
- Projection
- How far a scent can reach.
- Longevity
- How long a scent lingers.
- Intensity
- How strong a scent is.
- Health
- How the scent impacts the users.
- Sustainability
- How often do you replace it.
Research
Candles have an excellent ability to add ambiance with scent and light, as well as adding a relaxing ritual to light it.
Air fresheners work quickly with targeted scent dispersal, allowing you to swiftly fill a room.
Electric diffusers allow you to set intensity, timers, and scheduled scent releases. They’re also generally safer with no flame or unhealthy chemicals.
Reed diffusers are very hands off, with no power or flame needed you can have it run for weeks without maintenance.
Where do current solutions fail?
Air freshener sprays use unhealthy chemicals like phthalates that are known endocrine disruptors linked to hormone imbalances.
Traditional candles release chemicals like benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde which can cause irritation, headaches, and dizziness.
Modern electric diffusers need a consistent flow of power, which means their range is limited to places in reach of an outlet.
Reed diffusers have trouble projecting their scent across large spaces and over time fragrance output drops as dust clogs the exposed reeds.
All of these products suffer from different problems that limit their use to specific instances. Borrowing the best aspects of each will aid in perfecting a solution that lasts.
Positioning
Balancing form and function
Most home scent brands make you choose between products that look beautiful and products that work hard. Auster sits in between, a diffuser built for real performance that you’ll want to leave on display.
This would put my brand in the realm of Vitruvi, Muji, and Capri Blue. Moving forward I would be focused on tackling the problems these brands suffer from.
Target users: Houseproud design lovers
A need for beautiful, easy to use, and calming home scent solutions that tick all the boxes and complement any space.
Beautiful
Intuitive
Relaxing
Scent Research
Smell is the only sense wired directly into the brain’s emotional and memory centers, which is why a scent can change how we feel almost instantly. Soft, familiar notes such as lavender, sandalwood, cedarwood, and bergamot are commonly linked to calm, and studies on lavender in particular have found modest reductions in feelings of anxiety.
Fresh
Spice
Woody
Amber
Floral
Material Ideation
Frosted glass softens the light into a diffuse, glare-free glow, which biophilic design research links to visual comfort and wellbeing. Stone and ceramic connect the space to nature, add a weight people associate with quality, and absorb fragrance oil and release it slowly without heat. Because scent and light improve a space only when they match, combining them in one object makes sure they always work together.
Form Inspiration
Sand dunes are shaped slowly by wind, and their long, sweeping curves are some of the most calming forms in nature. The product borrows those soft, rolling shapes and cuts through them with clean, precise lines, so it feels both organic and intentionally designed. That contrast is the core of the brand: the natural ease of a dune with the clarity of something made to work well.
Color/Finish Ideation
