design

proof of handmade

Today’s picture to the left shows you black and white take of stones on a beach at the state park “El Capitan” in Southern California. Made by nature. Smoothed by the sea and a lively contrast to the beach’s sand. Nature often works on a large timescale. We human beings tend to think in days, weeks, or years years while the ocean waves work for centuries on smoothly polishing the coast. As species, we craft objects since a few hundred thousand years. And we do so the longer the faster.

Thus, I want to share a little design detail with you on the upcoming PENTACHORDS flacons. Some of you might have realized it already: The label and the top cover are different to the rest of the line. The top cover is made from wood as all the other tops I use. But this time, we get it colored in white for all Pentachords, and print PENTACHORDS onto it. On both side, which is sort of expensive. On the top of the top there is a printed, silver pentagon.
The label that you see in the picture above is no sticker but more like a paper ribbon, folded around the flacon’s neck like a shirt (actually, there are two openings in the paper ribbon where the neck goes through. ) The whole ribbon is held in place with the scrimped on pump and by a little sticker on the backside. Each Pentachord comes with a colored ribbon. Not that simple to put on.

In a sense, a design proof of handmade.

Initially, I thought that the ribbon should not cover the TAUER sign on the flacon. But I feel now that this makes it just a bit more interesting. Maybe design is not only about showing and presenting things but also about hiding and pointing to things by just setting hints.

I think it fits well with the idea of fragrances that are centered around a reductionist approach, focusing our attention to a very minimal set of molecular structures.