2. Miasma
The process of adapting MIASMA into a mobile platform focused primarily on experiences that benefit both newcomers and veterans of the seemingly unapproachable perfuming community.
Previously, the retail experience MIASMIC RECALL focused on discovering one’s own personal narratives and scents within a fragrance, rather than the aspirational goals that are conveyed by fragrance marketers. This was something that I believe needed to be reflected within the MIASMA mobile experience.
Notes unbeknownst to brands and marketers become apparent in the end user, birthing new narratives for every individual. With the retail experience of MIASMIC RECALL focusing on one’s own awareness, the MIASMA mobile experience frames its journal function similarly as a mindfulness exercise.
As a brand-agnostic space, this journal allows users to freely post about their daily experiences with and without fragrance. Users are prompted to add notes to their documentation of everyday experiences. These notes not only allow users to think about a scent at the moment of application, but to come back to the journal whenever they drift back into an awareness of their own scents.
With the journal function, MIASMA addresses not only those new to fragrances, but veterans as well, as there are little platforms for this sort of narrative sharing. The ability to convey notes that you yourself perceive within a fragrance that are not in the original marketing sheet of notes are lacking in existing platforms. Nor do these existing platforms address the on-demand nature to document your ever-changing experience.
A perfume is always fading and changing, and MIASMA reflects the desire to reflect those, and thus the design considerations include slower and fading transitions, along with translucency. The slower tempo of the app itself also reinforces the narratives of contemplation and reflection, rather than the instant feedback of many social apps today.
Direction, Design: Reginald Lin
Made with Sketch, Principle, Illustrator