This project flexed and changed in many ways throughout its year of development. I began my research surrounding comfort objects and how scent can be attached to them. It felt pertinent to my brand story to choose another form, so I pivoted to a designing “perfume/scent” brand. At this stage, I wavered between creating a scent library through user research or creating a hypothetical scent extraction service. Eventually I landed on a brand that provides a custom scent pack with bottled memories.

I began research for Reminiscent in May 2025. My findings have become a crucial part to the project development. I began with three generative research methods:

• User Personas: User persona development that include specific characteristics regarding my target audiences.

• Thematic Analysis: Finding underlying similarities from survey feedback and scientific articles.

• Storytelling in Branding: Learning important storytelling devices through one of my interviews and extensive benchmarking.

Scientific articles and studies also played a large part in my process. Here are some of my favorite findings:

Through much of my research, especially my survey, I have learned that it may be more common for people to recognize a general scent, compared to a personal/human made scent. For example, almost 30% of my survey responses noted perfume as a nostalgic scent. More specifically, 6 of those shared the scent as vanilla.

Another example comes from the “Scents of the Game” reminiscence therapy olfactory exhibit, which provided six generalized scents to residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia. All six scents evoked memories of the ballpark and time spent at baseball games. Even a general scent like beer was able to impact several different people. Overall, I learned that it would be more impactful for a scent library to be provided, rather than a service to extract scents.

Throwing it back to one of my original concepts, I took a deep dive into the psychology of comforting personal items. I played with the idea of a company that allows users to ship in their comfort item and receive an extracted scent from it. I gained insight about transitional objects and how they bring us relief during periods of transition or change. Through survey results I learned that we vary so much in our connection to items previously owned, that we may not be deeply impacted by purchasing a new form. Survey results also helped me expand my original target audience, but my initial research regarding those audiences is still beneficial to fueling my understanding of the olfactory processes.