I worked full time as a graphic designer at Areon - a brand making air
fresheners for the home & car. The small team I was in was responsible
for the design of labels, packaging, die cuts and more. My role was to
design ready to print packaging designs & labels of products and work
with other designers where needed for print technicalities.
Partly because of legal constraints, I won't go into detail about the
workflow of the team or company. Instead, I'll focus on my own
process, the problems I faced, and the solutions I came up with.
Additionally, I won't directly share any photos, though I can link to
public products I've worked on.
Home Perfumes - Atelier
Atelier is a luxurious candle line, offered in three distinct scents.
I was briefed to design belly band packaging for each scent. Like all
fragrance packaging, the bands needed to communicate the scent. With
almost total creative freedom and very little direction, I started
exploring concepts.
But first, the basics: dimensions, die cut, glue flap, and required
information. Then I started exploring aesthetics and went through lots
of options, but none of them felt high-end or communicated the product
well. Something was off, and I realized I was missing the luxurious
feel. I knew I needed it, but I hadn't worked out what makes packaging
feel premium.
I studied luxury packaging and noticed a pattern: muted, neutral
palettes, minimalistic layouts, premium materials, and print finishes.
Together, they signal confidence and quality.
After a new round of options, some more minimal, some more muted, and
one built around spot UV to add richness without any clutter. Finally,
I presented the strongest options, and one of them got approved!
Final design
Take "Sebuah Bunga", a floral, leathery, husky scent. I conveyed it
through an abstract shape that resembles leaves. The brief had already
set green as the color, so, as with every scent in the line, I paired
it with a more muted shade. The foil on the borders frames the design
and gives it a premium feel.
After I prepped the print files and chose a paper thickness, I checked
a pre-production sample to see the finishes in person, and the line
launched later on.
Lux Salon Perfumes
Lux Salon perfumes are refills for automatic spray dispensers, offered
in 21 scents and sold to businesses. The brief was to redesign the
label for each fragrance, communicate a premium feel, and convey each
scent.
I started by figuring out who the audience for this line was. That
part was easy: they're businesses like hotels and salons. The problem
was that there was no way to narrow down a choice between the 21
scents. Colors and graphics helped in that regard, but they couldn't
differentiate scents that blend several aromas, like geranium and
incense. I needed a minimalist approach, and adding multiple graphics
to account for the complex scents wasn't going to work.
A few fragrance notes were the solution I was looking for. Not a whole
pyramid, though — there was no clean way to fit that, nor was there a
need. Two notes per scent, picked from the top and from the mid or
base notes, were more than enough. I pitched the idea and it got
approved. Customers can now glance at the notes, narrow down their
selection, and pick the scents they like most.
Takeaway
During my time at Areon I learnt a lot, and it was an incredible opportunity to get a deeper understanding of how professional printing is done, since production happened on-site. This mainly helped with prepress preparation, but also with designing within a printing technique's limitations — offset printing, for example, needs trapping to compensate for any errors.