Featured Press

Packaged for Life: SCENT 2023

Packaging Design for Everyday Objects

In our haste to consume the things we love, we often disregard or discard packaging without a second thought. While many would argue that they bear no significance or should be done away with in our quest to save the environment, there is a lot more to packaging design than meets the eye. On top of conveying a brand’s personality, purpose, or message meaningfully and embodying its contents in ways that catch the eye, a seemingly ordinary bottle or box can become an artist or designer’s canvas for extraordinary creative expression.

Packaged for Life: Scent is a celebration of the products with the power to evoke a feeling, transport people in space and time, or create a distinct ambience through smell. Highlighting some of the best packaging design work from around the world for candles, incense, perfumes and more, it serves as a delightful source of inspiration for the senses.

Editor: victionary
Specs: 160 x 214 mm, 304 pp
Format: full colour, hard cover
Release date: Jul 2023
Language: English
ISBN 978-988-75666-8-7

Vogue 2019

On World Book Day, Find the Fragrance That Matches Your Literary Taste

Anima <> Existential Novels: After pondering the meaning of existence with Sartre and Camus you’re ready for just about anything, and artsy Marfa-based line, Fray Ardens offers perfumes that have plenty to unpack. With notes like “soul smirk” and herbs don’t expect a straightforward floral; Anima is far too interesting for that.

Vogue 2018

The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Gifting Perfume by Personality Type

Nouveau Ranch <> THE OUTDOOR ADVENTURIST

“It’s always tricky, buying perfume for someone else,” says Frédéric Malle. As the architect behind Editions de Parfums—a collection of original scents created in collaboration with the world’s top noses—he appreciates the value of a beautifully crafted fragrance. Still, he insists, when it comes to gifting fragrance for the holidays, it’s not about playing it safe…Vogue has assembled a handful of Malle’s best suggestions—along with some of our own—that are guaranteed to satisfy every personality on your list.

Fragrantica 2020

More Libido, Less Ego: A Reparative Journey with Fray Ardens

…The concept here is that of light and shadow, the Mythopoesis line is more light, comprised of cleaner scents—while the So Below line is dirtier, dustier, using more literal attar notes—it’s nose in desert, or experiences around the desert, based on living in Marfa. For instance, Cactus Prick was designed to directly evoke how your hair smells after a late night bonfire.”

Given all of the references to masks, shadows, and psychological explorations, a fascinating frame for Fray Ardens is that along with her perfume line, Ash Compton is also a Jungian psychotherapist. As an intern, Compton has been drawing together very long, historied interests in scent, fairytales, archetypes, and the chosen narratives by which individuals define themselves.

My own dedication to psychoanalysis as a structure for processing perhaps predisposes me to an adopting as mantra something Compton said, almost as a side note: “More libido, less ego.”…