Perfumes

I started this brief with an idea of designing a logo and identity for a haircut store. But after exploring different fields where genderisation happens, I've eventually decided to do something related to perfumes as it is a more flexible field.

Some of the shapes are quite neutral, but the colour is sometimes decisive. Dark and primary colours like black, blue, red, etc are associated with manhood, while light ones are related to women, like pink, gold, purple, etc.

The shapes on the designs for men are more sharp, but not necessarily. The details are what makes them identifiable for the consumer. Some designs are quite obvious, with the bottle with a shape of a body or a fist.

After some research I could tell that designs for men perfumes can be neutral or more ungenderised, and they are appealing for men. This doesn't really happen with designs for women. They have some extra details or a clear genderisation to appeal this public. This is probably because back in time the designs were always to appeal men, but when publicists found out that women were the ones in charge of shopping it was then when they had to find a way to appeal to this public, and what we see today it's a product of that. Therefore, ungenderised things might be considered things for men, while things for women are normally genderised.

Another thing I realised is that for this kind of bottles the designers normally use the space between the container part and the outside to create shapes out of it or even illusions. This space have more curvy shapes for women's and more sharp for men's. The design for women perfumes are less simplistic and more refined. Also, small sizes with big caps are usually used for women's perfumes, for swanky purposes maybe? Men's designs are more likely to be opaque.

I think most of nowadays designs for women can be summarised in 1 word, passion. While designs for men can be shortened in another one: Power. In order to deconstruct what it's already constructed, an unisex design should represent different concepts from these two. Equally and not necessarily one of them above the other.

Although, It's not about what the bottle looks like, but in what context it is set. This is because many current bottle designs are actually not so genderised, and their identification can be tricky. Besides, the essay is about the advertisement and package rather than the product itself. So I am going to use a template created by someone else on internet of a perfume in a handcrafted bottle and experiment with colours and typefaces to identify the possible solutions to this problem providing a genderless design.

In order to do this, I am going to maintain a very minimalist design so the colours and typeface gain importance. The results will be classified based on my personal interpretation towards the design until I find one or several genderless combinations.

Helvetica (Ambiguous. Name stays in Helvetica from now and on to mix it with other serif typefaces with gender connotations)

Trajan - Helvetica (Hierarchy and power connotations. Experimentation to separate power and men)

Bodoni - Helvetica (Bodoni brings glamour and high fashion connotations. It can be easily masculinised)


Conclusions: Everything that has pink or blue on it is genderised straight away. Golden colours have two lectures: glamour or power. A garnet colour for the box and pink colour for the bottle create an incoherence, so not always different components can be mixed to add meanings to something. But it's interesting to see how the combinations with colours that are supposed to be masculine can be used for feminine designs, while it can't be that way the other way around. Once it has pink, it can't be masculine. But it can be black, blue (dark colours in general) and with a pink bottle it automatically becomes feminine. This is because of what was previously explained: masculine designs may be considered genderless, but not femenine designs.


Feminine Approaches:







Masculine approaches:













Genderless:









Incoherence:






Leaving the colour on a side, if the importance comes from the typeface, it's interesting to see how playful typefaces, like Moonflower, have no masculine connotations at all. A product like this can be clasified as feminine.




It's interesting to see how Bodoni, which has high fashion connotations, can stay a little bit genderless, but still a bit feminine because of a more than probably unconscious association.




A more classic typeface like Garamond brings more ambiguity. It makes the box look traditional and not interfering with other interpretations.

So, In theory, the use of colourful, vivid or playful elements might normally lead to interpret that it is a femenine product. While dark colours mixed with very basic ones (gold, black, white) can make either a masculine or a genderless outcome. Although, a colour can be vivid, and if it's not mixed with others or used along striking typeface, it can also be genderless.

Another thing I've noticed asking other people for feedback and to see if they think like me, with some of my genderless decisions they think they are masculine. And the pink colour is more associated with young women rather than women in general.

After all of this experimentation and the feedback, I've decided to design a very simple brochure with the combination of elements that were found most genderless.