My Muse is the smell. 

Have you ever heard of an illness called synesthesia? People who have synesthesia will see colors when they receive the stimulates.

Everything for me has a color.  When I was a little girl, I love sitting near the bookshelf, enjoying the books. Actually, I was enjoying the color bumps. While I was reading, lots of colors emerge in front of me. I really enjoy them, I think I was special.

My mom played the piano when I was young. I could easily remember the rhythm because each notes for me has a color. I enjoy reading, playing the instrument and the scent from the nature, I love drawing the things I saw, I love these colors.

However, I could not learn English and math because each word and number had colors. For example, the word apple in Chinese is pink, but in English, it is green. The similar green in Chinese is down jacket, therefore I always confused the meaning when I learning English. Also, my math was super bad because each number for me was a different color. 

Then I grew up. I ate some medicine and synesthesia disappeared from my life. That dramatic experience became a good memory. Recently, I saw a movie called Perfume. In that movie, a man killed one hundred girls to extract the smell of their bodies, then to make a perfume to remember her first lover. His first lover was the muse. I wonder if I could use smell as my inspiration too. Therefore, I decided to use smell as my inspiration.

I did some research about smell, sensory design(how to visualize the smell), also perfume. According my research, I roughly divided smell into three category. Also, I want to use illustration to represent them.

The first is curious/unexpected smell. For instance, the smell of chocolate powder and the old book in library. Curious smell is fragile, easily to disappear, but they also hard to grasp and smell and could be forgot easily. I will use thin and transparent color line to illustrate the curious smell, also curious/unexpected smell is like the top tone in the perfume.

The second is episodic smell. For instance, the smell of flowers, the smell of the fish or the mushroom. The episodic smell will stay longer than the curious/unexpected smell.I will use color bumps to illustrate that smell. Also,  episodic smell is like the middle tone in the perfume.

The third is background smell. For instance, the smell of river, the smell of barbecue shop, or the smell of rain. The background smell will stay here, no matter where you go. Also, the background smell is a basement for other smell. The background smell is similar to the basement tone in the perfume.

According to the research, the background smell and also the episodic smell could easily trigger people’s memory. For example, my mom loved lily flowers. She always brought them when I was young. After my parents got divorced, I was hard to smell the lily flowers. However, every time I smell the flowers I will remind my mom and the time I spent with her.

I will collect the perfume I like, then visualize them. I will use the perfume patterns to design clothes. Also, I will do some primary researches like what’s my friend’s favorite smell and visualize them too. Then I will use my visualized research to create the clothes and sketches.