Portal Scents
Portal Scents was born out of an insatiable fascination with bringing the fantasy worlds we all know and love to life. The creators, Julie and Robert Zylstra were tired of having only a few generic scents to choose from when shopping for bath and body products. That’s why their mission is to creatively utilize fragrance to take people on a journey to another time and place – a place where magic, wonder, and adventure still exist.
Deliverables:
Mood Board
Custom Logo Design
Alternative Logo Design
Submark Design
Custom Rune Design
Color Palette Development
Font Pairings
Branded Textures and Patterns
Branding Style Guide
Business Card Design
Packaging Design (Boxes, Stickers, Collectible Trading Cards)
Website Copywriting
Julie and Rob first came to me in search of the right graphic designer for their project. It had to be someone who also loved fantasy and who could take directions such as “we want that to look less elvish, more dwarvish.” After geeking out about different fantasy and sci-fi fandoms during our first consultation call together, they realized they’d found their gal – dare I say, the One Designer to rule them all? (Apologies for the poor Lord of the Rings reference there.)
For their branding, they wanted to exude a sense of adventure, whimsy, and fun while still having it feel refined, indulgent, collectible, and imaginative. It all started with a mood board exploration since there were so many directions we could have taken their brand visually, but we all ended up loving a somewhat darker feel with rich blacks and purples – that way the flecks of gold, glitter, and magic sprinkled throughout felt even more mythical and exciting.
Then I got to dive into designing the signature portal that would become their most recognizable icon. I wanted to keep the portal design relatively minimal and abstract rather than building a hyper-realistic portal to avoid having their brand feel too cheesy or “Comic-Con-like”. As a nod to traditional literature-based fantasy, I decided to throw it back with a classic sans-serif body font and beveled gold elements, but to bring it into the digital realm, I paired that with a whimsical, modern font called “Arrogant” for the logo and headers. One of my favorite parts of the branding journey though was creating the set of custom runes that symbolized all of the core values of the brand that would eventually come to encircle the portal.
For their first two collections of soaps, they really wanted to make the process of opening up their delightfully nerdy package a complete otherworldly sensory experience. This led to the design of a clean, sleek, black box, so that when a customer sees the glowing portal on front, they just can’t wait to open it up to uncover what world they’ll be stepping into next. Each collection had a different feel. The Enchanted Realms Collection featured an epic, earth tone dragon image with more masculine fragrances (Arcane Library, Druid Grove, Dragon Spire), while their summer collection, The High Seas Collection, featured a vibrant image of a pirate looking out to sea with tropical fragrances (Mermaid Cove, Port Royal, Rum Island).
In tandem with the explosion of color, as soon as they enter through the portal (i.e. opening the box), their senses are also delighted with a wave of nuanced fragrances that further transport them into this new world where magic still exists. But what I love about Portal Scents is their dedication to creating a genuinely fun experience for their customers. So in addition to the custom boxes and individual product label design, we also created collectible trading cards for each fragrance (the front side displayed the fragrance notes and corresponding image, while the back side displayed the fragrance story within the iconic portal).
One unexpected opportunity that arose for me throughout this project was the chance to channel my inner writer and take a crack at copywriting some of the fragrance stories and ultimately the website copy for Portal Scents’ ecommerce store. This was such a unique challenge to try and create these immersive descriptions to help transport their customer further into a new world with words in addition to the fragrances and visual aesthetic of the brand.
Overall, I had more fun on this comprehensive branding, packaging design, and copywriting/brand positioning project than I have in a long time! It’s not often you get to work with two genuinely funny, compassionate, and similarly nerdy business owners, and I couldn’t be more excited with the worlds that we created together through Portal Scents’ branding. Check out their store to explore all of their magical products (they’re now selling candles, too!) and follow them on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date as they release new fantasy-inspired collections.
“We initially hired Nicole to help us create a brand identity for our fantasy inspired bath and body brand. Nicole worked collaboratively with us to take a series of abstract thoughts and concepts and turn them into a refined brand identity that exceeded our expectations. Nicole created custom runes for our company logo, which consistently generate positive comments from everyone who sees them. We went on to hire Nicole to do our packaging design as well. In addition, she helped us with our web copy.
Nicole quickly became an integral part of our company and still remains a valuable sounding board for new concepts and ideas as we continue to grow. I wish I could hire a hundred Nicoles to work for me!”
— Julie and Robert Zylstra, Portal Scents
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