The Forgotten Sense
Concept Design and Graphic Design
2020 - Central Saint Martins MA Graphic Communication Design end of study project.
“The Forgotten Sense” is a research project about the loss of smell and the representation of the fleeting. It’s an interactive educational smell kit and a virtual platform made for anosmic people. It is based on the ‘smell training’ protocol, elaborated by Thomas Hummel and Chris Kelly, which allows people with smell disorders to train their nose and recover from their condition.
Anosmia, also known as smell blindness, is the loss of the ability to detect one or more smells, it affects 5% of the population. This disorder is largely unexplored in the medical world and very little research is carried out on the issue.
The smell kit has 42 different scents that can be used to start training your nose. They are based on the research of Jean-Noël Jaubert who analysed all the types of smell that surround us and then classified them into groups. The scents are associated with visuals that guide anosmic people in their training and allows for a meditative experience whilst they
focus on the smell.
This project is also an exploration of the graphic representation of smell. How can we represent the invisible? How can we express something that is fleeting into something tangible? Can we convey to anosmic people a sense they no longer have and translate it with other senses? This project’s aim is to immerse the viewer in a journey that explores the world of smell and its mysterious and controversial aspects.
