Opening Lines
Nurture Your Designs
Robert DuGrenier approaches fragrance package design much like he approaches other types of design. He sits back and waits, allowing his ideas to take root and sprout on their own—often literally. Some of his designs are inspired by planting glass objects in trees and beehives and letting nature take its course. The bottle he created for Susan Lucci Invitation, for instance, was fashioned after the way branches grew around glass tubes that DuGrenier placed in trees on his Vermont farm. "I spend a lot of my design time just observing, then implementing," he says.
Trouble is, not all fragrance companies are patient enough to wait for such designs to take shape. "There's an unrealistic time frame to get products to market, and people don't want to invest the time anymore. If they did, the end results would be brilliant." DuGrenier lamented this reality during his presentation at The Fragrance Foundation's "Think Tank" seminar on January 15. He participated in actress Isabella Rossellini's session, "Me-too Ness vs. Newness: Creative Challenges Faced by the Package Designer."
A glass sculptor and proprietor of the design firm Robert DuGrenier Associates Inc., DuGrenier says that custom tooling used to create a fragrance bottle must often be redesigned two or three times before it's just right. "You must plan a realistic time frame—otherwise the tooling won't be done properly. You need enough time to test preproduction bottles."
Some of the discoveries made when testing preproduction bottles are often unexpected. For instance, "how a fragrance sits inside a bottle is just as important as the outward look of the bottle," he says. "The bubble inside may need a flat bottom or need to be in the shape of a teardrop. There's no formula, and you can't know what it will look like unless you sample."
DuGrenier understands that many fragrance companies rush designs to market for budgetary reasons, not out of sheer impatience. For those that simply can't afford to perfect custom tooling, he recommends looking into stock bottles. "Stock is a great alternative. You can then spend your time decorating and embellishing, making a normal-looking bottle into something that looks as though it were made for your product."
DuGrenier himself has used stock components, creating packaging for fragrances such as La Lucci and Laura Mercier.
But even designs using stock components take time. "The glass manufacturer may have other projects ahead of yours, and you still need to test your design and allow time for redesign."
DuGrenier's point is an important one. "In rushing a design, you make sacrifices." Instead, nurture your designs, and don't finish them before their time.
Daphne Allen
Group Editor