Brand Standards
Reclaiming ILLUME's Distinctive Voice
With 30 years of artistry and fragrance excellence, ILLUME's voice had become lost in a crowded candle market. Our 2024 initiative focused on amplifying the brand's unique strengths, refining its iconic sensibilities, and elevating its artistic core. We established comprehensive Brand Standards that provide consistent tools across all departments, ensuring cohesion in every brand expression. Founded by artists, ILLUME distinguishes itself through exceptional integration of fragrance, vessel design, and packaging. Our brand guide showcases this creative heritage through evocative photography that inspires customers and highlights meticulous attention to materials and techniques. This storytelling approach transforms ILLUME's vision into tangible experiences, with every design element stemming from the brand's foundational values—creating meaningful market differentiation.
View Site: illumefragrance.com
Brand Guide Design: Kristin Verby
Product & Packaging
Where Art and Olfactive Combine
At ILLUME, product design begins with research into trends, sales data, and fragrance developments to create resonant collections that advance the brand vision. We partner with fragrance experts to pair scents with complementary design elements, packaging, typography, colors, and textures. This alignment ensures every aspect conveys the intended emotional response of the fragrance.
Our process balanced visual aesthetics with olfactory experience, transforming abstract scent profiles into tangible stories that bring each collection's perspective into the home. Every detail—from color accent edges to foil treatments and hand-painted embellishments—ensure the physical presentation matches the exceptional quality of ILLUME's luxury fragrances and performance standards.
Product & Packaging Design: Cheryl Cocoran, John Thompson & Taisha Sveda / Illustration: Cheryl Cocoran & Heidi Valera / Production Design: Rachel Freed
Annual Catalogs & Photography Direction
Sensory Storytelling
ILLUME's catalog embodies the brand voice through captivating photography that evokes each fragrance collection's essence while serving as a practical sales resource. The 2024-2025 editions feature macro details highlighting material quality, natural textures creating fragrance associations, and imagery showing how products integrate into contemporary homes.
This comprehensive tool equips the sales team with product information and compelling storytelling to educate customers. Created through collaboration between design, marketing, and production teams, our catalog balances new introductions with classics in an organized system.
We maintain the luxury of traditional print production with premium color and textured papers that reflect our products' sensory nature, complemented by digital versions ensuring consistent brand experience across all platforms.
Catalog Design: Kristin Verby / Production Design: Rachel Freed / Lifestyle Photography: Ryan Dyer / Photography Stylist: Toby Rae / Product Photography: Jeff Cords / In-House Photography: Kristin Verby
Innovation
Little Bundles of Joy
ILLUME's Capsule Collections feature limited-edition home fragrance experiences that showcase our experimental spirit through new scent profiles and innovative design techniques. Trend-forward and playful, these collections complement our Core offerings with fresh discoveries throughout the year. Each capsule emerges from collaboration between our Fragrance, Design, and Sourcing teams, with Marketing partners creating cohesive visual storytelling through photography and social media. This integrated approach delivers complete sensory experiences that reflect ILLUME's commitment to artistry and innovation.
Product & Packaging Design: (Holiday Glacé) Taisha Sveda, (Memory Lane) Taisha Sveda, (Under the Sun) John Thompson / Production Design: Rachel Freed / Fragrance by (Holiday Glacé and Memory Lane) Greta Pagel, (Under the Sun) Ellie Wilson / Lifestyle Photography by Ryan Dyer / Photography Stylist: Toby Rae / Product Photography by Jeff Cords