The Sight of Smell

Thoughts on Thesis Book 2025

For the final project of this semester, we are going to create a book that discusses our ideas for our thesis. My current thesis direction focuses on exploring the connection between smell and collective memory, as well as finding interactive ways to integrate olfaction with the digital era.

Moodboard

In one of my previous research posts, I read an article that discussed how scent can be visualized through perfume packaging design. This inspired me to think about how we can connect smell with visual experience, how we can relate scent to collective memory, and how we might integrate olfaction into the digital era. My final thesis statement is: Our five senses are important ways through which we experience the world and interact with it. In this age dominated by digital screens, our sense of sight is constantly being trained by browsing electronic devices. But beyond that, will senses like smell and touch，which electronic devices usually cannot provide feedback for，will be gradually weaken? How to integrate these senses with this era that emphasizes software and technology has become a topic that worth discussing. Among them, I believe the most noteworthy is smell. Smell is one of the most important ways we know and understand the world. Beyond that, it is also linked to memory. When I smell the scent of soil after rain, it reminds me running on the grass as a child. It’s not just personal memory，furthermore，smell is also connected to collective experiences. For Chinese people, when you smell the odor of fireworks, many will associate it with Chinese New Year celebrations. In summary, I believe smell and scent are topics highly worthy of discussion and research. We have long emphasized visualization because it allows us to connect with things more directly and quickly. I think in the future, graphic design will not just be flat but multi-dimensional. We have already started learning how to make everything dynamic and display our work in 3D space. Visual communication should not only be about vision — it should also connect with smell, hearing, and even touch or pain, and then be expressed through visual language. New software offers graphic design new directions and vitality. Although digital screens have no scent, we can still visualize smell, present it in rich and varied ways, combine it with other senses, and allow scent to evolve along with our times.

For my thesis, I aim to discuss the importance of smell, its connection to memory, and how to visualize scent. I plan to conduct a survey to understand how CFA students imagine the smell of CFA and which elements they believe best represent its scent. After the survey, I hope to create a unique perfume that captures the essence of CFA, using scent to brand our school. Following that, I will try to visually represent this scent. First, I will design packaging for the perfume using diverse materials, allowing us to visually perceive its fragrance through the packaging. Then, I want to use scent-detecting components connected to TouchDesigner to create an interactive installation, achieving a preliminary visualization of smell. By adjusting different nodes, various visual effects can be generated. In addition to responding to the CFA perfume, the installation will also produce different effects when people bring their own scent-related objects, reacting according to the smells detected. In summary, my thesis will focus on the connection between smell and vision, innovation in scent-related software, and the role of smell in memory and place branding.

Thesis statement page

Lexicon page

Research posts pages

Regarding these previous projects, I attempted to further search for inspiration for my final thesis and to connect them to my thesis statement. Looking back at Cha Cha Festival, Sight of Sound, EDGE, and Dissociative Amnesia, I realized that although these works appear different in format and topic, they share a continuous thread in my creative practice: an interest in transforming intangible experiences into perceptible design forms.

In Cha Cha Festival, I explored how atmosphere and emotional experience could be made tangible through color, layout, and spatial celebration. This project made me aware that emotion itself can be a material for design, not merely a by-product of visual outcomes.

Sight of Sound pushed this exploration further. By converting auditory information into visual rhythm and dynamic graphics, I started experimenting with cross-sensory translation — how can sound be seen? How can rhythm become form? This project became a conceptual bridge toward my thesis, closely aligning with the emerging question of whether smell could also be visualized.

EDGE (Metaverse Fashion Brand) explored virtual identity and sensory replacement through digital garments — materials without weight, bodies without physicality. This led me to realize that sensation is not confined to the physical world, and that memory, identity, and experience can exist within virtual environments. It opened an imaginative possibility for scent: if fashion can exist digitally, could olfactory experience also be represented through visual language in virtual space?

Finally, Dissociative Amnesia focused on memory, loss, and the fragmentation of self. The project visualized the blurred nature of forgetting, using form and metaphor to represent fading recollections. Through this work, I began to understand memory as something fluid and reconstructable — much like scent, which can trigger a memory instantly yet remains invisible and fleeting. This insight became one of the core conceptual anchors of my thesis direction.

Together, these four projects did not stand as isolated experiments; they formed four different pathways leading me to my thesis. Each project contributed a piece: emotional experience → cross-sensory visualization → virtual identity and touch → memory and consciousness. They gradually converged into my current research interest: to investigate how scent can serve as both a trigger and a visual language for memory, and how design may construct new ways of sensing and remembering the world.

Previous projects pages

Besides my thesis project, I also have several future projects I want to develop. They all come from the same interest — turning invisible feelings or memories into something we can see and experience.

The first idea is Sight of Smell?. It continues my thesis. I want to design a scent for CFA and create an installation that shows smell through visuals. The scent could activate colors, particles, or moving patterns. In this project, smell becomes both memory and information.

Another idea is the stars and moon interactive project. In this work, sound and breathing control the light of constellations. When people speak or exhale, new stars appear and move. It allows the audience to take part, not just look. This project tests how one sense can change into another — how sound can turn into light.

The third idea is the Spinal Archive. I want to study how different animals’ spines show their habits and life. The spine is like a record of movement and time. I plan to use 3D models or VR to present this archive in space. It connects to memory in a physical way.

All these projects share the same goal. I want to explore more forms of sensory design. My thesis is only the beginning. In the future, I hope to keep working with senses, memory, and invisible experiences, and make them visible.

Future projects pages

Final out come of the book

Final out come of the book

After finishing these projects, I created a Figma website to organize and display my work. link to my site：https://speed-fully-11790910.figma.site/

Screen shots of my figma site