Shiseido wins award for Mazda-designed perfume

Shiseido created the perfume for Mazda’s design theme before scooping the prize in the package design category.

Gold packaging​

The Soul of Motion perfume, which was conceptualised specifically for the Japanese automaker, was one of only 75 designs in all categories to receive the gold award. A total of 5,575 entries were submitted by 59 countries.

The awards ceremony, celebrating Shiseido’s perfume success, took place on 10th March 2017 at BMW Welt in Munich, Germany. In addition, the winning design will also be exhibited at the iF Design Exhibition in Hamburg for approximately three months, along with featuring on its digital channels on both the iF Design official website and the iF Design App for three years.

First established in 1953 in Hanover, Germany to provide a global stage for design excellence, International Forum Design organises the iF Design Award and accompanying annual event.

Currently, Shiseido’s perfume design has been registered in its home country Japan, along with the dominant APAC region China, and the EU. As well as a pending application in the US, the joining mechanism, which forms part of the packaging, has a domestic patent pending.

Capturing soul​

Jury members associated with the award based its decisions on seven different categories: product, packaging, communication, interior architecture, professional concept, service design, and architecture.

“This unique and innovative flacon from Shiseido is a creative metaphor to express the ‘Soul of Motion’, a concept created by Mazda for their automobile,”​ noted Isabelle Dahlborg Lidström, a member of the iF Design Award 2017 jury, commented in World Design Guide 2017.

“The structural design captures the tension when muscle primes for action, borrowing both visual brand language from automotive design and the human body.”​

Describing the overall structure as a work of art, Lidström went on to say that Shiseido's design is “pure in form and function and harmonious, the outer sleeve has a subtle soft touch meant to feel like skin”.​

Through their collaboration, Shiseido enabled Mazda to produce artwork to support and strengthen the concept and philosophy of Soul of Motion.

Pride in heritage​

Since 2012, Mazda’s new-generation products have adopted the Kodo design theme that “seeks to embody vitality and additionally infuse it with Japanese aesthetic”​ announced winners Shiseido in a recent press release.

Targeting customers in Japan and the wider market, the partnership between Shiseido and Mazda, which pairs cosmetics with transport, is an example of the extension of Soul of Motion theme.

The theme is based on “emotional simplicity (the condensed excitement that remains after everything else has been stripped away)”​. In Japan, Kodo represents a firm character with dignity in silence and therefore, the fragrance is based on woody, leather and rose.

Taking inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, the domestic duo’s collaboration “[strips] away everything to achieve a well-honed and conditioned beauty”.​

“The entire team is overjoyed that Mazda and Shiseido were able to elevate our shared Japanese aesthetic and together create a product that captures a growing concept and philosophy,”​ said a spokesperson for Japan-based Shiseido.