Press Release
Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic Receives the Silver A' Design Award for Kaorium Fragrance Experience Device in Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design
The international grand jury of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic for interface, interaction and user experience design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 18, 2025 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Kaorium Fragrance Experience Device by Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic, designed for Scentmatic Inc., has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design category. The result belongs to the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Silver A' Design Award Explained
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
Regarding Kaorium Fragrance Experience Device
This interactive signage system offering a new way to experience and enjoy fragrances through the fusion of scent and language. Utilizing the AI powered technology Kaorium, which visualizes the characteristics of fragrances, users can delve into their personal perceptions of scents and explore descriptive words that resonate with their impressions. This allows them to discover fragrances that perfectly align with their individual sensibilities.
About Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic
Born in Tokyo in 1979. Graduated from Keio University Graduate School. Joined NTT Docomo Inc. in 2005. For the next 10 years, led projects for location services, voice recognition, and GPS functions for mobile phones and smartphones. "Imadoko Search" and "Shabette Concierge" were huge hits. In 2015, he was seconded to DOCOMO Innovations, Inc. in Silicon Valley, USA. He discovered numerous AI-related startup businesses and successfully collaborated with and invested in NTT Docomo headquarters. After returning to Japan in 2017, he founded SCENTMATIC Inc. He developed "KAORIUM," an AI-based scent language.
Award Record
This recognition makes Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Award
The A' Interface Design Award is an international design competition recognizing good user interface designs by the best UI/UX designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interface designers, interaction designers, user experience designers and digital product designers from all countries. Typical entries include websites, mobile applications, software interfaces, game interfaces, wearable interfaces and virtual reality interfaces. The awarded interface designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/interface
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/166218
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/166218
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!166218
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/362008
- Further Information from the Laureate: https://scentmatic.co.jp/
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Kaorium Fragrance Experience Device
- Function
- Fragrance Experience Device
- Category
- Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design
- Discipline
- Communication Design
- Industry
- Software
- Colors
- Black, Ghost White, Dark Slate Gray, Lavender and Rosy Brown
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Scentmatic Inc.
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Toshiharu Kurisu - Scentmatic
- Country
- Japan
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2024 - 2025
- Design ID
- #166218
Credits
- Team
- Toshiharu Kurisu and Yoshiyuki Habashima
- Image Credits
- SCENTMATIC.Inc, Kaorium, 2025.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- This interactive signage uses AI to put scents into words and visualize the characteristics of each scent, offering new ways to encounter and enjoy scents. To allow users to focus on the images evoked by the scent and words, visual elements are kept to a minimum, with text floating up on the tabletop for a simple UI. Finally, the desired scent is presented in a scene like a "babbling brook of fresh greenery," encouraging emotional engagement.
- Inspiration
- This project began with the vision of "enriching people's sensibilities and senses through fragrance." Fragrances enrich our lives, but scents are vague and difficult to grasp, and each person perceives them differently. For many people, it is difficult to choose a scent that suits them from the vast selection available, so we thought that "words" would be the key to creating an experience that allows many people, including beginners, to enjoy scents.
- Research
- In order to verify the value of KAORIUM from a neuroscience perspective, joint research was conducted with the University of Tokyo. In a demonstration experiment at a fragrance shop, the entrance rate increased by 139% and the purchase rate increased by 287% compared to before the introduction. The use of KAORIUM overseas is also increasing, including an exhibition at the London Design Festival 2023 and its introduction at The Fragrance Shop, the largest in the UK.
- Challenge
- When the prototype was actually completed, it became clear that it would be difficult to elevate the scent into a valuable experience simply by describing it in words. Rather than assigning a fragrance professional, they took a more consumer-oriented approach, pursuing what consumers "want" and collaborated with the sake, sports, and education sectors to improve social and experiential value.
- Realization and Technology
- Everyone perceives scents differently. Kaorium puts these diverse perceptions into words and presents them, but it wants to respect "how the user themselves felt" and not unilaterally limit its interpretation. With cognitive diversity gaining attention in the context of education and business, Kaorium believes it can contribute to fostering a culture of respect and mutual acceptance of differences in how people perceive scents.
- Operation and Interaction
- Using natural language processing, Kaorium can replace scents with simpler expressions that beginners can understand, such as "soft," "soapy," and "clean." Existing methods to support product selection include "diagnostic content," which suggests products that suit users by answering questions in a questionnaire, but KAORIUM provides an experience that allows users to actually smell different scents and delve deeper into how they feel, creating a more satisfying experience.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in Japan in November 2019. The extrasensory experience of scent that Kaorium brings can be applied to various fields such as education, food and drink, art and entertainment, and shopping. Currently, we are developing tools for sensory education, food and drink experiences, and purchasing experiences for brick-and-mortar retail stores. We are researching further possibilities for use.
- Specifications
- External dimensions W1083.5 × D718 × H850 mm Weight 80kg Using RFID, this new sensory experience combines scent and words, and the physical and digital, creating easy-to-understand and friendly interactions.
- Keywords
- Kaorium, AI, fragrance, signage, device
