Project Summary
This project is based on the 12th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, Responsible Consumption and Production. In the era of economic globalization, massive material waste has been generated from producing tourist souvenirs. Students focused on identifying issues and developing sustainable design solutions through field research, interviews, and focus groups. They delivered a sustainable packaging concept of whisky tourism souvenirs based on five senses, which are customized to Scotland's region.
Field Research
The field research at Edinburgh Whisky Experience Centre was a significant turning point in the students’ research.
Firstly, the booking system is thoughtful. With 15 people per group, the appointment system ensures that travellers are comfortable during their experience. Secondly, the experience process is standardised and suitable for all users. After starting the experience, visitors went through the container train, the immersive scent lounge, the whisky tasting and the history gallery. This process allows whisky tourists to follow the narrator and become fully immersed in the world of whisky after a short half-hour experience. Thirdly, the whole sensory experience and digital technology assistance are impressive. The Experience Centre uses a combination of technologies such as holographic projections and 4D experiences to allow visitors to experience the whisky-making process more immersively. The students were surprised using the five senses design during the introduction of the cinema room, which was fully engaging through cards that smell the flavours of different origins combined with overhead videos of the sources.
The students compared the Experience Centre with other souvenir shops and what attracted them the most was the multi-sensory experience.
Focus Group
To explore the relationship between the different senses and memory, a focus group was set up to conduct the experiment. The experiment was divided into three main steps.
Step1. Memory Ranking
After allowing participants to experience the five senses separately, they sort the stickers of the five senses in the order that makes them memorable.
Step2. Experience of Whisky
The students use some objects collect from Whiskey Experience Center to simulate the visit process.
Step3. Five Senses Concentration
Based on the results of the three stages of the focus group, the students found that a single sense only allows the user to understand the object from one side. The joint senses enable the user to gain more information and better understand the object. So they focused more on increasing the multi-sensory experience in their subsequent design.
Final Concept
The whisky souvenir - 'Your Personal Whisky Museum’ was designed with the idea of sustainability and going green, which used recycled material to make the packaging and the interior contains a five-sense experience introducing the story of whisky.
The interior has four pages, each telling the story of whisky through the five senses. The first page, tourists are introduced to the process of making whisky. On the second page includes a scent capsule with a wax seal, allowing the user to reveal the scent of Scotch whisky by rubbing it. On the third page, the students look at it from an auditory point of view. When users scan the track, they can hear the sound of Scottish music. Finally, users will find seed paper. Users can put the seeds in an empty bottle to grow flowers after finishing their whisky.
Future Direction
The future of the students’ research direction is about enhancing the realization of sustainable concepts in the entire product manufacturing process. In the future, the students want to provide users with a circular approach and embed the sustainability perspective in the user's mind throughout the entire product production process.
