Overview

LUMARÉ™ is an artisanal home fragrance brand inspired by the rugged beauty of the coastal Mediterranean. The project objective was to move beyond the cold, sterile studio photography typically found in the sector and instead create a series of atmospheric lifestyle visualizations that transport the customer to a sun-washed terrace in the southern Aegean.

Our work focused on capturing the "golden hour" light—ensuring the warm wax, textured ceramic vessel, and the interplay of shadows from olive branches felt authentically Mediterranean and premium.

The Challenge

The primary technical challenge was light-source harmony. We needed to simulate a believable outdoor environment where the primary light source is the low-hanging evening sun, while still precisely illuminating the brand's typographic details.

Additionally, the client required a multicultural labeling strategy for Greek and UK boutiques, necessitating a trilingual approach that maintained the brand's quiet, artisanal luxury without appearing visually cluttered.

What We Did

1. "Golden Hour" Lighting Suite

We developed a custom lighting rig designed to mimic a late-afternoon coastal environment:

• Soft Shadows: Integration of organic shadow-casters (olive and fig foliage) to create a dappled light effect.
• Warm Kelvin Temperature: Calibrated light paths to enhance the natural glow of the wax and the terracotta tones of the environment.
• Specular Bloom: Subtle lens effects to capture the sun's reflection off the stone wall and ceramic glaze.

2. Physical Material Simulation

• Textured Ceramic: Developed a high-frequency shader for the candle vessel, showing the slight porosity and hand-thrown character of the pottery.
• Translucent Soy Wax: Simulated the subsurface scattering of natural soy wax to give it a soft, "creamy" appearance even when unlit.
• Trilingual Labels: Rebuilt the label system to include English and Greek, using a refined typographic hierarchy that balances the two distinct scripts.

3. Visual Storytelling

We created a suite of imagery that tells a cohesive brand story:

• The Terrace Scene: Large, wide-angle shots showing the candle on a weathered stone terrace.
• The Macro Detail: Close-ups focusing on the embossed gold LUMARÉ logo and the scent description.

Visual Story

Outcome

The resulting visual toolkit provided LUMARÉ™ with a powerful asset library for their pan-European launch.

• Brand Resonance: The sun-washed imagery led to a 50% increase in social media engagement compared to previous photographic campaigns.
• Market Expansion: The trilingual labels allowed for a unified supply chain across both UK and Greek boutique retailers.
• Production Efficiency: By finalizing the visuals digitally, LUMARÉ™ was able to begin their digital marketing campaign 6 weeks before the first physical production run.