Burn

4FRAGRANCE FORWARD

One weekday morning, sometime in 2013, I interrupted my senior designer, Corina Heymann, who was intently focused on her laptop screen, finalizing some candle‐label and product‐packaging designs. “Please put your current project away,” I asked, “and visit the Fancy Food Show currently underway at the Washington, DC, Convention Center.” She shot me a skeptical glance before nodding in agreement.

I'd been confident in Corina's ability to spot diverse consumer trends ever since I'd hired her in April 2006. During our interview, she described how she'd followed her husband to DC and then struggled to find creative work. Corina had focused on print design and product packaging ever since graduating from Virginia Tech in 1990 and had honed these skills in Miami Beach. But she found herself at sea in the nation's capital because most of the jobs were in politics, law, and other noncreative industries. I wasn't surprised. As I used to joke among friends, if you threw a stone at someone in DC, there was a one‐in‐three chance you'd strike a lawyer and find yourself in deep trouble.

I seized the opportunity to test her creative capacities, taking her on an impromptu field trip to the local Target. We parked, walked to the candle valley, and I pointed to a series of our candles that weren't selling well. “Lean into your creativity,” I told her. “Study this product and tell me how I could improve sales.”

Corina took the next few days to painstakingly evaluate this poorly ...