Physical contact with wood in the age of screens: how do the scent of craft and the rustle of tissue paper activate the five senses during unboxing?

We spend much of the day today moving our fingers across smooth, cold glass. A screen gives the eye an image but gives nothing to touch or smell – and it is precisely those senses that tell an object from its photograph. Fatigue with that chill means that in search of authenticity we turn toward the philosophy of quiet luxury. We want to surround ourselves with craft that is fully tangible. That is exactly why the process of unpacking a luxury object – unboxing – should be a deep, multi-sensory experience, the absolute opposite of flat virtual reality.

Research on sensory marketing draws attention to how much the first physical contact with a product means. An object one is allowed to take in hand is judged differently from one seen behind glass – touch adds information the eye alone will not gather.

Sight and hearing in the service of attention

The first stage of regaining contact with matter is slowing racing thoughts. When you open the made-to-shape carton from Odoardo Art™, you are not greeted by chaotic film or synthetic polystyrene. Before your eyes appears the deep, elegant black of tissue paper, clasped with a seal. It is a prelude which we describe exactly in the text Designing customer experience.

Along with sight, hearing is activated. The delicate, measured rustle of tearing tissue paper acts soothingly. That sound differs utterly from the aggressive notifications of a smartphone. The culmination of the acoustic experience, however, is the moment of installing the art itself. The smooth sliding of the oak mini-frame into the main frame is crowned by a satisfying, deep “click” of solid wood. It is the sound of engineering, entirely devoid of the unpleasant, metallic grate.

Haptic solid oak

Touch is often an underrated sense in the age of digitization. When you take an oak frame in your hands, you immediately feel its noble weight. That mass is a physical anchor – it reminds you that you hold in your hands the fruit of a joiner's work and not of a plastic injection molder. The structure of the grain, perceptible under your fingertips, is a manifestation of natural beauty resisting mass standardization.

So that the sense of touch could fully explore a crafted work, we decided to remove the glass barrier, which we argue precisely in the publication Picture frames without glass. The absence of glazing invites gentle exploration of the texture of the authorized fine art print. When a fingertip moves across the cotton ground, it registers microscopic irregularities that make every copy unique.

The invisible signature of authenticity

Of all the senses it is smell that binds most strongly to memory – a scent can call up a situation from years ago faster than a photograph. Mass-produced objects smell of chemistry and synthetic glue. Real craft smells of nature.

While unboxing an oak frame, a discreet but extraordinarily characteristic aroma is released from within the tissue paper. It is a harmonious joining of the scent of noble wood with the natural oils used to impregnate the frames, broken by a subtle note of professional varnish and cotton paper. That scent profile cannot be obtained on laminate or on coated paper.

A return to physical anchoring

Why it is worth slowing down precisely at that stage is said by the creator of the Odoardo™ ecosystem, dr hab. inż. Marcin Jamro:

A holistic celebration of the senses throughout the home

Once we experience such flawless dealings with beauty, we naturally want to carry that standard into other areas of our life. Consciously managing your own space becomes a gateway to consciously managing relationships. The ideal extension of that multi-sensory story is inviting the brand Odoardo Alibi™ into the living room.

Unpacking the oak casket of Odoardo Alibi™ rests on exactly the same rigor – we describe it in the text The unboxing experience. Holding in your hands solid-dyed black paper of high weight and feeling three-dimensional gilding under your fingertips, we once again activate several senses at once. The medium itself we analyze in the material Solid-dyed black paper. Consciously surrounding yourself with objects that demand and repay full, physical attention is the purest definition of modern luxury.

Where this attachment to matter comes from is explained by the Odoardo™ manifesto.