Strategy, Brand, Creation and Making, Product Management
Quite Quiet
Minneapolis, MN
2022 (ongoing)
Quiet Quiet emerged from a set of common frustrations within the candle category. Products intended to support rest and focus often relied on overpowering scents that disrupted the moment, low quality wax that produced black smoke, and short lived packaging and vessels that quickly became waste.
As the candle industry expanded into a billion dollar market, much of the category prioritized novelty and visual excess over thoughtful sensory design. Quiet Quiet identified an opportunity to serve customers seeking presence, calm, and intentional ritual, reframing candles as tools for slowing down rather than objects of accumulation.
Project Details
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Created a brand rooted in sensory restraint and emotional resonance, positioned as an antidote to fast, overstimulating consumer goods
Explored candles as ritual objects, not decorative accessories, emphasizing slowness, intimacy, and care
Built a small scale brand capable of sustaining retail relationships, repeat orders, and long term viability
Tested the intersection of creative authorship and operational follow through, from concept to market
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Established Quiet Quiet as a mood rather than a product, defined by pause, stillness, and softness
Drew inspiration from literature, personal memory, and poetic language to shape naming and narrative
Grounded the brand in quiet luxury, favoring subtlety, tactility, and emotional depth over trend driven aesthetics
Framed candles as tools for intentional ritual and self care, held in time rather than consumed quickly
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Shaped the overall product experience around stillness, intimacy, and presence, reinforcing the brand’s focus on being in the moment rather than accumulation
Developed a six scent candle line rooted in nostalgic, nature based fragrance profiles that emphasized slowness and emotional softness
Established a naming approach grounded in memory and moment, drawing from personal experiences, fleeting scenes, and poetic phrasing to evoke presence rather than description
Designed essential labels and dust covers focused on the core and essence of the product rather than ornament or excess
Selected hand thrown ceramic vessels in robin’s egg blue to introduce irregularity, tactility, and quiet imperfection
Emphasized material warmth and reuse, allowing the vessel to live on as an everyday object once the candle had burned th
