It’s Tuesday, I’m Nithya Sudhir. I collect words, chase patterns, and write about whatever makes me curious.
The visual psychology behind luxury jewelry
In 2014, a team of MIT neuroscientists discovered something wild.
Why does this matter to brands — especially luxury ones?
Look, it's Monday. Let’s get into it.
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The brain sees faster than we think
In 2014, researchers at MIT sat volunteers in front of a screen and gave them a simple instruction: “Look for a picnic. Or a smiling couple. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Easy, right? Not quite.
What the volunteers didn’t know was that they would be shown 6–12 images, each flashed for as little as 13 milliseconds.
That’s faster than a blink, or a thought.
And you’d naturally think, no one could spot even a single image, right?
That’s the wild part! Even though each image vanished almost instantly, the brain kept processing them.
It didn’t need context or conscious attention, only a flicker.
Because the brain isn’t just looking, it’s judging.
And that experiment revealed a truth marketers rarely say out loud.
We are visually wired long before we are rationally aware.
The visual cues that make jewelry look high-end
And jewelry brands know this better than any other category.
ANNOORY is a contemporary jewelry label known for minimalist design and sacred geometry, clean lines blended with symbolic, spiritual motifs. It shows just how intentionally jewelry brands use visual psychology to create pieces that feel instantly magnetic.
Sensation transference
Louis Cheskin’s theory of Sensation Transference argues that people transfer the emotions they feel from design onto the product itself. It can be the color, shape, packaging and imagery of the product and it alters the perceived quality, taste and value.
The effect: If the visuals look premium, the product feels premium.
ANNOORY’s entire brand identity is built on minimalism, sacred geometry, soft neutrals and ultra-clean layouts.
Visual information quality effect
Studies show that clean, high-resolution, well-lit images dramatically increase perceived trust, product credibility, and purchase likelihood.
Apparently, the consumer pays attention to the way the product is presented, in e-commerce offers and reacts differently depending on the lighting techniques used.
ANNOORY uses:
ultra-sharp close-ups
controlled lighting
smooth gradients and matte backgrounds
perfect product isolation
Jewelry is deeply personal, high-ticket, and hard to evaluate online.
So trust isn’t optional, it’s the product.
Luminous object bias
In their study called, Do People Have a Thing for Bling? psychologists Silvia and colleagues (2017) showed people identical objects. They had the same shape, same size, same color, just one difference: one had a glossy, reflective finish, the other was matte.
Over and over, participants preferred the shiny version even when they couldn’t articulate why.
Their brains treated gloss as a cue for value, newness, and desirability—a built-in bias toward objects that catch light.
Annoory’s pieces are designed to catch light in clean, controlled ways. Their Universal Light Grid design ideology features sharp edges, smooth gold planes, and reflective geometry.
Every close-up on their site amplifies that shimmer, triggering the same unconscious pull the researchers observed.
What other brands can learn from ANNOORY
Brands that own the aesthetic own the perception.
Treat image quality like a conversion engine, not a nice-to-have.
Use light deliberately — it’s one of your strongest sales tools.
Build a visual language, not just a pretty feed.
Give the viewer room to feel the piece, not just see it.
Close-up textures don’t just show detail — they spark sensory imagination.
We think luxury is crafted in studios.
But it really takes shape in the quiet, automatic places of the mind.
Which, honestly, might be the most luxurious trick of all. Do you agree?
How's the depth of today's edition?
As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.
See you next week,
Nithya
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