Sunday, September 13, 2009
Course critic
Final Products
Research & experimentation:
We explored the various possibilities that could be taken into consideration when working with the skills of Krishnaveni aunty. We looked into various subjects where her stitching and painting skills could be put to use. We also looked at other simple things that she could do alongside that could broaden her range of work.
1) paper cutting
2) stitching buttons
3) braiding, weaving, knotting
4) mirror work, embroidery
Product/ prototype making:
We made small samples and prototypes of the objects we hoped to build on. Since some of them were big products that required a lot of time and resources, we cut it down to a small sample to see if it was worth taking forward.
1) lamp- led cloth, techniques swatch
2) led book
3) binder
4) pencil box/pouch - tetra-pack version, newspaper stripes
5) reusable book cover
Newer products:
To broaden our range, we introduced several different ideas that were simple and could be sold relatively cheaper.
1) cards
2) gift wrapping paper
Brand identity:
We realized the need for creating a brand identity for the products. They were already a little different from the usual products, and by showing that there existed an entire range of such products, it would help in advertising to the customers. It would also help bring all the products under a common name such that although the customers may have to buy the products from the stores, it helps retains their own identity.
We talked to Krishnaveni about our idea and asked for her input. We made sure to do that so that we keep her in the loop and part of the process. Since, in the end, the business venture is to be hers, its important for her to approve our ideas.
Krishnaveni wished to call the business 'Shreya' after her granddaughter. Working on that, we worked on creating an entire brand identity.
We thought about creating either labels or tags that would carry the brand on each product.
Packaging:
Most shops in Yelahanka (which is our primary market at the moment) sell products in plastic bags. That would mean that only a few of our products that cannot do without it would require packaging.
Our initial idea, however, had to do with selling the products in the city too. It would be available to a larger and more cosmopolitan audience who would be willing to shell out more money for the products.
By creating a good brand identity and packaging, we could turn it into an exclusive brand, and in turn increase the price rates.
Packaging is very important in that case.
Marketing, publicity:
Focusing on Yelahanka as our market for the moment, we thought about various ways of publicizing and marketing the products.
1) One of the major factor is location. The location of the advertising, and the location of where the products are kept for sale. We, thus, began looking at the various shops around Yelahanka and their clientele.
2) Publicity also requires some consideration into the location. We thought of publicizing not only at the stores where they are being sold, but also on the packaging bags.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
A step forward
Brainstorming & Ideas...
Working on my new project brief, I came across the idea of working with people with time to spare. The guards, the people working in shops, and all the others who spent a part of their time idle.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Thoughts behind my brief
What are the logistics..? who am I keeping in mind-- who am I designing for?
Who will carry on after I leave?
Where does innovation come in?
What is so special about what I am planning to do that makes me a 'designer'?
What other understanding or knowledge do I have that other people don't have?
What am I contributing?
Is it something that has already be done before?
Keeping these in mind I set out again, to create another brief and work on something new that would work better within the space provided by the course.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Assignment 9: Working on our project outline
Outline 1:
Considering a space based upon the livelihood of a certain group of people. To look into its systems and patterns and to enhance or increase its efficiency. This is to occur based on the requirements of the players involved and the emergence of new ideas/thoughts through knowledge and experience of that space.
Objectives to be considered:
*To look into sustainability of the space
*To observe the practicality, logistics and better use of resources available
*To imagine the future of that space while creating a strong base to work towards the desirable future
*To look into the standard of living, health and welfare of the residents
Threats:
* Having an already set, concrete system in place created unconsciously by the people and their lifestyles
Outline 2:
To consider a space based solely upon their livelihood. To look into the logistics and work related topics to work towards improving their current business position.
Objectives to work towards:
· To look into the strengths and weaknesses of the product and its systems.
· Identification of the product placements and work towards it in a more focused and direct manner.
· To promote the product by creating a brand identity
· Working towards the advertising, packaging, and creation of network of people willing to act as middlemen for the product
· Identifying potentials for the a service, product, material, technique or skill, and broadening the demand base by making such a service or product available
Threats:
* Non-availability of facility or resources while working towards the brief
After writing down the basic ideas for the brief, I picked one and looked at it a little more. It is based on the place I go to, the system of working I find there, and the scope for change. Hence, the project brief is a detailed 'outline', yet vague in the sense of the place and the actual work to be done.
PROJECT OUTLINE:
To look into the inner workings and entire network of interactions of a system of a business. Analyzing, comparing and to enhance the process of working.
Objectives:
To identify the main objectives of the business and their achievements
To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current system
To increase efficiency such that it benefits either the employer, employees or the customer
Places of work: catering, dhobi ghat, grocery store, big libraries, stores, car wash
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths: To look into a system that has being created unconsciously rather than developed;
Opportunity for improvements and to create a selling point for the business
Weakness: Cost constraints
Opportunity: Possibility of collaborations, expansion/ reduction of service
Threats: To find an already existing efficient system in place created unconsciously by the people;
To disrupt the efficiency and service due to introduction of changes
Monday, August 3, 2009
Assignment 8: Creating a brief
Usually we, as designers, work from a given brief. Going backwards and creating a brief ourselves was unusual. Yet, that was our assignment: to take any existing product or service and visualize what the initial brief would have been. We had to take into consideration that the information and knowledge of material and technique that came out while designing the service or product did not exist at the time of the brief.
I chose to recreate the brief for a Gel pen. Going back to the time when only fountain ink pens and ball-point pens existed, I considered myself to be in the fountain ink pen business. Coming from that background I designed the brief.
The brief was:
To re-design or create an entirely new writing instrument such that it overcomes most or all of the current problems of ink pens yet incorporating all the advantages.
The problems to be addressed are:
1) leaks in the cartridge
2) requirement of refilling ink every few uses
3) brittle and easily damageable nib
4) small glitches cause large number of defect pieces during manufacture (= loss)
Advantages to be incorporated are:
1) smooth and easy flow or ink
2) requiring less pressure while writing (as compared to a ball point)
3) easy to carry around
SWOT: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats
Strength: Broadness allows larger number of iterations
Weakness: Problems and advantages very specifically mentioned
Opportunities: Possibilities for structure, shape and design iterations; look into newer technologies and methods; can rethink entire system of how it works
Threats: price of each writing instrument; requirement of a completely different production unit and system
Assignment 7: Movie Making!
Making a movie...
Here was an assignment I was looking forward to with some excitement and some uncertainty. Making a film is a combination of a lot of things: brain-storming, script writing, story boarding, shooting, editing. The prospect of doing it for the very first time was extremely exciting. The fact that I had no knowledge of the editing software led to the uncertainty.
Yet, here we were, making not one but two movies! One was to be a documentary and the second was to be a fiction. And all in 3 days flat.
We got into groups of three, putting our heads together for any brilliant ideas. Truthfully, we hadn't a clue as to what we were going to do in the beginning. The documentary, we decided would be based in Narayanpura, but when it came to the fiction we were still prowling around in the dark. What we needed was inspiration- as the wise would say! But inspiration lurks further away from you the more you try to forcefully hunt it down.
DOCUMENTARY:
My frequent trips to Narayanpur had made it a somewhat familiar place. I felt that being with the people and asking them the awkward questions that we did, had already forced me to break down that certain barrier that we each carry with us. The conversations we had had and the tools we used were not just to gain information, it also helped break the ice.
The others in my group, Neha and Rudransh had also stuck with Narayanpura since the beginning for all the assignments. They too had formed a bond with the place, and together we came to a quick decision that Narayanpura would be the place for our film.
We made a few more trips to the place a few days before shooting. We made a few friends, collected a whole lot more of information and promised to return.
Their way of life and surroundings made it all very foreign and strange in the beginning. We all have heard of the village life and their routines; we all accept it. Yet if we were to live in the village for a few days, each one of us would be uncomfortable.
It was a feeling that I consciously noticed a change in over the days. The more times I spent in Narayanpura, the more I began to enjoy, respect and understand the surroundings. We may have visited Narayanpura well over 8-9 times, just for the filming. Each time we returned, the more we connected with the place.
It was a refreshing and exciting to know that the people had accepted us. Sure, we stuck out like a sore thumb with a fancy bike, western clothes and absolutely no knowledge of kannada- yet their reactions to us were far better than what I had expected. They were helpful and patient with us and our sometimes bizarre requests.
While thinking about the format of the documentary, we came up with:
1) documenting a space (like the chai-kadai or water pump)
2) documenting a person's daily life
3) documenting the chain of interactions that happen between people by switching people to follow each time they came in contact.
4) documenting hot spots around the entire village.
After spending time siting around on the fields, having bananas and one rupee snacks with tea from the chai-kadai, interacting with the over-excited children, chatting with the villagers while lazying around and dodging unfriendly overprotective cows, we felt like a part of Narayanpura. We realized that we didn't really want to document just one space or one person's life. It would not effectively represent all that made Narayanpur what it is. Thus we decided to create a montage of various spaces around the village that we felt gave an insight into the lives of the people there.
Creating a montage without a story and yet keeping the audience with us in the movie all the way is difficult. To overcome that we thought of ways to tie everything together and connect the unconnected. We thought then, of using a monkey as a guide to guide us through all the sights and sounds of the village. We drew from the fact that there were a lot of monkeys around the village and parents kept their children in check using monkey stories to scare them.
We wrote out our final script and detailed storyboard. After a couple of trial shots to get the movement of the camera (as monkey) right, we began shooting.
On our last day at Narayanpura, we gave Ramkrishnaappa photographs of the villagers with masks of various personalities. They were from our previous assignment that we did in that place. The people were absolutely thrilled to receive their photographs, and it was interesting to see the way three or four children ran about the village passing the photographs over to whomever they belonged. The reactions we received felt like a wonderful end to our last day in Narayanpura.
ANIMATION:
Our exposure and experiences in Narayanpura gave us a lot more unconsciously. We got quite a few ideas for our fiction during our first few visits to Narayanpura. We ideated and came up with couple of stories:
1) a foreigner completely lost in translation in a village
2) a man herding cows unable to pull convince one of the cows to cross over the train tracks in time
3) a young village girl struggling with her talent and love to work at the wheel while everyone tries convincing her otherwise as she is a female.
4) a man at a train crossing
We finally zeroed onto the story of the man at the railway crossing, with the job of lowering the level to block the roads when a train is approaching.
The story shaped into something that we could see happening in the settings around Narayanpura. Being a comparatively new village, Narayanpura did not have any stories or legends of their own that a community settled in a place for centuries usually has. We tried to create one of our own through the movie.
Since the setting of our movie was at night, all the shooting would need to be done in the dark. After checking it out on our cameras, we realized that shooting in the dark would be extremely difficult and may not produce the results we wanted. We thus turned towards animation as another means of showcasing our story. Shifting to animation was a big decision since it is a time consuming process, and doing it along with another movie in 3 days is difficult. Yet we stuck to it.
We created an entire script, and made many iterations for the storyboard. Choosing one that would be effective yet not over complicated, we began work. We scanned out the basic hand drawn images, and began 3 days of Photoshop and Flash work. The compilation was done on Final Cut Pro with music, sound effects and commentary.
Although we were happy with the final results of our films, there is always scope for improvement. The pointers Ulrique and Victor provided helped us see our movies in a different way. Often when one creates something, they look at it in comparision to what they had initially imagined. Getting feedback from someone else therefore, was interesting and gave us a few more things to think about for our films.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Assignment 6: Using a tool in Narayanpurra
We decided to choose 3 different categories- religion, politics and film. We would take at least one imminent personality from each category and ask the people to pick one- their favorite one. We created paper cutout masks with a long handle of 8 prominent personalities. They could stand with the mask however they wanted- either with the mask beside their face, or on top of theirs. It would also show us their relations or connection with that personality.
The eight people we chose were-
1. Manmohan Singh, The PM of India
2. Yedyurappa, the CM of karnataka
3 Upendra, The local film star
4. Shahrukh Khan, The national film star
5. Brad Pitt, The international film star
6. Pooja Gandhi, The local actress
7. Parvathamma, a well respected film producer
8. Sri Hanumanji
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF IDOLS CHOSEN BY THE VILLAGERS OF NARAYANPURA
TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE SURVEYED = 57
The clear favourite was Upendra, the local film hero. More people chose to have a picture taken with his mask on than anyone else. However, a large number of people also chose thheir God, Hanumanji.
The people of narayanpur we quite besotted with their local hero itself. They did not have too much exposure to the outside world and even shahrukh khan, the countries biggest film star got chosen only 5 times! Brad Pitt, of course, was not even heard of and was chosen only once, that too because they found it funny.
Infact many People picked up hid mask, and then put it back down realizing that he is a foreigner. the villagers were quite proud of their own people and had a certain disregard for foreigners
The people in Narayanpura viallage were friendly and warm when we went to them with our tool for research. At first most were wary of students walking around with masks in their hands and approaching them. Amongst them, we found the men to be much more co-operative and interactive. They, in fact, encouraged the ladies and others to join in our little activity.
The females mostly stayed silent and wanted nothing from us. But when they were encouraged by their husbands and fathers, they gave way and picked a mask. Many a times, they even needed to be prodded a bit, but the enthusiasm of others caused the rest to co-operate, hesitatingly.
The kids were the most fun of all. They were bold and enthusiastic. They loved being a part of the activity, and made us a part of them immediately. They even ran home to home, and called others to come join them. It was partly due to their enthusiasm that our activity gathered the attention that it did. The kids followed us around, and hounded us to see the photographs taken.
Assignment 5: Survey at Betalhalsurr Narayanpurra
VILLAGE PROFILE-
Narayanpura is a small village in the District of Banaglore further down the Air Force Base. The population is about 200-300, with almost 60 households.
There are 15 households run and headed by women. None of the women are part of the Panchayat. They do, however, gather together in the village and discuss matters.
During special seasons like Diwali and Summer, when the demand for pottery items is high, a few workers do come to the village to work with some families.
All the families are Hindu, belonging to other categories (not from SC/ST/OBC). A part of the village lives below the poverty line.
The entire village gets water from a single borewell. None of them own a personal water facility. All the villagers are potters, who have done this occupation all their life. They have learnt it from their ancestors; an art that has been passed down through the generations. Some of the younger generation, however, are leaving and taking up other jobs like being a driver.
Even though all the villagers engage in the same activity and get the clay from similar sources, they each go individually to collect it for their family. The pottery items are mostly sold in the city market. They do sell to those few who come to the village directly to buy. The men usually are the ones who sit at the wheel and make the pots. The women do the decoration on the pots before they are fired. Fancy items are not usually made, unless on order.
HOUSE-HOLD SURVEY-
Name of head of H/H: Shyamanna
Age: 65 yrs
Sex: M
Religion: Hindu
Category: Other
Marital Status: Married
Type of family: Joint
Educational status: Illiterate
Total number of family members 14 yrs & above: 11 (7 males, 4 females)
Literary status: 1 (F)
House Ownership: Yes
Type of House: Pucca
House with Kitchen Garden: No
Own Drinking water Facility: No
House with Cattle Shed: No
Electricity: Yes
Land Holdings: None
Credit Liabilities:
Source of credit: Bank
Amount: Rs. 20,000
Purpose: For pottery equipment and material
Total income: Rs. 30,000-40,000 per annum
Any other information: Sons have left this profession. One has become a driver, other one is not yet working.
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Name of head of H/H: Krishnamurthy
Age: 65 yrs
Sex: M
Religion: Hindu
Category: Other
Marital Status: Married
Type of family: Joint
Educational status: Literate upto 2nd Std.
Total number of family members: 8
6-14 yrs: 2 (1 M, 1 F)
14 yrs & above: 6 (2 males, 4 females)
Literary status: 1 M, 1 F
Type of House: Pucca
House with Kitchen Garden: No
Own Drinking water Facility: No
House with Cattle Shed: No
Electricity: Yes
Land Holdings: None
Credit Liabilities:
Source of credit: Bank
Amount: Rs. 50,000
Purpose: For pottery equipment and material
Total income: Rs. 40,000-50,000 per annum
Any other information: They get one or two workers during Diwali season as extra help. One son does not work.
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Name of head of H/H: Munchiappa
Age: 40 yrs
Sex: M
Religion: Hindu
Category: Other
Marital Status: Married
Type of family: Joint
Educational status: Literate upto 7th Std
Total number of family members: 4 (5 before his daughter got married and left)
14 yrs & above: 4 (3 males, 1 females)
Literary status: 2 daughters till 12th Std, 2 Sons are in 7th & 8th.
House Ownership: Yes
Type of House: Pucca
House with Kitchen Garden: No
Own Drinking water Facility: No
House with Cattle Shed: No
Electricity: Yes
Land Holdings: None
Total income: Rs. 35,000-45,000 per annum
Any other information: One daughter married and lives away. Sons are still studying.
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Name of head of H/H: Nagrajappa
Age: 45 yrs
Sex: M
Religion: Hindu
Category: Other
Marital Status: Married
Type of family: Nuclear
Educational status: Literate upto 7th Std
Total number of family members 14 yrs & above: 4 (3 males, 1 female)
Literary status: 2 Sons till 8th Std
House Ownership: Yes
Type of House: Pucca
House with Kitchen Garden: No
Own Drinking water Facility: No
House with Cattle Shed: No
Electricity: Yes
Land Holdings: None
Total income: Rs. 30,000-40,000 per annum
Any other information: Sons are 20yrs and 22yrs of age. They help in the business by making 1,000-2,000 pottery items each per day.
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