Everything we did

CLAY POT

We started experimenting with using ceramic paste through cone on a clay pot .
We used mehndi designs on the pot and it worked well.
The ceramic is quite sustainable and permanent and it adds aesthetic value to the pot.
Ceramic works well on terracota and clay and it can be used on different clay and terracota products.

ALARM CLOCK

We took an alarm clock made out of
metal
and we used fine liners on the clock to make mehndi designs on it.
Fine liners are 3D paints that come in tubes. They can be peeled off but they work well on metal.
The fine liner definitely added aesthetic value to the clock.

LAPTOP BAG

We used a leather laptop bag and used fine liners on it again.
We added aesthetic value to it. We also stuck stones by using fabric paint and the mehndi work worked on the bag as it is quite permanent.

ENVELOPES

We made envelopes out of hand made paperand did cone work on them as well with ceramic pasteand fine liners.These envelopes were gift envelopes and the mehndi designs made them different from other envelopes.

Araca leaf plates

We thought of using araca leaf plates to make products that mehndi artists can make easily and sell as araca leaf plates are very cost effective.
We made a range of products. We made a photo frame and 3 different type of mirrors. We made a sweets box and wall hangings as well.

THE MIRRORS

We used araca leaf plates and mirrors and made a wall hanging mirror by sandwiching the mirror between the two plates.
We decorated the plates with jute rope and with mehndi designs using ceramic paste which added a lot of aesthetic value to the products.

THE PHOTO FRAME

We made a photo frame out of 2 araca leaf plates and tiny mirrors.
We used an OHP sheet and ribbon and elastic as well.
Its a wall hanging photo frame.

SWEET BOX

We made a sweet box out of two araca leaf plates by making one of the plates openable half-way and giving it jute rope handles.

CAKE ICING

We thought of other placs where a cone is used and we thought of cakes so we decided to contact bakeries and collaborate with them and get the mehndi artists to work with them as well.
Some of the examples of mehndi cakes is on th facing page.

Exploring mediums

One of our main aspects of this innovation was to explore different mediums the mehndi artists could use using the same technique of the cone. So we experimented with using these mediums on different objects. We used ceramic paste on a clay pot and it worked. We used 3D paint on a metallic alarm clock and and on a leather laptop bag and that worked too.
We made a rice resist to try it on clothes but that did not work out. But fabric paints worked through a cone.
We also used ceramic powder and 3D paint on paper envelopes.

OUR FINAL BRIEF

To enhance the livelihood of a mehndi artist by using her skill on other objects and products ,or creating her own ,or customising other people’s products .

SPECIFICATIONS

1) The skill of the artist should be used of using a cone and doing intricate designs.
2) The skill should be used in an
innovative way.
3) The skill should be explored more and used on something other than hands.
4) Look at going beyond mehndi and explore different materials and mediums.
5) Bring collaborations with other possible fields where their skill can be used.
6) This innovation should serve as a secondary source of income.
7) The practicality should be thought
8) The innovation should be cost - effective.
9) The target audience should be thought of.
10) The business model should be sellable.
11) Packaging should be thought of.

Our business models

We made four business models.

1) door-to-door service. She has a brochure of examples and then people can give orders. She can also enhance already existing products that people have.
* We have to figure out products and materials that can be used.

shirts - 3D paint.
i-pod covers - 3D paints or ceramics
borders.

2) Door-to-door service . She is selling her design which can be used on anything. The customer can ask for a design for their product which they can sell to them.

* borders for clothes
* another aspect can be that she can get the embroidery or work done for them.

3) She can make products and sell them door-to-door.

* like gift bags, mehandi design books, mehandi designs, cards, slippers, envelopes, books, boxes, photo frames, name plates, etc..

4) She can sell her products to shops.

5) She can work for bakeries in her spare time and decorate the cake with her designs.

Change.

Since mine and shubhangi's briefs were similar we decided to work together.
Now we are working to enhance the livelihood of a mehandi artist by using her skill on other objects and products or creating some of her own or customizing other people's objects on order.

IDENTIFY USERS : The Users can be teenagers, college students, Women in their 30's or 40's , artists like musicians , school students.

IDENTIFY RESOURCES :
artisans', painters, art material, time, money, the communication network, the internet and more when the brief gets more specific.

DEFINE CONTEXT : Customization of products.

NARROW DOWN SCOPE : the products that can be used are music instruments, books, covers for gadgets, gadgets themselves, bags, boxes, clothes, accessories, personal items, stationary, etc...

CREATE A SCENARIO AND A PERSONA BASED ON YOUR PREMISE :
1) " I am sick of my converse shoes, I wish I could get something done on them ."

The Brief : Stage two

The Brief : Create a service in which customers give orders for customized enhancements of products they want to get enhanced.

Specifications :

1) Recycling should be incorporated.
2) Utilization of artisans' skills.
3) Enhancements should be thought of in all possible ways and not only in terms of aesthetics.
4) The products that can be enhanced should not be limited.
5) The handicraft should be kept alive and given a more contemporary context.

Brief : Stage one.

My chain of thought :

1) To add value to the products made by the Lambani women by adding broken bangles in their work and ghungross as well.

2) Make more products like wooden boxes or mirrors and embellish already existing products by mirror work.

3) Taking orders from people to embellish their products. "pimping" their things which aren't being used anymore so that they can be used again.

THE BRIEF
Create a service in which the customers give orders for customized embellishments of products that they want enhanced.

the practise brief

I chose the new sim card connection called Docomo as my service.

BACKGROUND
All the Indian mobile phone users have many issues with the services but one in particular is that of the billing system. The user is charged per minute so even if you have only spoken for one 1:00 minutes you will be charged for 2 minutes and this is particularly inconvenient when one calls ISD or STD numbers.

OBJECTIVE
To design a new sim card service which has a different billing system and is more user friendly than all the other already existing services, which would also revolutionize the existing system of cell phone connections.

THE DESIGN
Docomo charges money per second which is what defines Docomo. It shows value for money and a new system which addresses the needs of the user better.

CONSTRAINTS
Even though they charge per second, other companies have offers that actually reduce the call rates of users which would make these companies a threat.


SWOT ANALYSIS
Strength : The billing system.
Weakness : The billing system
Oppurtunities : This brief would put the company in the limelight which would give it a higher ground pretty soon without much of struggle.
Threat : This brief would be a threat to the already existing system of billing that has been established in the Indian community.

The fiction film

TOO MANY IDEAS

Our assignment for the fiction film was to do with creating a story or a sequence of events around any element inspired by our experience with the Lambani people.

We had various ideas - but most of our inspiration seemed to come from the Lambani women's elaborate costumes - since we had mostly involved ourselves with that aspect of their lives while shooting our documentary. These ideas ranged from a young girl taking off her costumes ritualistically to two people parallelly dressing up and waiting for someone - or going to meet someone.

Our other ideas included following the different age-groups - and generations - of Lambani women, and follow how their jewellery changes (and hence symbolize growing up and change in roles).

NARROWING DOWN

We were finally inspired by the history of the Lambani people - how they lead nomadic lifestyles and then changed their old traditions to settle down to a new life.

This lead to an abstract idea of "coming home", which we decided to represent through walking.

STORYBOARD

We formed a storyboard which consisted of following a bare pair of feet which walks through various different kinds of terrain: rocks, grass, mud, shore, etc., gather mud and grime on the feet - "signs" of their travel as well as "signs" of their traditions - and then finally come to a shore - come "home" - where the mud is ritualistically washed off the feet - symbolizing a change in lifestyle and tradition.

LOCATION

We needed a location where we could find different kinds of terrain to show travel - and there was such a place - by a reservoir halfway on the way to Sandur from Bellary. It had big rocks, grass, plants, pebbled shore and red waves of the reservoir.

ADDING AN ELEMENT

We wanted to include only one element to remind ourselves of the inspiration for our film - this was the one single silver anklet. The rest we wanted to not be bound to any particular culture, rather have elements from various, as the film was intended to be about coming home - not about the Lambani tribe - or any other context.

EDITING

We finished our editing in the evening after returning from our shooting. We added a quote to explain the movie right at the beginning to give the viewers a clue as to what it was about - as it was an abstract film and purposefully open to interpretation.

Documentary : The Lambani women.

NARROWING DOWN

After the first days' experience talking to the Lambani people and visiting their homes in the small village of Sushilanagar, we came up with various ways of approaching the documentary.

We could focus on a lot of things - their history, their culture, their work.

We decided to make our film about how the women of the tribe still wear their traditional heavily embroidered costumes and heavy silver jewellery everyday in a ritualistic way, because it was a custom that fascinated us.

RESEARCH

We understood how dressing up in their traditional wear would have a tourism value in the Centre where tourists might collect to see the Lambanis work. However, these women, especially the older ones, accustomed to "wear their wealth", ritualistically dress up for every day as they have been used to doing all their lives.

We found out that the Lambani style of embroidery was used to decorate a girl's dowry wear - and that the Lambani women are used to "wearing their wealth". And although their embroidery is now a livelihood and is used on various kinds of products from clothes to laptop cases and mobile phone holders, many of these women still continue their ritualistic dressing up every day.

LOCATION AND FOOTAGE

We went to the village of Sushilanagar to shoot our documentary - where we would find the older generation (all of whom practise this ritual and some of whom would have time to help us with our film).

And we shot our footage with some of these old ladies on the doorsteps of their houses, many stills and a few panoramic videos of the village and countryside. We were very interested in the way they tied their hair with silver ornaments and then braided it, looping it back over the shoulder.

A BIT OF PRE-PLANNING

Some photographs we had shot in the Centre on the 25th were of paintings on the red outer wall of the centre, painted by a local artist. These traditional paintings showed the Lambani dress and jewellery to perfection and we were reminded of the same while we were taking our videos and photographs and took parallel ones at the Centre and at the village to use as an introduction.

I was invited by these ladies to wear their costumes for a photoshoot and we had a good time while the Lambani women lovingly took off their own jewellery and brought out spare costumes to dress in and then posed with me for us. They were so welcoming and helpful that we were made to feel very much at home.

EDITING

We completed our editing and final post-production work on our short documentary that night when we returned from shooting. We worked on Movie Maker because we felt that the footage we had did not require too much of post-production work because we had shot it keeping in mind exactly how we wanted the sequences and the introduction and conclusion.

Research tools : Channapatna

A big number of us worked together in a group and came up with a lot of different tools each of which would extract different kind of information. We went to the village of Neelsandra in Channapatna where wooden beads are made for toys.
The tool that I created was Font based. I took the letter 'ka' and wrote it in five different fonts and asked the people to choose one out of the 5 fonts. I hoped to get an idea of the mindset of the society, to see how much they're progressing by seeing the choices they make. Whether they stick to the traditional way of writing it or go for something different.
The first person I asked turned out to speak english and hindi so he helped me to ask other people and slowly everybody got the hang of what was going on so the language wasn't an issue.

Narayanpura : baseline survey.

We conducted the baseline survey in the little village of Battahalasur Narayanpura in the Bangalore District. The village is mainly a potters' village.

I interviewed two families that were both kannada speaking and in which the man of the house was the sole earner and worker of the house. The wives were literate but did not work towards the earning of the house. They did work like firing of the clay pots and adding enhancements on pots. I used the help of Mr. Ramkrishnappa's son, our pottery teacher, to get the forms filled and he was of great help and if h did not understand what I was saying I would just hand him the kannada form and then he would understand and get my questions answered.
These forms were designed by the goverment specifically to study handicraft centres and asked questions like economic status, loans, sources of income, education, assets, living conditions, craft related information, family related information and demographic information as well.
The form had a lot of questions about agricultural activities which were left blank in my form as the families did nothing related to agriculture or cattle rearing. Their only source of income was the pottery.
The forms made the conversation formal but it was easier to ask these questions by reading them out of a form.

The Validation

I chose Mr. B.R Patel to do my validation and the one that i thought that I could do best on my part was to make posters on the main road that would lead to his shop which was not on the main road. Mr. Patel was alread quite hostile to us and that was probably because he could not understand our "faayeda" by doing this and he suspectrd that we were from a company to try to persuade him to join. When i went to talk to him he was asleep and when he woke up he just shrugged me off by waving his hand, so I left but I thought that I would come back the enxt day.
The next time I went he was awake but he totally refused to co-operate. He said that he didn't want to put any posters because then he would get into trouble for it and after a lot of trying to persuade him he still refused so I thought that there is no point trying to convince someone who has already made up his mind.
Then I went to B.K Glass, plywood and hardware store, another store that we had interviewed. But the reason that I hadn't chosen Mr. Masi was because whatever enhancements we had thought of he was already planning to do or were already done like expansion of space, business, clients. One thing that he had not done was put himself on the internet so I made a blog www.carpentars.blogspot.com and I also put him on the Google map directory.

Scenario

This is just another day in the life of “ not so ordinary” pampha from Assam. She gets up in her red nighty and runs to the door to get the newspaper. There her daily planner, her horoscope on page number six awaits her arrival. Her horoscope reads “ Your marital status might change for you by the end of this week. Jesus himself couldn’t have done a better job than what you will do today. Today might see a need for you to call attention to yourself. You will injure yourself mysteriously while you are asleep. Prepare yourself because your life is set for a change that you have never seen. Lucky color: green”. After reading her daily bible starts the ritual of getting ready as she prepares herself for not just another day after all.
It starts with her picking up the greenest sari she owns and goes on to actually preparing herself for all that is going to come her way today. She proudly opens her priced collection of lingerie to find the finest and the most perfect one saved for such a day. From color to the cut everything had to be thought about in minutest of details. The next is to decide how to enhance her beauty so that she is all ready to meet her perfect guy today. All set to leave home she looks at her self in the mirror for one last time bright and confident knowing that she will beat Jesus for sure.

Personas

To come up with persona we first listed down all the characteristics of all the five people we interviewed.The things we included were:

-skill
-behavior towards customers
-intelligence
-age
-reaction to what we were doing
-characteristics
-quirk
-physical appearance
-experience
-attitude
-where does he stay
-weakness

The first step

IFTI RASSAQ KHAN
- he is 42 yrs old
-binds books
-thin and tall
-has a mehandi colored beard
-wears long loose kurta
-neat freak
-wants everything to be in his control
-has five kids
-he keeps yawning
-has lot of mirrors around him
-intelligent but doesn't share much of his wisdom
-he is a leader





PAMPHA
-from Assam
-she is 37 yrs old
-sales woman selling cosmetics
-loud makeup
-insecure and conscious about herself
- obsessed wit her lingerie
-begins her day wt horoscope
-heavy built
-Uses "by God!"
-good communication skills






FEEDBACK: persona can be more imaginative. they don't have to be taken out from something very structured. what we did was very structured. though our personas did not really come out of those five people alone still probably the way of starting to make a persona is different. also we should not try working on a lot of personas together. look at the minutest of details to give life to your character.

Data Visualization

The visualization is for a shop called Mahalakshmi Metal House that deals with gas stove sale and repair. The clouds show where Mr. Patel gets his money from like his high level of skill and his regular customers. The heirarchy is showed by the size of the clouds. This visualization shows where the business gets its income from and where the money goes. The water levels show the heirarchy of where the money goes like electricity, rent, maintenance, etc.

I came up with a few solutions for Mr. B.R Patel who is the owner of a shop that sells and repairs appliances that use gas.

1) 1)The name of the shop is Mahalakshmi Metal House while the shop actually deals with Gas Stoves and gas geysers. This name is misleading to what the shop actually stands for. The name of the shop should be something like Mahalakshmi Gas works.

2) 2)The stock in the shop looked dirty and old and people would not like to buy old looking products. The stock need to be cleaned for it to look in good condition for people to buy it.

3) 3)Some of the stock looked old and probably outdated so it needs to be replaced with latest products that the market needs.

4) 4)The shop doesn’t only sell gas products it also deals with servicing of the products. The owner of the shop Mr. Patel specializes in servicing of these items but he cannot step out of his shop to go to peoples’ houses to service them and people don’t really get their products to the shop to be serviced. If Mr. Patel gets a helper that can really boost his business because then his skill will be fully utilised and the helper can also deliver goods to houses. I think that this is one of the main problems that Mr. Patel faces and if he gets a helper it will really do wonders to his business.

5) 5)Since the shop is not located on the main road posters can be placed on the main road that point and lead to him as his shop is not far from the main road.

6) 6)The poster over his shop is faded and old, if it was cleaned up and also written in kannada with the new name would make a difference as well.

Task two : 5 different lives

This assignment required us to observe five people all who were owners of small businesses and the sole breadwinners of the house. I was part of a group of three people : Me, Varshita and Gauri .Initially we decided to talk to people frankly and if that did'nt work out we would think of new strategies, but since this strategy worked we did not give it up.

Mr. B.R Patel
Mr. Patel, a middle aged man from Rajasthan is the owner of a small shop in Yelahanka New Town called Mahalaxmi Metal House. He repairs gas stoves, gas lamps and almost everything related to gas. Also, he sells products like cutlery, steel containers and other household items. A man of his own opinions and principles, he started to work at the age of ten and travelled through the country until he reached Bangalore to get a job in a company where he used to sell and repair home appliances. He pursued this job for fifteen years after which he gained inspiration from his boss to start his own business.
This two year old shop is not centrally located due to lack of funds. In spite of this Mr. Patel doesn’t seem to get bothered and believes in taking life as it comes. He has a son who is doing second year B. Com and he doesn’t want his son to live the same life that he has lived. He doesn’t seem to have a planned strategy for his business, but his skill and years of experience make up for lack of strategy. Being so good at what he does has earned him a lot of regular customers which is what is keeping the business alive. He thinks that his journey from Rajasthan to Bangalore was his biggest “project” in life which taught him whatever it takes to make a living.
Looking at his shop it looked as if the sales were not very high because his stock looked old and untouched. Mr. Patel’s tools were not outdated but since he could not afford latest ones he works with cheaper tools. Initially, Mr. Patel was very hostile to the fact that we as students wanted to know how he established himself, but as the conversation progressed we he became more comfortable and it was clear that he enjoyed the attention.
Before we left he said, “If I wanted I could have spoken in kannada to avoid you.” This sentence clearly showed that he wanted us to learn about from him. His tip to us was that we should learn Kannada and he agreed that talking to people about their life experiences helps to gain a wider perspective.

Raj Shree Sweets halwai

Mr. Raj, a man of many talents has owned this shop for six years. Before this he was in the clothing line for twelve years, before which he dealt with electronics. He claims to have learnt everything himself by purely observing others. Raj Shree Sweets is a shop which sells Rajasthani sweets and chats and is known for its jalebis. He gets his staff from Rajasthan so that he can have authentic Rajasthani taste which ensures that his shop is different. He is so adamant on having authentic Rajasthani food that he even makes living arrangements for his Rajasthani staff. When the staff is away his business runs mainly on chats.
After getting into so many fields he finally thinks that he has come into a line where he wants to spend rest of his life. You can always see a smile on his face and you can say that he gets immense pleasure in feeding people.
Besides his shop he is also into catering business and provides his catering services in parties as well as weddings. Due to the nature of his work his business has its own highs and lows. In the wedding season and festival season like Diwali his business does very well and on the other hand there are times when he can just meet his costs.
He has two sons out of whom the elder one works in the city and the younger one still studies. He doesn’t plan to get his children into the same business probably because he has better future plans for them.
On asking him about his income consumption we came to know that around 50% of his income goes into buying all the material for the shop. Some 20-30% he spends on maintenance and staff. And remaining is his profit which includes school fees of one of his children as well.
On the whole he looked quite content with what he had and his life.

Mrs. Pampha (Manisha Beauty Parlour)
After staying a housewife for most of her life Mrs. Pampha now owns a tiny beauty parlour in Yelahanka New Town. Being a wife of someone who worked in the Air Force, she has travelled a lot and finally did a beauty course at Delhi and then opened her own parlour after her husband’s retirement in Bangalore.
She had problems for the first two years after which she found regular customers to stabilise her business. What started as a hobby course is now a means of livelihood. She has a diploma and probably would have studied more if her husband wouldn’t have transferred. Her life is a perfect balance of professional life and personal life. She is originally from Assam and is a mother of two children who are presently studying in Yelahanka.
She runs the parlour herself and occasionally is helped by her sister. Recently she has also started selling readymade clothes as she has also done a course on tailoring.But talking to her we realised that she is not very ambitious. She has no further plans of expanding her business because she is quite satisfied with the way her business is going. She firmly believes that patience is the key to run any successful business.
Mau pasha (fruit seller)
Doddabellapur
When we began conversing with maupasha, initially all he said was mangoes, Bangalore for everything we asked. We thought he was probably trying to ignore us but later we realised that he could not understand us. We had to buy a few mangoes at a bargained price to instigate a conversation. He did not want to be photographed either.Coming from Andhra Pradesh, maupasha has two children and 3 brothers. Two of them sell fruits and the third one works in a factory.
His strategy is to buy fruits from Andhra Pradesh since it’s not very far from Karnataka and also to sell fruits where there are no other fruit sellers. Banana’s and papaya’s were the other fruits that he sold during mango off season, which also he gets from Andhra Pradesh. Earning enough for his family made him quite happy. Selling mangoes for 25 bucks got him a satisfactory number of customers.
B.K. Glass and Wood
The owner of an established garment shop took the courage of stepping into a completely new business of raw wood and glass. 10 years ago he felt the need to change his business because he thought that a garment shop demanded too much labor and gave less returns.
He sent his brothers to work with a furniture company for 15 days to see if they could successfully handle that business. Getting a positive response from them he wrapped up his garment shop and came to Bangalore. His reason for choosing yelahanka for setting up his business was that it was not a very developed area, so that they get time to establish their business. But within six months their business picked up and they decided to have branches in all four corners of Bangalore-Banergetta, Banaswadi, Yashwantpur and Yelahanka.
His strategy is honesty, variety, choice and quality.
His products come from different suppliers from Gujarat, Bombay and Bangalore. Also his keen interest in customers feedbacks and his will to help them made him very popular amongst all customers. His understanding of the technicalities of every product that he has ensures that the customer’s needs our met. He personally chooses the range of products that he keeps in the shop.
We realised a lot of thinking goes into whatever goes around in the shop, because he said that whenever a car leaves for anywhere they make sure that everything needed for the shop is bought.
“RESEARCH IS THE FIRST STEP TO BUSINESS”
“BUSINESS TEACHES YOU BUSINESS”

Task One: Earning Money

The first assignment given was to earn Rs. 100 in a day in a different way. I was a part of a group of seven people ( Me, Rajasee, Varshita, Shubhangi, Shivantika, Gauri and Mehr). After getting the assignment we spent approximately 2-3 hours ideating.
What we thought of doing :
1) Challenging people to games such as trying to make us laugh.
2) Making people laugh
3) Giving people an oil head massage or shoulder massages. Also, playing some music along with the massage.
4) babysitting children.
5) selling paper bags.
6) Going around with lighters to offer people lights for their cigerettes.
7) braiding hair.
8) Doing nail art.
9) getting ourselves slapped.
10) selling clips and other accessories.
11) selling greeting cards.
12) Applying henna tattoes or mehandi or bengali alta.
13) selling bay leaves with something written in hindi to tourists.
14) sketching people.
What we actually did :
We divided ourselves into groups of 1 and 2. We made greeting cards, hair clips, slipper accessories, block printed wrapping paper. Four of us went outside Mount Carmel college to sell these things. Two of us went to Cubbon Park to sketch portraits of people and one of us found two clients to give a massage to.
The experience :
Me and Shivantika went to sell out products together. Our strategy was simple. Since we had made products keeping in mind teenage girls as our target buyers we headed to Mount Carmel college. There we approached people as and when they walked out of the college gate and told them that we were street artists and if they would like to look at the things that we had made and it did not take us long to see all our greeting cards except one and most of our hair clips, but since the slipper art was something the people would have had to stick themselves they did not buy it but looked interested enough. A lot of people just walked off and didn't listen but more often than not they stopped and heard what we had to say. After the college we decided to go to Brigade Road because that is a place that caters to a lot of tourists and tourits who are interested in our culture. Because of time constraints we thought of applying the bengali alta instead of henna on hands but just as we reached it started raining and we were unlucky to not find many tourists and whoever we found was too busy. So we went back to the college t his time joined by Varshita and Gauri with their wrapping paper. We managed to sell most of our things by 3 'o' clock and even Shubhangi and Rajasee were done by that time with sketches and so was Mehr and we managed to almost reach our target of 700 by falling short of Rs. 10.
The experience was truly something because I've never done this before but it was an enriching experience because of the amount of ideas that we had and our ideas were such that they worked theoretically but when it came to practicality they failed to do as well.