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Diploma Project Proposal - Tapanjeet Singh Badesha: Design Brief

Tapanjeet Singh Badesha proposes a diploma project to design a product line integrating traditional craft skills from Bankura, West Bengal with modern industrial design. The project aims to create contemporary home products using local brass craft techniques to both preserve cultural heritage and increase craftsmen's incomes. Badesha will work with craftspeople to adapt designs, materials, and skills to new product types like door handles, pen holders, and lamps. The goal is for crafts to gain new value and market recognition through integration into urban, industrial designs.

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118 views

Diploma Project Proposal - Tapanjeet Singh Badesha: Design Brief

Tapanjeet Singh Badesha proposes a diploma project to design a product line integrating traditional craft skills from Bankura, West Bengal with modern industrial design. The project aims to create contemporary home products using local brass craft techniques to both preserve cultural heritage and increase craftsmen's incomes. Badesha will work with craftspeople to adapt designs, materials, and skills to new product types like door handles, pen holders, and lamps. The goal is for crafts to gain new value and market recognition through integration into urban, industrial designs.

Uploaded by

karno87
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DIPLOMA PROJECT PROPOSAL -TAPANJEET SINGH BADESHA

DESIGN BRIEF

My concept is to develop a product line where craft intersects with, informs and
influences the production of modern, contemporary industrial artefacts that
have commercial value.
I want to attempt to work in Bankura(West Bengal), it is a small village where
craftsmen create crafts for Sasha (an NGO marketing craft based in Kolkata).
The entire village is involved in bell metal craft.
I want to, by enabling craftsmen, to bring to the fore their processes of
conceptualisation, designing and execution in the process of designing a
collection of contemporary industrial artefacts that are aesthetic, functional and
of high market value.

BACKGROUND
I have previously worked with the culture and location specific materials,
techniques and decorative patterns that are the domain of the craftsmen in the
above mentioned community.

However, in those efforts of mine, the artefacts I created using the knowledge
and skills of the craftsmen were primarily artistic and decorative. In my
diploma project, I want to take this further and integrate these skills,
materials, techniques, cultural symbolism, etc into modern-day
industrial products.
Earlier craftsmen used to make things with brass which they could use for their
own household purposes – artefacts like kitchen vessels, jewellery, mirrors,
holders, paper weights, etc. Over time, some of these artefacts have entered
the commercial markets for their adornment or decorative value. Many of these
small decorative products are now sold in the cities.
However, the craftsmen don’t have direct contact with the buyers. There are
middlemen who bring the orders from the buyers and the craftspeople make
the products according to these market demands.
Craftsmen use these crafts to meet their simple utilitarian needs at home in
terms of small artefacts. I am interested in seeing how these crafts can be
taken into the sphere of home utilities for the modern, urban home spaces. This
will mean that these crafts and their potential must be looked at from a
different perspective. I am also interested in whether these artefacts serve the
purpose of nostalgia for a dying tradition or antique value and then to shift their
values upwards into the present context as different artefacts in themselves.

Though I have had some experience in designing aesthetic, artistic and


decorative artefacts in the past, I find after my course in Product Design that
industrial products work better in the market than craft products. For instance –
door handles:
a. b.

a b..

a. b.

People prefer industrial design (a) more than craft (b) because (a) seems more
clean and finished. This however might be an “imported” sensibility and seems
to me also to be quite removed from the “essence” of Indian culture and
aesthetic sensibilities. My investigation is into how this “essence” can be
transported into modern industrial products not just as “decorativeness” but in
a far more integral and has its own unique look and feel and contemporary
identity that goes beyond both the above examples.

QUESTIONS

1. How can craft be used with technology to give artefacts a new identity,
look, feel and value? Could it be done by adding or subtracting some
features or by making no changes at all?
2. Can the need and scope of craft be found in different place or for different
products so that the crafts gain different values?
3. How can this lead to earning opportunity for a craftsman and the crafts
community?

4. How craft can be used in a modernised space?


5. How can craftsmen be helped with various techniques and skills that suit
the market demand eg. coming up with new designs and not just having a
limited set of old designs, learning to use new techniques and
technologies to add value to their craft, finishing qualities, branding
and identity, packaging, marketing, etc.
6. How can identity be created for tribal craft products so that people
(business groups) become aware about the existence of the craftsman’s
products and they can be exposed to a larger market?

GOAL

To take the idea of craft forward in a modernised space by a combination of


various material and finding various mediums of communicating/exploring the
craft products for a larger audience so that earning opportunities for craftsman
are raised giving wider recognition to their craft.

My collection of deliverables will include possible items like door handles, pen-
drive sheaths, bulb holders, lamps, door knocker. The product range will be
around Hardware products, Kitchen Utilities, Lifestyle accessories, Stationeries,
etc.

METHOD

1. Initial research in detail about the crafts and the products they make,
materials they use, techniques, forms and shapes, finding if there are cultural
connections with the products.
2. Finding about the demand and supply of products. Who are the buyers? What
kind of products are more in demand other and why?
3. Improvising the existing designs or creating new designs so that they create
a different meaning when put in a different context.
4. Compiling the information and choosing the need for which the products can
be made or choosing the products that can be improvised for the better.
5. Facilitating the craftsman with the designs and making them aware of
modern ways of looking and designing and crafting.
6. The market for this kind of product will be to the urban world where craft skill
and industrial requirement can be full filed,

RESOURCES

1. Materials used by the craftsmen.


2. Gathering information from magazines (articles)
3. Gathering information and working with People/ craftsmen who create these
products.
4. Buyers who buy this kind of products and why?
5. Comparing Existing products/ old traditional products.
6. Compiling a set of industrial products that can integrate crafts.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. To improve the understanding of craft material.


2. Understanding market requirement of craft in market space.
3. How my role as a designer can mingle with Craftsman’s
4. How my Learning/knowledge can be implemented.
5. Understanding the nature of material and figuring out what can be done with
two different material when combine together.
6. Learning more about space and culture.

DELIVERABLES
Collection of products based on the theme that fit in a modern space. The range
of products will be around hardware, kitchen Utilities, lifestyle accessories and
Stationeries.
Teaching the craftsman about the basic learning of Industrial design and
making them aware about the range of products which can be made through
there skills with combination of different materials.

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