Many motifs,
one system
After exploring different ways to represent the motifs, we arrived at a modular square tile grid system. This made it easier for us to arrange the icons on boxes of any size/dimension.
Revitalizing India's Disappearing Artforms: Traditional Craftsmanship Meets Modern Techniques
Client
Nirantharaa
Industry
Handicrafts
Duration
3 months
Year
2021
Scope of Work
Brand Identity
Packaging
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A brand identity and packaging was created for Nirantharaa, which combines traditional Indian artisanship and contemporary design to produce exclusive and enduring products.
Focused on a marriage of modern design and traditional art forms, Nirantharaa aimed to be earthy and grounded whilst differentiating itself from craft marketplaces.
How could we communicate this ethos through design?
As a parallel challenge, how could we create unique packaging with a dry banana fibre material that was beautiful yet non-conducive to regular methods of printing?
Artefacts within artefacts
Our vision was to have the Nirantharaa packaging seem like an artefact in and of itself. We wanted to think beyond the usual packaging materials like labels, box sleeves, and tags and used a modular grid & stamp system to do it.
We iterated on illustration styles to see which style would work well when stamped onto a box like ours with its unusually rugged surface.
We designed custom motifs inspired by Indian flora and fauna, a common theme across Indian craft forms.
These motifs highlighted the focus on craft and brought out the unique relationship between modern design and traditional artisanship.
Since the brand stood for handcrafting of products, we saw these motifs and the grid as a way to personalise and handcraft even the branding on the box.
Manifesting the packaging
Once we knew what we wanted to do, finding the right materials for the stamp and the right kind of ink was a very big challenge.
The box was made of a unique banana fibre that had many undulations. It wasn’t a smooth surface, and while that very aspect of it added to the beauty and uniqueness of the box, it was also difficult to print on because not all materials were able to deposit the ink and form a clear impression of the motif on it. After much-much-much experimentation, we found that foam stamps offered the best impression because of their soft and malleable surface.
We incorporated four motifs depicting the elements of nature in the logo.
Sun for fire
Whirlpool for air
Waveform for water
Floral for earth
The logo
The nirantharaa logo has been crafted keeping in mind the brand’s core values and visions of bringing forth our heritage and culture through well designed and beautifully handcrafted artifacts.
The logo was dynamic, changing to match the ethos and craftsmanship that had gone into each specific product. Different versions of the logo were thus designed with varying motifs to use on different products.
The sun motif for lamps, diyas and lights.
The whirlpool motif for windchimes and other artefacts that could be suspended from the ground.
The water motif for coasters, glasses, bowls and other items where a liquid would come in contact with the product.
The floral motif for artisanal home decor pieces.
Colour Palette
The colour palette we defined for Nirantharaa was warm and down-to-earth with reds, yellows, and pale whites, which brought out the centuries-old artisanship that was the bedrock of the brand.
The secondary palette is used in additon to the core brand palette across digital touchpoints like social media posts, illustrations for print and product catalogues
Light Beige
#F9E9D2
Orange
#DF8F30
Deep Green
#22664C
Light Beige
#201D1E
Beige
#F4D099
Light Green
#A6CB6C
Deep Red
#902525
Right Grotesk with its unusual anatomy and exaggerated inktraps offers a characteristic bold appearance, making it a good choice as the primary font.
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Since the brand stood for handcrafting of products, we saw these motifs and the grid as a way to personalise and handcraft even the branding on the box.
Never before have you seen the Parentheses team so perplexed over packaging materials!
We tried multiple options for printing and stamping on this peculiar (but lovely) banana fibre box. We brainstormed, bickered, experimented a ton, and got our hands dirty to find the best solution.
The designs we wanted to stamp were intricate, with delicate shapes and details that machines could not render just right. The casts for stamping them were hence carefully selected and carved by hand into top quality wood. This method was able to highlight the subtleties that are so typical to traditional Indian art forms.
While we already had a firm grasp of print methods and materials expertise, our knowledge leveled up many-fold after this project, with the sheer amount of trial and error that we ended up doing. We know this is going to come in handy in the future.
