Design Thinking: A Step Up For Entrepreneurs

A journey from an Entrepreneur to an Artrepreneur !! Entrepreneurship is a marathon and when one starts thinking entrepreneurial, the marathon gets even better. From professionals to Entrepreneurs and now Artpreneurs, here is an inspiring story of a few young minds from Mumbai, India.

Background

‘ASA’ is an established Architecture and Interior Design Studio formed by Principal Architects’, Rajnikant, Parag, Rachana and Ankit Savla. We develop creative and innovative design solutions by understanding people and their lifestyle. It helps us develop empathy with the target user and has evolved as a base for our Design Thinking process. This Design Thinking process helps us systematically extract and apply human-centric techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our business and in our lives. We innovate and explore new building technologies and have constantly focused on delivering the projects par excellence. We have designed and executed Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Healthcare projects locally as well as globally. You can further browse our website www.asastudio.in

Design Thinking Expanded

Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions. The process involves five stages of Empathise, Define (the problem), Ideate, Prototype and Test. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods. Design Thinking helps us in tackling problems that are unknown by creating many ideas through brainstorming sessions.

The Pandemic has challenged and changed the way we carry out our lives with work, with home and most importantly with work from home defining the New Normal. One of the immediate challenges was with our existing projects that had to be redesigned based on the New Normal. Exploring design solutions to solve problems in creative and innovative ways for office considering social distancing as well as for residential spaces considering work from home was the approach for redesigning. Even when the solutions provided may seem or sound simple, the implementation called for a number of iterative processes of thinking and designing. The idea of space got redefined and was now more sensitive to human ideology. Prior to the pandemic, spaces were designed considering social bonding, but suddenly the new approach for designing was to consider social distancing for the betterment of the community. We were in the midst of a chaos and were trying to ease the way out. This furthermore evolved a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we are providing our services. It sparked an idea to develop and launch a product that can be useful to the society.

The sparks fired up the ignition and a series of brain storming sessions were followed by adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing the product. This innovative process of evolution of an idea which would lead to the demand in the new emerging market and create a sustainable community has made us launch our new venture ‘Peek-a-boo Art Store’, by Parag and Rachana Savla.

‘Stay Safe’ within as well as protect the ‘Mother Earth’ were our initial thoughts that led us to explore this idea of ‘Reusable’ Designer Masks. Wearing a mask had to create a sensorial value of positivity and happiness. As wearing a mask is a new normal in these times of a Pandemic, we thought of giving a unique touch to it. The person’s identity somehow gets lost in the crowd, where all are wearing similar masks. The thought of adding some fun element and an artistic touch to this ordinary thing made us create, unique graphical designs as well added some taglines to make a statement.

Further exploring designs for the masks, led us to incorporate multiple colours, art, cultures and creative tags which keeps the spirit up and creates a sense of happiness in our daily lives. In addition to this, we also opened up an opportunity for people to customize their own masks, with respect to names, logos for corporate clients and their own artwork as well. Eventually there was a good response and demand for our designer masks. Especially Kids, they are so excited to wear a mask with their name on it. Taking our ideas further, we collaborated with few Artist. Look forward to some more innovative product introductions through the collaborations.

Besides the creative and designer approach, we used our Design Thinking process to provide for a functionally reusable and comfortable mask as well. As wearing a mask all day can bring strain to the ears, we launched our new product range of Headband with a button. For all the frontline workers, Health care community and all those who have to wear a mask all day can now do so by hooking in to the head band.

Road Ahead

In this process of constantly exploring new ideas and innovating creative design solutions, the team is looking forward to launch new home decor and daily use range of designer products, by positively strengthening collaborations with Artists and promote Art Work and Handcrafted products.

Do try their exclusive range of designer masks and keep looking for the upcoming products. You can find them on Instagram as @peekaboo_artstore and the Facebook handle @Peekaboo Art Store.