‘The Garden of Five Senses’ is a garden developed by the Delhi municipal corporation and the tourism department in Saidulajaib in southern Delhi. The objective was to make promotional merchandise for the client’s domestic retail outlet based on the theme of “the garden of five senses” and related subjects like “the seven sins,” “the mythical garden,” “the sense organs,” etc.
The project brief was very open ended and allowed ample movement without restricting it to a certain technique or subject. There was no set process and design happened at a very spontaneous level.
The initial phase involved studying the company profile and its previous work, infrastructure and functioning, etc. and trying to find a territory vast enough to discover. Books, envelopes, bags, t-shirts were a part of the product range to be designed. The range was developed as a limited edition one.
My role was to create prints and surfaces for occasion specific stationery like weddings, Diwali, Holi, etc. and develop trims and details for edges using the paper waste available within Xylem premises with the machine embroidery technique. Techniques such as block, screen, stencil printing and embroidery were available resources to develop the set of products. The need for a variety of stationery for specific occasions led to an opportunity to design products that were suitable to the requirements of the event.
I realized how little we know of the way design is meant to function in the world that it is made for. Being able to balance all the avenues together became my biggest challenge during the project. As a designer, it is important to have a vision that will determine what the end may look like, and it is important to be able to coordinate people and processes for that vision to come together.
