Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
Home \| Messages \| Design Faculty Chairman’s Message Director, NID Activity Chairperson Communication Design I.T. Integrated Design Interdisciplinary Design Industrial Design Textile Design

Arvind Kumar | pottarari.kumar@gmail.com

New Range of Tiles Surfaces for Kitchen and Bathroom

Ceramic and Glass Design | PGDPD
Guide: Swasti Singh Ghai;Neelima Hasija
Sponsor: Somany ceramics Ltd., Kadi, Ahmedabad

Keywords
Exclusive
Bathroom and kitchen tiles
Highlighter tiles
Natural textures

For my diploma project at Somany Ceramics Ltd., I was expected to design exclusive bathroom and kitchen concepts for a new range of wall, floor and highlighter tiles for the domestic and global markets.
With an increasing demand for wall and floor tiles in the market, the competition is not only on the basis of performance, cost or material, but also the product experience. Thus, the styling of wall highlighter tiles is very crucial. This was the challenge that the project offered.

The project aimed to explore surface design for bathroom and kitchen tiles and add value by imparting better aesthetics and a personal touch to each product. An intensive user and market survey was conducted in order to understand the present market trends and the customer moods. I looked at including natural textures and patterns in my designs in order to create a warm and welcoming environment. After doing exhaustive styling exploration, the most promising design was selected for detailing. The challenge was to keep the production parameters in mind and yet keep the novelty of the design.

I created a range of tiles with variations in colour for different sizes of tiles for bathrooms and kitchens. The sampling stage was quite challenging as the suggested colour and size of the design underwent many changes in the process and the samples often looked different from the concepts. It was a challenge to get the parameters just right in order to translate my designs into physical products.

This project has provided me a great opportunity to explore surface design in the context of the market.