Kumortuli or  Kumartuli  is a traditionally potters’ quarter in northern Kolkata the capital of the east Indian state of West Bengal. By virtue of their artistic productions these potters have moved from obscurity to prominence. This Kolkata neighbourhood, not only supplies clay idols of Hindu gods and goddesses to barowari pujas in Kolkata and its neighbourhoods, but a number of idols are exported.It is one of the seven wonders in Kolkata.

Picture Credit 

 

 

              As a communication design student, for my Integrated Term Project i was asked to rebrand any handicraft organization or a cottage industry of India.  Kolkata, an Indian metropolis, about 300kms away from my hometown jamshedpur is well known for its art and literature throughout the world. I knew that there is a huge community of  icon-artisans at kolkata mostly dwell in poor living conditions, serving this city with most of the clay idols during durga puja. They have been doing this since last three centuries but still their art is hardly recognised by most of us. Therefore this branding project aims to build up a brand image for this community, helping them to promote their art, literature and business through ads, promotional materials, stationeries and other collaterals. The essence of spirituality was the main focus to be maintained during designing their entire branding stuffs.

 

 

 

 

Building the logo!

During brainstorming for the logo, i did many designs. The above are the logo that i created during brainstorming. Few of them i alos used as artworks for this branding project.

 

 

 

I tried creating only mono colour logoes so that they can have only one positive and negative space. This makes them to be used easily as monogram too. There were two different font that i have used for creating the typeface- bengali true font and Prakarta font.  Safaroon is the prime colour to be used as it is known for its wide spiritual nature in indian culture. 

 

 

 

This was the final logo. It consist of a bengali typography and half face of godess Durga who is known as the goddess of power in indian culture. Kumartuli is famous for godess durga idols. Using her face makes the logo spiritually more powerful. The colour safroon has a wide significance in indian culture as its a holy colour of hindus, its there at the top of Indian flag, its the colour that signifies hindu fire god- Agni and also used by hindu priest in their traditional clothes. I even gave a punchline as "Kumartuli, the ideal idol makers" as a brand identity to this community.

 

 

 

 

 

Working with branding collaterals.

Above displays the brochure design for kumartuli. The first image shows the front view and the second image shows the back view of the brochure.

 

 

 

Above images shows three page magazine ad campaign. I wanted the ad to be sponsored by a  non-profit scientific and educational institutions. So i took National geography society which is one of  the largest non-profit scientific and educational institution of the world to sponsor it.

 

 

 

CD-cover and sticker design

 

Promotional materials

 

 

 

Flyer and newspaper print ad

 

 

 

Branding stationeries

C4 & DL size envelopes along with an A4 letterhead

 

Stationeries along with the flyer and newspaper print ad

 

 

 

 

 

Package label design

 

 

3D visualization of the primary package design

 

 

 

The second branding project that we did in our fourth semester is also one of my best. Although i have done few more projects after this but still this remains as one of my best implemented projects. This projectr also hlped me to understand about brand image and identity. Branding has always being a wonderful experince right from this project.