Design Intervention

After the whole process of researching, writing and sketching, it was now time to find a problem/opportunity area in my book shop which I could think upon innovatively and try finding a solution to. For this, it was important that I looked around the shop from the eyes of a customer, and not just a design student.

So I decided to explore the shop and I found out that the shop housed a very large variety of books. But the only issue with it was that the book shelves were very traditional and boring and also had a poor classification and categorization of books. This meant that a customer looking for a particular genre had to take the help of the staff present around to find it among the billion similar-looking book shelves.
Thus, I decided to take this up as my concept and find interesting solutions to it.

Although, my process of finding an appropriate solution is still in process, here is a glimpse of my target space to make the concept clearer for you guys.

Stacked Up Book Shelves
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

Customers Looking For Books
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

 

 Unorganized Categories in Kids' Section
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

Sketch it till you can!

A person learns more from his mistakes than anything else. One major mistake that I made in my previous project was that I did not realize the importance of sketching more and lamenting less. (Yeah, you read it right.) But as it is said, life is all about learning and improving. So I kinda made it a point this time that sketching had to be one of my main priorities. I didn't want to cry over spilled milk again, afterall.

So here you have it, some of the sketches and doodles that I did.

A glimpse of the work which is still in progress!

 

3D Maps and what not?

Before I was even half way through my Micro research, we were told about another part of our group project- a 3D Map. Another huge pressure on our already tired minds, I'd say. But the good thing was that without pondering much upon how would we be able to do it, we just let go of our worries and started working on it.

We first made a huge map of the Aurobindo Market on a full imperial ivory sheet. We then traced it on a similar sized gateway sheet and finally, on a choksi board. It was a tedious process ofcourse, but we still had a long way to go. We then started to paint our base and also, cutting and pasting sunboard and making structures. Afterwards, we tried to incorporate new ways to make trees, cars, fences etc.

Although, all the parts of our model are still not put in place entirely, I'd still like you to have a look at the ongoing process.

Market Structure

Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

Overall Layout of the Market
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

Gyan ka Dariya: Midland Book Shop

So it's time for me to start with my Micro. To make it more clear for you guys, the Micro research includes choosing a particular shop, stall or store, and collecting information about its history, civics and geography. Honestly, it wasn't really difficult for me to choose my Micro. After getting to know that 'Midland Book Shop' was one of the oldest, and rather the very first shop to open up in Aurobindo Market, I was already sure that this was it!

So in my 2nd visit to the market, I went straight up to the shop owner of the Midland Book Shop and he agreed to tell me all that he knew. He told me that his was one shop out of a chain of four similar shops, and also that all the four shops were owned by four sons of a the man who started the chain.

However, according to me, the most interesting input he gave me was about the meaning of the name of the shop. He told me that Midland meant 'Ocean' or 'Dariya', and his father used to think that a book shop is an 'Ocean of Knowledge' or 'Gyan ka Dariya'. Thus, the name.

Oh, and I also bought a book that I was interested in since a long time, a book with a compilation of  'Urdu Couplets'.

Urdu Couplets

Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

  

Overall, I was amazed by all the information that I received. Also, I found a lot of pictures where I could spot the shop owner with a lot of popular entities.  Here are a few glimpses from my visit-

Famous Entities Visiting

Midland Book Shop
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta

Wide Range of Books

Available in the Book Shop
Photographed by- Shikha Gupta