Applied Design and Craft Practice
This domain tests design as a process with a client, constraints and production. It also tests knowledge of Indian craft clusters and material-led practice. Expect logo, packaging, poster and craft-product questions.
Core rules
- The process: brief → research → mood board → thumbnails → roughs → feedback → final artwork → production. Each stage should be evidenced.
- A logo must be simple, scalable, memorable, appropriate and durable. Test it in one colour, at 10 mm, and with clear space around it.
- Packaging balances protection, information, shelf impact, cost and sustainability. A dieline shows the cut and fold structure.
- Typography: legibility, hierarchy, kerning, tracking and leading. Pair Devanagari and Latin with matching weight and contrast rather than novelty.
- Craft practice is material-led: Bidri metal inlay (Karnataka), Dhokra lost-wax casting, Kutch embroidery, Channapatna lacquerware, Jaipur blue pottery, terracotta and bamboo.
- Sustainability includes local materials, waste reduction, repairability and fair payment; GI tags protect regional identity.
Worked example
Design a logo for a Warli craft cooperative. The source is the white rice-paste line on an earth ground. Simplify to one figure and one tree, remove interior detail, and set the name in a humanist sans-serif. Test the mark at 10 mm and in one colour. The reasoning: cultural reference must survive reproduction; simplification is not loss of identity. A detailed painting would fail as a logo but works on packaging.
Traps that cost marks
- Producing a detailed illustration and calling it a logo.
- Ignoring production: spot colours, dielines, bleed.
- Using a craft motif without understanding its meaning.
- Designing for the designer rather than the client’s brief.
- Treating craft as decoration rather than as a design system with constraints.