Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Jun 10, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Jun 10, 2006 |
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Marketing
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Trends Designers look beyond clothes to tap new areas Anjali Prayag
`Urban women' is another growing interest area for designers across the country.
Bangalore , June 9 Studios are passé. Clothes and accessories don't excite designers anymore. They are now looking at hot areas of work that can transform lives: transportation and traffic management, urban women, healthcare, and town planning. Axiom Consulting, a Bangalore-based design firm, which doubles up as an OEM, is currently working on a traffic management model. The idea is to have large parking structures and areas located on the periphery of a business district and have `autobuses' ferry citizens to their places of work from the parking spaces. `Urban women' is another growing interest area for designers across the country. Mr Satya Rao, CEO of Axiom, said: "Today's women battle between personal and professional needs on a daily basis. These could range from domestic help, chores, family events to attend, children's homework to conference calls and meetings." The urban woman's need to organise and schedule activities appears to now be a key opportunity area for designers. Axiom has just completed research on this segment; Mr Rao said that the insights are significant and telling. "We are currently working on developing products to help this segment based on our insights." Mr Shantanu Saha, CEO of Idiom Design and Consulting, said: "Design companies are now straddling between being a McKinsey and being an ad agency." Idiom is another Bangalore-based design firm that employs 126 people, including MBAs, engineers, and architects. The booming healthcare sector is also opening its doors to designers. Hospitality and healthcare are two areas that present a lot of potential. "Though these are still murmurings, Idiom is definitely exploring the areas," he said. Hospitals, for instance, want to shake off the `dull and dreary' image and are instead competing to keep patients cheerful. Axiom is working on healthcare devices that can make patients' lives easier, though "it's still too early to mention the specifics," said Mr Rao. All he would say was: "In many instances, patients are unable to visit or afford hospital treatment, so there is a huge potential to develop medical devices or products unique to these requirements." Designers clearly don't want to be behind the scenes anymore. "We want to be part of the development cycle," said Mr Rao.
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