Indonesia

Stationery products have a very important role
in almost every sector of people’s activity. large
amount of these products are used in offices
for running daily works, in banks, schools
and universities. Accordingly, industries that
produce stationery products are also increasingly
developing.
FROM TRADITIONAL CRAFTS TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
The agricultural life that used to dominate the Indonesian archipelago had to give
way to the increasing number of population. Domestic needs grow and need more
space, pushing rice fields and plantations into smaller parcels to provide space for
housing, shops, etc. Farmers no longer have enough soil to work on that can gain
enough income to sustain a family. Farmers and plantation workers were compelled
to find another source of income in order to survive.
It is a common fact that, in spending time between tending the fields and plantations,
farmers in rural areas conduct activities such as making and mending working tools
and household goods, or performing traditional arts and rituals – mostly related
to creating artifacts, relying upon generations-length, handed-down knowledge
and skills. This capability is what they use to survive once a farmed land is reduced
in width, or even diminished, and is impossible to make a living from. They started
selling the tools and goods they produce to ‘external buyers’ (people who are not
directly involved in the culture or process of producing the tools and goods), not for
their original functions, but as souvenirs and/or to fulfill other utilities determined
by the buyers. Existing traditional skills and artifacts then became commodities, and
farmers and their family become craftsmen in a home-industry scale operation.
A point came when the commodities become stagnant and the buyers are looking
for new products. The craftsmen attempt to accommodate the buyers’ demands by
modifying the products, applying variations of elements, details and colors. However,
not all modified products could fulfill the tastes and needs of the buyers, moreover if
they come from very different background and culture. This fact is a common cause
for a discontinuity of home industries that are based on local natural resources,
traditional production process and limited references. This is actually where industrial
designers could intervene.
Industrial designers with formal education would already have learned about product
analysis and possess a certain level of aesthetics, moreover from being exposed and
14
CREATIVE & INNOVATION INDONESIA
produk rev akhir.indd 14
4/7/2009 6:11:15 PM