TAANKI by AAMCHI
Overview
Aamchi a community research and strengthening practice was doing their pilot project at Krishnagar, an underdeveloped slum on the outskirts of Mumbai. We started with research of the area, activities with the community that helped us understand their lives and that led us to realise the need for strengthening the WASH system by enabling hygiene systems in public washrooms and installing a 'Taanki'-a water tank.
I was to create an identity for 'Aamchi' and for 'Taanki', a mural for the community washroom and an activity for kids.
Approach
Taanki is a community driven project and I wanted the design to reflect that the community came together to make it. It is unlike a structured identity design that has riles to it. Aamchi and Taanki both look like collages and crayon drawings, a colour palette that feels right in the moment and any illustration style was welcome.
We got our versions of designs reviewed by the kids of the community as theirs opinion was all that mattered.
For the mural on the washroom, we designed two options, one captured the bustling life of the slum, the women interacting, kids and their makeshift toys and their colourful homes. The second captured both men and women in the most practised profession- auto drivers. This also became an interesting signage to the washrooms. The kids liked the first one but also wanted to incorporate the divide between men and women side to the washroom. So we coloured the white background into the traditional gender colour demarcation of pink and blue.
We wanted to understand how kids perceive their town and what they aspire it to become. We held a drawing session with a few prompts from our side but mostly just curious about what they want to draw from their side. The characters with the prompts were based on the people of community itself- an overexcited kid and a grandfather figure loved by all the kids and the area dog who was with everyone in the process always. Find the activity here.
