Khumeia
Promoting entrepreneurship in the creative sectors with a conscious approach
Service & Experience Design, Creative Direction, Business Development, User & Market Research.
Design Opportunity:
How can we cultivate a collaborative ecosystem that empowers owners to thrive, enabling them to grow and consolidate their businesses with a wider focus and effectiveness, particularly in the creative fields of art, design and manufacturing
Background
In my journey as an industrial designer and entrepreneur, I observed a glaring gap—a lack of community and a beneficial ecosystem to nurture conscious projects in creative fields, it is a very lonely path, with individuals mostly competing rather than collaborating. Motivated to change this narrative, I envisioned a space that provides affordable access to talent, guidance, teams, tools, and technology for creative individuals. This vision emphasizes the ease of sharing, collaboration, and
co-creation, making the initiation of businesses or projects in this sector more feasible and compelling.
Challenge
Escalating costs and diminishing workspace availability present formidable challenges to the realms of design, manufacturing, production, and the creative industries. Can we catalyze creativity and innovation projects by offering essential infrastructure and centralizing requisite services, thereby fostering personal and professional success? This entails creating a community founded on trust, stability, shared self-sufficiency, and the unlocking of human potential.
How can we establish an organizational model that can be a source of change and social improvement?
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My Role
I conceived and developed the entire project, bringing a new idea to life through extensive research, iterative refinement, and a deep market analysis on a local and global scale.
My exploration delved into the dynamics of the Makerspace and Fablabs movement, co-working culture, and the formation of communities centered around creativity. I created the Business Design and financial projections, while also leading the development of the brand name and creative direction. Simultaneously, I initiated collaborative efforts, attracting new collaborators to contribute to the project's success and collaborative core.
Research and Discovery:
- Conducted user and market research.
- Led 30+ collaborators/users interviews and observation sessions.
Ideation and Conceptualization:
- Managed workshops & ideation sessions.
- Guided the creative direction through Design Thinking and innovation methodologies.
Blueprinting and Strategic Development:
- Designed the business canvas, blueprints, mission, vision, and value proposition.
- Enhanced it through iterative refinement and the assimilation of research insights.
- Crafted strategic roadmaps to secure the functionality and flow across all the operation.
- Made a user journey map to meticulously identify the touchpoints within the project, enhancing the overall user experience.
- Created a current state journey and blueprint.
Co-Creation and Collaboration:
- Orchestrated the execution of co-creative workshops to increase and ease collaborations.
- Invited more than 15 collaborators, experts in different areas of creativity and mindfulness.​
Infrastructure and Community Building:
- Raised funds to establish a basic woodworking workshop, 3D printers, and a co-working area.
- Co-participated in the founding of two projects with colleagues who joined the Khumeia community, utilizing the shared infrastructure for a collective benefit.
Future State Planning and Execution:
Formulated a future state journey map, outlining the future of the project by phases, marking clear obtainable objectives for each one and their consequential growth.
Establishing the woodworking workshop opened and opportunity for interior projects, providing an additional revenue alongside the memberships and events.
Two main collaborators were brought on board: a Commercial Lead responsible for devising a fundraising strategy, and another overseeing the areas of mental health/mindfulness.
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The project was envisioned to be housed as a part of the Zyanya community, within a large, renovated textile factory. I initiated the creation of Khumeia as a side project while actively engaged with Zyanya. Over time, Khumeia evolved into my primary focus, and its alignment with Zyanya's goals garnered their support. As it offered valuable infrastructure that complemented their objectives, making it a mutually beneficial venture.
Creative Direction
For the branding journey of our project, I enlisted the creative prowess of a friend—an artist and visual designer—to embark on a collaborative odyssey. Delving into the project's essence, I immersed her in its theory and practice, integrating her into work dynamics, events, talks, and meetings. This engaging experience aimed to align her with the project's feeling and values, ensuring a profound understanding of the what, how, and why behind our endeavor.
In my role as the guide of creative direction, we traversed diverse environments daily, seeking distinct feelings from various project areas, mixing practices and discovering results.
Our exercises included:
- Drawing concepts from their most abstract to the most concrete,
- Identifying art styles associated to the project, picking artworks and analyzing their color palette.
- Creating a glossary of encapsulating words.
- Associating values with tangible elements.
- Crafting a very detailed human persona.
- Weaving a fantastical tale narrating the project's creation.
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Acknowledging our project's countercultural essence, we refrained from mainstream design, infusing it with personality and distinctive traits.
Our illustrative language, anchored by hands symbolizing community and creation, became the guiding element and worked in different ways for each facet of the business. As a secondary element were the dotted lines that are used in technical design, they worked as an indication of process, movement and action.
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We recollected a lot of focal pictures of the workshops, factories, murals, nature and galleries to mix the different essences and use them as textures for background, posters, social media, presentations, etc.
The deliverables where:
- Logo
- Brand Identity manual
- Social media guides
- Illustrations for different areas
- Photographic content
Outputs
- User and customer insights collected from both quantitative and qualitative data, complemented by market research.
- User personas and journey maps for detailed customer understanding.
- Strategic roadmaps for efficient project implementation.
- Business Canvas and value proposition
- Business Pitch with detailed financial projections
- MVP workshops, gatherings and events for data collection and content creation.
- Diverse membership offerings for coworking, workshops, and events.
- Corporate identity and brand guidelines.
