Bombay Design Centre reimagines iconic brand Camlin's D2C digital experience

The artist community has often been sidelined in the new era of hyper connectivity, screens and snackable content. India’s most iconic art & craft brand Camel, itself standing at the juncture of a transformation, saw this as a box of opportunities. The 90-year young brand partnered with Bombay Design Centre - India’s leading design & tech firm to build a first-of-its-kind artist platform. Built on a bespoke technology architecture and deep understanding of the needs of the art community, the platform is a radical fresh approach to an artist ecosystem and a transformative experience at every level.

Bombay Design Centre spent four months researching before developing the strategy and roadmap for the platform. The research aided the firm to define three strategic pillars of the platform. A safe, conversational, and inspirational community space for the artists, a definitive content destination for visual art education, and an artist platform for all things Camel. The user-experience built on first principles of customer-centricity strengthens Camel’s leadership position and puts a stamp of modernity & innovation on the brand.

Launched just a week ago, the community platform is in beta mode and has already seen a 300% jump in time spent on the platform. In future, the brand aims to also do offline events for the community, bring in 500-700 education videos and host the iconic Camel Art Foundation Contest with 50 lakh participants on the platform.

Rishi Kakar, CSMO from Kokuyocamlin, the parent company of Camlin, commented – Kokuyocamlin.com provides a safe place online where artists can connect with artists, On the brand & product side, for the first time in 9 decades, we are bringing together products from a large range of 1000+ art supplies to one single artist platform. The platform will provide clear and expert information about the products and recommend product combinations that will help the artists improve their work. Our vision with the platform was to have an artist-first approach and make the sales channel secondary. We are proud to have stayed true to our vision. We brought Bombay Design Centre on-board as they were the only partner with deep expertise across strategy, design, brand and technology, all under one roof. With a single partner executing your entire vision and taking care of photography, content & post launch product management, it was easy, efficient and a delight for us to make this mammoth dream happen”.

Commenting on the work that has been done in creating this platform, Ankur Rander, Founder & CEO, Bombay Design Centre said – “As one of the few firms in the country specializing in D2C brand experiences design, we saw this as a distinctive opportunity for an artists’ community Every photo, every word, every interaction, and every nuance of the platform is focused to make it a unique artist-centric experience. The experience is so simple and delightful even kids are loving it. The backbone of this platform is technology. An example of it is the content management system that is custom built in-house. It customizes the experience for each product category while ensuring a lightweight frontend experience. This platform is a foundation to Camlin’s D2C journey and will contribute to their growth for years to come”.

The platform has received extraordinarily positive feedback from the artist community. Artists are delighted to be able to upload their artworks, share their portfolio with others, and follow the work of other artists. Younger artists have expressed their appreciation emphasizing on the learning aspect of the platform that enables everyone to learn and practice a wide gamut of techniques.

Siddhesh Pednekar, Head of Business, Bombay Design Centre, added – “The platform captures user behavior to understand the customer and customize the experience. Our inhouse product management team will continue to analyze and manage this platform to introduce new features and experiences”.

(We got this information in a press release).