DumaTel Africa WI-FI Router Box Packaging Designs (Client Project)
The purpose of this client project was to create a series of three Wi-Fi/Wireless Router box packaging designs in order to enhance the company's design outlook as well as tell the stories of the underserved and underprivileged rural communities in Kenya.
After observing how the neglected areas of Kenya are ignored in the status league and how services are made unavailable to them because of the low incomes they generate, they are often cut out from the rest of Kenya and the world. Duma Tel Africa decided to have an ISP (Internet Service provider) that provides and supports low-income earners regardless of their demographic location or economic status.
29% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty, which leads to a lack of internet access due to low-income levels, expensive device prices and high telecom fees (West, 2015). As a result of this research, my intention as a designer was to use digital illustration to create a series of three box designs that would depict the growth of rural communities in Kenya gaining access to technology and wireless communication through DumaTel Africa's Services.
The three sectors looked into included:
-School and Education
-Rural Residential Areas/ Slums
-Informal Employment Sector
The Wi-Fi Packaging Boxes- Printed Outcomes
Box No. 1- School and Education
The computerization of schools is often envisaged as a ‘magic’ (Ogembo et al., 2012). Box number 1 uses line illustration art of children using computers in school. This scene was designed to showcase how the implementation of Wireless Technology, Connections and Communication can not only promote educational growth, but rather also support, enhance and develop the rural education sector by introducing use of computers and digital forms of education. Through this, the story of the younger generation in underprivileged areas growing with technology can be depicted.
Box No. 2- Rural Residential Areas/Slums
Box No. 3- Informal Unemployment Sector
Some low-income earners in rural areas rely on small merchandising and stores to earn an income. I decided to use a typical Kenyan market scene for Box 3 that shows the interaction between vendors and consumers through mobile money. This scene depicts how wireless and online mobile money payments make life simpler and transactions easier during transactions.
PROJECT PRODUCT MOCK-UPS
References:
Liew, J.-H., Yeo, A. W., Hamid, K. A., & Othman, A.-K. (2004, June). Implementation of Wireless Networks in Rural Areas. Retrieved September 1, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235052245_Implementation_of_Wireless_Networks_in_Rural_Areas
Ogembo, J. G., Ngugi, B., & Pelowski, M. (2012, May). Computerizing Primary Schools in Rural Kenya: Outstanding Challenges and Possible Solutions. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 52(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2012.tb00371.
West, D. M. (2015). Digital divide: Improving Internet access in the developing world through affordable services and diverse content. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/west_internet-access.pdf
