Slice of life in a box
The Prink
Product: Diorama boxes
An ideal gift for those who love taking pictures and looking at them (that would be nearly all of us), the ‘Miniature Box’ from The Prink online store promises to create keepsake dioramas that are sure to be a hit on any showcase.
“We are trying to help people remember their cherished moments such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and special occasions with little boxed three-dimensional displays that are curated by the customer. So, along with supplying their photographs, they also get to choose items that will make up the rest of the diorama,” says Sanjai Praboo, co-founder and CEO of The Prink, an e-commerce portal for personalised gifts that started in 2020.
The market for such customised novelty goods is crowded, says Sanjai, but what makes The Prink stand out is the time factor. “Most artists working on dioramas usually ask for advance notice of at least two weeks to a month, because they require a lot of handwork. But we complete the Miniature Box orders within 24 hours of ordering. Since we ship our products extensively within India, our boxes are delivered within a day or two of dispatch,” he says.
Sanjai quit his job as a software professional to work with his mother Amutha Siva at the family’s 22-year-old printing firm based in Pugalia Pillai Street in Tiruchi.
The web-based offshoot started in 2020 during the lockdown with pop-up cubes called the ‘Prink Bomb’, a card paper contraption that literally bursts out of a box filled with confetti and automatically assumes its shape with the help of strategically placed rubber bands.
Their range of products has expanded, as has their staff strength from just three to 20 women workers over the past two years. “We consciously prioritised women, because they are innately skilled in handicraft assembly,” says Sanjai.
“We have three different sizes of diorama boxes on offer. To make it as realistic as possible, we have special laser-cut elements such as miniature books and furniture. All the wooden boxes (sourced from West Bengal), are fixed with LED lights and an adapter,” he adds.
Despite being a luxury product, with prices starting at ₹2,700 and above, demand has surged after the second wave of COVID-19, says Sanjai. “People have begun to appreciate the smaller things in life, and want to hold on to their special moments for posterity,” he says.
Handmade gifts to treasure
Sona’s Gift Spot
Product: Scrapbooks, explosion boxes, homemade chocolate hampers
A Lakshmi Prabha decided to put her needlework and craft skills to good use when the health of her mother, a lab technician, prevented her from leaving home.
Honing her skills with online video tutorials, 23-year-old Lakshmi started the YouTube channel and Instagram handle ‘Sona’s Gift Spot’ in 2020, and has so far created over 400 customised items like scrapbooks, explosion boxes (an origami box of smaller gifts inside that pops when the lid is opened) and embroidered calendars.
She has also started a line in resin art objects.
Based in Tiruverumbur, Lakshmi works from home, balancing a job in an office nearby.
“It is an unpredictable business, because quite a lot of the demand depends on the occasion. From February to September, the earnings can go up to Rs. 20,000 per month, but there are days when I get only Rs. 2000 worth of orders,” says Lakshmi.
Most of her customers are young people looking out for special gifts, but Lakshmi avoids bulk orders. “Since I am working alone, I prefer small projects so that I can give the best results. I recently started online craft classes as well, to give talented persons a chance to start their own handicraft business,” she says.
Her mother helps out with the embroidery and makes chocolates that Lakshmi packs into hampers. She hopes that getting a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence will help to move the chocolate hampers faster.
“We usually need two or three days’ notice to get started on orders. For the scrapbooks, I edit soft copies of photographs and have them printed according to our size requirements. I usually work on these after my office shift is over,” she says.
Her most popular item is the mini photo album that costs around ₹350. Gifts can go up to ₹5,000. “I have started preserving flowers in resin, and hope to do more with them in the coming weeks,” she says.
Faces etched out in wood
Trichy Digital Art
Product: Wooden portraits
A talent for computer-based vector art, a technique that uses points, lines, curves and shapes based on mathematical formulas to create an image that can be resized without any loss of resolution or quality, has helped ITI graduate R Vignesh to find his inner artist.
It has also led him to specialise in three-dimensional wooden portraiture, through his Trichy Digital Art handle on Instagram, where he showcases his works.
“Customers share soft copies of their photographs, that I edit and redo as a graphic image with additional depth. Once they approve of the final version, I send it on to a laser-cutting firm in Pudukottai that imprints it on a vinyl sheet and couriers it back to me. I then re-assemble the portraits by sticking each part on to a wooden board and get it ready for display. It is very similar to doing a jigsaw puzzle,” says Vignesh.
A resident of Lalgudi, Vignesh commutes daily to Tiruchi for work in a private firm, and then returns home for his art orders.
Delivering the portraits on time has been the most difficult part. “I have spent a lot of time and money on personally delivering the gifts to customers, because I haven’t tied up with logistics firms,” he says.
Vignesh’s portraits start from ₹1350 (A4 size); he avoids scaling down pictures too much, because the detailing gets harder to paste into place.
With more than 5,000 followers on his Instagram page, Vignesh gets his orders mostly through word of mouth. “Since this art is very tech-based, the machines involved are very expensive. But the patina on the wood makes the portrait look better with time,” he says.
