Needs:
Cultural Studies scholar Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana wished to create a website to
generate awareness about her recent book and the subject - Women and Music in
Trinidad.
Challenges:
The book emerged out of rigorous academic research. Her first brief was "Mobilizing India - Women, Music And Race In The Trinidadian Subaltern Diaspora". Special interactions with client was required to understand the drift of the book. The idea was to be able to communicate the excitement of chutney soca music alongwith the academic nature of the enquiry.
Solutions:
We used rich colors and graphics to reflect the mood of Trinidad, while the visual
structure and IA were in sync with the academic content. Keeping the issues of
copyright in mind, we used selected clips of songs from her personal collection,
with the permission of the musicians. Using over 80 fascinating photographs, we
tried to recreate the ambience and the context of chutney soca, filtered through
Ms Niranjana's perspectives in the book. Though it is primarily a book site, both
Ms Niranjana and we agreed that the existing title of the book was too daunting
and complex for the layperson interested to explore chutney soca. Subsequently,
we changed the title to "Women and Music in Trinidad", for both the book and
the site.
Mobilizing India : Web Presence
