A The Tendency of Craftsmen in Choosing the Characters of Their Products: Contemporary or Traditional

Abstract

The craftsmen desire to improve the quality of their products will give an impact on the increase of their income. For this reason, the craftsmen are driven to perform a variety of efforts. One of the efforts is to penetrate the market, that is to try to enter another market outside the usual market. This effort results its own consequence because each market has a different demand of visual quality. Some craftsmen fail to penetrate the market because they cannot fulfil the demand of the visual quality in that market. The failure is due to different visual perception of the craftsmen and the consumers. The craftsmen make products with minor changes because of the strength of their tradition. On the other hand, the market changes rapidly because of the demand of life style channges. An effort to reduce the gap needs to be done. One of the way is to determine the craftsmen perception on choosing their products, whether they are likely to choose products with contemporary or traditional characteristic. The choices of their products indicate their mindset and their perception on products. This research used visual questionnaire method and tested on five areas, i.e. Deli Serdang, North Sumatra; Bagan Batu, Riau; Plered, Purwakarta; Kiaracondong, Bandung and Paseh, Sumedang. There were around 15-30 respondents in each area. The data obtained were processed using Rasch model and the result showed that the choice of contemporary or traditional character  is highly influenced by the lifestyle and the environment of the craftsmen. The results of this study are expected to contribute significantly to the development of design in the environment of SMEs.

Keywords : The market and its visual quality, the traditional and contemporary character, the craftsmen perception