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Wildeast.ca | 2003 – 2020

The original website at wildeast.ca (see below) was launched in 2003 and designed and built in London, UK. It served the book very well in the years after but, with the abrupt ending of business trading by the US server host, we have been prompted into revisiting a project that has been on the back burner for some time: to launch the official brand site for Jill Lawless.

“One of the top 10 Canadian travel books of 2000.” The Globe and Mail

For most of us, the name Mongolia conjures up exotic images of wild horsemen, endless grasslands, and nomads — a timeless and mysterious land that is also, in many ways, one that time forgot. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols’ empire stretched across Asia and into the heart of Europe. But over the centuries Mongolia disappeared from the world’s consciousness, overshadowed and dominated by its huge neighbours — first China, which ruled Mongolia for centuries, then Russia, which transformed the feudal nation into the world’s second communist state.

Jill Lawless arrived in Mongolia in the late 1990s to find a country waking from centuries of isolation, at once rediscovering its heritage as a nomadic and Buddhist society and simultaneously discovering the western world.

The result is a land of fascinating, bewildering contrasts: a vast country where nomadic herders graze their sheep and yaks on the steppe, it also has one of the world’s highest literacy levels and a burgeoning high-tech scene. While trendy teenagers rollerblade amid the Soviet apartment blocks of Ulaanbaatar and dance to the latest pop music in nightclubs, and the rich drive Mercedes and surf the Internet, more than half the population still lives in felt tents, scratching out a living in one of the world’s harshest landscapes.

Mongolia, it can be argued, is the archetypal 21st-century nation, a country waking from a tumultuous 20th century in which it was wrenched from feudalism to communism to capitalism, searching for its place in the new millennium.

This is a funny and revealing portrait of a beautiful, troubled country whose fate holds lessons for all of us.

  • Publisher : ECW Press; Illustrated edition (1 Jan. 2000)
  • Language : English
  • Paperback : 230 pages
  • ISBN-10 : 1550224344
  • ISBN-13 : 978-1550224344
  • Dimensions : 15.24 x 1.6 x 22.86 cm
  •  Images © David South and Liz Lawless.
Launched in 2003, the original wildeast.ca website served us well. Beautifully designed and built in London, it stood out for its clean and crisp look and ease of use.
Author Jill Lawless photographed in Tunisia in 2002. 
Originally published in Canada in 2000, Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia was also published in the UK (2002) and the Netherlands (Het Wilde Oosten: Reizen in het moderne Mongolie) and in a large print version in 2012. 
The Dutch edition of Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia by Jill Lawless.

Mongolië is voor veel mensen nog een mysterieus land dat vooral beelden oproept van woeste ruiters, uitgestrekte grasvlakten en nomaden. Het is een land waar de tijdstil lijkt te hebben gestaan. Als Jill Lawless arriveert in Mongolië treft ze een hoofdstad aan die veel westerser is dan ze had verwacht. De trendy geklede jongeren en moderne discotheken van Ulaanbaatar staan in schril contrast met de nomadische bevolking die nog in tenten op de ruige vlakten leven.

Het wilde Oosten is het onthullende reisverslag van Lawless’ verblijf in Mongolië waarbij je als lezer alle wetenswaardigheden over de lokale politiek, de diverse tradities en de historie van dit intrigerende land leert kennen.

De Canadese Jill Lawless werkte als redacteur in Mongolië bij de enige Engelstalige en onafhankelijke krant The UB Post. Zij schreef ook diverse artikelen over Mongolië voor internationale dagbladen. Momenteel woont en werkt ze als verslaggeefster in Londen.

Het wilde Oosten, Jill Lawless, net exemplaar (naamstempel op schutblad)
Rainbow Pocket. pocket, 255 pagina’s
ISBN 9789041707291

Published in Toronto, Canada by ECW Press (ISBN: 9781550224344).

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2021

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Accessing Global Markets Via Design Solutions

By David SouthDevelopment Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

The power of design to improve products and the way they are manufactured is increasingly being seen as a critical component of successful economic development.

The importance of trade – both South-South and South-North – as a reducer of poverty in developing countries is now widely acknowledged. Countries that have made the biggest gains in reducing poverty, like China, India and Brazil, have done it through trade.

The power of trade in high quality goods to raise incomes has been proven for more than a decade. South-South trade grew by an average of 13 percent per year between 1995 and 2007. By 2007, South-South trade made up 20 percent of world trade. And over a third of South-South commerce is in high-skill manufacturing. Making finished goods, rather than just selling raw materials, improves workers’ skill levels and increases the return on trade.

But trying to get other people to desire and buy your products is very tricky. Design plays a major part in understanding the unique demands of countries and markets, and what people find appealing or repellent.

A product that has both a successful design (people want to buy it) and is produced efficiently (a well-designed manufacturing process), will generate a good profit.

In India, the Craft Resource Centre or CRC Exports Limited of Kolkata (http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta)has been successfully selling leather travel bags to the Vodafone (>http://www.vodafone.com/hub_page.html) mobile phone company in The Netherlands. It did this by teaming up with Dutch Designers in Development (http://www.ddid.nl/english/index.html), an NGO focused on matching European importers and retailers and professional designers with small and medium enterprises in the South.

Founded in 1989, CRC applies the concept of adding value to turn small-scale and poor artisans into successful and sustainable businesses. Many of these traditional handicraft artisans subsist on low incomes. CRC provides artisans across India with marketing, design, finance and exporting help. It also connects them with other artisans and helps to divide projects between them. This has the power of using networks to help in bad times while also sharing opportunities when they come up.

CRC’s director, Irani Sen, has divided the more than 15,000 artisans they work with into 15 different trading groups. CRC has also consulted to over 350 projects across Asia.

“The best thing fair trade gives (artisans) is the continuity of work … and with the continuity comes the basic security,” Sen said on the CRC website. “With that security they can develop, they can plan and then we try to motivate them for education, health (and) education for their children.”

It all began with a need: Dutch company Unseen Products (http://www.unseenproducts.com/home) needed somebody to make high-quality leather travel bags for their client, Vodafone, who in turn wanted the bags as an incentive for their employees. Unseen Products is a business connecting European retailers with small producers in the South to build long-term business relationships. They seek to make “unseen or hard to find products accessible at commercially interesting prices.”

They approached Dutch Designers in Development (DDiD), which in turn recommended CRC.

As a matchmaker, DDiD puts together European clients, Dutch designers and small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. The designers share their knowledge of European consumer tastes, product development, design and quality standards.

DDiD receives orders from companies, NGOs and government agencies to stimulate the production and sale of sustainable products from developing countries in Europe.

The Dutch group works with producers to develop skills and adapt producers’ products to present and future demands in Europe. By following this approach, Southern producers can reduce the risk of making products nobody wants, or that lack originality in the marketplace and thus won’t sell.

DDiD explains to producers the importance of design and how it improves the product and the business. Good design, the group believes, should reduce production costs and the time taken to get to market, and boost the reputation of the product brand and maker.

Well-known Dutch bag designer Ferry Meewisse (http://www.frrry.com/hiep/Entrance.seam?labelId=1) was brought in to work with CRC’s artisans to craft new bags and a new way of making them.

Meewisse said he was uncertain at first whether the artisans would be able to make the highly complex bags. The solution was to break down the bag into smaller parts. And that is where the knowledge of design process comes into play.

“The button bag for example is a complex bag that has been taken apart: compartments, pockets, handles,” said Meewisse. “This provided us with elements that were each really simple to manufacture. After that the pieces would only have to be clicked together with the buttons. And there it was: a complete bag with all the elements you need in a good bag.”

The bags can be seen here: http://www.frrry.com/hiep/guest/GuestSeries.seam?seriesId=9&conversationId=30930

Stella van Himbergen, a project manager at DDiD, said the concept is about introducing a new way of looking at things through the prism of design.

“Small producers in developing countries are not lacking craftsmanship,” said Himbergen. But, she added, “it is important for producers to receive support in production-led design, and not only in aesthetic design.”

Conceptually, this is the difference between designing and making something because it is aesthetically pleasing, and taking a market-driven design approach – letting market demands lead to the design solution. As a different way of looking at things, it takes in the company’s vision, brand values and positioning in the marketplace, production requirements (costs, sustainability), organization, and client’s needs.

DDiD helps producers learn how to quickly create new products based on market demands. They also raise the level of awareness of design to global standards, and show how to apply this across the production process, from graphic design, to packaging, retail and exhibition space, brand design and design management. Since 2005, the group has completed 46 international projects.

DDiD also stresses sustainability, encouraging the use of environmentally friendly materials such as biological cotton, bamboo and water hyacinth for paper and rope.

Apart from Vodafone, the CRC-made bags are sold in shops and on the web.

The extra attention to design seems to have paid off. CRC’s bags have been such a success that a second order has been placed. And CRC has picked up another project from Dutch importer Global Goodies (http://www.globalgoodies.nl/). 

Published: March 2009

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/12/afro-coffee-blending-good-design-and-coffee/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/20/baker-cookstoves-designing-for-the-african-customer/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/12/20/better-by-design-in-china/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/29/brazilian-design-for-new-urban-middle-class-world/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/08/02/design-collaborations-revitalize-traditional-craft-techniques/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/26/designed-in-china-to-rival-made-in-china/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/fashion-recycling-how-southern-designers-are-re-using-and-making-money/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanas-funeral-economy-innovates-and-exports/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanaian-coffins-prove-design-and-craftsmanship-boost-incomes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/06/11/indonesian-wooden-radio-succeeds-with-good-design/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/19/a-local-drink-beats-global-competition/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/04/30/local-fashions-pay-off-for-southern-designers/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/22/popular-characters-re-invent-traditional-carving/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/04/putting-quality-and-design-at-the-centre-of-chinese-fashion/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PBB0LYdAPx8C&dq=development+challenges+march+2009&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsmarch2009issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2021