Personalised Scrapbook
As a part of the grad studio assignment, we were to create a gift for our assigned partners. I made a personalised scrapbook for Rhebsa which resonated with her longing desire for pursuing photography.
I wanted to create something special and meaningful for Rhebsa and in order to do that the first step was to understand her personality and her interests. What could have been a better way of knowing someone over a short span of time than a round of rapid-fire questions? That’s exactly what I did for starters and fortunately, it turned out to be a fun conversation where we learnt a lot about each other.
With this bundle of information, I created a Figjam board. That’s where I found my idea for the gift which revolved around this one question of what she always wanted to do but didn’t know where to start. Rhebsa had always been fond of photography and was especially inspired by the story of a character named “Bunny” in the Bollywood movie “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani”. In the movie, Bunny left everything to pursue his inner passion for travel and photography. Now, to help Rhebsa unlock her path in the direction of photography I decided to create a personalised scrapbook.
The scrapbook started with a cover picture followed by a general instruction page. It consisted of prompts under specific themes around which pictures could be clicked. These prompts were based on Rhebsa’s interests and my research around places to visit and things to do in Vancouver.
Since she had been eagerly waiting for her visa to reach Vancouver I thought of making this transition to a new city memorable for her. So the initial two pages were devoted to her journey from India to Vancouver and the rest to all the beautiful places in Vancouver. Finally, it ended with an inspiring quote by Marc Riboud “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.
Marc Riboud
My intention was to keep this gift digital so it’s easier to add pictures and I could e-mail her the editable file since we were only virtually connected. However, I leave it up to her to print it out before or after adding pictures to make it a tangible memory. When Rhebsa saw the gift she received it with love and now I hope she enjoys using it.