Magno The Story Behind

By Singgih S Kartono
Founder-owner-designer

During my final years at university, I was troubled by a very big question- ‘’where should I go and
what should I do after I graduate?’’ Should I work as an in- house designer, for a design house,
somewhere in the city or should I go back to my village, Kandangan, in Central Java and set up a
business?

After I graduated, I did not go straight back to Kandangan and start a business, but eventually, I did. I
returned and started a business without any precise financial calculations or preparations. The lack of
planning was actually a blessing in disguise. If I had prepared in detail, Magno would not have been
born. I would have clearly seen that if I want to survive financially, the best thing to do would be to
ignore all the thoughts of coming back to Kandangan. However, the urge to give back a positive
contribution to my village was stronger than to aim for quick financial gain. These drive me on and
now it has become the source of my endless energy and passion.

The community’s concern towards the slowing down and deterioration of Kandangan’s village life has
prompted me to use my knowledge, skills and experience to build this village through my business. I
am thankful that my knowledge in ‘product design’ has proven to a successful ‘weapon of survival’
that enables me to endure and grow in Kandangan.

While studying at University, due to the lack of money and the long distance between my university
and Kandangan, I was only able to visit twice a year. The long periods of time between each visit
enabled me to clearly observe - changes in my home village. At first glance, these changes were
seen as a ‘progress’. But when I looked more closely I concluded that it was only the ‘surface’ that
experienced change. The basic structure of the village did not experience any changes; moreover,
some were actually deteriorating.

In the agricultural sector for example, traditional farming has always been the economic back bone of
the majority of villagers. It took the worst hit. Whatever the government did within this sector, it was
never for the further development and enhancement of traditional farming. The government
constantly came up with ‘modern and instant’ ways of agriculture farming that were unsuitable for the
community. These included; intensified farming, man made fertilizer promotions, GMO seeds that
were imported and the government funded loan scheme for farmers. Unfortunately, the government
‘efforts’ did not pay off. Furthermore, these ‘efforts’ actually brought destruction to existing farming
methods as well as village and community life. Farmers were increasingly relying on government for
funding and materials sourcing. They were no longer self sufficient. They were ‘contaminated’ with
‘instant’ farming methods that were not compatible with sustainable growth and dangerous to the
nature. Farmers’ lack of knowledge and insights hindered them in solving these problems
appropriately. Having lost their farms, many were forced to find jobs in the city or to stay in the village
with only the bare minimum for survival or to find ‘new’ sources of income around the village. The
latter activities usually ended up exploiting forests and nature, unsustainably, relentlessly and
negatively.

It is now clear that the destruction of the environment is actually caused by the distortion of villagers’
existing economic activities. The problems with the environment are economic problems. To solve it,
we need to provide alternative economic activities that are in line with nature or that could give
positive contributions to nature. Craft is an alternative economic activity that has the potential to be
developed and to grow in villages. It has characteristics that are suitable for village’s living condition
and growth prospects. These characteristics are; labour intensive, low technology and investment ,
abundance of local material input, and big potency on export market. However, can we develop and
grow craft based activities within a community that has not got a background in manufacturing
handcraft?

In the following section, I will demonstrate to you that the above is possible. I will describe, using my
case study, that the ‘New Craft’ (Craft Baru in Indonesian) can be developed within communities that
don’t have a background in art and handcrafts.

New Craft

It is Mr. Surya Pernawa, a sculpture artist, observer and craft practitioner that unlocked my insights to
the potential and problems as well as the solution of issues in the Indonesian craft sector. Mr
Pernawa was my sponsor and mentor for my final year university project and thesis. His idea on craft
have propelled me learn about issues of village life.

In principal, New Craft is a manufacturing activity that uses traditional craftsmanship as its main
source of production method and uses modern management techniques in managing its activities. It
is designed to anticipate the five criteria of an export market. These criteria are well known as
QQTPC, an acronym for- Quantity, Quality, Time, Price and Continuity. The fundamental system of
the New Craft is to ensure that every step of the production process contains standard procedures of
manufacture, quality standards as well as output and material usage standards. Every new product or
design is analyzed first for the purpose of creating a production manual. Based on the manual, the
manufacturing activity is then implemented.

There is no actual ‘new’ system or technology within the New Craft method. Nevertheless, these
basic modern production management methods are not widely used in crafts manufacturing. In craft,
the most important factor is the human resources behind the craft activities. It uses human skills as its
main production resources- it is important to have correctly managed worker attitudes towards crafts.
The New Craft method takes these factors into account.

From my experience in setting up craft programs, the task of teaching and training workers on craft
techniques is the easiest to do. Using the production line method, where a manufacturing activity is
divided into several tasks and steps, the complexity of production activities can be reduced. A new
worker on his first day working can jump straight into the production activities. For those who posses
craft talents, within few days of working, they will display craftsmanship and abilities that are good
enough to meet our standards.

Craft jobs require diligence, accuracy and consistency. To achieve these characteristics, discipline
and professionalism has to be exercised and taught to the new worker. This is the most difficult task
to accomplish.

Exercising and implementing discipline and professionalism as the working culture is not solely a
management activity. It is a cultural transformation process- the challenge is to transform the working
culture of traditional farming which is lax and loose, to the industry based working culture that is
precision, rigidity, measurable and rapid.

The transformation process itself is not really difficult, but it requires patience and willpower to carry
the process forward. Fundamentally, we only need to ‘condition’ the new worker to ‘stay in the straight
line’ for a period of time before it becomes their new habit.

In addition, New Craft uses manufacturing aid such as template, jig/ fixture. This is to ensure that
products are produced consistently and standardized even when they are manufactured by hand.

The approach of New Craft’s method and concept has many benefits as I have shown you above.
With these approaches, we can set up a new craft manufacturing centre in villages/ communities with
no craft background. It becomes the new, alternative source of income that can accommodate a
surplus of manpower from declining agriculture. The new method can also be implemented to grow or
revive existing crafts activities that are in decline. As a result, the New Craft method will produce high
quality products that have the potential to compete in the export market. Through selling in the export
market, production activities are sustainable and provide income that can further the economic growth
of the village.

Village and sustainable living

When we discuss global environmental issues, especially amongst the community of developed
nations, one should not forget to explain the role of community of a small village in an
‘underdeveloped’ nation.

It is important to note, in an ‘underdeveloped nation’, such as Indonesia for example, villagers usually
make up the majority of the population. Thus when we discuss a nation wide community growth- the
ideal starting point will be to discuss the growth of one village community. The same principle should
also be applied in discussing the issues of sustainable living and environment. These are easily
visualized within the scope of a community in a village compared to urban environment. A village is a
‘miniaturized’ version of a country (or- a world). In Indonesia- it is impossible to discuss sustainable
living without discussing issues that are faced by villages.

Within the Indonesian hierarchy of government structure, villages are positioned the lowest in the
structure regardless of their vast number. Nevertheless, an Indonesian village is a legitimate
component within the Indonesian governmental structure. A borough and its dwellers is a collective of
villages within a certain district and its community. The borough’s natural resources are a collection of
natural resources gathered from villages within the boroughs.

In a large country where its biggest problem is high quality Human Resource, the growth of village
communities should be the government’s first priority. If thousands of small Indonesian villages could
grow their own socio-economic-impact, together they could become a solid foundation for the
economic growth in Indonesia. The success of growth and development within the village will also
double as the solution to problems in the cities that are mainly caused by overpopulation.

Unfortunately, the reality of current and existing Indonesian economic and development programs
speaks otherwise. Villages’ low governmental status have placed them in the worst position- Being at
the bottom end in the system means they receive less funding, less attention and the worst deal.
Hence, it is uncommon that villages with plenty of potential are experiencing stagnation and
deteriorating rapidly. The most heartbreaking aspect of this situation is to see many ‘village- grown’,
talented and smart villagers leaving villages for the hope of ‘a better life’ in the city. Some villagers
who are fortunate enough to experience university education in the city or abroad, can no longer go
back to live and accommodate themselves in their own village.

Most of them will study subjects at university that are very specific to the economic function of the
‘modern’ urban society and economy. Upon graduation, these graduates are forced to find
occupations to match their qualifications -unfortunately these jobs are only to be found in the city. The
simplistic, limited and basic facilities of village often are enough to make villagers to loathe their
situation. Many villagers think anyone that stays in the village is a big loser.

I did not choose Kandangan village as the base of my business activities because of ‘heroic
sentimental and romantic’ reasons. I saw Kandangan as a space that has huge potentials in terms of
its human and natural resources. Luckily, this is also supported by the availability of basic
infrastructures necessary in building a productive business. As especially nowadays with the
availability of phone and internet connection in the village, we are now able to communicate globally.

Wood: life, balance and limit

I was born and grew up in Kandangan. This experience nurtured an intimate relationship between me
and the nature, especially the forest. As a result, I am familiar with different types of wood.

When I was a child, I made some of my toys with woods I gathered from the nearby forest. I also
enjoyed watching carpenters activities to pass time. These curiosities were captured by my father. I
still remember how happy I was when my father bought me a second hand handsaw from one of
these carpenter. It was not a good saw, but it was a better tool in comparison to my mother’s knife.

My past experience with wood and my education in Product Design have intensified my appreciations
of wood. To me, wood is somewhat a perfect materials – especially if I compare it to synthetic one.
Wood is perfect because it is also imperfect. In wood we could find strength and weakness,
advantages yet disadvantages or roughness and also softness. Wood is hard and solid but yet it is
100% eco-friendly as it is degradable and left no hazardous substances on the earth. I believe that a
perfect material should be a well balanced material. This material will teach us the meaning of limit.

Wood is a type of material where its beauty comes of history. Wood’s growth is an amazing process
and it is stored in its lines of age. Its technology is sophisticated- it is remarkable how a small seed of
wood can be more complex in comparison to machines that are ever made by human. Wood records
good and bad time before it is materialized as a beautiful drawing. Its texture and grain is a story of
life.

If we compare wood to synthetic materials, we can feel how it is ‘closely’ related to us- it is part of us.
Wood is a ‘soulful’ material; it is a ‘life’ material. When its time is up, it will ‘ease’ itself back into the
nature...Sophisticated, beautiful and meaningful...

Wood comes from a tree, a nature’s creature that only does the right things. Trees absorb CO2 and
use it as a substance to build its body, to produce fruits and its own food and to generate oxygen for
other creatures. Can we see this simple activity as a point of reflection? We are the smartest creature
on this planet, but can we not see that most of our earthly activities do not create humanity and be in
one with nature? Instead we are a creature that usually damages them.
Design: Re-define

I strongly believe that the relationship between a ‘user’ and a product is not merely a relationship
between a ‘subject and an ‘object’. It is a relationship where a product is an integrated part of our life.

The advancement of technology and competitions in economy has created products with
sophisticated features. On one hand, it has made task in our life easier to do but on the other hand it
creates a certain behavior. It creates ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’ behavior and at the same time it also
creates façade and provisional relationship. I believe that this behavior is a negative excess of a
modern industrial way of life. We should be aware of this behavior and to alter it for the better. The
combinations of using natural materials in modern products are a kind of soul embodying ritual. It
makes products ‘alive’. My aim is to ‘sensitize’ us with the nature, just like the way it was in the past.

In designing, I endeavor to re-create ‘un-perfect’ and ‘un-complete’ products through minimizing the
unnecessary features. This ‘un-perfect’-ness is a conscious and deliberate creation that will hopefully
allow the users of our products to be deeply involved with each of them.

All of Magno products are not coated. We only apply a wooden oil to finish them. This finishing is not
going to completely protect our products. However, it will give a chance to its owner to feel the wood
and also to care for the wood- As the care of its owner is the only real protection of the products. I
disagree with the ‘free maintenance’ approach in products. We must maintain and take care of
products we buy. This is what I call as a moral obligation between product’s owner and its products.

I like simple form as I believe that it will enhance the life cycle of products. The simple form with well
prepared details, the usage of natural materials in our products has purposes and the built-in ‘fragility’
in our products is aimed to encourage user to be deeply connected with its product.

This is one effort to minimize the ‘throw- away’ society. Design for us is more than just creating a well
designed product that are produced and consumed in colossal amount. Design must be a way to
solve and minimize problems.

Furthermore, the usage of natural materials/woods is also due to its ‘psycho-materials’ property and
to maximizing the scarcity of local based material. The small size functional wooden craft products
will give a positive contribution in economizing the base materials and to provide work opportunity-
one of many problems that are faced by villages in Indonesia.

In terms of design process output, products for me are only a mere 3D object. However I have other
important output that I want to get across to the users of my products. It is the ideology, message and
spirit behind the products. Think your products as ‘life being’ that send us messages and spiritual
meanings in a passive way. Our society has beginning to loose these meanings and products are
becoming our ‘robotic- servants’.

Design Process

In designing, I cannot start the process with a completed and detailed concept. This will ensure the
lost of my mood and energy. Sometimes the design process is triggered with only a tiny clue from my
surrounding. For me, designing is like an adventure/ trip with no map. I make an effort to enjoy the
process and savor the meaning of the ‘trip’. Like any adventure/ trip, sometimes the objective of the
trip is very clear but the journey is blurry or sometimes both are blurry. But in the end of the journey, I
know that there will be something with deeper value and meaning await me.

I never start my design according to the market research or demand. I design by absorbing near/ far
events, global or local events and even mundane daily life things that happen surround me.
Consequently I start to think what will be good and better for these people. I am aware that I own a
business, an economic activity. However, I often see that many things went wrong when human are
driven by the economic activity. Economic becomes in-humane. It made the whole sum of what we do
to the nature, as its smartest creature, the lowest if we are to compare it with other nature’s creatures.
The deterioration of the nature is derived from the deeds of pursuing the Economic as human’s
cultural activities and is deeply embedded in our hands, heads and minds. The nature’s deterioration
should be a trigger for us to re-define the purpose of human life and to re-define our roles.

Less wood more works, Cut less plant more

I am deeply concerned to see many economy activities that are happening around me. People are
using wood as its main material for production but the added values of what they are producing are
extremely low. In order to gain high profits, they have to produce products in high volume, thus taking
more materials from the nature. In the end, it’s the nature lost.
Many woods with exotic textures are only chopped up, dried and sold as fire wood. Many villagers are
doing this type of activity. On the higher level, there are few milling factories around our area too. We
can liken these factories to ‘wood eater machines’ that requires a minimum log of woods each factory
per day just to get enough profit to sustain them.

They will consume any types of woods. They no longer consume the quick grow types such as
Albasia, they also consume hard and medium wood that took longer to grow. The worst offender is
the palettes industry where they produce palettes that are used for export and import. This industry is
using local hard wood. Within a week, with less than 10 people working in the factory, they could
produce around 400 palettes (40 feet container) that worth USD2800-3000. To produce these
palettes, it required around 20m3 log woods. Within a month they gobble up approximately of 80m3
of woods. If one tree is equivalent to 0.35m3 of log wood, then within a month, there are 228 trees
that are cut down solely for palette production. From this, in the next few years, we will experience
shortage in woods. Nowadays, even with cutting down trees with a diameter of 10-15 cm, medium
sized tree, we are already experiencing increase in the wood price. If you are to see these activities
through economic lenses- it is still a wrong thing to do. You can see that one day; they will loose all
these activities due to the shortage of material.

I have never thought of the above scenario until I was focusing on the production of ‘Small Functional
Wooden Craft Products’. Initially, I was not discipline enough to take the scenario above into account
in designing. However, the more I designed and took the scenario deeply into account, I could see
better ways in designing. These new directions in design have brought me to produce our wooden
radio. It is possible for a small dimensioned product to go through a production process that consume
less material but still requires plenty of man power, thus creating more job opportunities to produce it.
With quality of high craftsman, it is possible to sell products with a good price and to achieve market
stability. Hence we can draw a conclusion that this way of designing produces low ratio of material
usages and high labor capacity. To produce high quality products require extra manpower and
energy. The end result of this activity can also include the worker’s positive psychological growth of
towards achieving professionalism at work.

Nevertheless, using fewer materials are not enough. As a wood consumer, I feel morally responsible
towards replacing the woods that I have used. This will ensure that all manufacturing activities that I
conducted would not destroy the nature. I do this by re-planting every single wood that I’ve used from
the forest (regeneration of the forest).

My production company, Piranti Works, now has 40 employees. They are locals. We use only around
80 trees per year. We use part of our land in around our workshop for tree nursery. Since 2008 we
distribute around 10000 sapling trees each year for people in the surrounding villages to plant on their
land. Till now our activity already added the trees population equal to 10-15 hectars of forest. From
the start till now we only consume less than 0.5 hectar forest.

Conclusion

The most fundamental understanding of

sustainability is to understand that the
environmental damages are caused by the
‘wrong’ way of living. We should be ashamed to
ourselves. Human being should be the smartest
creature that inhabits the planet earth but we are
doing unintelligent things to destroy our ‘host’.
All environmental damages are caused by
human. We live in the circle of production and
consumption that grew bigger, faster and
uncontrollably, forgetting that our natures are
limited.

The damages in environment should be a wake

up call for all of us. We should redesign the way
we live and take steps towards better ways of
living. I believe that in these last centuries, there
are important aspects in human life that we
abandoned while pursuing the advancement in
technologies and the wonder of science. We
forgot the spiritual aspect of being a human. This is an aspect that cannot be separated from human
as it is part of our brilliant minds and us. We have evolved into an intelligent race but no longer wise.
As a designer, I endeavor to create designs that will give contribution to our quality of life, be it your
life activities or your own personal development. I am grateful that I am able to this choice as my way
of living. With the current situation that we are nowadays facing- many woods are consume for
industry that uses woods relentlessly. Its reserve is depleted. This is happen due to the difficulties in
building a business that uses less materials but use more labor.

Sustainability as a new approach in the economic activity is not merely a new consideration. It should
be used the blue print for our present and future, the new soul and spirit for our economic activities
now and the future. We cannot claim any success if our economic activity produces big profit and on
the other hand this activity will damage our environment further.

Sustainability for me is a way of living where we are not just trying to avoid damaging nature but we
should also take actions in improving it. An economic profit cannot only be measure by the capital we
gain but should also be measured by how much improvement we can bring to our environment. We
must do more of this.

CURRICULUM VITAE
Name : Singgih Susilo Kartono
Sex : Male
Date of Birth : 21 April 1968
Nationality : Indonesia
Address : Kandangan RT 01/RW01, Kec. Kandangan, Temanggung Central Java, Indonesia
56281
E-mail address : singgihskartono@yahoo.com, info@ magno-design.com
Web : www.magno-design.com
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/singgih.s.kartono
Mobile : +62 888 690 9150
Phone/Fax : +62 293 4900 895

Education
Product Design, Faculty of Art & Design, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung – West Java Indonesia,
1986-1992. Title of the thesis “Design of Radio Receivers in the Concept of Indonesian Handicraft Industry”

Occupation
1992-1995
- Product Designer for PT. Prasidha Adhikriya, Bandung, West Java-Indonesia specialized in handicraft industry.
1995-2003
- Founder of Aruna Arutala, a company specialized in handicraft industry for foreign market. Appointed as the
production manager and product designer for wooden toys and handicraft.2003-current
2004-now
-Founder of Piranti Works, a company specialized in ‘small size functional wooden craft products’. Appointed as
the director & product designer for wooden craft products.
2013-now
-Founder Spedagi, Bamboo Bike for Village Revitalization. A global movement on promoting village as now and
future sustainable community. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spedagi/552508501433752

Works & Awards

1997 : 2nd Winner International Design Resource Award (IDRA) Seattle, USA.
Product : ‘Craft Radio’ www.designresource.org/idra97/PSecond.htm
1996-2003 : Designing wooden-craft toys product ‘Anomali’ series.
2004 : Shortlisted Participant on International Design Competition ‘Tile with Crystal’ Swarovsky-
Designboom.com. www.designboom.com/competition/index
Title : ‘Crystal Dance’
2005 : Winner of Indonesian Good Design Selection 2005, Pusat Desain Nasional
Jakarta- Indonesia.
Products : ‘magno’ series : ‘Toys for Soul’ (Gold Award), Wooden Magnifying Glass, Wooden Compass, Wooden
Tape Rule (Good Design).
2006 : Winner of Indonesian Good Design Selection 2006, Pusat Desain Nasional
Jakarta- Indonesia.
Products : ‘magno’ series : Wooden Radio (Gold Award), Wooden Stationery (Good Design)
2008 : Good Design Award – Japan 2008 in the category Innovation/Pioneering & Experimental Design
Activities http://www.g-mark.org/search/Detail?id=34989&sheet=outline&lang=en
Product : wooden radios series, stationery series, small functional series, Toys for Soul.
2008 : Grand Award “Design for Asia Award” 2008 by Hongkong Design Centre
http://www.dfaaward.com/eng/dfa2008_award.php
www.dfaaward.com/2008_pdf/Personal_Wooden.pdf
2008 : 6th rank from 276 nominees at People Design Award, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum New York
USA. http://peoplesdesignaward.cooperhewitt.org/2008/, http://peoplesdesignaward.cooperhewitt.org/2008/browse/all/0
2009 : Design Plus Award – Ambiente Frankfurt Germany
http://ambiente.messefrankfurt.com/designplus/en/design-plus.html

2009 : Product Design Category Winner Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009, Design Museum – London
http://www.designsoftheyear.com/2010/02/05/brit-insurance-product-award-winner-2009-magno-wooden-radio/
2009 : finalist at Index Award 2009, Denmark
http://www.designtoimprovelife.dk/index.php?
option=com_content_custom&view=article&id=115:magno&catid=10:finalists-2009&Itemid=229
2010 : Paramadina Award 2010, Paramadina University, Jakarta-Indonesia.
2013 : Today’s Hero Award Creative category MindTalk.com, Jakarta-Indonesia.
2013 : Kids Design Award Japan for Magno, Tokyo-Japan.

Design Conference/Lectures
2007 : Speaker at 2nd International Conference of Design for Sustainability Destination 2007-2025, Toyota
Shirakawa-Go-Eco Institute, Japan. http://openhouse.co.jp/EDI/destination2025/23_e4.html
2009 : Speaker at Qi-Global Seminar, Singapore
2009 : Guest Lecture at Falmouth University, Falmouth-UK
2009 : Guest Lecture at Central Saint Martin College, London-UK
2010 : Speaker at Public Seminar on Design by Hongkong Design Center, HK.
2010 : Guest Lecture at Columbus College of Art & Design, Ohio -USA
2010 : Guest Lecture at St. Johns University, New York -USA
2010 : Guest Lecture at Pratt Institute, New York – USA
2012 : Speaker at The 1st Rangsit University International Design Symposium “Work in Progress”, Bangkok-
Thailand.
2013 : Guest Lecture at Kuwasawa Design School, Tokyo – Japan
2014 : Founder & Chairman “International Conference on Village Revitalization”, Desa Kandangan,
Temanggung, Central Java – Indonesia.
2014 : Speaker at “Draw Dream Youth Community” Conference, Okrou-Kea Village Kampoong Thom, Cambodia
2014 : Guest Lecture at “Dialog Bisnis Menuju Bangsa Berkemampuan lewat Inovasi”, Prasetya Mulya – Jakarta.

Judging
2009 : Jury at International Young Creative Entrepreuneur award 2009, British Council – Indonesia.