Costa Rican Artisans

Costa Rican Artisans

Helping traditional artisans innovate on more distinctive products and creating a strong brand for their village.

Since early 1900’s the village of Sarchi, Costa Rica has been known for its production of oxcarts for hauling bananas and sugar cane. As agriculture became mechanized, the artisans continued to make oxcarts for ceremonial uses (cultural fairs, parades, art exhibitions) and expanded their skills to a myriad of other wood products, including furniture, souvenirs, and sculpture.

However, a new airport on the coast diverted much of the tourist traffic that used to frequent Sarchi. Artisans found themselves competing against each other, undermining each other's value by quickly copying and undercutting prices. The unique history and culture of the village was getting diluted and lost.

How could the century-old tradition of craft be saved in Sarchi?

Outcomes:

Traditional artisans now equipped with innovation and business mindset to grow their enterprises
Higher profits from new product lines
Collaboration between artisans to create more complex, high-value products

Visiting with artisans in their workshops to understand their needs & capabilities

Instilling Innovation & Collaboration

At the request of the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture and Youth, I have done several visits to Sarchi to work with the artisans as a group as well as individually. Starting with a workshop that introduced them to methods of innovation, customer-focused thinking, and cross-artisan collaboration. In addition, we tackled topics of economics, banking and micro-finance.

In the workshop, artisans were paired up who had never worked together before, but with product skills that complemented each other (hand vs. automated manufacturing; woodcarving vs. painting, etc.). In addition, they were paired up with two design students from the Universidad Veritas in San José, Costa Rica. The artisans went through a design-based concept ideation, critique, and narrowing process.

In the workshop, and reviewing evolving designs

Impact

In the first month-long innovation workshop, one of the participants was Rolando Alvardo, a painter of traditional oxcarts, street furniture, and souvenirs. In the workshop’s concept phase he came up with an idea to do painted umbrellas. As I sat with him, he talked about Costa Rica’s heavy rainfall, and about the beautiful paintings he did that spoke to the history of Sarchi. Despite doubts from other workshop participants, he had strong convictions in his ideas. So, I worked with him to develop a prototype, source a reliable local manufacturer of the umbrella, find a fabric that would work well with the paint and rain, and design handles for the umbrellas that woodworking artisans in Sarchi could make. After a few months, Mr. Alvardo had his umbrellas ready to sell. And sell they did. The numbers are staggering, not just of umbrellas sold, but also of growth of sales -- a 10x increase in revenue for his family from this product alone. This simple product has given him opportunities to travel the world, meet the President of Costa Rica, and be featured on TV shows and in magazines about the arts and crafts of Sarchi. This is the power of design and innovation to transform someone’s life.

Diagram at top by Michael Kuehl.