Three directions for Daftar, the rental school ERP
Each board shows the same four things so they compare fairly: the landing page's first screen, the classroom tablet taking VII-B's attendance (with the Wi-Fi switch), the owner locking tablet TAB-03 at its next check-in, and the colour, type and motion behind it. Everything works: tick learners, switch the Wi-Fi off, lock the tablet.
A · Answer sheet
Every screen is printed like an OMR sheet: one drop-out ink for the form, graphite for whatever a person marks, timing marks down the edge. Syncing is the sheet being scanned, and each school gets its own ink.
- Feels
- Precise, exact, unmistakably Indian-school
- Type
- Sofia Sans in three widths
- Motion
- Pencil fill, scanner sweep, overprint stamp
- Risk
- Exam-day nerves if it isn't kept calm
B · Kolam
Each school's crest is a kolam generated from its school code: same rules, a different line for every school. The class is a dot grid, and saving the register draws one line around every child present. Personalisation is the system itself.
- Feels
- Crafted, warm, quietly confident
- Type
- Anek Latin (Ek Type, Mumbai) and Lexend
- Motion
- Line drawing, a bead running home, chalk-dust offline
- Risk
- Line art turning decorative if overused
C · House colours
Uniforms, houses and ID cards. Each role enters through its own ID card on a lanyard, each learner fills with their house colour as they are ticked in, and the striped tie is how progress moves.
- Feels
- Joyful, proud, full of school life
- Type
- Yatra One (Indian signboards) and Hind
- Motion
- Lanyard swing, tie-stripe progress, cards flipping
- Risk
- The most playful; owner console must stay serious
How these three were chosen
Seven candidates came from the world her schools live in: kolam, the attendance register and receipt book, uniforms and houses, the OMR sheet, Balbharati textbook covers, dabbawala tiffin codes and painted school walls. The direction roll picked the answer sheet; the kolam is my own first choice; house colours came from the plan you approved. The register and receipt-book idea folded into the answer sheet, since both are paper records, and its counterfoil receipt and rubber stamps will appear in whichever direction wins.
The roll also dealt six outside worlds. None beat these on fit for school owners, but four of them improved the answer sheet:
| Outside world | Verdict | What we kept |
|---|---|---|
| Generative parametric identity | Close | Lives on in board B: one seed per school drives its crest and accents |
| Broadcast signal breaking up | Declined | Losing signal changes the whole screen, not just a small badge |
| Moon-shadow bazaar | Declined | Every record carries its origin: tablet, time, person |
| Memory quilt | Declined | The owner always sees the whole fleet at once |
| Aircraft instrument panel | Declined | Every status shows its trend, like a week of check-ins |
| One-bit desktop | Declined | One small set of states, used the same on every control |
The same in all three
- Sharada Vidya Mandir, Kolhapur; class VII-B with 16 learners; teacher Vaishali Kulkarni
- Tablet TAB-03 on app 1.4.2, six tablets across Kolhapur, Hubballi, Madurai, Anand and Ratnagiri
- Offline is grey and calm, never red; an unsynced register says "Saved on tablet"
- Lock and wipe reach the tablet at its next check-in, with who issued it and when
What happens after you pick
The chosen direction becomes the design system: tokens, every control in every state, the tablet frame, the receipt, the crest or ink rules, shown on one page for your approval. Pages are then built in batches: tablet app, owner console, web hub, and finally the landing page.
Prefer something familiar? There is always the category standard played straight: a clean white school SaaS with one brand colour and a left sidebar, built to the level of Toddle or Teachmint. Say so and we build that instead, properly.