The research entitled “Local Wisdom Based Design for Applied Art Development: Chanthaboon Mat Arts and Crafts aimed to; 1) study historical backgrounds, ideas, patterns, techniques, and production process of Chanthaboon mats as the applied arts; 2) explore problems about creation and design causing unpopularity, and; 3) design the applied arts based on the survey study as guidelines for Chanthaboon mat art and craft development in order to have patterns suiting with modern market demand and customers. The data were collected from the following sample groups: matting leaders, traders, designers, mat craftsmen, local people or tourists interested in the applied arts made from Chanthaboon mats, and the second year students from Fine and Applied Arts Department, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Rambhai Barni Rajabhat Univeristy. The research instruments includes structured interview forms, questionnaires with close ended questions, sketches of new patterns for the applied arts made from Chanthaboon mats, evaluation forms to measure design experts’ opinions towards the new sketches of Chanthaboon mats’ new patterns, and evaluation forms to measure the opinions towards appropriateness of Chanthaboon mats’ new patterns. The descriptive research methodology as the qualitative data analysis was used in this study. The tools for quantitative data analysis were frequency, percentage, and mean scores.
The findings are as follows; 1) Chanthaboon Mat Arts and Crafts the study of historical backgrounds, ideas, patterns, materials, matting process, and creating process of the applied arts from the ancestors. It became a way of life. The goal of production is the existence of families and communities by reliance on family labor. Rely on locally available resources and self-dependence in the community. The group was joined and supported by government agencies and other agencies. Government Policy as a result, the traditional pattern of reed mats has been developed as a pattern, such as a flow pattern. Mudmee and Braid The development of dye reed to be more bright with age. Study visit, Using of information technology to disseminate information leads to the exchange of learning can be applied with raw materials in order to get a new product; 2) two causes of unpopularity are found as follows: The first factor is production problems including a lack of raw materials, decreasing lands for growing the plants used as the raw materials, shortage of workers, conventional patterns without new design development, only made-to-order products, and lack of motivation and competition to create new designs with manufactures from other regions who have continually improved the new designs. Another factor is market problems including reducing popularity and unnecessary use of reed mats, more substitute goods in place of using the reed mats, market instability of the reed mat products, increasing production of the reed mat goods, the state of unpopular products among the customers due to becoming inessential and useless products in daily use. The study of applied art design as guidelines for art and craft development made from Chanthaboon mats and appropriate patterns suiting with market demand and modern customers revealed the following 10 various patterns with different techniques, benefits, and usability: wall picture collages, wall clocks, women’s bags, showcases, multipurpose boxes, chairs, baskets for miscellaneous objects, postcard holders, tissue boxes, and notebooks. The researchers created 10 new sketches of the applied arts made from Chanthaboon mats and randomly did the satisfaction survey with any interested people and tourists as the research sample groups. The sample groups selected by the accidental sampling method were consisted of 100 questionnaire respondents including women in the 31 and 40 year-old groups earning a monthly income of 20,001 to 30,000 baht who showed the highest satisfaction level to the wall picture collages. The following new patterns were also ranked according to the satisfaction respectively: wall clocks, women’s bags, baskets for miscellaneous objects, chairs, multipurpose boxes, showcases, postcard holders, tissue boxes, and notebooks.
