Priya's Design Album

Photograph every mehendi you finish with the bride's name and date on it, then find it again in seconds when the next client asks for something similar.

Who this is for

Priya Sisodia does mehendi in Indore, working out of a room behind her father's cloth shop. From November to February she and her two helpers, Rukhsana and Neetu, do around nine brides a month plus all the aunts and cousins. A girl walks in on a Tuesday afternoon, holds up a screenshot and says she wants something like the one Priya did for that bride in Ujjain last month. Priya knows exactly which one. She just cannot find it.

How the job is done today

Every design sits in her phone gallery, mixed in with photos of bills, her nephew, and a hundred forwarded good morning pictures. When a client asks, Priya scrolls, and keeps scrolling. Sometimes she opens the WhatsApp chat with that bride and goes up past the payment messages to find the photo she sent in March. Rukhsana works from her own phone, so half the team's work is not on Priya's phone at all. Names, dates and amounts go into a diary, but the diary has no pictures, and the pictures have no names.

The screens, in order

1. Add a design — Lets her take the photo the moment the mehendi is finished and put the bride's name, the date and a style on it before the hand moves.
2. Album — Shows everything the whole team has done, newest first, so she can put the phone in a client's hands and let her scroll.
3. Find — Narrows the album down to the kind of work the client is describing, by style, by function, or by the name she half remembers.
4. One design — Opens a single photo big with the bride's name, the date, the function, who did it and what was charged, so Priya can quote the next one from a real number.
5. Show mode — Puts the photos on the screen with nothing else on them, so she can hand the phone across without a stranger reading someone's name, number or rate.

What it keeps track of

• Design — the photo, the bride's name, the date it was done, which function it was for, hands or feet or both, who in the team did it, how long it took, what was charged
• Bride — her name, her phone number, her town, the wedding date, and all the designs that belong to her
• Style — the plain name of the style shown in Hindi, the English spelling Priya would type, and how many designs carry it

The one decision that matters

Everything turns on how she finds an old design. One way is a search box: she types a name or a style and the app looks for it. The other way is tapping, with the styles laid out as pictures and words she reads in Hindi, plus a scroll by month. Typing is the wrong bet here. Priya reads Hindi without effort but types in English, so Arti becomes Aarti, and dulhan becomes dulhun, and the search comes back empty on work she knows exists. Build the tapping first, with the style words shown in Hindi and the months down the side. Keep a search box below it, and make it forgiving, so a name spelt three ways still lands on the same bride.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out bookings, advances and rates owed. Priya's diary already tracks money and she trusts it, and a half built payment screen would make her keep two records instead of one. Leave out sharing links for clients as well. She sends photos on WhatsApp already and that works. The first version has one job: every design the team does ends up in one place with a name and a date on it, findable in front of a waiting client.

How you would know it worked

A client says she wants something like that Ujjain bride's hands, and Priya turns the phone around before the girl has finished the sentence. And what Rukhsana did last Sunday is already in there, without Priya having to ask her for it.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I am a mehendi artist in Indore and two girls work with me during wedding season. Right now all my designs are lost in my phone gallery and some are only on Rukhsana's phone. I want a phone app where any of us can take a photo the minute a design is done and save it with the bride's name, her phone number, the date, which function it was for, hands or feet, who did it and what we charged. Then when a client asks for something like the work I did for a bride last month, I want to find it fast by tapping on style names rather than typing, because I read Hindi easily but I have to type in English and I spell names differently each time. Show the style words in Hindi and let me scroll month by month. Also give me a way to show only the photos on the screen so a client can hold my phone without seeing anyone's name or rate.