Ravishankar Design

Every city or town had a market place or the Mall road equivalent with a unique flavor of the place and character to its shopping spaces and the things sold. When one has visitors from another town, they would all make a trip to an MG road or Main Street or Linking road or the 17 sector, to check out something which they don’t find in their streets back home or things unique to this town like chikkon kurtas or kolhapuries etc. Today you walk these roads/streets and find the same brands and the same clothes or accessories any city you go to. Nothing new or novel about visiting a market to shop or browse in a new town. And they talk of shopping experience. Brands can get so boring!!

There is something fundamentally being missed. IT media devices and systems are spread across demographics doing their own bit…as programmed. There are researchers in industry and universities working 24/7 (cliché of the century) on the future of these systems and devices extrapolating formulations of the next ethereal environment. The mobile today allows you to connect with others, gives information, is a personal assistant, etc; the PC connects you to the world web, helps in computing, designing, plays games with you, etc; TV gives you news, infotainment, etc; Ipods, radios, etc provide music, information and so on; and newspapers, magazines doing their own thing. This was only to put the context in place before I ask the hollow question! The primary need of food, clothing and shelter, lets for the time being assume has been satisfied for everyone in the world. Then what is the next level of need and are we satisfying it? A housewife of a mid/upper middle home has all these devices a...

These thoughts triggered from a meeting I attended and I started thinking about usability vs adoptability. These times of technology providing innumerable services and products which have eased our daily lives has been and is being further improved for better and better usability. Today tech products are a part and requirement of the generation. Lots has been talked about and invested into innovation for this generation by marketers and researchers. Lets take the web and mobile media which are as big inventions as the electric bulb. With all the engineering, design and research behind, it remains 'conformed'. They follow templates and constraints directed by technology to the extent of giving style guides and standards for even Look & Feel. Now that’s boring, especially when we are addressing this generation. This generation I believe is rational and honest and above all, have choices. Therefore giving a ‘my space’ page which is no different from the newspaper is technology...

Random Object You are in a rush to park your car in your driveway and the gate invariably doesn't stay in place. You look around and find a a stone, wedge it to the gate. This quick solution and the hero of the event, the stone have put together an essential detail. Also the selection of the device is not random, you tend to identify one which is jagged wedge like and fits well into the gap. The random nameless object lying around in your garden for years has now become a product, your tool. You realize it was your buddy when suddenly one day you find it missing, and you would always crib to your self, ' that was a perfect piece' and shout at the gardener for it. Metaphor U have finished your work in the kitchen and look around for something to latch the old weather worn door in place. You find a spoon and just slip it in the latch. Done. The object, the spoon has done the job of locking as it has an appropriate shape to slip in and stop. Also a nice finger grip to pull it...

The task was to design planters for the NID campus in Bangalore. After a lot of design deliberation I questioned the object's participation with the surronds and the design people on campus, I said its going to be a tea cup.

Far from the madding crowd as the old phrase goes, is Dubbaguda, a self contained small hamlet in the midst of the hills of Adilabad district of AP, India. 30 km from Adilabad town and bus or jeep ride of 45 minutes across dry copper coloured landscape and blue sky, you get off at this fresh ground water bore well point, with a view of Dubbaguda on the hill side across a spring water stream. You walk crossing the stream along cotton fields and reach this lovely set of houses, clean, paved in dung and bamboo thatch. You go sit in one of the patios of the houses and time stands still for next 15 days we spent there. People of Dubbaguda belong to the kolam tribe of the region engaged primarily in agriculture cultivating cotton and pulses. Since bamboo is abundant in the forests around, it is a common household material used by all to make thatches, baskets of different sizes, fishing traps, etc. There are about 70 families in this hamlet. The most fascinating thing of Dubbaguda is; the ...