Design Triggers 1

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 off.
The object besides all this is saying something more.....maybe about the contents of the room and the activity.
This casual spoon act can trigger bundle of ideas and thoughts to work on.

Applied science

The rear view mirror is one of my favorites. It fascinates me. Its just a convex mirror fitted to the incredible complex machine doing a life saving job. Science and simplicity at its best.
Its a twin of the wind screen capturing everything behind , sincerely doing its job, engaging yet not looking back at the driver!
Very soon technology will out date it taking away its buddy relationship with the driver.

Mark

The grand and mammoth temple of Tanjore must have engaged several stone and wood carvers, temple artisans & architects working on dedicated modules of the structure.
In the orderly proportions and measurements of architectural elements was freedom of expression in the figurative carvings seen on the walls, pillars, gopura, etc.
But this off beat carving in front at a random location is vague and doesn't fit a pattern.
Was it a mark to ward off an evil eye, or symbol of luck or superstition or was the carver playing a prank.

Walk-in Rack

It was in Tanjore temple premises I found this interesting system of footwear leaving method. The designer, the shoe-keeper himself thought of this numbered grid idea.
Though there is scope for improvement, the idea is intelligent and lateral which can trigger many parallel concepts for other domains.

Thinking Mason

If the door was not visible in the picture would you see it as the doorway! You would. A deliberate and conditioned pattern of laying by the mason suggests that he is a thinking man. Does he want you pause at the entrance to check whether your feet are clean or pause to view and check out the room or is it simply his signature style in flooring art.

People Friendly

When ever I went to an MNC bank the chained barricades to form ques put me off and a red line at the end of it telling you to wait for your turn was intimidating. While working on visual merchandising solutions for a bank I decided to tackle this (though the client ignored it). This was one of the solutions I cracked which would, guide people, allow for branding/ promo and liven up the space.

Mindset

This door mat I found in a guest house in Delhi.
What would be your first reaction. Depends on beliefs, context, culture.
Whoever the designer, has challenged the mindset, maybe, or just done it for Fun!!

Romantic Thought

My friend Dhuli in college applied for a design competition for which the topic was WIND.
He chose to work on Paper Weights. This selection I believe is a totally lateral thought.
Solution: A regular form with a flag, when there is wind the flag would flutter and the paper weight trys communicate with you.

Semiotica 1

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.

Where Time Stands Still

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 place is clean, no plastic wastes, no open dirty drainages, no TVs, no mobile signal, the bore water is mineral water and is very tasty clean, they don’t wash clothes or vessels at the bore but at the stream,no perceived politics as they all belong to the same community maybe, no daily drinking, happy drinking on festivals only, mango crop is plucked only after doing a ritualistic puja to the tree, same for tree they make their local liquor out of! They shop once a week in nearby Saidpur weekly market, eat 4 to 5 jawar roties with vegetable curry in the morning before work and eat again only in the evening after 8, mutton or chicken once a week, women wear captivating tattoo below the lower lip and above the eyebrows, there are rmp doctors visiting daily, a school for children with mid day meals, electricity though not so regular, no regular temple, mosque or church, only their village spiritual installations on the periphery of the hamlet, dead people are buried with all their belonging in the persons own land with not much cry, they smoke !! and are existential. This is the life in Dubbaguda in times when the world outside is at acidic pace.