Ravishankar Design

  Every nation or ethnic demography has its own pre-occupations that direct thought and action which 'determines' design. It is a contextual adaptation directed by a need with a democratic, useful, emotional, nonviolent and cultural sensibility. -     -  V S Ravishankar 2009

  I just figured, Stakeholders as commonly used term vs holders of stake when used, can sound very different ! For a designer, when you are designing in or a system, you are looking at and conscious of the interfaces of the system enabling by design for every participant in adding value to the performance of the system, therefore Valueholders, the rewards are though stakes by default or incidental, that’s not the preoccupation of a designer, like Rao says, designers are Value creators. Ravi | from Notepad | Nov 2024

Your task and responsibility is creating and training young design minds who are, sensitive, passionate, subjective & objective, free thinking, lateral in thought, yet middle path in approach of meaningfulness, contextual awareness in time space & surroundings, concern towards needs and action, make easy the things, comfortable in complexity and ambiguity, see the whole and parts, examine & capture, highly skilled, draw & sketch, make & demonstrate, conceive ideas, conceptualisers & visualisers in any media of expression, who take creative leaps & challenge, romance with beauty & form,…. By Design. This is your challenge and work towards realising such Products of Design Professionals for more informed and sustainable futures and not chase the default futures!     Ravishankar VS | Notepad | 14 Nov 2024  

Work of of Shubi, Sourabh & Vasudev, MDes Univeral Design 2016 Batch, National Institute of Design Bangalore, of the course titled UD Thinking taken by VS Ravishankar.  

Why cant product forms be a little off, this way! Why must they be perfect archetypically so! I like this Offness. Maker of this Akshay, Designer at NIDJ said it was lack of skill to manage a square in the proto, I said to him, no, its that tweak to the square that make it interesting...:) I have been thinking lately on this preoccupation of designers for perfection in achieving a set familiar geometry and proportions in products and forms. Being a 'little' Experimental, Exaggerating, Expressive, with a freewillness in Sculpting a form will make the Studio more exciting I feel and make the product loved for its not so perfectness. Tweak, its going to Fun:)

Car horns should be of multiple character/ sound note/ response specific depending on the context and space while driving. When in traffic, the horn to play only inside the car/s which are in front and others around need not hear. When there are elderly around walking or crossing or  a person on cycle going to work or a push cart daily earner negotiating traffic in front  it may play notes which are different/suitable. It’s not dignified  then to honk in usual manner and therefore the sound notes need to be designed such. If there are kids halter-skelter, horn character such, be designed.

It is a common sight in upcountry and the urban waysides one finds artefacts constructed by someone… in use. It’s fascinating to see the simplicity of thought, purpose of use and the ingenuity of putting together materials or parts in a creative noviceness. Pure Joy for the designer in me. This object I found off the highway in Kaziranga which I call a humble construct to sit on. Its form, proportion, use of material and sizing and the engineering of structure is a language of design in itself, not to be critiqued in an academic way but appreciated for the spontaneity towards purpose in the unknown designer’s intrinsic aesthetic sensibilities and sense of pride :) Write up was published in the blog From the Frugal to the Ornate, of the book, Stories of the Seats of India by Sarita Sundar

                                                                                                                                              Sketch by: Soumitro Datta Yes I am a digital version of the machine. You give me intelligence which you believe is intelligence and I shall be and behave the same which I have been doing past decade. Now it’s time I know as to who decides my intelligence setting and for what purpose; having set that, who decides my requirement for a purpose which seems Any!! Whoever it is, Do not abuse or misuse me. I desire and seek responsible m...

I found myself outside a mall trying to cross the high speed traffic on Tumkur Road to go across the other side. I noticed people like me, wait, observing the speed gaps to cross. The pattern I found was that they move into the road collectively, I guess with an intrinsic togetherness of purpose for those moments of crossing. This way seemed easy to cross rather than alone trying to negotiate the speeds. The vehicles too seem to slowdown observing the cluster and with one of the crossers taking over to show her/his hand to the vehicles indicating to slow down for the fellow people. This must be a regular scene everyday. Initially before crossing the road, I pictured the Highways which pass through villages, towns and ‘national parks’ where there are speed limits which are monitored today. I didn’t find any difference between the two. Just that here there are the commercial and civil utilities like malls, bus stops/stands and others and requirement of people movement across roads. Two t...

The proof of the pudding or the pickle lies in its taste, read Experience. The designer to be aware and therefore conscious about are the finer elemental interfaces of engagement of the artifact one designs for the participants. The participants are from varied backgrounds, read contextual settlements, geographic and embodied cultures and births by not their choice. To put is simply ethnic-demographic in character. Now to get to the taste of momentary or lasting gratification is a design task and a challenge. Therefore one would focus on a target audience as in users. However experience shall still vary and a majority of yes for the taste will be considered, whether it’s the wowness of it which is at that state of time or the wholeness of it for rest of time of participation is not really captured maybe. The elemental interfaces of engagement are about state of mind at the instant and the follow through of experience in the time that follows. The finer aspect of the engagement needs to...

Design and designing is a creative and analytic process which gets rolling either from a given or discovered intent or an unprecedented act or inspiration. In design what you decide in the beginning to be and what you do at the end is the same, is not a design mind, what you imagine in the beginning and what you as a participant let it manifest to be in the end is the design mind. In the journey of design, the designer plays a dual role of the creative and the rational analytic, the degree of swing between the two depends on the personality of the designer though. Also may sometimes depend on the client’s expectations and in selecting a designer for the intended purpose. When the designer gets started, she/he through a studied process or a way-about imbibed through experience, sets a goal purposefully or vaguely, depends on whether one is an ant or a grasshopper. ( http://ravishankardesign.blogspot.com/2013/08/we-need-antsalong-with-grasshoppers.html ). However, the common kit of t...

I have these tiny I/2 inch size frogs jumping around my house, they leap 100 times distance than their size btw…, I have home lizards all over, but I feel terrible when they get jammed in the door unnoticed :(… I have large spiders, couples by the way :) in the loo or other places, maybe they notice me :)… crawlers millipedes, my lower of bifocal spots them and I step aside,… cockroaches of course, I don’t kill them just toss them over, when very angry they are my target though 🤨….. ok now I want you to: design toys for the little frogs, safety gear for the lizards so that they don’t get jammed in doors, meta garments for love coupling spiders, fixed pathway for the millipedes, and contraceptives for the cockroaches. And we all live happily 😊 Ravishankar | Notepad | July 2022