Ravishankar Design

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 ...

Wooden Cutlery Location: Udaigiri, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh,India About 50 highly skilled and motivated women from the Muslim community and a few other older masters are engaged in hand carved wooden cutlery and hair clips embellished by Persian motiffs passed on from earlier times. Here the intervention though very basic but was of high value and need. We first initiated them into the use of measuring scale and the geometry box. With the installation of wood working machinery by the dept. of Handicrafts the need was to make them understand the idea of replication. These girls who left school half way are now, at least a few, familiar with the idea of one eight of inch or three forth of an inch. We familiarized them with contemporary dining spaces and objects through browsing magazines to help them get a feel of our thematic approach in creating newer flat ware. We introduced the concept of making sets for possible use as disposables by individual buyers or theme hotels/airways...