Ravishankar Design

  Look at Potential, not the Product Traditional Creative Industry | An Abstract which was written for a proposed paper. The paper and the supporting case studies of work done in the ‘Indian handicraft sector’ (the term which will be re interpreted later by the author) envisions a way forward for the sector’s future sustenance. To begin with it rewinds briefly to the pre and post Gandhian thought of an industrial containment of Indian maker of things (professional skill/wrutti) who supported the needs of customers indigenously, locally and traditionally. In the introduction it describes the present scenario of Govt. and corporate sector intervention to scale up the handicraft business through schemes, etc and its affects at a micro and macro level. Hand-Craft in India in the past has been an industry which was indigenous and catered to localized needs. Today by calling it craft it is being placed in a glorified situation, thereby isolating it and non inclusive in the mai...

It comes from the collective us. What is it that we dream or think or feel of its being. In its day to day fluidness In its tomorrow to be, an orbit to sustain and the day after for its trajectory. With its presence of the dreamt, action and felt conscience. I phrased Conscience as an entity,  rather than saying Vision and mission. One must state and experience the Conscience of their Institution, enterprise or government. This aspect maybe the preferred state, next paradigm of future holistic humanistic sustenance, with all our choices of joy and freewill.

The Birth of Design as a professional and ‘modern’ domain of perusal (! ;)) has had many definitions by ‘virtue’ of the freedom and method with which professionals pursued it (few in isolation and others on the hard ground)   It’s about making it beautiful, while beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as said …… pre ‘modern design' (a historical shift) makers made things beautiful and functional with mind and heart, an intrinsic outcome. Often, logical process is confused as design (eg: UI, etc), ….romantic (some read as irrational) is where design thought germinates and fruits in the rational hard ground.  In the process of designing, the time to take the creative leap is like the event horizon ‘slip’ ….which is personal and intuitive (outcome of what was incubating in the mind and a heart to go for it).  Design teaching is not easy …. every student has a concept or idea which needs to be coursed through without your influence yet in a path of intent which is...

On a different note discussions on his project with Abhishek of the future car dashboard design for a high end prestigious iconic brand which he is signing up for, I got trippy. Went about talking, “most often designers doing UX in a team dominant with techies tend to become incrementally different from engineers in the design process, they follow standard templates of styling, trends, navigation, UI and so on in arriving at the interface solutions. Take a detour, deal with the intangible in conceptualizing the UX, take a walk around the brand and ask. What would be the right interaction gesture for this iconic brand, what is the tone of audio feedback for this brand, how would this brand converse with me, what could be the visual gleam and texture of this brand, how will the material interaction of this brand behave and respond?”

Met Rohan after a long gap today at the staircase landing. He is doing his Information visualization design project with an MNC and we got into conversation regarding his project and usual design teacher questions as to who was he designer for, and so on. The conversation moved on to the topic of familiarity of people with past information media and interactions and how introducing the next version has a tedious learning curve across immediate generation too let alone older ones. New products get introduced with no historic or perceptual connect with added newer navigational logic and semantic. The change is a step up and not a seamless tread. Walk into a bank and see how the middle aged staff struggle with newer systems or software versions. You see the younger staff tutoring them, while their child back home is faster in switching channels. It seems as they/we designers may say, there will always be the gaps and can be bridged, but hello bridges are on rivers, we are talking about e...

A set to formulate syllabus for Industrial Design conceived from the five broad attributes of good design. Download the printable version here.

This is in the context of design education where one is getting carried away by the florescent, gimmicky technology confused notions of innovation and design, etc….fiddling and enticed, start-ups, customized manufacturing, programmable objects, etc… ...in the meanwhile there is lots more to be done, we all know what we mean!! The country needs ants. Design professionals who are experts in providing solutions by: following a systemic process, are contextual in problem solving and giving useful, usable, desirable and empathetic solutions (opportunity vs problem is a business-friendly term agreed and needed!!). The curriculum and pedagogy of design education needs to focus on and train the ants who will sustain growth and the grasshoppers who will reveal the ‘change’ in time. We need the ants, more of them, who have the ability and are trained in the said skill sets above, while letting the grasshoppers of the lot freewheel in design :)  Ants are the support system, the ‘sth...