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Hi, my name is Kshitiz, and I am a designer and a photographer. Welcome to my site.

Here’s a design philosophy I believe in. Probably the best explanation of Design I have read in a long time.

“The real JOY of design is to deliver fresh perspectives, improved well being and an intuitive sense of balance with the wider world. The real SPIRIT of design elicits some higher meaning. The real POWER of design is that professional and laypeople can co-design in amazingly creative ways. The real BEAUTY of design is its potential for secular, pluralistic expression. The real STRENGTH of design is this healthy variance of expression. The real RELEVANCE of design is its ability to be proactive. The real PASSION of design is in its philosophical, ethical and practical debate.” – Alastair Fuad-Luke, in Design Activism.

I am the director and co-founder of Deskala , a design startup and  Happy Horizon Studios a photography startup.

I am often conducting workshops and giving talks on topics related to Design and Photography. You can invite me for it at your events too.

Just In:

  • I will be conducting my User Experience Design in Pune on June 15th, 2010.
  • I will be traveling to Jaipur in July mid of second week. Ping me if you want to catch up.
  • Deskala my Design firm based out of Bangalore is now open to taking up projects in Web Design, User Experience Consulting. Click here to know more
  • I gave a talk on Design for Social Impact at Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore on the 20th May, 2010.
  • I recently conducted a workshop on Design for Social Impact at the India HCI conference, IIT Bombay, March 2010.
  • I spoke at TEDx University at TEDx BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, read more about it here.
  • I will be teaching photography for another semester at WLC College, Bangalore.
  • If you want me to conduct the Light Painting Workshop at your college, drop me a mail.

My recently concluded other workshops:

  • Design for Social Impact Workshop, India HCI Conference, IIT Bombay, March 21st, 2010.
  • Light Painting Workshop at MindBend 2010, NIT Surat, Gujarat, March 11th, 2010.
  • Light Painting and Basic Photography workshop at Footprints, MS University, Baroda, Feb 19-th to 21st 2010.
  • Basic Photography and Light Painting Workshop at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus 4-6th Feb, 2010.
  • 4 seminar series Basic Photography Workshop, WLC College, Bangalore, December 2009
  • Outdoor Light Painting Workshop at FabIndia, Koramangala, November 2009
  • Light Painting Workshop at NIT Surathkal, October 2009
  • Human Computer Interaction Workshop at IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
  • Light Painting workshop at IIT Guwahati, September 2009.
  • Designing for Social Impact at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati, September 2009.

A Project In Focus:

In the context of the Design for Social Impact, I run the Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me! project for the promotion of child education in Rural Bihar and this project is a result of my Masters Graduation Project. This project was also shared as a case study at the IHCI 2010 conference.

Fig: Page from actual website

Fig: Page from actual website

Pick Me, Click Me, Educate Me! is an endeavor to use digital photography as a social reform tool to create awareness of the existing educational situations in rural Bihar. This project serves to provide a platform to people from different backgrounds (photographers, writers, educationists, social workers, donors etc) to collaborate. It allows to utilize the work done by one group (like photographers who go to these locations and shoot), for discussion with the others who are not able to. The project is based on the ACT-Now model, which is derived from Activity Theory.

Educational Background and Work Experience

I am now working as the Director of my Design startup, Deskala, in Bangalore, India. I have been consulting for and mentoring different startups in India.

As a graduate student of Human Computer Interaction Design at Indiana University, Bloomington, I explored the theoretical and practical side of Experience Design and Research. Prior to that, as an Interaction Designer at Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, I got first hand experience of the interaction with the different stakeholders in a project and on the different technologies. As an undergraduate design student at IIT Guwahati, I was fortunate to explore the technical rationality side of things equally with my creative thinking.  In the summer of 2008, I worked with Motorola Corporation, Chicago in the Customer Experience Design Group in the mobile phones division.

Photography and Beyond

I have also been doing freelance photography for the past 9 years, published images across magazines and books and taken photography workshops all over India. In particular lately, I have been looking into Visual Ethnography as a tool for informing user research.  I enjoy shooting portraits, cultures of the world, nature and street life.

More information about my Photography can be found on my other startup website Happy Horizon Studios.