It is really interesting to know that every major city in India now has atleast one Design conference. As a result of this, we designers are often confused on which to attend! Some of these conferences also rotate from one city to the other. What conference to attend depends a lot on asking yourself, what you want to gain out of the conference. For some networking is always on the agenda. For some it is just to soak in the creative positive energies that flows during this conference.
I was just going through the details of two of the upcoming and interesting conferences in India. I wanted to give some information about both. If you were to attend just one, I would recommend the Goa Project. That is my personal opinion based on my profile and interests. For the record, I am going to be attending both of them.
1. India Design Forum. (March 15th, 16th in Mumbai) The India Design Forum- a private registration only program features two days of talks by highly acclaimed design experts from around India and the rest of the world. Going by the past experience of me attending it last year, I know that The India Design Forum is more on the lines of an international (and elitist) event.
India Design Forum 2013
The need for such an event in India is important. However one thing I did not like about this conference is the inability to ask questions to speakers. The format is such that you just hear from “designers”. If that’s the case, I am often wondering, we do that anyway through the videos we see. Though nothing to give away from the tremendous networking opportunity the IDF provides.
If not for the IDF, people in India . . . → Read More: Designer’s dilemma : Which conference to attend?
Just came across this talk by Frog Design’s founder Hartmut Esslinger to designers.
Hartmut Esslinger – Advice For Designers from frog on Vimeo.
If you are interested in Design Strategy and understanding how it holds up with the Businesses, you should also check out his book “A Fine Line: How Design Strategies are shaping the future of Business” do that too.
It is available on Flipkart too.
Recently I came across this very interesting slide deck on the trends in Interactivity and Interaction Design for 2013. It is a very nicely done presentation.
Definitely worth a checkout!
Trends in interactive design 2013 from Prophets Agency
Last night, at exactly 00:01 hours, I had an Aha Moment! A moment of epiphany, where I knew exactly what was needed. I was working on a logo design project and trying out various options and explorations. The moment the Aha moment occurred, i knew this was it!
Aha Moment: a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension. A moment of clarity.
A smile captured my face, and the next couple of hours were spent doing the design. It was a moment where I was sure that the design that I decided upon as a result of that Aha Moment would be the one that the client selected. It so happened that the client did select that very design.
Designers are known to live by intuition. With more experience , the intuition becomes stronger and often they are able to come up with designs in a shorter turnaround time.Do these Aha moments come as a result of long churning by the subconscious mind on the designs, or does it arise from a totally blank slate. Does it occur in the influence of something or does it just come by.
I asked the same question in my class in the TCD program today, and asked the students about it. Got a lot of interesting expressions! Many laughed at the entries. But in the end they relate to it.
The Aha Moments
I would love to hear from more designers on what gives them their Aha moments!
What is good design is a topic of discussion that has been going on for a loonnnng time! Here’s a nice short video that illustrates a nice answer to this too! Enjoy!
About the video: User experience designer ‘Aral Balkan’ is interested in how bad design frustrates and infuriates us — and how good design can make us feel like superheroes.
The new American Airlines logo
So the latest news is that American airlines has gone a change in their logo and an overhaul to the branding. The old logo has been in use for around 45 years, and that goes to show its timelessness! A classic in itself, it has stood test in time. So now all eyes would be on the new logo and whether it can do as good. In the times that we live in today, it is easier said than done. Many people these days value Brand experience more than just a visual identity.
A branding redesign exercise is often associated with a change (for the better) customer experience spanning across the passenger services, in flight services, and the processes of doing other things. It would indeed be interesting to see whether this redesign in the Brand creates the value of the corporate overall as well.
One will always be cynical about change. As designers however one is entitled to their subjective opinion, fit to be passed as a judgement. It is a good thing that they released the video, as it is good to know the story and aspirations behind the change.
My opinions on this Redesign? I am always apprehensive of the redesign of the logos of large corporates. Any high profile company’s change of logo and brand reminds me of the Gap logo redesign fiasco. Because the old logos have been around for so long, it is often challenging for people to accept the new one. Moreover, it is also due to the fact that the level of understanding visual languages amongst the audience these days has gone up. The logos themselves are reproduced and used on many more places than it used to earlier.
I personally think . . . → Read More: Redesign of the AA logo
I am a person driven by passion. I love doing things that inspire me towards being a better human being. I think that is a characteristic that every designer should have. In the classes that I take, I often ask the students to bring some soul into their work, and also drive their work with passion. It is this passion that keeps one alive and moving.
I recently came across this quote, and I loved it. It embodies the exact thought I had about people being driven by passion and doing things that truly inspires them. I created a poster out of it, to continue my love for Graphic Design as well.
What keeps you alive?
Of late I have been enjoying my time in creating posters. This is a tribute to my love for Graphic Design. Here is a poster in the series of promotional posters that I am doing for the child education project in Bihar. The illustration is done by an intern Jean Haag.
What do you want to know today?
We are living in a time when there is a lot of things to be concerned about. Pick up any area, and there are so many problems in each of them. A lot of these problems are rooted at the society level, and there are always shortage of people who are working on these problems.
There is a lot of emphasis on business schools (and design schools) on the notion of Social Entrepreneurship too.
In the program that I run in India, majority of the applicants have a desire to work on atleast one project in the social space. They say that it is this opportunity that draws them to India. However not many are sure of what the problem space looks like, until they come to India. Many of these problems are Wicked Problems.
A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. These are found at large in socio, economic, environmental and political issues.
Today I was discussing with one of my interns in my company, who is working in the same domain; Design for Social Impact and working in the field of education. We talked a lot about the notion of Wicked problem and its application in Design and how designers can address the challenges it presents.
Rittel and Webber’s 1973 formulation of wicked problems in social policy planning specified ten characteristics: (reference)
(1) Wicked problems have no definitive formulation, but every formulation of a wicked problem corresponds to the formulation of a solution. (2) Wicked problems have no stopping rules. (3) Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false, only good or bad. (4) In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations. (5) . . . → Read More: Wicked problems and design
If you ask a lot of people in India on what is one thing that they would really like the companies to offer better, the answer you would get is Service. I have often faced situations that are so bad that often one is made to think, why does the company continue to exist in the first place, with such a bad Service.
Being a designer I emphasize that the Service has to be designed within the DNA of the company itself. It requires a lot of Service Design based approach thinking. Not every company is adept at doing that. The problem however, is not that. It is whether they are even thinking of doing it.
If you do a quick search on the term Service Design, you find this entry on Wikipedia. The purpose of service design methodologies is to design according to the needs of customers or participants, so that the service is user-friendly, competitive and relevant to the customers. The backbone of this process is to understand the behavior of the customers, their needs and motivations. Service designers draw on the methodologies of fields such as ethnography and journalism to gather customer insights through interviews and by shadowing service users.
In this competitive age, where every business is out to outdo the other, if there is one thing that stands out to differentiate the one from the other; it is Service. It is what makes a company stand out. It is therefore but natural that the ones that I have come to like in the past few years have been the ones that provide a good service. This service is not just at the time of the purchase of the product or the service, but at the before and after stages as well. As . . . → Read More: On Service Design
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