Changing Education Paradigms – talk by Ken Robinson

With my interests in education increasing day by day, talks by Sir Ken Robinson are a must watch. I watch it from time to time. Here’s one that questions the very fundamentals of education.

With so many questions being raised about the quality of education and the way it is delivered in India, it is a matter of serious concern. The purpose of education is different today than what it used to be.

Do watch this fascinating talk.

On Design & Business

Of late, I have been having lot of discussions with Entrepreneurs who speak the language of the business, and often I am trying to convince them on the value of design.

Also in the Business School that I teach Design, it is always to hear the impressions of the participants on the design aspects.

I came across this interesting video that talks about the times we are in today and the value that Design has for businesses. It’s a must watch.

Design the New Business – English subtitles from dthenewb on Vimeo.

The history of Typography

One of my favorite topics in Design is Typography. I could spend hours surfing beautiful types and their stories. I must have watched Helvetica quite a few times and have often made a lot of effort in the presentations I make to ensure that they look nice by selecting the right type.

Here’s a nice short video to showcase the history of Typography.

It’s a must watch!

Hartmut Esslinger’s – Advice For Designers

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.

Does your Design create Superheroes?

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.

Interview on the Transcultural Design program in India

I was interviewed in Nantes, France in June 2012 about the Transcultural Design program in India. See the video to know more about the program and what we have in mind with the program.

 

MDes Transcultural Design India from lecolededesign on Vimeo.

Overview of the Transcultural Design India program with Interviews of Course Director Kshitiz Anand, Dean Chris Ebbert and students.

 

Design Technology and Social Impact

I have always been fascinated with technology, and then Design happened. Over the past few years, I have also got interested in how Design and Technology can be used to create products and solutions for creating a larger Social Impact and is beneficial to the people at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

Came across this TED talk by designer Vinay Venkataraman who talks about tinkering ideas to create such products.

Inspiring and Fascinating stuff.

Stuff Interaction Designers say

Just came across this clip from the participants of the IxDA conference.

Watch it and you would realize why we are a confused lot!

 

The powers of ten

One of the most influential designers of all time and also the people behind the “design” of the National Institute of Design in India, did a video the Powers of ten.

Here’s more about the video from Wikipedia: Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977.The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten (see also logarithmic scale and order of magnitude). The film is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke,and more recently is the basis of a new book version.Both adaptations, film and book, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work.

In 1998, “Powers of Ten” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

You have to check this out if you have not done so. Even if you have, its always awesome to see it one more time.

Changing the world..facebook

Facebook is taking the world by storm. No i mean it. They literally are. Look into the developments from the recent f8 conference where they launched the Timeline concept. It’s like a public scrapbook that is showing your lifetime (or maybe only on facebook) in a linear chronological manner. It almost appears like Facebook is on its path to supreme world dominancy. They already have more than 700 million users and that is a huge number! The one thing that I really hope is that Facebook can take the position in which it is in to make the world a better place.

Check out this concept video of what they call the Timeline.

While not all have the timeline concept enabled, a lot do have the newer facebook layout.

There is the element of the Twitter (in the way a real time ticker on the right that keeps telling you what your ‘friends’ are doing), and the Google+ (in the way the images are displayed in the timeline)

The Social platforms wars just does not stop from getting more interesting! Often I wonder where this will lead to. Let us hope that it does so without any ill effects on our souls.