People my age grew up in a world of limited choices. Career wise, the primary push was for an engineering or medical degree, and of course the armed forces. How I ended up as a designer is a story of strange coincidences.
Aarogya Setu was claimed to be our weapon against Covid19 but it failed to bridge the gap. We built many more bridges, including Co-Win, but still could not avoid the traffic jams. Thus creating an endless saga of what not to do.
The world is choking with multiplicity of models and principles. Yet I propose one more – A humane design approach called ‘The golden mean principle of design’. I would resist calling it unique because this is how design was always meant to be.
I have no connection with the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) but I know someone who could have been a part of the LCA design team. His refusal to be considered for the LCA cockpit design taught me one of the most important life lessons.
Hill Jatara is an ancient folk theatre festival of Uttarakhand. Actors wear vividly coloured masks of different forms & shapes to perform and celebrate. This is an attempt to represent these fascinating masks graphically.
An evergreen shrub, Ghingaru is commonly found in the hills of Uttarakhand. Its wood has been used as walking sticks since ages. The experiments with this strong but highly fibrous wood threw up interesting results.
As I bid my final goodbye, I fondly remember an association of over one and a half decade with a venture which, in terms of scale and involvement, was one of the most challenging, exciting and fulfilling project for me.
Creative professionals often come across situations where they are asked to create ‘something’ for ‘free’ so that the project can been awarded to them. Such speculative design exercise is a trap not just for the service providers but also the customers.
When it comes to functioning of government institutions, we often end up making generalized statements about how things will never improve. And improve they will not, until we start making logical and objective assessments of the problems at hand.
If Covid19 is here to stay, we would need a safety product whose manufacturing is decentralised, raw material available and the cost affordable. This article explores various factors that make a cloth mask suitable and effective.
