World is a Cube: 2010

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

coffee is not a beverage its a universe - Alok Nanda

illustrations for the quote- coffee is not a beverage its a universe - Alok Nanda

and also

made this for institutes newsletter HIVE

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Cuboid is back to its dimensions.

Thats my new home(studio)

Leonidas the crab lives in that green bucket.

there is a crocodile on desk too..

and yes there are loads of hearts.

with new tuck shop, coffee keeps coming in..

Thursday, September 23, 2010

the best design is not to design

do i need to say anything else? that is the basic rule of design. do not design. design is one messed up profession..

wish everywhere looked like that today.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Design is beyond designing products, it's about designing experience.

Let's Start.

that is me in my first jury in design. 24th Dec 2007.

That is again me giving a presentation at some internationally renowned software company on 28th Aug 2010.

Whats the difference?

yes am wearing formals and there are people in front of me and i am still talking about my work. But earlier it is the jury panel who talked more and in later it was me going on.

Let's talk about this thing called DESIGN. What is design? i still could not get the right answer for that. but one new thing i got to know recently after Kyoorius Designyatra 2010 is that "everything in this world is about experience. "Experience" defined at some websites also as " to undergo an emotional sensation".

Now emotional sensation and design? whats the connection? reminds me of book "The Emotional Design" by Donald Norman though. yes only if i would have finished the book i would know what it was about. Anyway back to experience. Design is making new things for people. may it be graphic or a product. So according to my new understanding design is not about what you make. its about what experience it creates for the user. One might make a graphic but what matters is what kind of experience a user has while he is looking at the graphic. Same with the product. When one designs a product he should not just look at things like how it looks and works but also what kind of emotions it would generate in user while they using the product. that's what makes ipod different from any other Chinese MP3 player you can buy from a corner shop.

creating perfect experience is not that easy. It can be one of the most difficult task faced my designer. Specially when you design for India. Now that i think of it i cant remember any product that was great success in India. Why is it difficult to design for India? well India is huge. people change every 100 km and culture changes every next house. there are totally different approaches at the same thing making the whole "experience" thing really difficult to create. Designer who will find a way to overcome this will make good products for India.

So getting back to experience once again, Design is definitely not about making good looking things, now its not also about its function. its about the meaning of product to the user. the experience that is created by your product and will be related to while using the product.

Going back to the pictures i put earlier. Why is it that i was much more confident about my work now than what i was earlier? it also has to do with experience. The enthusiasm and environment i experienced during working for the last semester was showing through my work and way of presenting it. I was living in world of my project surrounded with inspiration. that is when my workspace looked like this:

So moral of story:

1> design/everything is about experience

2> You can deliver the experience to users only if you can experience it yourself while making it.

So next time you design something try living it. It will show at end and you wont be disappointed..

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Keen on GREEN

When you work for weeks on green design you realize simple truth about human behavior.

Lets start with the 'dark side' of product design. We the product designers make products so that the product sells and company you work for is happy, you are happy, clients are happy, and users are happy too. this has been going on for ever. then one fine day everyone sees that world is about to end because of stupid human behavior that we consumed all the earth's resources to manufacture those products made by designers which in few days become waste and lie in some garbage pile in some corner of world. So designers get all aware of the situation and the promote green design through some competitions and we design learners sit day and night to come up with a green product. and at the end we come up with creative ideas so people can manufacture these green products. BUT these green products are gonna be waste soon.. "wasn't the first rule of design, NOT to design if its not needed?"

All these products designed for the sake of making things green is going to add up to the junk even more.. instead the competitions/organizations should focus on making green the way of designing. Institutions should mold the minds of learners as they proceed in design to make all there projects green and not have projects just to make green things.

A color cant save the world. cleaning up ancestor's mess so as the people who are not yet born can have a better life is not going to save this planet. Not creating new mess might slow it down.

Write about it, spread a word, express..

Green is not just a color anymore, its way of thinking in no matter what you do.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Digital Painting

Wacom intuos4 + Photoshop

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Culture, People, Languages, Differences and One graphic.

Lets start with this institute called MIT Institute Of Design. no this MIT is not THAT MIT, it stands for Maharashtra Institute of Technology. so the design institute we talking about is actually Maharashtra Institute Of Technology's Institute Of Design. i still skipped the MAEEER's part as i don't know what it stands for. Anyway, I am Cuboid and I learn at MAEER's MIT Institute Of Design and this is our story.

12th July 2010 we start with our semester number 7. yes i have cleared 6 semesters earlier and now 7 looks like a big number. Yes i know for you even 5 or 3 are BIG numbers but you'll know about 7 once you are there. 4th year is last year in under graduate studies for design. After this we are supposed to be industry ready. "Industry WHO?" that's what we are right now. INDUSTRY, after a recent internship at one of the Indian consumer electronics company things have changed. Faith in institute fades as we talk but it will be fine once we start with semester. Just few things to be cleared with the professors and tell them where institute needs to improve and consider it done. That's power of private institute which has competition within circle of few kilometers of radius. But its initiative to be taken by both sides that is students and management.

Getting back to topic. Indian Industry, India now open to globalization it is seen that most of the companies that are making business are the global brands or few Indian brands which are now global. Industries which are still surviving somehow are mostly doing something called as 'reverse engineering'. You get a product from someplace and you make replicas and sell. Even better is get Chinese products re-brand them and sell. In this kind of economy how would a student know what to focus on. As observed history plays very important role in design. Wars help in recreation and innovation. Is it time that design needs a war to make ground breaking changes in the way people think?

In India there is no scarcity of resources or intellectual capacity, then why is it that design still remains secondary activity in Industry? Global companies which give importance to design are seen to be growing rapidly. Korean companies are competing with American giants and producing equally good cell phones. When ever you talk about this topic of Indian design people give example of the worlds cheapest car. But seriously how well is it supporting India to grow in global market? Okay now that car is made now what? do we just stop?

When an institute says we focus on Indian market then all I ask for are people who can answer these kind of questions and guide us in Designing a better India.