Interesting PDF...for insight into DESIGN at RCA...How it has evolved to meet Industry Requirement...

for those who did'nt get pdf ..click http://www.spy.co.uk/Articles/NewDesign/IDE21/

Asst.Prof. Prakash Unakal ,
Industrial Designer,B.Tech,Master of Design - IIT Mumbai
Centre for Product Design,
M S Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies
Gnanagangothri Campus,New BEL Road,
M S R Nagar, Bangalore 560 054

---

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Dear All,

Today a very close friend asked me a question "Tell me 5 Indian Design
Classics".

I would love to know how the group reacts to this question and help me
compile a list.
Thanks in advance..

Sandy
Sanandan Sudhir
AEP-PD-NID-2001
GEHC-Bangalore-560066
+91-98450-20420

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In my view, the only truely classic design that has had a huge impact
on Indian life is the "Charkha". Unlike other countires, media has not
given enough  attention to products created by Indian designers, and
therefore media created classics (like in the western world) or
classics as recognized by the design field are yet to surface. I would
like to be proved wrong. Another classic Indian product that continues
to quench the thirst of millions of Indians is a simple matka created
by the potters in every village and city of the country. The  original
designer remains unknown. Despite Videocon, Godrej, and many other
brands offering different types of refrigerators, the Matka remains a
hot favorite in many homes even today.

I am sure that it would be easier to name successful products. But
classic design, I am afraid would have to be found outside of the scope
of the work of Industrial designers. It would be more worthwhile to
harness the investigative skills of some our our colleagues who have
dedicated their lives to the rural or crafts sector to find artifacts
of everyday use that have survived the Industrial revolution or the
winds of  liberalization.

Uday

hi,

just reminding a small protocol which if followed would make our identification
precise and contextual.

Please end yr post or mail (everytime) as folows:

Your name + surname (now)
school , your discpline
Year of graduating
now at company
city

for example:

Sudhir Sharma
NID, VC (or visual communication)
1989
Elephant Design
Pune

regards

Sudhir Sharma
NID, VC (or visual communication)
1989
Elephant Design
Pune

hi,

welcome to design india egroup. I am sudhir sharma and i moderate this group.
I was in NID during 1983-1989 time and then started elephant design with four
other graduates.

It will be very nice if u can post a brief introduction of yr self on the group
as yr first message. Where are u, what are u doing, where did u study and any
issues u may want to disscuss. this will help others and friends to know that u
are there and to know u.

Also chk out pictures, update yr address in database phonebook as well as take
part in Polls. You have a choice of not recieving mails in yr mailbox and chk
them online...if u need any help on this count let me know.

the membership to this group is through invitation only...only u can invite yr
friend, or whomever u think worthy of being on a professional designers group.
DO send me a mail if you want someone to be invited on the group.

thank you once again and keep posting messages.

regards
sudhir sharma

Get up be counted, Have you casted your Vote?

Visit POLL section of the this yahoo egroup regularily and put in your opinion,
It is surprising ho many of us think of design profession and what it really
is...

You are welcome to debate those issues, but your vote can tilt the poll...

So be there...sign of leadership is that they are always there.....

lets remove some myths from our profession...POLL...and often.

regards
PS: you need a yahoo id for polling. In case you do not want yahoo id...just
mail in your opinion.

Dear All,

Today a very close friend asked me a question "Tell me 5 Indian Design
Classics".

I would love to know how the group reacts to this question and help me
compile a list.
Thanks in advance..

Sandy
Sanandan Sudhir
AEP-PD-NID-2001
GEHC-Bangalore-560066
+91-98450-20420

hi wasim,
there is a company called OMNIMECH pvt. ltd, bangalore
based..specialised in SS and MS..extensively work for
organisations like Design core, Quetzel design, mico
etc..
the owner's name is Arun, contact no. - 09845204365
and 080 5734388
hope get your purpose solved from these contact nos.
best of luck.

Raj kala
Exhibiton Design,(1996-2002),SLPEP



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hi Girish,

You are not in denial, and your heart is in the right place.
We do need to find answers to the questions posed by the juggernaut
of a global consumer economy in search of increasing numbers.

We cannot do so from within the systems that spawned it in the first
place. I suspect that we need to understand that it is here to stay
and that it has its uses. At the end of the day the economic system
that requires it is the dominant one of our times and staying static
without growth is suicidal for it. So grow it shall. We are lucky in
the sense that we have had a chance to study its effects from an
outsider's perspective and can take remedial measures to ensure
sustainability and eco-friendliness among other safeguards.

We can also encourage diversity and resist cultural sameness by
actively pursueing alternatives. Alternatives that are available
when we cultivate an openness of mind and willingness to let
seemingly unpalatable other options co-exist.

Hopefully our educational institutes will not degenerate into
training as a substitute for questioning and open ended enquiry.
Or have they already?
That is what will be our undoing, when we blindly follow a
given 'reality' without having the ability to cultivate the means to
dream up another.

Economic realities at the grassroots level are harsh enough for
people to want to embrace the new globalisation scene. Even a
sweatshop unacceptable to western standards are a boon for some who
find it their only path out of a dead-end. They will gladly work in
inhuman condition at risk to health and life for a chance to get
themselves and their families out of the terrible morass that they
did not even know they were in until they switched on the TV and
found out.

When you know that alternative lifestyles exist and are available,
you can suddenly feel very poor, economically, culturally and in
many other ways. Freedom to choose, and make up one's own mind
perhaps? A restructuring of deeply treasured signposts? All of this
is happening on a grand scale.

regards

Deepankar Bhattacharyya
NID 1970-76



  --- In designindia@..., girish arora
<a_roaringlion@y...> wrote:
> Dear Samson, Sudhir, Deepankar and friends,
> Its not in denial that I am suggesting we find our
> answers...to the questions that are posed to our
> potentially mighty juggernaut of a 'consumer' economy

snip snip

Dear Girish
(*earlier 2 mails sent seemed to have some error.Repeating it, hope it
goes this time)

Your letter, full of raw energy made me smile and remember a story
compliled by a good friend Arvind Gupta in one of his many books.

Well Wishes
Sudarshan Khanna

Here is the story retold.

RECYCLE! REUSE! REDUCE!
This ancient story carries a deep lesson about
conservation in a consumerist society. One day the great Buddha was
taking a
round of the monastery. He was approached by a monk who wanted a new
woolen
shawl (angarkha). Buddha asked him, “What happened to your old shawl?”
“It had
become very old and worn out. So I am presently using it like a bed
sheet,”
replied the monk. Buddha asked again, “But what happened to your old bed
sheet?”
“Master, that bed sheet got old with use. It was worn and torn. So I cut
it up
and made a pillow cover out of it,” replied the monk. “But there
certainly was a
pillow cover before you made a new one. What did you do to your old
pillow
cover?” asked the Buddha. “My head had rubbed a million times against
the old
pillow cover and made a big hole in it. So I made a foot mat out of it,”
replied
the monk in earnest. Buddha was not satisfied by this answer. He always
delved
deep into any issue. In the end he asked the monk, “Tell me what did you
do with
your old door mat?” The monk replied with folded hands, “Master the old
door mat
had got totally worn with use. Because of repeated use the warp and the
weft had
come out. So I took the cotton fibers and braided a wick out of them.
Later I
burned the cotton wick in the oil lamp.” Buddha smiled after listening
to the
monk. The monk got a new shawl.

girish arora wrote: Girish (NID -
1997-2002)

Dear Girish
Your  letter, full of raw energy made me smile and remember a story
compliled by a good friend Arvind Gupta in one of his many books.

Well Wishes
Sudarshan Khanna

Here is the story retold.
_______________________________________________________________
.
RECYCLE! REUSE! REDUCE!
This ancient story carries a deep lesson about conservation in a
consumerist society.
One day the great Buddha was taking a round of the monastery.
He was approached by a monk who wanted a new woolen shawl (angarkha).
Buddha asked him, “What happened to your old shawl?”
“It had become very old and worn out. So I am presently using it like a
bed
sheet,” replied the monk.
Buddha asked again, “But what happened to your old bed sheet?”
“Master, that bed sheet got old with use. It was worn and torn. So I cut

it up
and made a pillow cover out of it,” replied the monk.
“But there certainly was a pillow cover before you made a new one. What
did
you do to your old pillow cover?” asked the Buddha.
“My head had rubbed a million times against the old pillow cover and
made a
big hole in it. So I made a foot mat out of it,” replied the monk in
earnest.
Buddha was not satisfied by this answer. He always delved deep into any
issue. In the end he asked the monk, “Tell me what did you do with your
old
door mat?”
The monk replied with folded hands, “Master the old door mat had got
totally
worn with use. Because of repeated use the warp and the weft had come
out.
So I took the cotton fibers and braided a wick out of them. Later I
burned the
cotton wick in the oil lamp.”
Buddha smiled after listening to the monk. The monk got a new shawl.
____________________________________________________________

"Are there still people who practice today such a joy of living. Friend
Arvind Gupta living in Delhi/Poona is one who is having such a fun"





girish arora wrote:  Girish (NID - 1997-2002)

Here is the story retold.
_______________________________________________________________
.
RECYCLE! REUSE! REDUCE!
This ancient story carries a deep lesson about conservation in a consumerist society.
One day the great Buddha was taking a round of the monastery.
He was approached by a monk who wanted a new woolen shawl (angarkha).
Buddha asked him, “What happened to your old shawl?”
“It had become very old and worn out. So I am presently using it like a bed
sheet,” replied the monk.
Buddha asked again, “But what happened to your old bed sheet?”
“Master, that bed sheet got old with use. It was worn and torn. So I cut it up
and made a pillow cover out of it,” replied the monk.
“But there certainly was a pillow cover before you made a new one. What did
you do to your old pillow cover?” asked the Buddha.
“My head had rubbed a million times against the old pillow cover and made a
big hole in it. So I made a foot mat out of it,” replied the monk in earnest.
Buddha was not satisfied by this answer. He always delved deep into any
issue. In the end he asked the monk, “Tell me what did you do with your old
door mat?”
The monk replied with folded hands, “Master the old door mat had got totally
worn with use. Because of repeated use the warp and the weft had come out.
So I took the cotton fibers and braided a wick out of them. Later I burned the
cotton wick in the oil lamp.”
Buddha smiled after listening to the monk. The monk got a new shawl.
____________________________________________________________

"Are there still people who practice today such a joy of living. Friend Arvind Gupta living in Delhi/Poona is one who is having such a fun"
 
 
 
 

girish arora wrote:  Girish (NID - 1997-2002)
 

 
hi wasim,
there is a company based in bangalore that does good quality ss fabrication. the company is called RF square. maybe you could contact them. the person you can write in to is ramesh. his email id is ramesh@....

yusuf.
furniture design
PEP, 2001.

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 wasim khan wrote :
>Hi,
>We are looking for fabricators/contractors who can
>help us fabricate kiosks/carts(like those of SUBWAY,
>McDonalds, etc) for a fastfood brand (mostly SS
>based)in and around Pune ...
>I would be highly obliged if anybody can help me with
>the necessary contacts ...
>
>thanks,
>
>Wasim Khan
>SLPEP 2002
>Lemon Design, Pune
>
>
>
>___________________________________________________________
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Dear Samson, Sudhir, Deepankar and friends,
Its not in denial that I am suggesting we find our
answers...to the questions that are posed to our
potentially mighty juggernaut of a 'consumer' economy
at the base of the pyramid (imagine the whole turning
into a money squandering goopy mess of homogenous
clones), thriving off the exaggerated human desire to
possess more than one can consume, emulating the
example of the lot that apparently have what the MNCs
and those who didnt go under in the competition, have
managed to brainwash each one into taking for granted
(hey, I dont even mind paying for the water that I
consume everyday, except that there are a bunch of
people who cant even seem to get what they are willing
to pay for, and its not only the basic piped water
that one is referring to).

And surely the substitute is not instant gratification
with cupppacoffee or cuponoodles or
whateveronethinkswetakeforgranted to live this miasmic
life of seeking satisfaction every day, sucking it out
of every possible moment before it turns into another
and we realize that 'our short time on planet earth'
got wasted. What does one want? Big question - do I
want anything at all? Is the desire to oppose vulgar
consumerism any different from the outrage of outright
conversion at the altar of desire? Oh of course I need
to be contactable on my mobile 24 hours and the coffee
maker needs to tackle my specific taste for filter
coffee...now now.

>>> Mr. Prahlad's theory of profits at the base of the
pyramid is a response to the need for markets and the
realisation that those markets of great size exist at
the bottom of the heap, if they can be tapped
profitably, the consumerisation of this group of
people would open up endless possibilities <<<

This is precisely the language, if it stands as
representative of a kind of mindset that sounds like
our priorities need to be clarified, that must be
addressed by "designers" before we undertake to
revolutionize the relationship between deziners and
capitalists. Or is it like ever so slightly off the
cuff to call the latter that - dream dishers...Who
says today doesnt have a historical precedent. Just as
Deepankar here said:

>>> When management gurus from the economic
superpowers (The Empire) talk of exploiting these new
opportunities, we need to sit up and take proactive
notice. We don't want to be followers (The
colonised)again, do we?<<<

This as well as the alternative sine qua non (whatever
that may be, and that was what I was referring to when
Mr. Samson digressed or am I?) both find our links
with the past, esp. in India, degenerated and
deteriorating in conveniently retarded memory,
precisely because the exchange anchors around how best
we can grab a share of the pie in the blatant
conversion of every last 'consumer' into what we are,
and what we are representative of. There is no other
INDIA.

But like I said I am not suggesting denial, if thats
what I am beginning to sound like. Nor am I picking on
or misconstruing a few words someone used. All that I
am saying, which might sound superfluous if not self
explanatory so far, is probably my own coming to terms
with the inability to follow the resonance, if any, in
the general tone of the discussion that seems to be
evolving hereon, laced with the bitter-sweet reminder
that this is it, and its better to be on the inside to
be able to hear oneself. peace and love.

Girish (NID - 1997-2002)
TCG, G-156, Kalkaji, Delhi


--- Deepankar Bhattacharyya
<deepankar_bhatta@...> wrote:

> We most certainly need stories of this kind, not
> just for industry but
> for designers too.
>
> There have neen quite a few nidians who have worked
> in the small scale
> sector and their problems relating to payments and
> mindset rigidity
> has been a disincentive. not many have become valued
> partners as far
> as I know, but I hope I can be shown to be wrong,
> love to see some
> examples.
>
> MNCs haven't been here very long, Indian industry
> never did care too
> much about the consumer, their sellers market
> ensured that they didn't
> have too. Things changed in certain markets because
> of competition
> from outside players and Indian business either
> adapted or went under,
> several did.
>
> Mr. Prahlad's theory of profits at the base of the
> pyramid is a
> response to the need for markets and the realisation
> that those
> markets of great size exist at the bottom of the
> heap, if they can be
> tapped profitably, the consumerisation of this group
> of people would
> open up endless possibilities.
>
> For business.
>
> Design could, of course, partner this effort and our
> designers need to
> learn to work in these potentual markets as much as
> business does. We
> are not talking of small scale business here. we are
> talking about
> big houses with money and ability to do things on a
> large scale. The
> potential consumer comprise the huge numbers of
> people who don't buy
> the goods we take for granted in the towns and
> cities because they
> can't afford them.
>
> Their mindset and economic ability is a challenge
> for everybody,
> designers included, a tough task certainly but
> consider the potential
> for growth, their sheer numbers is overwhelming. As
> Sudhir says,
> volumes and logistics are crucial, as is getting the
> basket of
> consumer goodies right.
>
> That really is where India's potential as a great
> market lies, we all
> need to learn how to deal with it. We are too
> cocooned in our smaller
> India, the India of a University education, of
> professionals, of
> cities, of a growing 'middle class' with its
> entrenched and sometimes
> rigid mindset.
>
> This is not new, the topic has been delved into in
> the past, what is
> new perhaps is that it's time has probably come.
> When management gurus
> from the economic superpowers talk of exploiting
> these new
> opportunities, we need to sit up and take proactive
> notice.
>
> We don't want to be followers again, do we?
>
> regards
>
> Deepankar Bhattacharyya
> NID 1970-76
>
>
>
> --- In designindia@..., "Sudhir
> Sharma"
> <sudhirelephant@y...> wrote:
> > Hi Samson,
> >
> > but this is very serious and i think you bang on.
> snip snip
>
>  where ever designers have
> > had chance to work with such industry- designers
> have become valued
> > partners for those industry owners. We need
> stories of this kind to
> > enthuse more industry to look at design.
>
> snip snip
>
>
>
>




___________________________________________________________
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snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

Hi,
We are looking for fabricators/contractors who can
help us fabricate kiosks/carts(like those of SUBWAY,
McDonalds, etc) for a fastfood brand (mostly SS
based)in and around Pune ...
I would be highly obliged if anybody can help me with
the necessary contacts ...

thanks,

Wasim Khan
SLPEP 2002
Lemon Design, Pune



___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo!
Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

Protected Mail System Test.

> > 1) And while it is right that we do need government support (...and
> > funding... oh yes! :))for an initiative to move forward, it should
> > also not be that we give undue importance to it. We do need SIDI/ any
> > other body too but lets give a little more importance to actual
work as well.
> > • As far as I know Government funding will be the single most
important driver for design research and education in the years ahead.

==================
I'm only thinking aloud here...

But aren't the industries/companies that benefit from design the right
people to 'fund' design. What does the government gain from promoting
design...are they really stakeholders?  There are numerous examples of
corporations funding design research and education. Even in India,
consciousness about design has become more pronounced after the influx
of foriegn goods and services. Suddenly we have become aware that
design is a useful tool for product differentiation/innovation -  It's
not because the government has started funding or promoting design.

Design will gain relevance from an understanding of the value it
provides - and that should be what we focus on. So as Aseef mentions,
it is probably important to showcase examples of success.

Prasant Sivadasan
Interaction Designer | Sun Microsystems
PEP 1996 |  NID

Dear Mr Aseef Kadir

Looks like I have to read my paper again in the context of your
observations and get back to you in the evening. My immediate comments
are interleaved into your reply and I will elaborate later. My replies
are prefaced by bullet marks " • " since some browsers do not record
these interleaved replies properly.

On 29-Jul-05, at 11:11 AM, AseefKadir (( Asst. Manager - PD )) wrote:

> Dear Ranjan,
>
> I do not think you know me in person yet. But then lets hope that this
> wonderful forum sets that right. :) And... yes, we have met...
> although for less than half an hour almost 3 years back. And FTR, you
> also do happen to be one of the people I respect (hence admire) in the
> education and design sectors in India.
>
• Thank you for your kind words. Where did we meet?

> And as for my comment... is that sceptical? Maybe. But then is that
> not also what the thought process is all about?
>
> I speak from my point of view - hence probably different from your
> experiences and convictions -  and hence disputable.
>
• I appreciate individual views and these are valuable since they bring
fresh perspectives from new contexts and experiences.

> 1) And while it is right that we do need government support (...and
> funding... oh yes! :))for an initiative to move forward, it should
> also not be that we give undue importance to it. We do need SIDI/ any
> other body too but lets give a little more importance to actual work
> as well.
>
• As far as I know Government funding will be the single most important
driver for design research and education in the years ahead.

> 2) Your paper talks of how the Textile/ Fashion/ Advtg/ Communication/
> UI Industries have picked up with design. Correct me if I am wrong,
> but you have in a way implied that one sector that is only picking up
> now is Industrial/ Product(innovation) Design. So... are you saying
> that we need to ensure government support to advance fields such as
> ID?
>
• Industrial Design in my definition covers many vertical industry
categories and many of them are outside the organised corporate sector
including numerous micro and small industry types for want of a better
term. Yes some sectors have a greater use of design at the tactical
level, and even in these sectors design at the strategic level is very
rare. See my 1998 paper (Levels of Design Intervention....) for more on
this phenomenon.

> As of today, in India (and most other parts of the world?), good ID is
> about customisable mass manufacture (my take - up for debate). It is
> about thinking smart more than it is about innovation. Innovation is
> important and it does get adopted if it is 'worth' it. But good design
> is more about the right holistic solution. It is also about how
> seamlessly it can be brought into an existing stream of processes
> (branding/ manufacturing/ validation/ marketing/ business/ blah blah)
> in existence. And this is where we seem to lag behind in ID in India
> today. Dont we need to address this issue first? Do we really need to
> go around tutoring the benefits of design to all the world or do we
> need to demonstrate the benefits of design in terms of monetary
> benefits?
>
• What is good ID? Hmmm.... Needs a separate reply. I will get back on
this later.

> 3) That said, the overall feeling I got after reading your paper is
> that which I have encountered on other forums too, and it screams -
> Designer as Super(business)man! I have no issue with this. It could be
> true. And I would love to be one in that tribe. But then if we can do
> all this, why do you recommend a 'saviour' for progressing the field
> anyways?
>
• I will read my paper and "Scream back" later. Perhaps there is some
thing in the style of writing that suggests what you observe. Design
needs to understand business and ethics to make reasonable judgements
on behalf of clients and more importantly on behalf of end users. I
will get back on this one too later. I am reading (re-reading The
Design Way, by Harrold Nelson and Eric Stolterman, we now have five
copies in the NID Library, nay KMC!!, so some of you can try and access
the definitions that I am using here, but I will explain more in detail
later)
>
> Aseef
> IITD [PD] 2002
> Ashok Leyland Ltd
> Chennai
>
>  SNIP SNIP

• With warm regards

M P Ranjan
from my office at NID
29 July 2005 at 12.40 pm IST

Dear Ranjan,

I do not think you know me in person yet. But then lets hope that this wonderful
forum sets that right. :) And... yes, we have met... although for less than half
an hour almost 3 years back. And FTR, you also do happen to be one of the people
I respect (hence admire) in the education and design sectors in India.

And as for my comment... is that sceptical? Maybe. But then is that not also
what the thought process is all about?

I speak from my point of view - hence probably different from your experiences
and convictions -  and hence disputable.

1) And while it is right that we do need government support (...and funding...
oh yes! :))for an initiative to move forward, it should also not be that we give
undue importance to it. We do need SIDI/ any other body too but lets give a
little more importance to actual work as well.

2) Your paper talks of how the Textile/ Fashion/ Advtg/ Communication/ UI
Industries have picked up with design. Correct me if I am wrong, but you have in
a way implied that one sector that is only picking up now is Industrial/
Product(innovation) Design. So... are you saying that we need to ensure
government support to advance fields such as ID?

As of today, in India (and most other parts of the world?), good ID is about
customisable mass manufacture (my take - up for debate). It is about thinking
smart more than it is about innovation. Innovation is important and it does get
adopted if it is 'worth' it. But good design is more about the right holistic
solution. It is also about how seamlessly it can be brought into an existing
stream of processes (branding/ manufacturing/ validation/ marketing/ business/
blah blah) in existence. And this is where we seem to lag behind in ID in India
today. Dont we need to address this issue first? Do we really need to go around
tutoring the benefits of design to all the world or do we need to demonstrate
the benefits of design in terms of monetary benefits?

3) That said, the overall feeling I got after reading your paper is that which I
have encountered on other forums too, and it screams - Designer as
Super(business)man! I have no issue with this. It could be true. And I would
love to be one in that tribe. But then if we can do all this, why do you
recommend a 'saviour' for progressing the field anyways?


Aseef
IITD [PD] 2002
Ashok Leyland Ltd
Chennai






-----Original Message-----
From: Ranjan M P [mailto:ranjanmp@...]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 10:19 AM
To: designindia@...; AseefKadir ( Asst. Manager - PD )
Cc: ranjanmp@...
Subject: Re: [designindia] very interesting


Dear Mr Aseef Kadir

I am sorry that I do not seem to know you in person. Have we met?

My comment (and conviction) is based on the belief that Government has a
major role to play in the promotion of design in India. My informal
stats tell me that Government spends 60,000 crores of Rupees each year
on a variety of science and technology initiatives that includes
institutions, labs, scientific establishments and education subsidies.
Compare this with a figure of Rs 10 to 15 crores for the NID and other
design schools in India and a total of under Rs 100 crores for all of
design in the country including subsidies in hanndlooms and handicrafts.
If Industry is visionary enough, which it is not, to spend for design, I
would not look at Government as a source. Unfortunately this is not the
case. We spend more on standards than on innovation, because it is seen
as risky, and they do not seem to know that not innovating may be the
biggest risk of all.

In the absence of sustained design funding, all the good work (and not
so good work) done on technology and science development cannot reach
the people for whom it is intended in the form of products and services.

If the Government has to be mobilised at all there must be some
enlightened and stable political support for design. In the absence of
any credible professional body the only way I see is a poiltical
champion for the design movement, it could be a designer. Why not put up
a desiger for the ICSID presedentship at the International level? But
where is SIDI? Why not register one designer as a candidate for Lok
Sabha? On a design ticket, just as the Greens have taken over German
Politics? Designers are supposed to be imaginative and enterprising,
industrialists have understood the value of politics as a tool for
promoting consciousness, and I do think design needs such creative
lobbying and promotion if the country is to improve in substantial ways.
Otherwise it will be undermined by other self interested johnies who
will take the profession that is in complete dissarray today. The
National Design policy needs informed and committed designer involvement
and a champion at the National Level within Government.

Do I sense a thread of sceptisism in your questions and statements? Let
us discuss, debate, argue ,but let us get on with the task and it is
massive. Design need to be taken seriously in 230 sectors of our
economy, not just in toasters and lifestyle accessories, and automobile
and advertising, furniture and interiors, some areas that have got the
attention now, but there are many critical areas that are still unaddressed.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan
from my Mac at home
28 July 2005 at 10.15 am IST


"AseefKadir ( Asst. Manager - PD )" wrote:
>
> Ranjan's paper recommends:
>
> -snip-
>
> >> Design in India needs a champion at the highest levels of Government to
> provide leadership and direction that the science and technology
> initiatives got in the past several decades.<<
>
> -snip-
>
> So we are all looking for a saviour who shall guide Indian ID to fame, success
and fortune... is it? :)
>
> Aseef
> IITD [PD] 2002
> Ashok Leyland Ltd
> Chennai
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Of course we need some one/ some organisation / association/
Institution / trade body/ industry body to move Design Ahead.

Design as yet is not a popular proven driver of the economy and
prosperity in India, Though we do have very sincere people,
institutions and some sincere efforts but that is obviously not enough.

The political will can create an environment in which design can
flourish, this is proven in many countries including in many asian
countries (korea, Taiwan), We all know design works best for real
stakeholders when the Top management or the industry owners are
involved. Design Council was chaired by the prime minister of UK till
sometime back, City Mayors and ministers are known to inaugurate,
speak and dine with speakers at design confrences. (oh...they do that
here too)

I think what we need is a Design Mission which just digs out success
stories of design form the areas design is working and presents it in
palatable format to public.

We always get awed by the scale and complexity of work in front...so
many segments, so many design displines, so much politics, so many
stakeholders...so much everything. But I think we should start..even
smsmall and let it grow. A few stories recently have sparked a lot of
interest in Design, There are many Industries who owe their success to
design, this is a revelation to them. This needs to be brought out.
Some of these industries are in such competitive mindset that they
wounldnt admit that design is their edge, what if others followed
suit. I have a client, who, after he tasted a surprise turn of events
in his business, took me out for Lunch and gave whole hearted credit
to design (he still does in private, wanted us to sign an agreement so
we do not work for any other company in his town and any other industry
(auto comp) in India???...He is very upset that we didnt. We realised
he wouldnt recommend us to others, certainly wouldnt want a case study
done on him. He is a very dear friend and i understand his need to
safeguard his secret. Who wouldnt if yr business can jump from a 380
crores to 800 crores in a year.

I am sure there are many industries like this one. And obviously along
with govt policies, investments, infrastructural development and good
management- design can be the edge.

The Design Week (June 2005) surveys and articles(TOP 100) on UK design
has some very interesting articles on state of Product Design in UK.
Its not very different from here....

regards
Sudhir
1983-89 NID
Elephant Design
Pune

Dear Mr Aseef Kadir

I am sorry that I do not seem to know you in person. Have we met?

My comment (and conviction) is based on the belief that Government has a
major role to play in the promotion of design in India. My informal
stats tell me that Government spends 60,000 crores of Rupees each year
on a variety of science and technology initiatives that includes
institutions, labs, scientific establishments and education subsidies.
Compare this with a figure of Rs 10 to 15 crores for the NID and other
design schools in India and a total of under Rs 100 crores for all of
design in the country including subsidies in hanndlooms and handicrafts.
If Industry is visionary enough, which it is not, to spend for design, I
would not look at Government as a source. Unfortunately this is not the
case. We spend more on standards than on innovation, because it is seen
as risky, and they do not seem to know that not innovating may be the
biggest risk of all.

In the absence of sustained design funding, all the good work (and not
so good work) done on technology and science development cannot reach
the people for whom it is intended in the form of products and services.

If the Government has to be mobilised at all there must be some
enlightened and stable political support for design. In the absence of
any credible professional body the only way I see is a poiltical
champion for the design movement, it could be a designer. Why not put up
a desiger for the ICSID presedentship at the International level? But
where is SIDI? Why not register one designer as a candidate for Lok
Sabha? On a design ticket, just as the Greens have taken over German
Politics? Designers are supposed to be imaginative and enterprising,
industrialists have understood the value of politics as a tool for
promoting consciousness, and I do think design needs such creative
lobbying and promotion if the country is to improve in substantial ways.
Otherwise it will be undermined by other self interested johnies who
will take the profession that is in complete dissarray today. The
National Design policy needs informed and committed designer involvement
and a champion at the National Level within Government.

Do I sense a thread of sceptisism in your questions and statements? Let
us discuss, debate, argue ,but let us get on with the task and it is
massive. Design need to be taken seriously in 230 sectors of our
economy, not just in toasters and lifestyle accessories, and automobile
and advertising, furniture and interiors, some areas that have got the
attention now, but there are many critical areas that are still unaddressed.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan
from my Mac at home
28 July 2005 at 10.15 am IST


"AseefKadir ( Asst. Manager - PD )" wrote:
>
> Ranjan's paper recommends:
>
> -snip-
>
> >> Design in India needs a champion at the highest levels of Government to
> provide leadership and direction that the science and technology
> initiatives got in the past several decades.<<
>
> -snip-
>
> So we are all looking for a saviour who shall guide Indian ID to fame, success
and fortune... is it? :)
>
> Aseef
> IITD [PD] 2002
> Ashok Leyland Ltd
> Chennai
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Hi again,

Here's my resume. It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Regards,
Prachi.



___________________________________________________________
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday
snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

Ranjan's paper recommends:

-snip-

>> Design in India needs a champion at the highest levels of Government to
provide leadership and direction that the science and technology
initiatives got in the past several decades.<<

-snip-



So we are all looking for a saviour who shall guide Indian ID to fame, success
and fortune... is it? :)



Aseef
IITD [PD] 2002
Ashok Leyland Ltd
Chennai

Dear Samson

I am taking you quite seriously and although you have many here who
have agreed with you about your views on the risks of innovation and
the futility of doing original design work in India, I must must
however firmly disagree with you on a number of issues. Yes, Indian
industry does not use design adequately or effectively as yet, but we
must remember that our industry was primarily traders turned producers.
It is only when real competition arrived with liberalisation and
opening of the economy, did the real hope for design use by industry
emerge in India. Further industry is not the only user of design and I
have outlined some of the others in my paper mentioned (and quoted)
below.

Last year I was requested by the Design Centre Wales, Cardiff,  to
write about the status of the Design Industry in India for a conference
on Design Supports in many countries. In my paper titled " Design
Support in India: Institutional experiences in a growing industrial
economy," outlines what I think these are and you can comment on some
or all of these categories and add specific examples to each one if you
wish to agree with my categories.

   I chose to outline the various categories of design action that I
could fathom from my contact with the sector in India over many years.
I am reproducing the full paper below and those who do not want to be
burdened by the full text can just ignore all the text at the end of
this mail. When and if you (or anyone) replies to this it would be good
form to truncate the message by deleting the text except parts that are
needed to communicate the concept and to support the arguments that are
being made. I would like to see if you can think up any other
categories for design action in India that I may have overlooked or
missed due to ignorence, and I would appreciate if some suggestions for
future models can be proposed by the list and to see if these can be
included in the design education context here in India.

Further, I will continue to marvel and celebrate, all the great work
done at Bauhaus and Ulm and I am getting an opportunity to make a sort
of homage by visiting the Ulm school premises this September to attend
a meeting at the invitation of the HFG Foundation. NID too has made
great contributions to the world of design education through numerous
pedagogic innovations, but little of this is available in the form of
published documentation, so we now have a situation when the edifice of
the culture of learning that was painfully established over the years
can crumble in the absence of any anchors for people to hang on to, or
even refer to, when contemplating change within the design education
systems in India. Here too, this list can contribute their experiences
through reflection and shared documentations, and provide a visible
inventory of successful tools and processes, something  that was so
eminently done by the faculty and students publications from the
Bauhaus and the Ulm, which we all follow to this day.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan
from my office at NID
27 July 2005 at 6.25 pm IST

Text of my paper is quoted after the snipped portion of message from
Samson Mathai below. Yoiu can download the paper as a word file or in
pdf format from my website as well <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>

On 25-Jul-05, at 10:43 PM, samson mathai wrote:

> Dear Girish and friends,
>  
> (Please dont take this post too seriously as it is just speculative -
> considering the antogonistic replies I received from my earlier mails
> - I would just like to share my thoughts)
> Product designers in India arent too busy designing, thats why they do
> a lot of analysis and philosophising/moralising in such an emotional
> manner  - I speculate.
> Innovation (new design) the world over is an expensive and risky
> business.It is established that only 20% of attempts succeed - in 80%
> of the cases 'paise doob jata hai' as they would say in India.
> Only businesses that can afford to write off these losses 80% of the
> time dare get into this business of new design.Otherwise 'pura company
> doob jayega' in trying to launch a new product.Real Value products
> that had 500 product ideas to commercialise got vaccumised with their
> vaccumiser.They rode high on their Cease Fire (which was a hit)
> knowing little that product innovation can also cease their business.
> It costs crores of rupees to launch a new product,from tool making to
> (customising) production machinery to promotion and launching.If one
> gets it wrong then its cease fire.
> (Indian banks have bad debts ......

SNIP SNIP

Quote Full text of Cardiff paper below:

"Design Support in India: Institutional experiences in a growing
industrial economy."

M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

Paper presented at the “International Workshop on Design Support”,
organised by Design Wales at Cardiff on 25th and 26th May 2004.

Abstract

Along with a brief historical overview of the growth and spread of
design education in the country, the author reflects on the key trends
and contextual forces that have helped shape the design support
infrastructure in India. Indian industry grew in a protected and highly
regulated economy from 1950 to the early 90’s when economic
liberalisation was ushered into the country. The use of design and
awareness for the need for design grew rapidly in many sectors that
faced competition while other sectors lagged behind. The textile
industry, which was driven by the growth in exports, helped create a
lively design support base including an active fashion industry.
Similarly the advertising industry and graphic communications sectors
were driven by trade and business interest in marketing while the
product innovation sector lagged behind due to the license and control
regime that prevailed in India limited the options available to the
public in a seller dominated market.

While a visionary Government initiative in the 60’s had helped set up
the National Institute of Design, the faculty and students of the
Institute had to struggle to establish a profession in the country. The
author identifies a number of trends and contextual forces that have
shaped the design support infrastructure in the country and checklists
the key Government initiatives to provide supports to small and medium
industries over the years and plots the shape of the public and private
initiatives that have come up as a result and in direct response to
these contextual forces in the country. The absence of any regulatory
framework and the failure of any professional initiatives to create
systems and collective facilities has resulted in fragmented and
organically grown design support infrastructure that needs to be
supported and nurtured to enable it to face the future rapid growth of
industrial competition and a sudden escalation of demand that is
anticipated.

The numerous models of design practise across the many sectors of
Indian industry are outlined with a reflection on the specific cases of
the design practise conducted by the graduates of the National
Institute of Design who have pioneered the creation of the design
profession in India. NID’s own practise finds a place in these models
since design education establishments in India are perhaps the biggest
sources of professional service for many large medium and small
industry players. As an outcome of this analysis some recommendations
are drawn up and offered for the stabilisation and rapid expansion of
the design support infrastructure in India without loss of quality due
to the haste in scaling up the support base to meet the growing demands
from more than 230 sectors of the economy.

Taking roots and the early initiatives

India had a great reputation for quality of its handloom textile and
handicrafts products in the eighteenth century but by the time the
country achieved its independence in 1950 its production base was
decimated and much of the country was in a desperate condition of
poverty and neglect. The country depended on rain-fed agriculture and
its industrial base was non-existent. The Government initiatives of
establishing a planned economy and a support infrastructure for the
creation of a small scale industrial sector focussed on their financial
and technological needs while design was left unattended since it was
perhaps considered a luxury item in the face of the enormous economic
and scarcity challenges. A number of industrial estates were set up
across that country to provide integrated facilities for the
development of a broad vendor base for industrial components required
by large industry. These industries required technical and financial
supports more than design and the post independence years saw the
establishment of many organisations that could provide the required
support. The Small Industries Service Institutes (SISI) that were set
up near the industrial estates was equipped to provide these technical
services but design was not at the top of their agenda. On the handloom
and handicrafts front the Government set up many marketing and
technical service organisations, which included some form of design
support, which were provided by the artists and craftsmen located in
these Weavers Service Centres (WSC) and the Regional Technology and
Design Centres (RTDC). The poor quality of goods and services in the
market led to the clamour for standards and many product categories
were governed by the norms set by the Indian Standards Institution
(ISI) which determined their acceptance in Government driven purchases.
Thereafter the presence of the ISI mark signified good quality but
unfortunately it also spelt the demise of any design initiative in
industry. One design that met the standard was manufactured by numerous
competing industries, all competing on price by either exploiting
labour or by cutting corners on material and process specifications.
The markets filled up with poor quality products and an insensitive
market that was caught up in corruption and excessive control through
numerous regulations. There was a great demand for foreign goods but
soon that too was regulated by strict customs regulation.

It was in this climate that the National Institute of Design was set up
in Ahmedabad based on a visionary report written by Charles and Ray
Eames. While NID was a multi-disciplinary institute, the focus of the
early years was on Communication Design and Graphic Design. The market
demand for this branch of design far exceeded that of industrial and
textiles design services. Both these disciplines therefore looked at
opportunities outside the industrial sectors and from this grew a very
active involvement in the handloom and handicrafts sectors, both
through research and through design service, which has been sustained
to this day.

Design education initiatives in India

The NID pioneered the creation of design talent in India and provided
trained designers for the Indian industry and its marketplace. Many of
these designers were involved in the creation of new schools that came
up over the years, each with a particular focus, depending on the
promoter and their mandate. The first such school was the Industrial
Design Centre (IDC) that was located at the technological institution
in Mumbai, the IIT at Powai. IDC focussed on industrial design and much
later introduced Communications Design as part of their offering. Being
located in a technology-dominated climate it created its own unique
brand of design concerns and orientations amongst its faculty and
students. The next decade saw the establishment of a department at the
IIT, Delhi and more recently another at the IIT, Guwahati, this time at
the under graduate level. The advertising industry in India has drawn
talent from the schools of fine and applied arts that were established
in the metros long before Independence. NID’s graphic design programmes
on the other hand shunned the needs of the advertising sector while it
focussed on the opportunities in brand building for Indian public
sector corporations and in Government exhibition design. NID’s textile
department focussed on the handloom sector but ignored the growing
garment sector in the 80’s. The Indian garment industry was driven by
export opportunities and grew rapidly and the Ministry of Textiles set
up the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Delhi to
address the design, technology and marketing needs of that sector. The
Government patronage for the NIFT grew rapidly and in less that two
decades seven centres were set up across the country, each included
Fashion design and Accessory design as core subjects.

With the liberalisation of the national economy, design is finally
being seen as a critical resource for industrial development. But due
to the neglect of adequate investments in the post Independence era the
resources for design education are getting extremely strained and there
are signs of a loss of quality when educational establishments try to
scale up the output to meet the growing demand without a corresponding
investment in faculty development. Many new design schools have been
set up in the private sector in recent years and some of these have
managed to retain the quality edge by attracting good faculty while
others churn out mediocre products and confuse the market, which is
still trying to understand this complex discipline. At NID we have been
involved in setting up sector specific design institutions which we see
a as viable initiative since each sector ad its industry can find the
funding required to create and manage these efforts from internal
accruals and synergies within the sector as well as with informed
Government support from the supporting ministry. The Indian Institute
of Crafts and Design, Jaipur and the Bamboo and Cane Development
Institute, Agartala are two such initiatives in recent years and many
more are anticipated in the years ahead. The private sector success
stories in design education include Srishti School of Art and Design,
Bangalore, the APJ School of Design, Delhi and the Pearl Institute of
Fashion, Delhi. The Delhi University is seriously considering the
setting up of a new School of Design, perhaps the first in the
University sector, and when this happens design education would have
finally arrived as a mainstream discipline in India. Many NID graduates
have found a place for themselves as faculty at all these
establishments and as practised at NID they too have brought active
design practise to their respective institutions by networking with
industry in their region.

 A new boom in the growth of design education involves the design needs
and opportunities of the Information Technology sector. Many training
centres in the private sector offer courses in multi-media and as
franchise driven schools, established by reputed industrial houses,
they have rapidly proliferated across the country as an active business
of mass education. The growing IT sector has had its impact on the
existing design schools as well and many offer courses in New Media and
Interface Design besides sector specific specialisations that are
mushrooming in response to exploding demand for design education, sadly
with a severe loss of quality standards. In such a climate there is an
active need to create a regulatory mechanism that can ensure high
standards of education particularly when design education takes on the
hue of an active business opportunity for fly by night operators to
take over. The absence of a National Design Council or a national body
of design professionals or an effective regulator of design education
is being sorely felt by concerned students and faculty, in an period of
exploding growth, many a times quite indiscriminate, with disastrous
results.

Trends and Contextual Forces for design Support in India

Having looked at the design education scenario in the country we can
now turn our attention to the models and contextual forces that have
shaped the professional service landscape for design in India.
Education and the resulting concentration of faculty and students
within it has led naturally to the schools being among the largest
service providers in the design profession. Design education is an
active channel for design practise and many forms of design practise
have emerged as established practise in India. The National Institute
of Design is unique in its policy of not permitting its faculty to
conduct any private practise, although in recent years this strict rule
was slightly modified, but with few takers due to some defects of the
proposed model. However the Institute has been among the biggest
provider of design services to Government and Industry over the past
forty years or more of its existence. The Institutional consulting
model has gone through many evolutionary stages and from small
individual design tasks it has expanded to massive multi-disciplinary
projects, some with the delivery of complete projects including
fabrication and installation as in exhibition and museum design. With
the Government, and our controlling Ministry, the Ministry of Industry,
calling for a reduction of dependence on Government funding, there is
great pressure on the Institute to supplement its income from such
consulting and contracting tasks that could be handled by its faculty
and staff, taking its focus away from more meaningful academic and
research oriented tasks that would otherwise have preoccupied the
faculty. As a tradition most student diploma projects are funded by
industry or by outside agencies in the social funding area. This has
got NID students actively involved in real life design tasks, which has
become an integral part of the education situation in India. Many other
design schools follow this practise and as a result design students are
filling a real need while they learn on the job with faculty guidance.
These multi layered educational involvements in design practise could
be called the Education Centred Design Infrastructure, a model that can
be replicated elsewhere if required.

The Education Centred Design Infrastructure provides the following
models:

1. Faculty Consulting Models: Faculty handle professional tasks within
or outside the Institutional framework in some cases to supplement
their income or to create active learning situations for faculty
development.

2. Student Power and Industry Interface: Classroom projects, design
competitions and Term projects and Diploma Projects sponsored by
Industry are a source of experience and experimentation a well as
revenue for the school and the individual student.

3. Institutional Consulting Models: The schools set up a professional
interface with industry and offers services by in-house teams of
faculty and special staff appointed to work with the faculty leader
with or without student involvement on these projects.

4. Institutional Outsourcing Models: Schools brand equity is used to
offer professional service to Government and Industry that is
eventually handled by outside professionals who are empanelled by the
Institute.

Education in design and the ideology of providing meaningful service
are never far apart particularly in a country like India, which is full
of design opportunities outside the industry sector, in many areas that
attracts social funding from committed Non Government Organisations
(NGO’s) and departments of Government alike. These Social Service and
Ideology Driven Opportunitiesoffer many formats for design action in a
number of design disciplines. Many design professionals prefer to work
in such areas rather than in the core Industry sectors due to their
ideological leanings and from the scope offered by development funding
that is liberally available in this sector. Here the designers are
employed or commissioned by an NGO or Government Department to tackle
the needs of a third party who is usually the real user of that design
service. In the areas of rural development, crafts, health care,
education, training and sector development activities many design
activists, if we can call them that, are involved, some for the long
haul. The models for design action in this segment are s follows:

1. NGO Factor and Development: Many designers join and work with NGO’s
who are aligned to their own interests in issues of local development
and in bringing social change through the use of design.

2. Government Development Initiatives: Individual designers join the
Government networks that are involved in development tasks.

3. Individual in Search of Meaning: Design for a recognised cause has
taken many designers to difficult situations as social activists and
provided very effective results that large Government efforts have
failed to deliver, the difference being in the motivation generated by
their commitment and by their need for bypassing of unpleasant pulls
and pushes associated with massive political initiatives.

While the social call for service brings out the best in some designers
the Government Audit Compulsionsseems to bring out different challenges
in some of their counterparts in the business of serving the Government
and organised public sector business opportunities, which are usually
the biggest spenders for design services in most economies, which is
most certainly the case in India. A great deal of public money is spent
in India in the name of development and facility creation to meet real
or imagined needs or mega dreams and promises of politicians, usually
in very tight time frames. Design is one of the key stages for the
delivery of these dream projects but unfortunately while much money is
lavished on these initiatives the results are barely skin deep. The
nature of projects are usually bundled as turn key design cum execution
tasks including design opportunities across a number of design
disciplines and in many cases these are multi-disciplinary
opportunities such as exhibition design, interior design, integrated
communication strategy design and production, event design etc. The
models that this segment throws up are s follows:

1. Design by Tender: Large budget integrated design cum production
projects are offered to empanelled contractors or through public
advertisements for technical and financial tender invitations. It is
assumed that the entrepreneur who bids the lowest will be able to
muster the required design and technical capabilities to first develop
the concepts and then deliver the contracted project in time and by
meeting the pre-established standards. This usually results in missed
opportunities for design innovation with all concerned choosing to take
the beaten path.

2. Design by Committee: Task of drawing up specifications and
requirements for many major construction and service initiatives are
assigned to a committee of experts and bureaucrats with meetings
scheduled at a central venue. Vast sums of money are spent in
travelling and this method is used to justify the validity of huge
Government expenditure, part of which could have paid for serious
design investment that is usually bypassed.

3. Design by following Standards: The Government establishments need to
deliver quick results in an accountable manner and once again our
penchant for standards as a synonym for quality has led to the loss of
major design opportunities that could usher in change and variety to
our built landscape. This has resulted in many unimaginative projects
being executed based on the use of the so-called standard design and
innovation is given a bypass on the claim that it would be too
expensive. Design awareness needs to be spread to the administrators
and bureaucrats alike. Management schools and the IAS Academy need to
introduce design management capabilities for this situation to change
for the better in the years ahead.

However there is a marked difference to Government projects that are
initiated and sustained by Compulsions of International Aid Donor
Agencieswho bring in practice of design use to these Government managed
projects. Many United Nations and World Bank supported projects have a
clearly articulated design phase as do several bi-lateral and
multi-lateral aid related projects. However many of these projects also
insist on the use of International design experts even when local
talent is available. Local designers and International consultants get
opportunities to travel together and some patterns of their involvement
are quite consistent and can be seen as operating models for this
segment, which are as follows:

1. International Consultant as Mentor: A number of international
consultants are usually involved in these aid driven projects and
besides providing expertise thy are required to play the role of
trainers and evaluators of the project achievements. Some are located
in the country for long periods of time or through repeated visits over
the planned project duration and in this role they play a very
constructive role of mentors for the local team of designers and
administrators.

2. Designer as International Trainee: Many of these aid driven projects
have local capacity building as an objective and therefore Indian
designers working in these sectors have benefited from international
travel and training opportunities that were part of these initiatives.
New capabilities in technology use and advanced design management
practises are inducted into local programmes through these initiatives.

3. Design Transfer by Vendors: Many of these projects have an in-built
design and technology transfer component which brings new practises,
equipments and infrastructure for maintenance hat can then contribute
to the moving forward of the state of the art available in that field.

Another related avenue for design action is the Globalisation Driven
Trends and Modelsof cross border design services, which works in both
directions in an increasing manner. India is being seen by the global
community as a major source for technical and design manpower as well
as a lower cost base for setting up of outsourcing facilities for
multi-national design, management and technology initiatives. The rapid
expansion of BPO market that followed the sustained IT export boom has
created new perceptions of the latent possibilities for access to the
large pool of technical and managerial talent available in India.
Design to is getting attention now and we anticipate substantial growth
in the years ahead. The models for this segment are as follows:

1. Import of Design as part of a Technology Transfer: Many India
companies are drafting technology transfer agreements that include a
large component of design transfer. This is usually associated with the
purchase of machine tools along with sets of tools and dies as an
integral component of the deal. This brings in old designs and reduces
time to market for the buyer while the consumer is given a
non-localised product.

2. Indian Designers working for International Companies: This is a
growing trend in many industry segments including machine tools,
software interfaces, websites, technology rich products and low
technology products that are sourced in India. Indian designers are
working on products and services that are manufactured and used in
other countries across the world.

3. International Designers working for Indian Companies: This is
another growing trend with many Indian companies actively seeking the
local involvement of international designers, managers and
technologists.

4. Multinational Research and Development Centres: Many multinational
corporations in the technology product areas as well as low-tech
product sourcing companies are setting up their own design and
development centres in India involving international and Indian
designers and managers.

5. India as a Manufacturing Base for International Products: The use of
India as a manufacturing or service base is driven by the existence of
a massive middle class consumer force in India for high technology
products, FMCG and automobile products and any many of financial and
consulting services. This kind of expansion of manufacturing within
India brings in a lot of international designs that are then
manufactured in the India located plants. Some Indian designers are
involved in vendor development and in the localisation of some
expensive components to make the product cost competitive in a fierce
battle for market share.

This brings us to the purely local opportunities in the organised
corporate industrial sectors and in the creation of an indigenous
design Industry in India. Trends in the Indian Corporate sectorhave
been a slow adopter of local design talent since they were well
protected by restrictive Government policies for a large part of the
past five decades. Since the liberalisation of the economy began in the
late 90’s there is a sea change in their attitude towards the use of
design as a critical resource. Many companies that faced early
competition have set up in-house design teams and established systems
for contracting design work from local houses run by Indian designers.
Graphic design and advertising were the major areas of design
investment but in recent years the investments made in product design
and own brand designs is growing rapidly. The models for design
interventions in this segment are as follows.

1. Designer as Corporate Employee: Many Indian companies have created
posts that employ in-house designers to design and develop their
products. While in the early years these designers were limited to
small modifications of an incremental nature to product lines that
faced market resistance, in recent years the opportunities for the
creation of complete new products has grown enormously.

2. Designer as Corporate Design Vendor: Many Indian companies have
started sourcing their design work from independent design vendors.
Many of these vendors also supply some part of the materials or
components as a package of services.

3. Designer as Corporate Manager: Design is being seen as a strategic
resource and many companies are looking at the creation of design
management posts to employ designers fairly high up in the corporate
hierarchy.

4. Corporate Research and Development Centre: Many manufacturing
companies and India export houses have set up their own design centres
with considerable investments in technology and human resources.

The Indian design sector extends well beyond the facilities created by
the Corporate Industries in various product and service categories. It
I is fact made up mainly of the large number of independent design
studios and offices that were set by Designers in search of Freedom and
Autonomyacross many sectors of the economy and hailing from many design
disciplines. These private design studios range from small home office
set ups of the young start-up deign graduates to fairly well
established design houses that have grown over years of persistence.
The typical models for design action in this segment are as follows:

1. Start-up Home Office Design Studio: Many young designers,
particularly from the NID’s under graduate programme prefer to set up
their own design consultancies and after a few years of struggle are
able to find satisfying work from the small and medium industries in
need of their expertise.

2. Small Design Partnerships: A number of design offices are set up by
professional couples and buddy teams who collaborate in the
professional space s well. In many places two or three partners, each
with complementary skills, get together to offer design services and
these have tended to be fairly stable business models in India.

3.Integrated Design Houses: Some of these grow out of their small
beginnings and become full service Integrated Design Houses with a
substantial reputation.

In the emerging era of the open markets and the Promises of the WTO
Regime we would have anticipated two more models for this segment:

1. Royalty driven design Services: This is partly successful but in
most cases it has not worked due to the very lax IPR regime that
prevails in many sectors. One design house tried a second experience at
charging the royalty model, which was scuttled by many well-established
venture finance and industrial development agencies.

2. Patent Protected Design offerings: Small and medium enterprises are
realising the value of patenting export related products and services
to stave of severe competition from Chinese manufacturers with a fair
degree of success. Design at an innovative level provides these
companies with market penetration barriers that are legitimate and in
the International markets these can be protected at a price.

3. Reverse Engineering as a Euphemism for Copying: Industrial copy cat
activities of Industrial Design features continues un-abated and with
the arrival of new restrictions and increased compliance of IPR norms
this segment will be on the decline after the opening of the economy in
the year 2005 when the WTO agreement comes into place for the first
time in India in full force. Many of the small enterprises that depend
on their own technical prowess in copying international products will
face a crisis of lack of deign ownership and many are expected to be
wound down as a result.

Designers are people with special skills and in some cases they are
astute business persons themselves. Such individuals enter into
Business and Trade Driven Opportunitiesand set up appropriate
businesses to enhance the reach of their skills and abilities. The
typical models for this segment are as follows:

1. Designer as Entrepreneur: There are a large number of opportunities
for starting a business of manufacturing low technology intensive
products with a very small investment especially since skilled labour
is easily available in most of the urban metros in which they live.
Many successful shops and manufacturing and producing companies have
been set up designers and some of these are beginning to grow and
flourish on their own steam.

2. Designer as Contractor: Unlike the field of Architecture which has
strict regulation of practise the design disciplines do not as yet have
any regulatory mechanisms. Many designers undertake design cum
fabrication contracts which are lucrative making them increasingly like
design contractors rather than consultants.

3. Designer as Incubate: The Government of India through its Science
and Technology department has helped NID set up the country’s first
Design Business Incubator late last year. This is modelled after the
numerous science and technology incubators that are being tried out in
the technology education centres across the country. While this
experiment has just begun only time will tell if this route will be
superior to the various models described above in creating the much
needed design capabilities available to a growing industrial base in
India ad whether this will create the much needed awareness and climate
for design and innovation to flourish in the country.

Some Key Recommendations

Design in India needs a champion at the highest levels of Government to
provide leadership and direction that the science and technology
initiatives got in the past several decades. The absence of a National
Design Council and any form of promotional organisation at the
National, Regional and local levels has left the professionals in the
field isolated and exposed to the vagaries of market forces without an
iota of benevolent regulation. Design education too is in a period of
crisis. Established Institutions are throwing caution to the winds and
expanding furiously to meet imagined and projected demands with a
marked decline in quality standards. There is no formal recognition of
the various programmes offered by the different educational
institutions and in the absence of a national regulatory mechanism much
damage is being done that will be difficult to repair in the years
ahead. Having started on a firm footing over forty years ago and having
established a vibrant design profession in the country we need to take
stock of the rapidly changing field ahead and plot our moves with
vision and conviction. The needs of particular sectors are expected to
explode and these threaten to derail the established flow of talent
creation and the absorption of these into the professional mainstream.
The country should now think of sector specific initiatives that are
not to be seen as areas of specialisations, since design is not a
specialisation, but as knowledge integrators which can bring the
general abilities of design thinking and action to particular needs of
each of the numerous sectors that are in need of design today.

END of Paper
M  P Ranjan 27 July 2005

 

 

Dear All

I am looking for the people who are working in the area of News Paper and Magsine Design.
Kindly help me by  sending me the name, address,organization and conact number of the people whom you know.

Thanking you,
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Shalini

Hi,
I am pasting below the article which Sidharth sent a link of.
Who do we identify with?
the Americans or the Chinese?

sudhir

We Got Sick of Hearing About Design & China,
So we Got on a Plane and Went There

by Bruce M. Tharp and Stephanie Munson

Off the Couch
There has certainly been a great deal of speculation lately
regarding the real or perceived rise of Chinese industrial design.
We say "perceived rise" to emphasize that their impending world
domination in this field is not a foregone conclusion, despite the
frequent flurries of listserve chatter and design-conference panel
discussions supporting such a notion.

We would agree that China's entrée into the global design community
demands careful attention as the stakes are high--remember when US
factories weren't filled with yuppies and their Sub-Zero
refrigerators (made in China)? But so much of what we have been
hearing smacks of alarmism and over-reaching conjecture. We were
dogged by the question of what is really going on with Chinese
industrial design—education and practice—so we decided to go there
and get a glimpse for ourselves.

Spanning May and June, 2005, we spent three weeks traveling in China—
starting in Shanghai, then 1,000 miles west to Chengdu (Szechuan
province), and back east to Beijing. In addition to meeting with
Chinese industrial designers and even western entrepreneurs probing
the mainland design market, we had the good fortune of being invited
to lecture at one of the most established industrial design
departments in the country—Southern Yangtze University, School of
Design, located 80 miles east of Shanghai. (They were extremely
gracious hosts, and we are grateful for all of their efforts.)

So we thought we would share some of our impressions with Core77
fans.

Chinese Schoolin'
While discussing the state of Chinese industrial design with
students, faculty, and practitioners, we were struck most by the
challenges facing them.

Having heard the statistics about China's now 400+ design schools
and 10,000+ graduates each year, we were surprised to find that only
a small portion actually finds design employment. Numbers like that
(there has been a 2,000% increase in the number of design schools
since the 1980s) makes you think that there is great demand.
However, students' outlook on job prospects seemed worse than in the
US; they had very low expectations that they would be working
designers in at least the near future.

While we are advocates of design education being useful in fields
outside of traditional boundaries (we both have full-time academic
positions), there is a question about what a backlog of many
severval tens of thousands of educated designers would mean. (We
realize that this is a very small portion of a 1.4+ billion
population, but the staggering numbers are what make this all the
more perplexing.)

Will an oversupply of Chinese designers drive wages down, helping to
further commoditize design skills? Could there possibly be enough
work to absorb even the present, thousands-per-year graduation rate?
(And Good God, what would that mean for the environment if they were
all designing products?!) What would an abundance of Chinese
designers hungry for work mean to the design market in other
countries—what types of spillover could occur?

An Indiscriminate Chinese Market
While an overage of graduates is nothing new to countries like
Australia, Britain, and the US (among so many others), why do the
near-term possibilities for the Chinese designer seem so daunting?
After all, there are so many products being engineered and produced
for China's large and growing domestic market. Simply, the answer
has to do with how immature their market and (dare we say) quasi-
capitalistic-production system are.

We were struck by the similarity between the Chinese market and the
post-war American market of the late 1940s and 1950s. It is so large
and relatively unsophisticated, that bad design sells quite well.
Many Chinese manufacturers don't see a need for designers, or even
good design—there is little business rationale to spend on design.

The only reason there is more "good design" in the West is because
we have had to invest in it as a necessary differentiator within
saturated markets. Why should Chinese manufacturers employ
designers, when the schlock their engineers come up with can't be
cranked out fast enough?

Or similarly, why do they need designers when manufacturers
can "steal" the intellectual property of the rest of the world? Even
cars are brazenly knocked off.

China loves foreign goods and brands (partly because their own are
seen as low-quality), and manufacturers serving the Chinese market
are compelled to just ape existing designs. The design skills needed
to update a product line, or knock off the hottest gadget, aren't
particularly sophisticated.

And this is something that Chinese design educators and students
openly admit. As one professor mentioned in broken English (that is
infinitely better than our essentially non-existent Mandarin), "Our
creative is not good." Several teachers that we spoke with lamented
that Chinese design education focuses on traditional styling and
basic problem-solving skills rather than the bigger, problem-
defining issues that they could be tackling. This is a similar issue
in the US, but is a more pronounced problem there.

Business Before (Creative) Pleasure
The real-world-business focus became awkwardly apparent as we
lectured to several hundred Chinese students—Stephanie on an
explorative (year 2020) project surrounding commodity trading at the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Bruce on the research and
development work of the think-tank, Ideation Group, at Haworth.

This type of conceptual, forward-thinking, sometimges-pie-in-the-sky
design work was largely lost on them. While in the US these types of
projects are sought after and have a bit of cachet, the Chinese
students kept asking, "why?" Through their questions and comments we
were struck with the sense that they just did not value design work
that stretched very far from the exigencies of daily, business-as-
usual manufacturing.

And this seems to be the biggest difference between much of the ID
education in the US (which we can speak most for) and China. As so
many have previously stated, this innovation and problem-definition
work is what should differentiate the US in the future, amidst the
commodification of industrial design from abroad. Indeed, what other
choice do we now have when Chinese designers can provide styling for
a fraction of western fees? We agree that US ID education has to
move even further upstream to avoid future irrelevancy. Check out
Myth 1 of Elaine Ann's recent article for Core77.

But this also raises the question of how long it will take before
China's 10,000/year graduates are doing this too. One Chinese
professor stated that it would be forty years until they had widely
developed the upfront research, ideation, and problem definition
skills that are taught in some of the more forward-thinking US
design departments. Certainly such a forecast gives the West some
time, even if it were off by a couple of decades, but it begs the
question of what then? While this kind of soothsaying is
interesting, and helps illustrate the present thinking of design,
looking too far into any nation's future is a precarious endeavor.

What We Don't Talk About
Some of the lesser-discussed challenges facing China that would
impact design have to do with social and political issues. Many
scholars both within China and from abroad are quick to point out
the many (enormous) hurdles that the Chinese will face in the
future. Remember that they are a communist country playing in a
capitalist sandbox (wonderfully evident in the paradoxical gauntlet
of the hundreds of state-sanctioned, Mau-ware Tchochki hawkers that
line the exit area of the Chairman Mau Mausoleum in Tian'an Men
Square, which solemnly displays the preserved body of this ur-
communist hero).

There are enormous issues of personal and social freedom that
challenge the core of the Chinese political system. Also, the
Chinese are engaged in a massive social experiment in uprooting
hundreds of millions of rural folk and forcing them to live in
(newly-made) cities, hoping that there will be employment, civility,
and happiness. There is also a massive over-investment in
infrastructure—superhighways are constructed with no destination,
and massive hospital-complex projects are abandoned half-way
through, only to be inhabited later by homeless Chinese.

There are also the issues of enormous economic speculation (the
crushing challenge of any communist regime); a corrupt (even in
light of recent US and European events) stock market; little
willingness to abide by intellectual property issues at home,
challenging global relationships; the looming Taiwan issue, whose
gravity is little understood by the common Westerner; and a deep-
rooted culture where seniority is nearly dictatorial, challenging
innovation and squashing bottom-up insight.

Quintessential American "Can-Do" Optimism
So while we would agree that the China issue is hugely important in
terms of threats and opportunities for US industrial design (and all
others nations), it is also important to appreciate the many social,
cultural, and political issues and challenges at play. Unlike other
professions that have already been crippled by outsourcing, US
industrial design has an opportunity to reconsider the competitive
landscape and adjust accordingly. Our thoughts are that now there
might actually be more opportunities than threats—if we are smart
about it.

But this will require us to avoid the pitfalls of xenophobia,
ethnocentrism, and arrogance to which we frequently fall victim. The
China question provides the opportunity for us to rethink what
design education is all about and what the business of design is all
about. If the US is indeed a leader in up-stream design thinking,
problem definition, and ideation, then we now have the luxury and
opportunity to apply this aptitude toward the question of Design
itself. Let's get off the couch (for it might eventually be designed
in China, rather than just made in China).




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Snapshot Gallery
Click to enlarge
























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Bruce M. Tharp was recently hired to teach at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago in their new graduate program in Designed
Objects. He is also an independent designer and consults for his
former employer, the Ideation Group, at Haworth, helping to bridge
the gap between research and design solutions. In addition to a
doctoral education in sociocultural anthropology, he holds a degree
in mechanical engineering from Bucknell University and a master's
degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute.

Stephanie Munson is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at
the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches industrial
design and interactive product design studios. She holds an MID from
the Rhode Island School of Design and a BS in Mechanical Engineering
from the University of Michigan.

Email us your questions, comments, beefs and refutations.

Dear All

I am looking for the people who are working in the area of News Paper and Magsine Design.
Kindly help me by  sending me the name, address,organization and conact number of the people whom you know.

Thanking you,
Anil Sinha