We also embarked on a more direct study and observation taking into account individuals (mostly our peers at college) and fashion outlets (Pantaloons and  Westside) to gain valuable insights on nomenclature,trends, aspirations and the factors which influence fashion decisions in people. We studied wardrobes to see how people manage their clothes and how they go about the whole process of dressing up for particular occasions. We conducted interviews to find out what people aspired for in terms of dressing and how they balanced comfort and style. Most of our study yielded subjective data.

On a more conceptual ground, we came to the conclusion that a lot of times, the monotony that sets into one’s fashion is caused by the lack of opportunities to explore and experiment with combinations of different clothing items.  There is some kind of hesitation in actually wearing a certain pair of clothes which are bold or uncommon. So we decided to work on “how to let people get fashion inspirations, to talk and share fashion, and also to explore and experiment with the fashion items”. we built concepts around these tenets. Some of them were mobile applications or social network games/apps which helped people compare their sense-of-fashion with one another and also get wiser from people having a better sense. It also proposed the creation of fashion avatars that would reflect in real time the apparel worn by an user and help him see what his friends in geographically distant locations were wearing for certain occasions and eventually get inspiration for newer and fresher looks.

We also worked on a concept keeping in mind fashion retail- this being the purchase point for clothes also offerred good potential for people to explore and experiment with several  looks ranging from standard to wacky. The idea was to keep the intervention simple and unobtrusive and also trigger the curiosity of the buyer. To further refine and validate this idea, we conducted a participatory design activity with a number of male and female users. We gave them several cut-outs of clothing items and told them to dress up for certain occasions like ” going on a date” or “going for a picnic” etc.. This made us appreciate the fact that fashion tastes though very generic and associative at times also have subtle personal touches. This gives us our individuality and probably helps us in our quest to “stand out”.

The standard looks that emerged from this activity and also from our observation of the world around- the campus and the streets can be divided into three simple parts- the hairdo, the upper body clothing(shirts, tees, jackets etc)  and the lower body clothing(trousers, jeans etc + shoes). And finally the object that we designed was a tangible five sided prism divided into three parts which rotate freely about a central axis and help us in visualizing all the 5x5x5=125 looks. As an extension, we implemented the same idea on three concentric circles made of card paper with the figures printed radially.This was a more portable version that could be used as take-aways in shops and be easily customized and reprinted every season.

It would be great to  place these artifacts in the retail environment and see whether they actually influence buying decisions. If not that, then certainly it would be worthwhile watching people interact with these devices and noting the behavioral traits that come across. Also this could be a tool to collect a great deal of quantitative experimental data for sales & marketing related research or trend analysis where people do not actually have to buy clothes to participate.  And yes, this would definitely form a good pastime for bored husbands or sons when their wives or moms are busy in the ladies section. Cheers

P.S : This project was done in conjunction with Aditya Bandi and Harshal Verma

Welcome to La Bordello, the intellectual pleasure-house; the harem of the aesthete; the garden of the noetic.

This is where your intellect is titillated, your passion aroused,your mind seduced and your whole being guided towards a Talkgasm. This is where every thought is a delight, every debate a pleasure and every conversation a Torgy. This is where you satisfy that subtle hunger, that only a few elite have awoken to. This is where you Get Tooked!

So, when they approached me to redesign their identity, I felt it would be both a welcome break from solemn academic projects and could actually give me a chance to indulge- go wacky, go naughty . And probably that is also what the logo demanded- a simple but solid motif with enough naughtiness and an engaging story. So here it is:

Starting from an inverted comma

The “69 concept” seemed stronger and more appropriate ( to me and also to the client) and so further refinements were done to it.  Enough for the naughty part. Now the logo also needed its quota of elegance. Actually La Bordello in Italian translates to “the brothel”. So it has this medieval and old-world feel to it. Its also a place frequented by the aesthetes and pleasure-seekers. Considering these, it had to be a serif font for the text. Garamond!!

Several other size and colour variations were tried out. But personally, the most critical part is getting the form of the logo right because that is what creates the impact in most cases. Colour does have semantic bearings but it is still an embellishment over the form. It does add value but cannot make a logo memorable just by itself or salvage a really ill-designed form.

Probably, the red and upto some extent the purple works best because of its warmth as well as symbolisms of love, richness, pleasure, luxury et al.

To conclude, this was a nice little project to let loose creativity, naughtiness and at the same time not forget some of the timeless graphic design principles. Now just waiting for the design to be launched and used in stationery, signages etc. Will be good to see now people react to the “69″

Cheers

Therefore, CHANGE seemed to be an apt theme to choose when we were asked to explore the concept of a manual under the course “Digital Media in Design” under Prof. Mriganka Madhukaillya.

My explorations on ‘change’ ranged from thesaurus definitions to the concept of relativity. Illustrating ‘change’ also seemed an exciting idea.  As far as the graphic design aspect was concerned, I tried to use the basic print colours CMYK and through their alternating use bring out the concept of transition( the word change has been overused already ) in a subtle way.

So well, without describing more I present here the manual for download. Happy Reading!

Change:Among Other Things a Manual

A few months back it dawned upon some of us to make our own portfolios. Somewhere down the line we also realised the importance of having a good web presence. A designer designs for users and hence the work we do should be visible to people. This helps in two things. One is the feedback that comes from interested users and second is the documentation that becomes second nature once we start to frequently upload our work. Without doubt we needed online portfolios.

I had never designed a website before this. Always felt intimidated by the coding part. My friends Aditya and Rohit on the other hand were  pretty well versed with HTML and Flash respectively. But I  had enough enthusiasm to do the UI of the sites. So deal struck….I do UI….Aditya does HTML coding….Rohit does Flash galleries. And what previously seemed an intimidating task was beautifully distributed between three individuals of diverse skills and interests.

Aditya has done more work in Web Design and also a few projects with me in product,branding and interaction design. Rohit on the other hand is one who is interested in HCI, Usability and also Interaction. I am the one who is lost. Have done work in Product as well as Video and all things design that fall between. But my present interests are in Interaction and Product Design.

I wanted all the sites to exude some amount of character. Obviously making my own UI was the easiest as I had a clear picture of what I wanted . I wanted to show the process in my work as well my other interests like music etc. and my point of view that “Design is Holistic . Not Divided” Aditya was also pretty much sure of what he wanted in terms of a clean and simple layout with ample whitespace.

Rohit’s was a bit of a challenge. He wanted his site to be a bit serious with a hint of playfulness. Hence I felt an interesting landing page would do the job. His is the only site done entirely on Flash.

After a few long weeks and endless encounters with “bugs” the sites are finally online. You can click on the respective images to browse them.

In school we had once read the story -” A Bundle of Sticks” which ended in the moral ” United we stand. Divided we fall”. This belief was reinforced when finally all three sites were completed, up and running.

Frets:(courtesy Wiki)

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern westerninstruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework. On instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system where one octave is divided into twelve semitones.”To fret” is often used as a verb, meaning simply “to press down the string behind a fret.”

Joy:

Means happiness, gaiety, can also be someone’s name like a pet name for Joyce or Joydeep or Joy______.

Well so much for the literal sense of the seemingly innocous name of the movie. It was my first movie making project and I wanted to do full justice to it. Wanted to take this chance to share a story. I have been constantly engaged over the past six months in learning the guitar. It was a childhood dream which took off a bit late ( I am not even a teenager anymore) but once I got off to a start I realised that it had its own share of bliss as well as struggle. And I was so  inspired by this struggle that I wished to portray it. And so was born “Frets of Joy”.

Frets of Joy is the story of Joy and his obsession with the guitar. Joy lives alone but his two guitars whom he lovingly calls Paul and Zakk are more than mere possessions. They are his companions. The sound of the moaning electric guitar always fills his head. He tries very hard to emulate his Rock idols but like all human beings he has his own limitations. A chance jamming session with one of his friend’s band ex-poses his shortcomings and his sheer mediocrity. Sometimes inspite of impassioned pursuits and great efforts we still fall short of our own expectations. Does it mean that we stop trying? We wonder why is he an ordinary guitarist inspite of his passion for the instrument. Why does he falter? And then we realise that sometimes it may take three years for a person with just three fingers in his left hand to change the “F-chord”.

This was also the first time yours truly “composed” music for a film. With the help of Rajroop (who is a more seasoned guitarist than me )and a beautiful Apple software called Soundtrack Pro I managed to get the soundscape in place. After endless sessions of editing when the finishing touches were left and nothing could go wrong the source footage was accidentally deleted from the hard disk of the “INR 4 lac IMac “. What remained was an average 2gb print I had exported the day before. Thats all the evidence I had of making a film. Check it out. Its far from perfect. In fact everytime I watch it I see a new flaw. But all the same it was my first film and will always be special.

Watch the movie here

Client 1: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Job: Do the entire branding and  publicity design for their cultfest Chaos which they wanted to revamp.

What followed was no less than a saga of pure exhilaration and also repeated stumbles along the way. No issues. It was worth it. Getting out of our comfort zones, working in an unfamiliar environment and learning hands-on – if that was not enough then maybe it was also the kick that we got from the fact that we were “semi-professional designers” now and all ready to take on the “big bad world” by its horns.

Besides other things I was mostly responsible for delivering a promotional video that should ideally be a feeler of the actual event, generate a good amount of curiosity and lead viewers to the website which is actually the main portal for information.

The theme of the festival this year is “70 mm” i.e the world of cinema. That was actually an important aspect that needed a good interpretation and representation. There were quite a few competing concepts that surfaced from the brain-typhooning (storm is an understatement) sessions we had and what all of us felt to be feasible was to have a very iconic object as the central theme of the video which would stay in the viewer’s mind for a good time. That object was a “television”- one of those retro types belly-bulging colourful ones. The television would be the portal which led the viewer to the world where Chaos’10 would be revealed . Seemed feasible . But then started the real challenge where we had to visualise this concept and actually make it into a video using Adobe AfterEffects. So my work was this…Learn Aftereffects –> Make a Promo. And this was the time I had the most fun. Fun in getting royally screwed by the intricacies of software issues, feeling handicapped at thinking something wacky and not being able to do the same thing in the software, my laptop begging for mercy from the nightlong rendering sessions and panic attacks from the looming deadlines. The music was another bugging issue. No track gave the feel we wanted . After the end of a weeklong futile search for songs on the net ,one evening we found a track called “Sungrazers” – probably never heard by anyone , sitting in some nondescript music folder of my friend’s laptop and it worked decently well. And so after a fortnight of slogging and “shutdowns-caused-by overheating-of-laptop”, the video was ready to go.

I chose to work around the form of corals and used filled balloons with plaster of paris to generate organic forms which could then be finished by hand.

The finished forms before painting looked like this

Now to give it the really sleek and finished look, I used high gloss paint on it and this how the baby looked after the paint  job.

So over with form studies. Well not really because I carried my experience of corals further into the other course dealing with product modelling and simulation. Here I chose to model and simulate a webcam. Initially I went for just a simple webcam and its detailed modelling because that is what the purpose of the course was.

Initial Attempt

But then Shende Sir pushed me to go for a completely different approach. He asked me to make the webcam not just a deadspace product but more pro-active, more like a character. Thats when I started explorations and taking inspiration from the coral form. The aim was to make the product a point of conversation- much like Starck’s  juicy salif

I finalized my concept called “Budi”. I even attempted to make a physical prototype with silicone but due to limitations in availability of materials and moulding facilities the attempt did not succeed.

But anyways I gave an effort in coming up with CAD models and renderings which were realistic enough to provide the viewer a feel of how the finished product would look. This product was designed keeping in mind the dimensions of standard webcams, weight distribution and housing for internal components. The neck portion houses a flexiwire to make the neck flexible.

So that is the story of Budi. For a person who is shown the final few images he will never be able to guess that this product was born when its designer got too engrossed with corals .  Infact even I did not have the slightest hint that I would end up doing this. But every time I look back I feel, it was one awesome experience.

So moving from the casual to the serious stuff, the first bit of learning was understanding how ICTF (Image, Colour, Type, Format ) influences graphic design. Based on that the first assignment was to design a series of posters with the text “India Spices” varying the aforementioned attributes. The result was this:

initial poster concepts

I think this was the time me and my team mates Aditya and Jagriti did things more hands on than on the computer screen.We infact did a lot of experimental things like making our own fonts using spices and brushes.

Spiced Strokes

From the initial concepts four concepts were shortlisted and refined. In the process we also tried to learn some of the nuances attached with typography. As Iko says” Type is like dance. It should be elegant and fluid. Its about learning to be sensitive to every millimetre.” We also unlearnt the notion of using stock images in posters to creating our own personalised photo-shoots to get the perfect image we had in our minds.

Selected four

So that was about the first part of the workshop. The second part was about coming up with a logo for a fictitious brand of spices for a client who would use it in everything from store to package branding. The clients infact were the group of students under Prof. Noni Avital who were simultaneously having a workshop on Point of Sale and Retail Design. The client catered to single young rich people who loved cooking but had less time . So the concept was to have spices compressed with  a binding agent into standardised sticks. We had to come up with a name and identity for the brand.

After rigorous brainstorming and quite a few rejections the name that the client liked was HAUTE. This is actually a word in french meaning exclusive or hign class as in haute couture (high dressing) or haute cuisine(elaborate food). This seemed quite apt for the targeted premium market segment. Also closely following the name we came up with a very different concept for the logo. The idea was that ” Emotions are like the spices in our lives” . Sometimes subtle sometimes intense but it adds character to it like spices do with food. Also many emotions are followed with the exclamation sign (!) like wow! and aah!  or aargh!. So we used the exclamation as the base for our logo.

doodles

Next was playing with the form of the exclamation sign. The client wanted a very fluid organic shape which denoted the subtlety of  exotic spices.

Form Iterations

With the one selected we made a colour pallete for use in the six kind of spice packages which the client had

font & palette

colour coding of products

We also designed what would be the content of each face of the box. Along with the logo and graphics all relevant information had to be elegantly presesnted. In short we had to deliver a ready design which could just be printed, the spices put inside and sold off the shelf tomorrow.

package graphics

We also went a step further in visualising how the paskage would look in 3D and also when displayed on a shelf in a super market. This gave us an idea of how it would compare to its competitors. Although in the brief it was mentioned that this brand would be sold from exclusive stores dedicated to HAUTE, we were keen to see how it looked among its other cousins in colourful packets having images of food. We also got a prototype printed

turmeric stack

on the shelf with competitors

Although the deadlines were tight we did manage to complete in the nick of time thanks to our dedicated nightouts. The presentation was well received by the audience especially Iko and Noni who felt that this project was quite professionally done. They were very happy at the overall outcome of the workshop. Infact this workshop did start a bit lethargically thanks to a previous one we had just the week before. But as they say “All’s well that ends well!” Hoping for many such learning opportunities in DoD in the near future.

a part of the team

the ones who survived with Iko and Noni (Bandi clicked the pic)

Also just a piece of trivia : Philip Starck’s juicy salif ( that all about emotional design notion that prompted Don Norman to actually write a book “Emotional Design”) started its life on a paper napkin while Starck was bored and started doodling while in a restaurant. Thats the power of doodles!

Well I was always good at maths till I came to college (although it still excites me a lot!) and I felt that mathematical funtions could give rise to stunningly complex and intricate forms. In fact one could devote an entire lifetime studying fractal forms and still fall short of time. So I decided to start simpler. The form that I generated seemed familiar to a Mobius Strip. I feel that the challenge now lies in finding innovative uses for this form in the form of useful objects.

Visually when we view this form from different angles we see a transition from symmetry to asymmetry, from harmony to chaos. Sometimes we may feel that all the six  are different forms altogether.That seemed very interesting to me. Maybe this form could be a curious sculpture, maybe it could be used for a more functional object like a roller-coaster track  or maybe a combination of such units could give rise to interesting objects. I am currently exploring possibilities . Even you are welcome to do so.[:)]