text:
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Thinking at Ahmedabad University: An approach paper for a proposed course for
undergraduate students
August 2013
Why Design Thinking?
We have
constantly been amazed at the great creative actions of humanity, which can be
seen in their key inventions and major evolutionary steps that shaped human
civilisation and these have been initiated by generations of unknown creators
over time immemorial. These creators have helped shape our civilisation through
their breakthrough contributions by daring to experiment and create in the face
of social isolation and ridicule by the prevailing orthodoxy. They contributed
by innovating at the edge of society as stated by Alexander Doxiadis when he
talked about the blue dots and red dots that represented the typical
settlements where the blues were the majority conformists and the reds the
crazies who were ostracised and isolated till a paradigm shift in society
helped assimilate the thoughtful and insightful contributions from these
isolated creators. These contributions included small or major improvements and
change in processes, tools, arts, crafts, everyday artefacts, houses and public
structures which we have conveniently labelled as inventions and innovations
long before we could recognise these contributions as heroic acts of design
thought and action.
We now know
that these are early design acts that were not properly attributed in our
historic references so far. We are now beginning to understand that design
thought and action was central to all these breakthrough contributions and that
it is a basic human activity and ability at one level that is as old as
civilisation itself. The other form is a new and modern profession, and this is
created by the professional education of a designer who would be able and
sensitised to feel, think, act in an appropriate manner in a rapidly changing
material and social world in an industrial age. Today in an era of information
access and digital processes has brought on new possibilities for design as
well as enormous challenges and responsibilities that require an ethical and
feeling attitude alongside a sharp intellect and able set of hands.
Understanding design and design thinking today is a major challenge since it
has so many forms and those working in a variety of domains exhibit
capabilities and competencies drawn from a vast array of traditional
disciplines that have been integrated into the skill sets of a particular
designer in his or her modern form.
education has become dominated by vertical specialisations with little connect
between the various disciplines and the emphasis has been on development of
knowledge resources and capability within each domain of study. However it is
increasingly seen that to solve real world problems and emerging opportunities
there is a need for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary attitudes and
abilities to collaborate and think across various styles of thought and action
to ralise innovative possibilities that are around us all the time. It is here
that many educators across disciplines are turning to design thinking to bring
these new attitudes and capabilities to the various domains of specialisations
within an educational and university setting. The core processes and
capabilities afforded by design thinking training are listed and stated below.
1. Understanding the Context: Framing Intentions and
Learning to understand the context and the social,
cultural, material, economic and political situation that usually leads to
trying to get clarity from a very complex set of signals and processes from the
real world that help provide the essence of a direction for design thought and
action. This kind of learning, like many others, does go through several
iterations but at the end of these multiple cycles the level of conviction and
sense of purpose is usually very high in the task and the purpose that it
represents. This early stage learning is at most times very fuzzy and a great
deal of flexibility is called for to be able to cope with the ambiguity that
accompanies this kind of design exploration leading to the building of some
convictions that are supported by the faith of these experiences. Many a times
this conviction can be a source of great frustration since few others have the
same insights that the design learner has garnered from the unique situations
that has been investigated in some considerable depth. Designers learn that
these early stage sense data needs to be trusted and not abandoned too early
and this is the foundation of an innovation environment in which they choose to
work. Lifetime of experiences are harnessed through the processes of
brainstorming and mapping of the context and the various elements that may
impact the situation that is being examined with a very open minded attitude
that is inclusive in nature rather than by being overly critical. All this
exploration is done with words and images and these need to be modeled in a
composite structure that captures both the structure as well as the form of the
situation under examination and this model is a dynamic one as it develops and
responds to new circumstances and information and insights. Insights about the
context and the particular situation are the most sought after by-products from
these early stages of design exploration.
2. Research, Knowledge and Insights: Plumbing
Information Sources and Dimensions
Design learning
needs to develop both attitudes as well as ability with tools of information
access and processing. The process of design deals
with access to information to many classes of information types which includes
published and reported facts and speculations and also field based observations
and self initiated experiments that are contextually mediated to fill gaps in
the current information or for a direct confirmation of some reported fact or
speculation which cannot otherwise be verified easily, to list only a small
sub-set of the huge variety of information types involved in design
investigation. Designers have drawn from all kinds of disciplines, from the
humanities, sociology, psychology and language studies as well as from the
sciences and technology fields,
various tools and techniques that were previously perfected within these
disciplines over the years of specialised investigations and these would be
available in published form as textbooks from each field of study. For example,
tools and procedures on field-work and observation of people in the particular
design situation, are drawn from the standard practices and work ethics and
techniques of anthropologists, sociologists a variety of humanities experts and
these have been adopted and used in numerous cases of design research that I
know of. The field of design research is growing with many of these disciplines
recognising new roles for themselves in the whole arena of innovation and
design action that is becoming recognised as a valuable area of work globally.
Design schools too are beginning to adopt many of these tools and processes as
their own and building competence in their use and analysis. The purpose of
these design research efforts however tend to be focussed on finding useful
insights for the design action and decisions to follow rather than be focussed
on finding fundamental truths and new knowledge as a final goal of the
particular design research effort.
3. Finding Structure: Mapping of Resources and
Design problems
are better understood by juxtaposing factual and observational findings with
new proposals and imagined possibilities that are visualised at an early stage
in a what if mode of thought and action. New scenarios for action come up for
active consideration and these also inform the design teams about the possible
gaps in their information that need to be filled as they move forward. These conjectural models can be subjected to early analysis using a variety
tools and frameworks to conduct such analysis. The hypothesis and insights
arrived at in these early explorations drives further design investigation in
the form of advanced scenarios of parts or the whole of the design situation or
in the form of narratives and stories that cover both the micro and the macro
levels of observation and visualisation of the stated and imagined need as well
as the consequences and potentials that are being investigated by the designer.
This too moves through numerous iterations till a selection is possible of a few
major alternate courses of action that can be taken to the next level of
investment planning and decision cycles, be it the sharing of these models with
stake-holders, conduct of further focussed experiments or the building of
expensive prototypes of parts or the whole product or business offering, as the
case may be. This also applies to visualisations at many levels of expression
from the abstract to the real, such as pre-cognitive diagrams, doodles and
fuzzy sketches at one end, that are the preliminary visualisations created in
many cases intuitively by the designer for themselves in the search for
possible configurations and relationships of the various attributes of the
solution to the other extreme involving expensive articulations of scenario in the
form of detailed drawings, renderings and models and even real material
prototypes in many iterations in a search for new and particular configurations
affordances that resolve the many contradictions that exist in all design
tasks. We can call this an analytical exploration of the design situation using
visual tools and processes that generate external models rather than numerical
or verbal expressions, although in some cases even these would be used in
conjunction with the visual as well. Many of these models can be shared with
large groups of critical participants to find gaps in the offerings and areas
of improvement may emerge from the suggestions that are gathered in this
4. Communication of Concepts: Negotiating with
Designers need
to develop an ability to make their concepts visible at an early stage and to
be successful they also need to be able to communicate these effectively to a
wide range of stake-holders as well. The ability to work in a team situation
with many stake-holders with different areas of expertise is critical and using
verbal, textual and visual discourses is an integral part of design thought and
action. Design action calls for articulate expression of intermediate findings
as well as expressive presentations of findings and results of concept
explorations along with justifications of investments that would need to follow
to make the concept a reality. Therefore, interactions
with numerous stakeholders and in most cases approving authorities with whom
the interactions are both critical and necessary for the task to progress to
the next logical level of action with funding and other supports, calls for
fairly advanced skills of communication and language use along with multi-media
presentation skills. The learning involved is in communication, in seeking
collaborations and in understanding the responses with empathy to the situation
and the needs and feelings of the identified users. For major projects of
public utility there is the added complexity of public discourse and politics
of governance that would need to be negotiated and navigated with competence if
the design teams are to be successful.
5. Ethical Frameworks and Holistic Models: Synthesis
of Positions and Informed Decisions
Values and
ethical positions are a part of all design choice making and these would come
up at numerous stages in the process of design. Learning
to accept and process the feedback from stake-holders into contact with
constructive actions is a great leveller, and it brings the design thinker into
uncommon scenarios on the cusp of great change and this could induce change in
the individual themselves, since some of this feedback could be cultural in
nature or outside the accepted frame of the designers frame of "personal
ethics" – for want of a better term, which may be reflexive and transformative
in both directions. The nature of design calls for the practitioner to be
widely informed about both technical as well as socio-political matters and be
able to use these in the context of the task at hand. There are many instances
of the designer embarking on a new path outside the scope of the current task
based on the insights and convictions derived from the learning experiences
embedded in the design task. Today we are finding numerous examples of great
complexity that may contain challenges of trying to bring sustainability and
social equity into design tasks that may have in the past been considered a
pure technical exercise. Awareness levels are high and public participation in
such matters is also approaching high levels compelling designers to adopt
methods that could make the design process less intuitive and more accountable
and with public visibility at all decision stages, particularly for good
governance in public expenditure. Documentation in such situations becomes
doubly important.
6. Exploring Alternatives: Developing Strategies and Details for Parts and Whole.
Learning to design leads to be open to vast range of
alternatives and in decision-making choices from out of the numerous
alternatives of parts and wholes that are the result of progressive
visualisations and experimentations conducted in the progress of the design
task. The definition of the task itself is open to review and many a times the
investigations and design investments have veered of into an entirely new
direction as a result of this kind of review which is quite normal in a design
situation that is complex and previously less explored. The ability to develop
alternatives calls for flexibility as well as the ability to generate prolific
variety of expressions that can shape possible futures through the mobilisation
of many types and styles of thinking for exploration and synthesis. Design
thinking has many modes of thought from explorative, analytical, synthesis,
abductive, categoric as well as reflective thinking styles at various stages as
the work progresses.
7. Developing the Self: Learning New Attitudes, Skills and Concepts
Design students
need to be curious people and they should have an urge for constant learning
about changes in their environment as well as in society at large. The ability
to find what is not known and to quickly learn the principles or alternately to
find those who can help them learn is a quality that is valued in a design and education
setting. The constant self development that we see
in what designers do in their search for new and interesting bits of knowledge
that would be of value in the future on some not yet anticipated task usually
within the frame of interest paths that each designer traverses over a career
of continued learning to cope with the new and the unexpected in their usual
area of work and areas that overlap their multiple interest paths. This calls
for high degree of self-motivation and a sustained level of interest that can
be supported when the task becomes both difficult and in many cases frustrating
when no progressis
easily visible on the horizon. The attitude towards learning is one of
curiosity and with a constant search for excellence and quality in whatever is
being addressed.
Thinking Course at Ahmedabad University:
A Course Abstract
Paper for an elective course created for undergraduate & postgraduate
Prof M P
Independent Academic & Author of Blog –
Course Title: Introduction to Design Thinking
Sessions: 30 sessions
Pre-Requisites: Offered to all students of Undergraduate
and Postgraduate Programme at Ahmedabad University.
Objective: Broad based introduction to the processes
and concepts of Design Thinking with
a sensitisation to attitudes and action skills required to innovate and deliver
new and compelling design concepts. Participants will be introduced to various
processes and styles of Design Thinking
using selected real world settings in the City of Ahmedabad — to explore,
understand, structure and build new products, services and systems with the use
of design and innovation processes. Help participants appreciate design thought
and processes with a familiarity to key design thought leaders in the field
through select readings, contemporary debates on issues and perspectives as
well as online resources that are relevant and current. The assignments will
give students an exposure to the hands-on minds-on perspectives needed for
handling complex and wicked problems that are typical of design challenges and
these collective experiences as well as reflections on these actions taken
together will give them confidence to handle new and unfamiliar situations and
use these processes and styles of thinking to create new and compelling
offerings using design thinking as a way of living and action.
Methodology and Structure: This 30 session course is divided into 10
modules, each composed of lectures, discussion sessions on the Key Theme of each module and these are
followed by structured non-prescriptive assignments for the students to work in
teams to explore and discover the boundaries of the chosen task and navigate
the complexities of the situation in exploring design opportunities through the
set of structured assignments and learning to work in teams at the same time.
Course Content: Introduction to Key Concepts of Design
Thinking through lectures, discussions, group assignments and presentations
divided into ten major overlapping modules as listed below:
A: Key Concepts of Design Thinking
1. What is
Design Thinking?
2. Styles of
Design Thinking
3. Goal Seeking
& Setting Research
Understanding Context
5. Visual
Mapping & Resource Mapping
6. Categories
and Trends
7. Compositions
and Judgements
8. Opportunity
Mapping and Scenario Visualisation
Communications and Reflection
Presentations with Business Models
(See supporting
notes attached for a description of the design thinking models and stages as
well as styles of thinking)
B: Opportunities for New/ Improved Services and Business offerings through
design. Context City of Ahmedabad of 2015 - 2020
These are broad sectors within which
there would be numerous specific design opportunities worth doing and these
would be explored and developed as a theme each year depending on the context
and current interest of the participating students and the imagination that
they would unfold.
1. Food preparation and delivery 9.
Urban Farming Trends
2. Healthcare opportunities 10.
Garbage and Urban Hygiene
3. Urban Mobility challenges 11.
Web Enabled Services
4. Entertainment and then City 12.
Library & Knowledge Services
5. Public Spaces Utilisation 13.
Music Events and Competitions
6. Tourism and Heritage offerings 14.
Social Networks for City Governance
7. Events and Festivals 15.
Riverfront Opportunities
8. Education related needs 16.
BRTS support Services
And many more which would be developed as part of the
early Goal Setting assignments in the early phase of the course.
Space and
Facilities Required: Flexible space planning with
appropriate furniture and lighting would be needed to conduct he various parts
of this course. Lectures and presentation sessions would be for the whole group
and depending on the total number of students the space requirements would need
to be made appropriately. During each Module the groups would require access to
lecture spaces provide with audio-visual facilities as well as clear wall
spaces with white soft boards for display and discussion of posters simultaneously
for at least five groups. Each group would be composed of 6 to 10 student
participants and the class strength could vary from 30 to 50 participants each
year. Each group would need a work space suitable for group processes in design
thinking and preferably these tables and chairs should be stackable to clear
the space for group presentations that would use the wall space around the
design space.
List of key
thought leaders and published resources: Design
Thinking is a rapidly evolving field and more published resources are being
made available each day as the field grows. We will keep a close watch on the
evolving literature and suggest appropriate papers, books, web sites and
discussion lists that the students can interact with as part of their course at
the University. Being an introductory course, the selection will be governed by
the material being suitable for entry-level students into the field of design
and design thinking. However the University needs to invest in expanding their
design related library so that these students can continue to use the resource
long after the course in a continued learning setting and it would also
encourage other students to think about using design as a key resource for
their own projects and initiatives. We anticipate many such innovation
initiatives from the student body once the course is set up and finds a place
in the mainstream of the University offering.
Criteria and Feedback: Students will be evaluated on
both participation as well as performance. Participation will be on the basis
of attendance and quality of participation in group processes. Results of group
assignments will be graded for the group and not for the individual student.
However, students not showing interest or effort in group processes would need
to be counseled to ensure a level of learning that is wholesome and properly
assimilated. The final presentation would be a public event and the concepts
developed by the students will get live feedback from teachers, mentors, peers,
as well as members of the community with whom they have interacted during the
course. Attendance and individual participation tasks will carry a 40 percent
weightage while group tasks would carry 60 percent.
Outcomes: Understanding of Design as an action discipline. Ability to frame
complex challenges using design thinking skills and visualization of these for
sharing with stakeholders. Familiarity with design concepts and tools with an
introduction to key thought leaders. Familiarity with a vocabulary of design
and innovation as they would be applied to a wide spectrum of opportunities and
complex challenges.
1. John Heskett,
Design: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2005
2. Jon Kolko,
Exposing The Magic of Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Methods of
Synthesis, Oxford University Press, 2011
3. John Thackara,
In The Bubble, Designing in a Complex World, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2005
4. Harold G
Nelson & Eric Stolterman, The Design Way, Intentional Change in an
Unpredictable World, MIT Press, 2012
5. Roger Martin,
Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage,
Harvard Business School Press, 2009
6. Kees Dorst,
Understanding Design, BIS Publishers, 2006
7. Bryan Lawson,
What Designers Know, Architectural Press, 2004
6. M P Ranjan,
Design Thinking Models: A Primer, The Author, 2013
7. M P Ranjan, Design
for India, blog : http://www.designforindia.com , 2007 to 2013
8. M P Ranjan,
Academia.edu, Archive of Papers and Books by the author,
On 18 August 2013 the Academic Council of Ahmedabad University reviewed the proposal and accorded an in-principle approval to launch the course as an elective offered across several colleges of the University, This is a significant move since in India we have over 500 recognised Universities and the need for embedding design and design thinking into the 230 sectors of our economy is still a long way away, a journey that we started on this blog in 2007 on 14th June with the publication of our Mission Statement for the Design for India initiative.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Celebrating the Mizo Paikawng: Reflections on The Three Orders of Design
Reflections on The
Three Orders of Design:
Lessons from the
handmade baskets of the Northeast India revisited
Design overview
lecture delivered at the "Uttar Purva Utsav" organized by the Crafts Council of
India at the "Dilli Haat" on 2nd February 2009 to celebrate and
promote the crafts of Northeast India in association with the Development
Commissioner of Handicrafts, Government of India.
The lecture was
simultaneously translated into Hindi by Prof. Ms Asha Bakshi, Dean Fashion
Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi.
This invitation to speak at the "Uttar Purva Utsav" organized
by the Crafts Council of India at the "Dilli Haat" gives me the opportunity to
reflect on my three decade old association with the crafts of the Northeastern
Region of India and to ponder on the lessons that we have learned about design
and bamboo from the craftsmen of the Northeast over the years since our first
contact with their work in the field in late 1979. We began our year long
fieldwork November 1979 in the Northeast as part of the project sponsored by
the All India Handicrafts Board in those days, now the Development Commissioner
of Handicrafts [DC (H)], to study the bamboo and cane crafts of the region
which resulted in a book which was eventually published in 1986 by the DC (H)
and the National Institute of Design (NID), titled "Bamboo & Cane Crafts ofNortheast India" by M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer and Ghanshyam Pandya. (download pdf 35 mb) It is also an
opportune occasion to connect once again with the resources that were generated
by that project particularly in the form of the very large collection of
baskets that were collected in the field as part of our study and these are
today available at the National Crafts Museum and I am told that these are on
special display to celebrate the crafts of Northeast and in conjunction with
this particular event at the Dilli Haat. The craftsmen and the crafts promoters
are invited to visit the National Crafts Museum at Pragati Maidan and see for
themselves the quality of crafts that is still a living tradition of the region
as these products are still in active use across the region but times are
changing fast and these may not remain that way for very long. Digital pdf
copies of my book can be downloaded from my website and in-print copies of the
paperback edition (2004) are available from both NID and the DC (H) and the
original hard-bound edition (1986) is now out of print.
I must share the learning that we were able to glean from
our journeys into the Northeast as well as from our interactions with the local
craftsmen which was followed by a period of deep study that we could invest
into the collection of 400 baskets that we had gathered during our field work
in the Northeastern region. Besides giving us numerous insights about bamboo
that were invaluable we were also quite surprised to see the deep appreciation
of design principles that were both applied by the craftsmen as well as
something g that we found embedded in the range of products that we had
collected in an extremely selective manner during our year long field work in
the seven states of the Northeastern region. Now Sikkim has been included in
the definition of the Northeastern Region and rightly so, since these states
share so many common characteristics with each other while keeping their
individual identities intact. Learning from the Northeast's craftmen was an exhilarating
experience and in all very enriching experience. As a designer and a design teacher traveling with two colleagues
through a culture that was rich with knowledge about bamboo and design it was a
stimulating experience for us and a huge source of new learning from the field.
This learning we tried to capture in our book about the Bamboo and Cane Crafts
of the Northeastern Region and while the content may look like a normal
documentation a look at the back of the book will reveal two indexes, one a "Technical
index" that captures all the nuances of the local wisdom across many fields and
the other a "Subject index" which links and makes accessible word concepts as
they appear across the book. Our sense of amazement at each product that we saw
and the level of detail to which the thought process had helped evolve that
product was always a source of great pleasure and amazement and admiration.
From all these products I would like to draw out one specific example, The
Paikawng, a Mizo basket used for carrying firewood, not because it stands above
the rest but simply because it is one of many products that come to my mind as
I stand here and reflect on our deep learning from the field about design
itself. I will therefore use the example of the Paikawng to set out the
boundaries and contours of the three orders of design as they appear in the
fine hand crafted baskets of Northeast India.
Let me first give you an overview of the three orders of
design that I shall be dwelling on over the next few minutes. What are these
and how do they relate to our understanding of design and in particular how
these can help us use design to further our objective of building better
products and systems for the people of the Northeastern region? The fine
detailing in the baskets from the Northeast represent the climax of a bamboo
culture and the field study and our book tries to pay homage to that spirit.
The three orders of design are listed here and I shall proceed to explain how
these were appreciated in the Paikawng and in all the other products that were
equally rich and deserving of our attention.
The Order of Design of
Material –Form – Structure
This level of design is recognised by all people and is the
most commonly discussed attribute. Here material, structure and technology are
the key drivers of the design and these help shape the form that we eventually
see and appreciate in the product. We can appreciate the product as an honest
expression of structure and material used and transformed to realize a
particular form that is both unique as well as functional. It is here that
skill and understanding of the craftsmen are both used to shape the product
through an appropriate transformation of the material with an understanding of
its properties and with an appreciation of its limitations and possibilities.
Let us take the Paikawng and examine it at the level of
material and form – this basket is made of long strands of stout bamboo splits
that are first interlaced to form a square base before these are bent up to
form the sides of the basket. In forming the sides these very same splits form
elongated hexagons that are a result of the three horizontal bands that anchor
the inclined verticals between the base and the rim structure. At the rim these
splits are each divided laterally into a number of sub-splits which lend
themselves to a form of braiding so as to create a wide braided band that is
both soft as well as very strong but being flexible. The material of the split
is thus transformed at each stage, the base as flat and wide, the sides as
thick and stiff and the rim as soft and flexible, while still remaining one
single piece of bamboo that is responding to a particular structural need at
the point where it is needed. The four corners of the square base are covered
by a interlacing knot made of cane splits which does not unravel if some of the
overlapping strands are cut while the basket is in use. This lends the basket a
degree of toughness that is essential for the intended function, which is to
carry rough cut fire-wood from the field to the home and this brings us to the
second order of design.
The Second Order of
The Order of Design
for Function: Feeling – Impact – Effect
This level is influenced by utility and feeling and is
largely determined by the marketplace as well as by the culture in which it is
located. Here aesthetics and utility are informed by the culture and the
economics of the land. We can sense and feel the need for the product and the
trends are determined by the largely intangible attributes through which we
assess the utility and price that we are willing to pay for this particular
offering and this is quite independent of its cost.
In order to examine this level of design we will need to
compare similar products across a number of different social and cultural
situations. Firewood baskets are made by many communities of the Northeast and
each of these have a distinctive form that is informed by the asthetic
preferences of that community. The Paikawng offers the Mizo a particular form
and structure and for lighter applications they have a sister product called
the Emsin which is lighter and smaller than the Paikawng but with very similar
structural and formal characteristics of the latter. The other tribes have
distinctly different forms that are arrived at by differences in the size,
shape, contours as well as the shape of the hexagon used to form the sides of
the baskets in question while addressing the same set of functions that the
Paikawng addresses for the Mizos.
The Third Order of
The Order of Design
for Value – Meaning and Purpose
This level is shaped by the higher values in our society and
by the philosophy, ethics and spirit that we bring to our products and events
as well as all the associated services and the stories that we can tell about
the relationships between these entities and our lives. At this level value
unfolds through the production of meaning in our lives and in providing us with
our identities and these products becomes a medium of communication itself, all
about ourselves. It is held in the politics and ethics of the society and is at
the heart of the spirit in which the products are produced and used in that
society. There are deeply held meanings that are integral to the form,
structure as well as some of the essential features which may in some cases be
the defining aspects of that product, making it recognizable as being from a
particular tribe or community. These features define the ownership of the form,
motif or character of the product and these are usually supported by the
stories and legends about their origin and these give meaning to the lives of
the people for whom they are made.
The Paikawng has this distinctive character and can be
recognized as a typical Mizo product both by the Mizos themselves as well as by
those around them. The braided band at the rim has a distinctive name in the
Mizo language – it is called "vawkpuidang phiar", meaning "the braided pattern
of palete of the pig or sow" which has a similar knitted pattern. These stories bring value to the
product that goes far beyond its material and utility value that is usually
embedded in such functional products. We need to recognize the characteristics
that these three orders of design bring to the contemporary products of our own
society and in doing so we can learn to enhance the value that it brings to the
market as well as tone the quality standards that are applied to each instance
of these products at the various stages of production, marketing and
utilization in the society.
All three layers are important and we need to learn to
appreciate our creations along all three axis if we are to reach a sustainable
offering in the handicrafts sector in the days ahead. Design therefore has a
number of layers that are addressed in our traditional artifacts and when we
embark on the making of our new and innovative products for new markets we will
need to pay a great deal of attention to all three orders of the design
spectrum if we are to reach a semblence of sustainability and order in our
creative offerings for the future.
Bamboo & Cane
Crafts of Northeast India by M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer and Ghanshyam Pandya,
National Institute of Design 1986
About the Author
M P Ranjan
Independent Academic, Ahmedabad
Author of blog www.DesignForIndia.com
As a member of the faculty since 1976 he has been
responsible for the creation and conduct of numerous courses dealing with
Design Theory and Methodology, Product and Furniture Design and numerous
domains of Digital Design. He has conducted research in many areas of Design
Pedagogy, Industrial and Craft Design and on the role of design policy in
various sectors of the Indian economy. He has held many administrative
positions at NID and is currently Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at
NID. Besides publishing several papers on design and craft he has edited
numerous volumes of NID publications including the "Young Designers" series and
is author of a major book titled "Bamboo and Cane Crafts of Northeast India"
(1986) and two CD-ROMs titled "Bamboo Boards and Beyond" (2001) and "Beyond
Grassroots" (2003) which contain all his papers and reports on bamboo and on
design. He helped build the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design at Jaipur and
the Bamboo & Cane Development Institute, Agartala. He is co-editor of a major
publication "Handmade in India" (2008) which documents the crafts of India and
is produced by the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, Government of
As a professional designer he has handled many design
projects for industry, government and international agencies in areas of
product design, interior design, exhibition design, craft design and design
policy. As Chairman of NID's consulting Design Office from 1981 to 1991 he was
responsible for managing over four hundred professional design projects handled
by the Institute in that period. He has headed the NID's Publications and
Resource Centre as well as the Information Technology initiatives as Chairman
Computer Centre and Head Apple Academy at NID. He completed several major
projects for the UNDP and Government agencies to demonstrate the role of bamboo
as a sustainable craft and industrial material of the future. These innovations
contributed to the creation of new strategies for the use of bamboo in India.
M P Ranjan was born in Madras in 1950 and after his
schooling and junior college there he joined NID as a design student in 1969 in
the PG programme in Furniture Design. He joined the Faculty at NID in 1972 and
for a short while, between 1974 and 1976, worked as a professional designer in
Madras before returning to NID as a full time faculty member in 1976. He now
teaches fulltime at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He is on the
Governing Council of the IICD, Jaipur and is the Chairman, Geovisualisation
Task Group set up by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of
His website set up in late 2004 is a growing resource of
writings and visual presentations on his numerous areas of interest, projects
and teaching programmes.
(shut down by Apple)
In 2007 he created and launched a blog called "Design for
India" on his thoughts on policy initiatives for the spread of design in all
sectors of the Indian economy.
Posted by Prof. M P Ranjan at 12:55 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: Bamboo and Cane Crafts, Baskets, CCI, DC(H), Dilli Haat, Mizo language, Mizoram, Northeastern Region, Orders of Design, Paikawng
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Web of Connections: Indian Design education with influences from the HfG Ulm
Web of Connections: Indian Design
education with influences from the HfG Ulm
was invited to write a reflective piece on the connections between the design
pedagogy of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and that of the HfG Ulm
to be included in a proposed issue of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation's magazine
issue that would look back at the impact of the Bauhaus and Hfg Ulm on the
Tropical nations of the world long after both these German schools were shut
down for different reasons. I have been researching their connections with
India for many years and this invitation gave me an opportunity to continue my
research a bit deeper into the connections between the schools. I interviewed
four former NID faculty who had studied and worked closely with faculty from
HfG Ulm in the early 60's when the NID was being founded at Ahmedabad and used
this to build my paper. Interesting new facts were revealed in these interviews
and we will need to do more before we have a deeper understanding of the real
influences and how these have shaped the foundation of design education in
paper was not carried in the Bauhaus 5 – Tropics issue released in June 2013
but on pages 76 to 79 they carried a brief interview with me about a set of
questions that their editors had set for me to respond. However, they have also provided
a link to my blog "Design for India" www.designforindia.com
and their own website at www.bauhaus-online.de for extracts from my paper that is
reproduced below in full text.
Paramanand Dalwadi, H Kumar Vyas, Gajanan Upadhayay and Jayanti Panchal — all
former Faculty of NID who had close connections with HfG Ulm in the 60's and
Web of Connections: Indian Design education
with influences from the HfG Ulm
M P Ranjan
– Design Chair, CEPT University, Ahmedabad
prepared at the invitation of the Bauhaus Dessau foundation for inclusion in "Bauhaus 5 ‑—Tropics" magazine. in June 2013
his 1999 article titled – The "Ulm Model" in the Periphery – Gui Bonsiepe
discussed the various manifestations of the "Ulm Model" especially its reach
and establishment In India in the process of bringing design education to
India. He states – "HfG influences had a part in the founding of the National
Institute of Design (NID) at Ahmedabad in India, where HfG faculty members gave
guest courses (Hans Gugelot, Herbert Lindinger, Wolfgang Siol, Christian Staub
and others). These institutions based themselves in policy, design, curriculum
and teaching methods (problem based learning in design courses), on the
experience of the HfG. This experience was brought to them through contacts
with HfG faculty members, through Ulm alumni who came there to teach, and also
through the publications of the HfG, especially the magazine Ulm." This statement from "Ulm Design"
(1999) provided the setting for me to research deeper the connections between
HfG Ulm and NID in the early years as well as in contemporary times
particularly in the context of the invitation from the Bauhaus Dessau
Foundation who are setting up a retrospective of the exhibition that had been
shown in Calcutta in 1922 that included works of the Bauhaus of which very
little is known here in India in the context of the arrival of modern design
and its taking roots here in India. Little is also known about the various
connections between the HfG Ulm and NID and I used this occasion to try and
correct these lacunae.
HfG Ulm Faculty (from top left clockwise) — 1. Visiting faculty at HfG Ulm and
at NID - Charles Eames. 2. Hans Gugelot with architecture students at NID in
1965, 3. Horst Rittel author of "wicked problems" and 4. Tomas Maldonado author of "Design, Nature, Revolution".
I had detailed interviews and video recorded four former NID faculty who had substantial contact with Ulm and Ulm faculty in the 60's and 70's and these interviews as well as other resources and information available with me I proceeded to build the final article. I interviewed Kumar Vyas who started the Product Design Programme at NID in 1966 after spending 11 months at Ulm in Gugelot's office in 1965-66, Paramanand Dalwadi who set up the NID Photography Department was a student of Christian Staub at NID in 1963-66 and Wolfgang Siol at Ulm in 1970. Gajanan Upadhayay started the Furniture Design activity at NID and worked with Hans Gugelot during his brief visit in 1965 and finally Jayanti A Panchal who also worked with Hans Gugelot in 1965 on the tangential fan project at NID and later went to Gugelot office in 1970-71 as a product-engineering designer. All of them had intense interactions with Prof Hans Gugelot when he visited NID in 1965. As we know Hans Gugelot passed away in 1965 some time after his return from India but not before he had set up the faculty training exposure programme for Kumar Vyas to undertake at Ulm over 11 months in 1965-66. I also got in touch by phone with Prof Sudha Nadkarni in Mumbai and reviewed his papers for the Ulmer Model Exhibitions in 2010 at Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Sudha Nadkarni studied at HfG Ulm from 1962 to 1966 and came back to India to work at NID 1966 to 1969 and then went on to set up the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay in 1970. Kirit Patel of CEPT University had apprenticed in Frei Otto's studio in the 80's and this interview too provided insights about the approach to design that was followed by one of the prominent guest faculty at HfG Ulm.
Lindinger in his forward to the book "Ulm Design" tells us that the HfG Ulm had
been through six phases of development and before the NID teams interacted with
them they had already developed a critical approach to design education and
design theory that was well documented and disseminated by the Ulm magazine 1
to 21 from 1955 to 1968. He states – "The third phase, 1956-58, was
dominated by the teaching of Otl Aicher, Maldonado, Gugelot and
Vordemberge-Gildewart. These instructors tried to build a new and markedly
closer relationship between design, science and technology. This was the first
manifestation of the Ulmer Modell, the Ulm model, which has lost none of its
relevance. The HfG evolved a model of training that aimed to give designers a
new, and rather more modest and cautious, understanding of their own role. As
design was now to concern itself with more complex things than chairs and
lamps, the designer could no longer regard himself, within the industrial and
aesthetic process in which he operated, as an artist, a superior being. He must
now aim to work as part of a team, involving scientists, research departments,
sales people, and technicians, in order to realize his own vision of a socially
responsible shaping – Gestaltung – of the environment. Under Maldonado, a new
Basic Course came into being, which broke away more and more clearly from
Bauhaus concepts and absorbed the lessons of perceptual theory and semiotics."
The National Institute of Design
was this Basic Course that Kumar Vyas understood deeply at Ulm and introduced
to the new batch of Product Design students when the Postgraduate course was
offered to graduate engineers in 1967. The NID documentation from 1964-69 shows
examples of the Basic Design assignments as well as the early projects and the
methods used in these projects that echo the Ulm paradigm as well as the muted
shades of grey and colours that were a hallmark of the HfG Ulm way. According
to him, while the spirit of Ulm may have directed the assignments a lot of
innovations were brought into the teaching to meet local needs and challenges. I
joined NID as a student in the postgraduate programme in Furniture Design in
1969 and Kumar Vyas, Sudha Nadkarni and Rolf Misol conducted the interview.
While the Furniture Design projects that started from day one were formulated
by Misol and his teacher and chief consultant, Arno Votler, the Basic Design
assignments conducted by Kumar Vyas were the same as those done by the Product
Design students. The evening discussions that we had with the Product Design
students and those from Graphics and Textiles did show different threads of
pedagogy that were being explored at NID by the various departments and each
was informed by the specific positions of the selected consultants and visiting
faculty who were involved in these programmes. While Product Design was based
on Ulm the Graphic Design programme was modeled after the Swiss school at Basel
and the Textile Design programme came from Cranbrook and the Scandinavian
traditions of weaving. Furniture Design and Ceramic Design had German
consultants to set the curriculum and to conduct the early programmes. Arno Vottler
and Hans Theo Baumann developed the Furniture Design and Ceramic Design
programmes respectively.
Image. H K Vyas conducting class at NID in 1967 and Exhibition at NID of basic design work done in the first Product Design
programme in 1969 and GIRNAR scooter designed by H K Vyas and Sudha Nadkarni with J A Panchal in 1969.
too had a large number of visiting consultants and guest faculty members in the
formative years and many were involved in project work where students actively
participated. The first of a string of major exhibition and multidisciplinary projects
was the designing of the Nehru Exhibition and in 1964 the entire team of
faculty and students in the Graphic Design and Architecture programmes were
involved with the team from Eames Office and this helped set up a very vibrant
work culture at the new Institute located in a building that was designed by Le
Corbusier where NID had access to the loft spaces which had been suitably
modified to start the school of design and host its activities till the new
building was made ready across the street at Paldi in Ahmedabad. Gautam and
Gira Sarabhai with their vast network of contacts in the art and design
community worldwide were able to attract the best talent available to Ahmedabad
and with the generous grants from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations the
talent pool, that they assembled reads like a who's who of world design and the
students and faculty were exposed to these ideas and work methods. This
procession of international talent continued well into the late 80's with the
support of the development grants from the United Nations Industrial
Development Organisation (UNIDO). The first UNIDO- ICSID conference on Design
for Development was held at NID Paldi campus and at IDC in Mumbai in 1979 and
amongst the speakers were Victor Papanek and Gui Bonsiepe along with designers
from Europe, Asia and Latin America. I mention this here since NID had been
evolving internally as well towards development oriented design action and
there was much discussion at the Institute on what would be an appropriate of
design action for a country like India and these debates continued to impact
the education programmes at the Institute over the years.
Hans Gugelot and Product Deign
the formulation of the Product Design programme Kumar Vyas was asked by Gautam
and Gira Sarabhai to stop by at HfG Ulm in early 1965 on his way back from the
opening ceremony of the Eames designed Nehru Exhibition that opened in New
York. This halt at the HfG Ulm turned out to be quite significant for the NID's
Product Design programme. Kumar Vyas met Hans Gugelot there and it was agreed
that Gugelot would travel to India and help in the formulation of the new
programme for the NID. Gugelot traveled to India in the summer of that year and
spent a little over two weeks working with NID designers and craftsmen to
develop the new pedestal model of the tangential fan with Kumar Vyas and
Jayanti A Panchal and with Gajanan Upadhayay a range of furniture using wooden
strips in a T section arrangement and canvas and plywood strips inserts for
stiffness. The model making for the tangential fan was made by the legendary
Haribhai, a Guajarati craftsman and carpenter of fine skills and an amazing
ability to make models in a wide range of materials, plastics, metals and
woods. The wooden furniture system was detailed and developed by Gajanan
Upadhayay and he made the full set of scale models as well as the prototypes
himself. Gugelot returned to Ulm but passed away before Kumar Vyas could
commence his planned training programme at his office in Ulm. Kumar Vyas did
however travel to Ulm and work under the guidance of Herbert Lindinger at HfG
Ulm and Horst Diener at the Gugelot office where he spent the next ten months
understanding the Ulm approach to design education and practice. He also met
and befriended Sudha Nadkarni at HfG Ulm and this set the stage for the next
level of partnership since Nadkarni joined NID as a faculty and designer and
worked there from 1966 to 1969 before moving to Bombay to set up the IDC as
part of IIT Bombay. Jayanti A Panchal traveled to Ulm in 1974 to work in
Gugelot's office under E Reichl and Horst Diener and during this period worked
on many ongoing projects of the office as a design engineer.
Christian Staub and Wolfgang Siol –
Photography at NID
Department at NID was set up by Christian Staub who lived in Ahmedabad for
three years and trained the early students at NID including Paramanand Dalwadi
who became the main photography faculty at NID after his period of training at
NID under the mentorship of Christian Staub. Dalwadi recalls that period with
warmth and deep respect for his classical perfection in his work. Staub
introduced Dalwadi to the finer aspects of photography, camera work as well as
lab and darkroom techniques and in his own words gave him confidence to teach
the subject as well as carry out complex professional tasks in studio and
architectural photography using various formats that were available at NID. The
assignments were all refined at HfG Ulm these formed the basis of teaching at
NID as well. In 1969-70, Dalwadi was deputed for training at Ulm under Wolfgang
Siol for four months and there he had complete access to the equipment in the
studio although he arrived as an apprentice from India. This gave Dalwadi
insights into the Ulm classic techniques of "isometric photography" that was
achieved by perspective correction and appropriate camera position in relation
to the subject, unwritten rules of composition learned by practice and
attention to detail. He had another occasion in 1974 to return to Siol's studio
and spend one month there to be immersed in the studio practice as a refresher
dose. Dalwadi had joined NID as a student in 1963 and he started teaching at
NID and built his own reputation as one of India's leading photographer and
Guest Teachers at HfG Ulm and at
Lindinger tells us – "The HfG was planned as a place for experiment, an
institution open to new hypotheses, theories, and development, in itself the
enormous preponderance of guest instructors (around 200) as opposed to
permanent faculty members (20) led to a sustained dynamic, a constant state of
mental unrest. The list of those guest instructors, then still young and
largely unknown, now looks like a Who's Who of science, literature and art."
Lindinger visited NID in 1970 to review the new curriculum for the
undergraduate programme that was started then.
Klaus Krippendorff whom I met at
the IDSA conference in 2006 writes about his experiences at Ulm where the
visiting lecturers and faculty included Charles and Ray Eames (1955 and 1958), Buckminister
Fuller, Bruce Archer and Horst Rittel, his favorite teachers. Krippendorff's
paper of 2008 states – "The school seemed to look for
students who connected intellectual, cultural, political and technological
conceptions and willing to act." He also has a comment on the politics of the HfG
Ulm and he states – "Perhaps the lack of appreciation of the virtues of higher
education by the design faculty explains at least part of its shortsighted
politics." This seems to be true of NID as well as other design schools in
India where a lack of scholarship and publication is sometimes seen as a virtue.
later years both NID and IDC managed to obtain UNDP funding and faculty from
both schools revisited contacts from HfG Ulm as pert of their training
programmes and guest faculty from HfG Ulm also came to India as UNDP
consultants to bring a renewed level of exchange between these organisations.
Detailing these will need additional research that I hope will be done in the
near future by Indian as well as German scholars. These experts include Kohei
Suguira from Tokyo, Herbert Ohl, Herbert Lindinger, and Gui Bonsiepe. I also had
a conversation with my colleague, Kirit Patel at CEPT University to explore his
contacts with Frei Otto and his team at IL, Stuttgart. Frei Otto was an active
guest faculty
The Ulm Journals at NID Library
Maldonado and Gui Bonsiepe provided intellectual leadership to several
generations of Indian students as well as faculty at both NID as well as IDC
through their sustained efforts to publish the HfG Ulm Journals and books in
later years that were followed with awe and respect. NID Library had a bound
volume of these and many of the assignments documented here were also followed
explicitly at NID as well as at IDC over the years. For instance in Ulm Journal
10-11, Maldonado and Bonsiepe argue for a unique position for design and design
thinking in a world dominated by science. This is a position that we are still
to resolve and in my view an important debate that will continue to attract
research attention for years to come. I met Bonsiepe on his several visits to
India and also Maldonado when I made a visit to Milan in 2010 and I interviewed
him on a number of research questions that I had in mind that stemmed from his
perceptive writings.
Look Back Look Forward workshops were conducted at Bangalore and Kolkatta in
2010 to accompany the traveling exhibition of the HfG Ulm work and design
pedagogy. These workshops looked at the impact of HfG Ulm on design pedagogy in
India and at basic design education in particular. Prof M P Ranjan (sitting on
the Ulmer Stool) chaired the two conferences along with Suchitra
Balasubramanian, Prof Sudha Nadkarni and Prof Kumar Vyas (seen above) were
keynote speakers at the Bangalore event while Prof Kirti Trivedi delivered
the keynote at Kolkatta.
1994 Kirti Trivedi of IDC approached me at NID to obtain Xerox copies of Ulm
Journals in the NID Library. He used these as a backdrop for the conference at
IDC, "Ulm and After" and selected papers were reproduced in a book for the
benefit of Indian teachers for the first time. In 2010, NID in collaboration
with the Ulm Archives and the Max Muller Bhavan hosted the traveling exhibit at
Ahmedabad and later at Bangalore and Kolkatta. I organized the conferences titled
Look Back Look Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India at Bangalore and
another on Basic Design at Kolkatta and we released a digital set of the Ulm
Journals for Indian academics for the first time and since then these have been
available for a wider audience. The impact of these Ulm Journals on design
education is still unfolding and they will be in active use for many years to
come I am sure.
Further Research Questions
and Design article raises many research questions about the nature of design
and science that are still active in our debates on various online discussion
lists to this day. HfG Ulm had raised these in their corridors and these
questions still reverberate in our minds. The HfG Ulm is a rare case of design
thought and action that was both intense and comprehensive and the various
threads that started there may need to be followed up by current day
researchers to build a body of scholarship that will help put design at a new
level of acceptance in India and elsewhere. One wonders what discussion Eames
had the HfG in 1955 and 1958 and what impact if any it had on the Eames Report of
also wonder what roles Guest Faculty could play in Design schools of the future,
particularly in the transmission of knowledge and cross fertilization of
ideology and techniques that seems to get lost in the implementation of narrow
curriculum that is being attempted here in India in an effort to expand the
reach of design education without adequate research. I believe that the seeds
of these questions and their answers lie in the archives and memories of
Ulmers, NIDians, IDCians and others and this need to be researched urgently. I
traveled to Ulm in 2005 at the invitation of Rene Spitz to be part of the round
table organized there. I followed this with another visit in 2008 when I had a
memorable experience of staying at the HfG Ulm campus in a faculty studio thanks
to the hospitality of Nick Roerich and the Ulm Archives and I hope more
researchers will explore this rich space to appreciate design and shape the
education of the designer of the future. The Max Bill building of 1953 is still
in pristine condition and the Ulm Archives has now moved back to the campus and
this bodes well for future research on the people and activities at HfG Ulm
that has had such a huge impact on the world of design education.
Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report, Government of India, New Delhi, 1958,
reprint, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1958, 1997
Thomas Maldonado, Gui Bonsiepe, Renate Kietzmann et al., eds, "Ulm (1 to 21):
Journal of the Hoschule fur Gestaltung", Hoschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm, 1958 to
Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimer, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, The MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass., 1969
04. Tomas
Maldonado, Design, Nature, and
Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology, Harper & Row, New York,
Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London,
Stafford Beer, Platform for Change, John Wiley & Sons, London, 1975
07. Frei Otto,
IL20 TASKS, Institute for Lightweight Structures, Stutgart, 1975
Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, St. Martin's Griffin; 2nd
edition, New York, 1982
Gui Bonsiepe, Estrutura e Estetica do Produto, Centro de Aperfeicoamento de
Docentes de Desenho Industrial, Brasilia, 1986
Herbert Lindinger, Hoschule fur Gestaltung - Ulm, Die Moral der Gegenstande,
Berlin, 1987
Kirti Trivedi ed., Readings from Ulm, Industrial Design Centre, Bombay, 1989
Otl Aicher, the world as design, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1991
Otl Aicher, Analogous and Digital, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1994
Gui Bonsiepe, Interface: An approach to Design, Jan van Eyck Akademie,
Maastricht, 1999
15. Herbert
Lindinger, Eds., Ulm Design: The Morality of Objects, Hoschule fur Gestaltung –
1953 – 1968, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1999.
16. Rene Spitz, HfG Ulm: The View Behind the Foreground – The Political History of the Ulm
School of Design –1953-1968, Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart/London, 2002
Martin Krampen & Gunther Hormann, The Ulm School of Design – Beginnings of
a Project of Unyielding Modernity, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 2003
18. Klaus
Krippendorff, The Semantic Turn: A New
Foundation for Design, Taylor & Francis CRC, New York, 2006
Ranjan, Lessons from Bauhaus, Ulm and NID: Role of Basic Design in PG
Education, in proceedings of DETM Conference, NID, Ahmedabad, 2006
Ranjan. Design for India blog, http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/.
Ahmedabad, (2007 – 2013)
21. Klaus
Krippendorff, Designing in Ulm and Off Ulm, University of Pennsylvania, 2008
About the Author
M P Ranjan
– Design Chair, CEPT University
Thinker & Author of blog Design for India
Prof M P Ranjan is a design thinker with 40
years of experience in design education and practice in association with the
National Institute of Design. He helped visualize and set up two new design
schools in India, one for the crafts sector, the IICD Jaipur and the other for
the bamboo sector, the BCDI Agartala. His book Handmade in India is a
comprehensive resource on the hand crafts sector of India and was created as a
platform for the building of a vibrant creative economy based on the crafts
skills and resources identified therein.
His book on bamboo opened up new frontiers for
design exploration in India. He has explored bamboo as a designer material for
social transformation. Bamboo has been positioned as a sustainable material of
the future through his work spread over three decades. His work in design
education covered many subjects including Design Thinking, Data Visualisation,
Interaction Design and Systems Design
His blog "Designfor India" has become a major platform for Indian design discourse. http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com
He is on the Governing Council of the IICD,
Jaipur and advises other design schools in India and abroad. He lives and works
from Ahmedabad in India. He has been acknowledged by peers as one of
the international thought leaders in Design Thinking today
Posted by Prof. M P Ranjan at 12:19 AM 4 comments Links to this post
Labels: Basic Design, Bauhaus, Charles Eames, Gajanan Upadhayaya, H K Vyas, Hans Gugelot, Hfg Ulm, Horst Rittel, J A Panchal, Look Back Look Forward, P M Dalwadi, Product Design, Tomas Maldonado
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Once again, astronomers wait with bated breath to see if a new comet will turn out to be a delight or a dud.
Comet Pan-STARRS reaches maximum brightness around the 9th-10th, but it may be easiest to find on the 12th, when a thin crescent moon can help. Look west about 45 minutes after sunset, using binoculars if necessary; the comet will be about four degrees, or eight full moon widths, left of the moon. Pan-STARRS moves northward each successive night, appearing below and slightly right of the moon on the 13th. It will quickly fade, so try to catch it if you can.
Saturn, a morning planet, begins the month by rising in the east around 11 p.m. It comes up two hours earlier by month's end, but with the onset of Daylight Saving Time, that translates to 10 p.m. The bright star just to the west of Saturn is Spica, representing an ear of grain held by Virgo, the virgin. Saturn's rings are nearly
19 degrees from horizontal, and it brightens steadily as Earth prepares to lap it in the orbital race.

subset: commoncrawl


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1982 Datsun 280 ZX Turbo for sale in our Tampa Showroom. This sweet little ride has 78262 actual miles and is in great shape.... More
VERY SPECIAL FIND IN THE FORM OF A 1982 DATSUN 280 ZX WITH ONLY 20599 ACTUAL MILES. RUST-PROOFING WHEN NEW HAS KEEP THIS ONE... More


text: First road game, first road loss Written by David Hannes on Monday, 09 April 2007 21:39. The Brewers took to the road for the first time this season, opening a 3-game series in Florida. And, as was the case 66.67% of the time last season, the Crew lost. The Marlins took game one in Miami, 5-3. Side note: I might be biased towards Anibal Sanchez, as I saw him dominate the Brewers last September in Milwaukee in either his first or second start after his no-hitter...and I have him on my fantasy team. That said, neither pitcher sounded good tonight (game wasn't on T.V., so I had to listen to the game)...the Crew plated a run off Sanchez in the top of the first, after a leadoff triple by Rickie Weeks lead to an 0-2 RBI fielder's choice groundout by Prince Fielder. But Suppan let the Marlins back in it in the bottom of the first, giving up 3 hits, a walk, and a sac fly to the first 5 batters. The top of the Marlins' order plated another pair in the bottom of the fourth, as second baseman Dan Uggla doubled to lead-off the inning, followed by Miguel Cabrera's smashing of a 2-1 Suppan pitch to left. Geoff Jenkins narrowed the deficit to 4-3 after smashing a 1-1 pitch to left that also plated catcher Johnny Estrada. The Marlins added a meaningless insurance run, while the four Florida relievers held the Brewers' bats at bay--their bullpen went 4 IP, 0 ER's, 2 hits, 1 BB, and 2 K's. The Crew, however, did out hit the Marlins 10-9, and didn't lose much ground, as the Pirates and Cubs also lost (the Reds, however, are leading 2-0 over Doug Davis and the Dbacks). Suppan took the loss, to bring his record to 0-2, 4.15. Six Brewers in the line-up remain above .300 in hitting, including Graffanino (.375), Mench (.353), Jenkins (.350), Estrada (.348), Gross (.333), and Counsell (.300). But Fielder (.233), Weeks (.214), and Hall (.208) are flirting with the Mendoza line. Tomorrow night pits Claudio Vargas, in his first start for the Brewers, against Rick Vanden Hurk, making his MLB debut...the 21 year-old Dutchman gets his big break due to the injuries to Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco, who was placed on the DL earlier today. Lastly, even though the Brewers are on the road, MLB baseball is still in town--the Indians have moved their 3-game homestand to Miller Park due to the continuing bad weather in Cleveland...y'know, if you're going to schedule games north of the Mason-Dixon line in early April, wouldn't it make more sense to schedule division opponents that will be returning later in the year, just in case Mother Nature and/or Ol' Man Winter comes to town?


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Photo-retouching software
Red Eye Pilot offers to help users eliminate the annoying photo problem of red eye. With controls slimmed down to the basics, this program is a hit, even if it is difficult to navigate at times.
The program's interface mimics full photo-editing suites, but only provides a few simple buttons and command icons. Its biggest asset is the excellent four-part tutorial. Each segment lasts less than a minute, but left us with a feeling of confidence in the program. For anyone still seeking more guidance, there is a well-planned Help file. The program offers one function that works very … Read more


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The iSTAR® is precision engineered like no other camera and its construction pushes the very limits of today's manufacturing and lens technology.
Multiple applications include scene of crime documentation, rapid reconnaissance, Heritage documentation, RGB overlay for point clouds.
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See the iSTAR in your hands with our interactive 3D application on your mobile device.
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Julianne Hough wears blackface for 'Orange is the New Black' costume
Julianne Hough wore blackface to a Halloween party.
Bill Thompson endorsed by Brooklyn 'kingmaker' Dov Hikind
Bill Thompson received a much-coveted endorsement from Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who came under fire earlier this year for wearing blackface to a Purim party.
Dov Hikind is now sincerely sorry for the blackface
After a day of protestation, Assemblyman Dov Hikind posted a "heartfelt and sincere apology" on his blog for wearing blackface at his Purim celebration.
(UPDATE) Dov Hikind sort of apologizes for blackface
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind gave a lukewarm apology at a press conference to address the controversy over his putting on blackface for Purim.


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Catherine's first novel, The Old-Girl Network, was chosen by WHSmith for their fresh talent promotion in 1994 and became an instant bestseller across the country, as did her subsequent novels, Going Too Far, The Real Thing, Rosie Meadows Regrets, Olivia's Luck and A Married Man. Catherine was born and raised in Hertfordshire. After graduating from Warwick university she moved to London, where she worked as a copywriter in advertising. She now lives with her husband, a barrister, and their three children.
Books Jonathan Lloyd +44 (0)20 7393 4418 Jonathan's Profile >
Translation Rights Melissa Pimentel +44 (0)20 7393 4425 Melissa's Profile >
May 05, 2011 Success in the fiction bestseller chart See All News >


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Newegg.com - A great place to buy computers, computer parts, electronics, software, accessories, and DVDs online. With great prices, fast shipping, and top-rated customer service - once you know, you Newegg.
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Celestron'S Mid-Size Outland Series Just Got Better With The New Outland X Series Binoculars! Designed To Meet The Needs Of Every Outdoor Enthusiast, From Birders And Hunters To Campers And Sportsmen, You Will Enjoy A Wider Field Of View From The Outland X. Additional Features Include Bak-4 Prisms For Enhanced Color Fidelity And Multi-Coated Lenses For Exceptional Contrast And Brightness. 42 Mm Roof With 8X Magnification. Multi-Coated Optics. Waterproof And Fogproof.


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An i-Phone application developer who is also a Tolkien enthusiast has developed an app to retrieve news from TheOneRing.net website. Here is a review:
One of the advantages of the iPhone/Touch platform has been the ability for small specialised apps that perform useful functions.
If you regularly check the theonering.net on your iPhone for news on the Hobbit films and other Tolkien-related events you might find this 59p/99c app to be of interest. While not as visually exciting as the main site, it loads a lot faster, and provides quick links to a usefully-formatted version of each story, including the pictures. You can also continue to read the pages offline, once you've loaded them.
It also provides an easy way of forwarding the story to a friend by email and the author is intending to add Facebook and Twitter integration at a later date.
Here is a link to the app. Searching for The One Ring news in the app store also finds it.


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