Story : Zebra Crossed Plaid for ALLDAYKIDS

 

The ‘It’ thing this oncoming season is ‘Checkered Plaid’ and ‘Stripes’. Understandably they do denote adulthood and the grown-up preferences, although, Papa and Grand Pa are not the only ones donning checks and stripes this season. It’s our time to bang the strings and playfully brighten-up along with them. Experiment the unusual sizing and placements of checks, on tees, jackets, woolen scarves, Socks and pair them up with crazy mix-match combinations of stripers on trousers, skirts, vests and splash accents of bright hues to stand out amongst all. It’s just the right occasion to explore a mad frenzy with color splashes. With the onset of the chilly winters, layering with multiple layers of clothes to keep warm would become common phenomena. Trick is to stay stylish and trendy despite the nasty loaded-ness of weights. Wear woolens in plain colors such as Reds, Military Greens, and Beige and brighten the look with coordinating stripes and checks in the scarves, shirts/tees or socks. Stay chic and glide through the crowd with all the attention you gain!!

Think of it like an inside scoop on the hottest things right now. Girls & Boys, all the brands like Weekender kids, Lilliput, Kangaroo Kids, Catmoss, and Gini & Jony have enough and more variety on the plate for you to choose from. A sneak peak into the lives of kids like us, living abroad, staying stylish.

http://www.alldaykids.com/articles/2010/11/this-winters-its-zebra-crossed-plaid

The chain that's yet to find its keys!

My first visit to NID Paldi campus and I set my eyes on Mukul Goyal’s acrobatics keychain.

I saw a lot of myself in it. The shining steel connoting the optimism I hold for the future, the free hanging acrobat represents individuality and a new perspective, an upside down world view seeking for new substance.

I had to have it. I waited patiently through all those college days. Most Paldi visits were to see it, hold it in my hands, and feel its cold steel and figure, wondering whether my desire is a materialistic need of a capitalistic collector or of a dreamer who found some identification with another designer’s product.

On my last trip there, along with my mother, we visited the store again. Only this time my resolute was much stronger and surer. I narrated the preceding story to my mother, to highlight the relevance of this splurge!

The chain awaits my next accomplishment in life to celebrate its usage, my next car or my own apartment?

Let’s see!!!

An Iranian Separation

Or is it ? Being single and being a person who lives life by experience more than theory, I can't vouch for the movie totally. But I still believe that most married couples face certain strain after having been in marriage for more than five years. It probably arises from the fact that they grow used to each other and start taking each other for granted.

The protagonist’s wife even though was petrified of the arising perils in the Iranian subcontinent, knew that she wouldn't leave without her family. She kept coming around expecting to be asked to stay back. She wanted to be valued and recognized for her contribution in the household. But as fate would have it, the husband's ego knew no bounds even if it costed him the company of his beloved daughter, not that his affection for his wife was amiss. These misunderstandings only grow and grow if one wouldn't express their emotions. Love can heal and ward of all troubles.The daughter too was trying to get her parents back together, so that they could have a normal life together again.

Housemaid who came to work at the protagonist house was a typical example of a devout women who wants to help her husband in times of crisis but is bound by religion and is afraid to ask his consent for the same. The society has to come over these differences between men and women. It’s a matter of fact that one is born a man or women, how does that give anyone the right to be the head of house, right to assume tasks of maintaining the house and rights to keep a higher unrelenting ego.

In the due course while watching the movie, one does feel its such a mundane topic of conflict to end a happy 14 year long marriage.

A thought provoking movie!

Hick – unj!

Grilling, drilling, tiring, pricking and infuriating two weeks of brain-squashing at Design Concepts and Concerns, seemingly left our minds disillusioned into amorphous-amoebic-jellied form. 

Confession – We were mind warped.

Anticipating another adventurous Monday morning, we haplessly strained ourselves into the class, waiting for the next expedition. Never seen before, elderly faces drew closer towards our gang of 90 and brought in an adrenaline rush! Welcoming they all seemed, interested in knowing us and the most inspiring phrase as quoted by one of them, “We are here to learn from each other and explore what form can do to us.” We pay our sincere regards and due respect to the people who hold such grand thoughts. Forms became special. We decided to give in some sincere efforts. It explored philosophy at many levels; we endured, hence sustained and thus evolved.

What are forms? The first question left us all pondering…what the hell….anything that occupies space probably…shapes...and then the difference…. Oh it got us all jumbled up… So much about the course…

Another sweet interlude amongst all this confusion and arbitrariness was one amongst them. He carried such a meek disposition about him, a coy persona, a welcoming face with an innocent walk, naivety when he went about talking with us PG students. My guess, the charm lied in the fact that being a teacher, he was learning along with us. Khopcha enlightened us further on his interesting views on movies and his whole new found passion for teaching.

Well, we thought, we were the only ones to have noticed him rather gazed.  Tete-a-tete, gossip session over chai parties unveiled the real instinct of a true girl community. We figured that all girls were gaping at the same man, as if it were the birth of Adam on a barren earth. Clearly case of a polygamy, girls accepting each other and drooling at the same man. This is the true NID spirit deep engraved within us! We share things full heartedly. Nothing is more precious to us than ourselves and our most prestigious bond. Yo GN ! :D

Yours jokingly !

Yours  jokingly,

Room-mates

Were@505, Now@305

Yet another attempted blog entry by yet another set of people who believe that they have the charm in them to please and entertain the mere mortals of NID!

A eureka moment strikes in the awesome minds of the coveted Alpana, residents@ 5:30 p.m on a to-be-memorable day, 30^th August 2011 ! We did the daily quest grind and all that jazz for quite a long time until it finally dawned upon us that we were burnt out by the foundation programme. All this while we've been through all kinds of dispositions - J, L, :X, K :D ,etc and  all these moods bring along many hopeful commitments and on one such exasperated evening, this iconic idea enlightened in our minds.

Yours Jokingly is about rendering our PG lives with splashes and sprinkles of vivid and lively moments. It’s about the fun, the jibe and the color it brings to the boring and irritating times.

Soon to come :) Watchout !!

My Motorcycle Diaries !

Walking through the unknown

A size-able part of me yet, is at unrest. It keeps oscillating to and fro, twirls around in random circles when silence and solitude visit my physical being. Ironic that what one sees is never to be the reality in most cases. The mind is running its own race with god knows whom? Its hunting through an ambush for its own reasons: reason of existence through these 21st century competitive graduations, post graduations and work experiences: reasons for being born in this part of society: reasons for being chosen to be educated: reasons to have access to certain means.


Che Guevera ( the protagonist and my hero ), despite his decent (as they say) livelihood, felt that there was more that he ought to know, more than what was hidden from him and much more than he was able to see, so he chose to travel and explore his own subcontinent. His discoveries to his own surprise led to his own discovery of himself and that is my pursuit as well. There are many more truths in this world that need us and people like us who can see the difference and can decipher the exploitation from development.


Like Che, I too have been wandering across India all my life by far. I look at my Picasa map and see the markers everywhere and I am sure of my passion that has persisted throughout consistently. My mind often asks me, why do I plan to spend my life on road? Is it for leisure, or to see the truths that are hidden from me.


I, aboard my bumble bee (in reference to my tiny wagon) saw what Delhi and its localization was like. Ranging from West, East, North to south, the upcoming tech cities in the NCR region, I feel I am still dwelling in the urbanized patterns I was brought up in, isn’t it? What about humanity that doesn’t have a sense of the world as yet. I need to find them in order to find myself. Find their causes to find the reason for my own cause.

Understanding Design

 * Design is about providing solutions to the potential inconveniences that a user experiences in today’s scenario, or reading the pattern, is bound to face in near future. Design does not only cater to the present, but also foresees the future.

* Design revolves around the requirements arising within a specific niche group in the society rather than catering to an individual’s customized needs.

* Design is never complete and perfect. It will always have a scope for improvement.

* Design definitely is more holistic and well prepared during its launch when a group works towards it.

* Design requires learning from the past and the realities of today,  but still remains uncertain of the future.

Rivers and Tides – Andy Goldsworthy

Andy has been working on an entirely new kind of sculpture experience, where he plays with different materials found in the nature itself. He puts leaves, stones, twigs, flowers together in a beautiful unusual manner such that it doesn’t hinder natures usual patterns. Like an installation, it adapts itself to the surroundings. Some remain as forms that start breeding life on it, and some get washed away by the natural course. The destruction of such sculptures , doesn’t take anything away from the nature, since they were built with the collectibles from the nature, and add tremendously to the beauty of nature in an unperturbed manner.

He’s fascinated by the river and its meandering nature and this resonates in all his sculptures, Ice structure, and Algae placement on the tree routes. Every art requires a form to play with. He chooses his forms as well from the nature itself.

Things are always lying around us. One only needs to familiarize themselves and become conscious of the fact that they’ve been blind to it so far. Nature has its own beautiful ways to blend in with us human beings, so should we.

Crafts in India

‘If you remove crafts, you remove India.’

Craft sector is the 2nd largest industry in India and it is not just one sector but a group of many sub-sectors. It constitutes India’s design heritage and thus it is very much required to give a careful consideration to this sector.

NID has been playing a very great role in strengthening the craft sector. At the time NID was debating the relevance of design and looking at crafts in terms of challenges of development: The transitions taking place, the potential and complexity of this sector.

Jawaja was one such project which tried to integrate many aspects of craft like culture, economy, design heritage, social structure and design inheritance. It is because of the constant efforts put in by Mr. Ashoke Chatterjee and Late Mr. Ravi Mathai for more than 35 years in Jawaja project that saved this 300 year old leather craft. In a critical area like Jawaja block, craft and design together created a sustainable environment. It is after so many years of perpetual efforts by NID that now, when these artisans walk into a Crafts Council meeting, they are respected and looked upon as wise.

Jawaja is one such example and there are many more but there still are so many sectors as well as aspects of those sectors including Jawaja where we can work and make this sector more organized. One such aspect is to work for the minorities and women which constituents the highest number of artisans but ironically do not get the right place and reward for the work they do.

In a nutshell, Craft sector is where our ability to create comes from and it is our responsibility to save this for the future generations.

Marsyas - Anish kapoor

A non-generalized sculptor who does not create sculptures to sell or attract a potential consumer but rather awaits a viewer to feel odd by the presence of this mammoth structure ,its size, its awkwardness.

‘You may love it, you may hate it, but you surely cannot ignore it! ’

This is how he wants to be talked about!

He personifies the structure as Marsyas made of stripes of PVC like layers of skin on a man. His sensitivity towards materials is really appreciable, since its key for a sculptor to admire the look and feel of the medium they would use to translate their ideas.

Bahaus

The never dying spirit of the Bauhaus way of learning is really fascinating. It began way back in early 1900s and managed to survive through the First World War. Although it did succumb to the Second World War, the alumni of the college carried the entire concept along with them to formulate a new school in US.

Definitely there was a strong hold in this way of learning with its lesser emphasis on theoretical studies and more focus on workshop based training where the apprentice could experiment with different material to create things. It started with the idea of reviving the craftsmen ship and ended up turning into a design revolution of its own kind. 

Simplistic, cold and functional forms were introduced in Furniture, Products, Architecture and Art as well. Bauhaus movement set everyone at the same pedestal, since the need of the consumer was the same. Therefore this eventually led to Industrial revolution – mass production.

Our very own college NID is based on the principles of the Bauhaus School of Art. Since the spirit of this way of learning is so raw and varied, it will live up till eternity.  

Planet Mechanics

This documentary illustrates the efforts of a young entrepreneurial venture in Europe called ‘Planet Mechanics’. Both the enterprising individuals demonstrate how science mixed with a little common sense can help us save the environment from the hazards of burning the fuel.

First project as shown was creating a bike that could run on compressed air and therefore had no fuel emission. The distance it could run when the tank was full and the maximum speed the pressure could offer, would limit the vehicle for use in the city only.

The second experiment was tapping the wind energy in the farm fields to feed the cattle with water drawn from a deep well.  Huge wind mill was created using scrap Aluminum from spare barrels used to stock fodder. The pulley and levers defined the mechanical system that enabled conversion of the wind energy into the mechanical energy.

Last, but not the end of their explorative journey was devising an adjustable solar arc, which would reflect direct rays from the sunlight all through the day at different light and merge it into a single strong beam of light that could then be used for cooking.

As designers of today, we need to sensitize ourselves to our environment and adapt to methodologies that lead to the least exploitation of available resources and thus, contribute to the cause of a Green Globe.

Objectified, we are !

Is ‘Design’ anymore meant for consumption by human beings or instead are they being consumed by it?

That’s the lingering question on my mind. 

The goal of Industrial design has been standardization of products for mass consumption. A huge risk of being thoughtless while designing is involved over here. Everyday millions of objects are introduced into the market. And if these are not directed towards the consumer needs and are not designed to solve a purpose, they would lead to a critical situation of resource scarcity and dumping related issues.

A good design should be innovative, useful, have aesthetics, understandable, honest, long lived, unobtrusive, environment friendly, consistent in details and simplistic. The designer’s key role here is to design the object so much into the future that it stands the test of time.

Another challenge faced is to cost a good design at a low price. But instead, it’s being marketed as more expensive since it has been "designed". That’s the irony. The fact is that a design can be expensive or cheap and good or bad. It’s subjective to people’s preferences. In that case,  a phrase like “democratization of design” (Representing or appealing to or adapted for the benefit of the people at large) should not even exist.

Most leading design oriented product brands are focusing on creating novel experiences for the consumer, an experience which is so addictive that the consumer is constantly on a lookout for new or the next generation intervention and indulgences. The challenge faced over here is that it leads to a consumer who’s always unsatisfied. And I ask myself, do I want to be subjected to this never ending race? The answer is No, I’d rather live in today and enjoy the things that we already have than become “OBJECTIFIED”.

There is a huge responsibility with the designers of today- create sustainability within products. We need to put our foot down and not only design objects but help people understand the consequence of their choices as well.