What do you think about square? If square was a topic given to you and you had to do research in it, say the design way!! What comes to your mind??

Well I was given a wide range of topics to choose from, for the module – Discourse & Reflection. I chose square! As easy as it might sound, it was actually kind of hard when it came to the aspect of a designer’s research. Square is a vast topic to think about, from the basic knowledge that its a shape to its usage in the world of design is very very vast!

Square is in geometry, architecture something or the other! Square can be a cube? It can be a box? It can be a part of an optical illusion? The standard shape of Apple’s applications? A logo? A shelf? When square was the topic I choose, my intention was to take up an interesting topic and it indeed was very quite interesting! Pretty clueless where to start my research… I rather went to research about square and its use in branding. But it wasn’t anything to explore, it was information given, logos etc.

Image source : https://pixabay.com/en/photos/square/?

Then I went into the field of publishing!! As a part of my masters final project, I’m working on something related to publishing, so I decided to relate this to the same. Books!! Square and books is where I started!! If you actually noticed, there aren’t much books in the shape of a square. Very very few books are and a majority of square shaped books are children’s books, but yet I’m not very sure of them!! This is where I am starting my research on the topic square! It’s based on square shaped children’s books.

Image : Square shaped children’s books

I began my research by visiting book stores, looking out for such books and its rarity. I am currently working on it, based on my development I intend to find the actual question for my final research project on this module.

Part-2 of the Biomimicry project!! A challenging project I would say!! After the creation of 4 boards, presenting our learning and outcomes – my assembling of web images was appreciated, later on we were given the 2nd part of the project. The second part was to develop a piece of design or illustration related to my specialism. We were suggested to consider nature as a driver for design either functionally or aesthetically. Many options were given to choose from….

I chose to go with ‘Typefaces’! Typography is something I’m immensely interested!! My main interest is typography and its aspects in the field of graphic design. The fonts, its usage, where it comes and where its used and not used is something very very interesting!!

So I took up textures of leaves, their prints and used them in existing fonts for the trial of my major work. For example, I took an existing font, such as Arial and used textures such as actual leaf prints and then digitally created prints inside the fonts. The text did come out pretty well.. yet I kind of felt, I should may be create typefaces as a whole. Which I’m working on right now… under process… hopefully I arrive at my final product soon….

Biomimicry, something that I was entirely clueless about! We had just one week given to us to do this assignment and it took us almost the entire week to figure out what biomimicry actually is and understand it. Though a definition was given to us, as a designer I don’t personally think I would be able to go ahead with something without completely understanding what it is about, what I’m supposed to be designing.

A book titled ‘Biomimicry’ by Janine M Benyus was given as reference by my tutor and I had read the book which kind of gave me a way through my research. From whatever I had researched, and the examples and explanation given to me, I figured out that Biomimicry is ‘Innovation inspired by nature’ . Something that guided me to go ahead with my project was this explanation I had found out through my research.

Next I sought out to first do what was asked to do, I began to record nature. Sketches, photographs, collecting leaves, writing what I saw were parts of my recording. While recording, my interest went towards leaves and their shapes and textures. I began noticing different kinds of leaves, different shapes, different textures. I was wondering what I can do about them? What can I develop out of the leaves I collected?

I was supposed to present four boards, A2 in size presenting my sketches, photographs, web images and finally what I have developed – called the ‘surprise’ board! Every board was to be designed, but not in the usual way! In some way that there is connection between all the four boards that are presented!

In my first board, I rendered various sketches and added them. In the second one, I added the photographs that I clicked during my visits to Hyde park, university premises in search of nature and few gardens nearby. In the third one, I took up images from the web that were related to texture of the leaves and their shapes. The final one, I did prints. Prints of leaves and their textures using paint. Going back to childhood where it was the most fun thing to do in art class, I did the same thing but in a much better way for my final board. The common connection between the four boards were the colors that I had used and the subject!! Texture and color was the connection between all four boards!

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This can also be called the second part to my previous post ‘Wrong’! This project was given to me to find something that annoys me and to present it, following which I had to find a solution for the ‘Wrong’ I presented!! I had presented the problem of how the doors read automatic doors, but they also say ‘press to exit’ which completely makes no sense.

So I went about to research about the mechanism of doors, the sensors and their built. I learnt that there are various sensors when it comes to automatic doors. Detectors for one side swinging doors, sliding doors, revolving doors etc that work on detection of human presence!! So first I came up with an idea of using double side detectors as a solution for this problem. I did present it, but I was suggested that it was a technical solution, other than that what can I do?

 

                                                             Image : Automatic swing door sensor.

 

Well, that’s when I thought it in the design way!! Basically some doors says ‘Fire door keep shut’, ‘automatic doors , keep clear’ of the same font, of the same color. The sign can be confusing for every single person.

                                                    Image : Fire door signs, automatic door signs

 

Proper signs are ways of proper communication! If there are proper signs, anybody would get confused and annoyed. One must have read ‘automatic doors, keep clear’ and the next time they walk towards the door and they see the similar door, that means they would assume that it is an automatic door, but what if it actually says ‘fire door,keep shut’!! They would probably bang themselves into the door, thinking it would actually open or find the button to initiate the door to open!! This is the result of miscommunications and bad signs!! Signs and logos are to be simple, readable and effectively communicative!

So I created different logos that are different from each other and easily understandable for effective use, that would not be annoying for any.

Have you ever noticed anything in everyday life that is wrong? or rather it doesn’t make sense or fit ? There was this project titled ‘Wrong’ given to us as a part of Practise 1 – Design. We were supposed to look around the world and record anything that annoys us and describe it in our own words and present it on an A3 board. This was the task given to us.

Well it sounded easy but as a designer I actually had to take something that made sense and also something that is related to design as a masters student. I always believe that a designer sees differently due to the various tasks, projects given to us on a daily basis, to think out of the box and come with something common and understandable at the same time unique.

There was this thing I always had with doors!! Not their shape or the way they were designed or anything as such, but their mechanism! Especially these automatic doors, it made no sense to me in the first few days of my life in London and in my university. It says ‘automatic doors, stand clear’ but at the same time it says ‘push to exit’ or ‘push bar to exit’. My thoughts were filled with lines such as ‘If its automatic shouldn’t it just open, if not why is it automatic in the first place?’.

                                               Image source : press to exit, automatic doors

So I took up this issue as a part of my ‘Wrong’ project and presented it. I had used pictures of the doors in university and the doors of the rail trains in London as an example. I stated the caption as “Automatic doors or Problematic doors?”

When I presented, I got a review from my peers and my classmates that indeed this is an issue faced. And also for the following project right after this, was to find a solution to what we proposed for the ‘Wrong’ project. I am browsing about the mechanisms of how the automatic doors work and their sensors. Lets see what I present next week!!

One of the first exhibitions I visited was the London Design Festival 2018 as a part of my icebreaker project. The London Design Biennale was held at Somerset House near Covent Garden, central London. Held between the 4^th – 23^rd of September 2018, 40 countries, cities and territories were exhibited.

The main theme was all about how design influences one’s emotions. In a display of remarkable thoughts and imagination, international groups showcased how design can test, amaze, teach and be an eye-opener. Various kinds of interactive and fascinating installations that question the effect of design on every aspect of people’s lives and their influences on emotions and experiences.

Pentagram (Masks) : 

In response to the theme ’emotional states’ and inspired from Charles Darwin’s theory of universal emotions, pentagram created a series of masks hand-made by paper artists.

Image :  Pentagram masks

Many countries depicted various emotions , I have mentioned few of them below,

Brazil :

Presented ‘Desmatamento’ – deforestation, designed by David Elia.

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United Kingdom :

‘Maps of Defiance’ – presents the new work of Forensic Architecture in north Iraq with the NGO Yazda.

Vietnam :

Presented ‘Khai’ – the welcome beginning of something new. The project was based on textile production.

Israel :

It was nearly a ‘live’ exhibition than an already prepared one due to their usual hectic, unfinished work. Their work in the Biennale highlighted cultural and social issues.

United States of America :

Presented ‘Face Values’, where the audience were required to sit in front of the computer system and asked to emote an emotion and with the help of coding. habits and facial recognition it identifies the age, emotion and origin of the person. Helps in usage for security, surveillance, crime purposes.

Norway :

Titled ‘Learning and Play For All’ based on robotic and gaming technology. An interactive classroom set-up with facilities for all students including students suffering from long-term illness. I also got a chance to play one of the games with 3 more audiences. Indeed a encouraging way to learning.

Canada :

Titled ‘ An Emotional Landscape’, installation including videos of various landscapes are merged with stories that are narrated by the citizens of Canada.

Taiwan :

Titled ‘Invisible Calls’, the work talks about social problems by using photographs and stories from the people of the society of Taiwan. Manipulation of mass media is used in this work.

The Netherlands :

Talks about the introduction of ‘Power Plant’ due to the rapid growth in population and climate changes, feeding people without damaging the planet is an issue. A greenhouse that can be used to harvest food and electricity required for its growth is exhibited.

Germany :

Talks about up-cycling methods. Showcases various approaches to waste in an innovative way considering their emotional vibration.

Qatar :

Inspired by the sense of nostalgia in the city of Doha which is in rapid development. Each of the domes in the installation give out a different scent of smoke. Qatari architecture can be visible in the structure of the domes.

Latvia :

Titled ‘Matter to Matter’, exhibited is a huge green glass surface, which allows the people to have a fun time by writing, drawing messages and images that disappear eventually after few minutes. Representing the transition from gas to liquid.

 

Each countries response to the theme given, altogether presented a huge variety of exciting ideas that dealt with the relationship between design, emotional responses and social needs. Emotions such as anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise were used to work with.

 

 

The second part of the icebreaker project given was to visit the London Design Festival 2018 and to present one work that I liked exceptionally. The interactive illustration, ‘Please Feed The Lions’ by E.S.Devlin is what I liked the most. It is a collaboration of Es Devlin & Google Arts & Culture. It is a projection mapped sculpture that fuses light, music & technology.

When Es Devlin walked with Sir John Sorell (LDF chairman) during last year’s festival, he told her ‘Landseer never wanted the lions to look so passive, he proposed a much more animated stance, but Queen Victoria found it too shocking’ . This gave her a thought – what if they could open their mouths and speak? What would they say?

This is a public interactive sculpture where everyone is invited to feed the lion, whereas the lion eats only words. It was situated at Trafalgar square. Among the usual four lions, the 5th fluorescent red lion joins the famous pride that roars unlike the other four. Projection mapping was used in bringing the lion to life every night. A global team of coders, designers, sound engineers & artist get-together to bring the lion to life. The lion roars & sounds are generated each time someone feeds their words to the lion.

Each word the lion digests is the starting point for which a 2-line poem is generated by an algorithm trained on 25 million words of 19th century poetry (time when lions came to be). During daylight, the collective poem will light up the mouth of the lion accompanied by a choral roar. During the night, the poem projection mapped over the lion and over to Nelson’s column itself. The projection of the streaming text was to invite others to join in and add their voice.

One of the lions in Trafalgar square were traced using LIDAR and then cut out of foam blocks & then pieced together. The lion was then sculpted & smoothed along the gradients of body before a hard coat was applied. The final top coat of red was applied in two layers – distinctive color weather, proofing the piece. This was the 5th lion that was set up as the interactive installation among the four lions.

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Image source : https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/uQJy-TQgHNPkJw

Personally, I thought it was an extremely wonderful idea of an interactive installation and also situated at the center of attraction where millions of people would gather around, especially a place such as Trafalgar square (my personal favorite as a Londoner!!) . The striking color that would call every person to come see what it is and the concept of feeding words, seeing it through the lions mouth in the form of poetry inspired me to a great deal.

The Trafalgar square had many events happens. The roar of the lion summed up to the energy of all the events that happened in Trafalgar square. The roars were deliberately clashing, dissonant & beautifully explosive.

Source  :

Please feed the lions – google arts & culture

 

 

Ice Breaker Project – Part 1

Every picture has a story to tell…..

The first project that was given to me in my MA, called the ‘Ice Breaker’ project. I was supposed to collect images of everywhere I visited in the week and record it. I had to present a visual diary based on what I recorded.

I chose to record my first week of my postgraduate journey. My arrival at Heathrow, my first view of London from the window of the plane, the friends I made and times spent with them, the nights spent in the library working on this project, visit to the London Design Festival 2018 etc.

In my presentation, I used polaroids to present the images I used. I took a common picture related to what i was presenting in each slide and used that as a background, with some text related to the content presented.

The use of text was very minimal as I wanted the visuals to convey the message than a lot of text to support what I was presenting. I wanted my presentation to be simple and expressive. I worked on Adobe Illustrator for the whole presentation which is one my most favorite software to work as a designer.

This was one of the works I loved working on as I am very interested in capturing moments and recording them as memories.

During my under-graduate, as my final project I designed wallpapers. Titled as  ‘Contiuum series of wallpapers by Panaché’.

Continuum by Panaché: (Flamboyance Redefined) is a series of contemporary wallpapers inspired by mandala designs from around the world, fused with nature’s color palette and tweaked with a personal touch of geometry.

Panaché (French) is a versatile brand focused on creating artsy and quirky everyday products that balance form and function making our bustling lives easier. Panaché deals with a medley of products that are adorned with variegated strips, motifs and intricate detailing illuminated by soothing colors.

Wallpapers have always fascinated me because they add an aesthetic value to the room and they are instrumental in bringing to life what every room represents. I’ve always believed that “An empty room is a story waiting for you and you are the author”.  This has been my motivation to create spaces with vivid yet subtle designs created to change a house into a home or a stressful work environment into a productive office. Wallpapers give an unparalleled aura of sophistication and opulence, adding the much needed personal touch to any space. The Continuum series of wallpapers are fabricated on eco-solvent vinyl paper making them a long lasting, easy to clean fixture in your home or office. It also gives a neat matte finish to the décor.

The basic designs on these wallpapers were inspired by mandalas. From eons ago, mandalas have been spiritual symbols showcasing the nuances of life and death and the mysteries of the universe. The name ‘Continuum’ has been coined to facilitate the mandalas which represent the perpetual nature of the universe and the infinity loop of life. To suit the modern mind sets and minimalistic décor cravings, my designs add an edgy, millennial touch to the original mandalas, thereby creating a visually appealing and contemporary wall art.

Maya Lin has quoted “Nature doesn’t fit into a geometric notion of what the world should be. It is that naturalness, I find hardest to capture” This inspired me to collaborate nature and geometry and create a range of wallpapers that bring out trendy designs aided by the subtlety of seasonal colors to enhance and replenish living spaces. The colors of the 4 seasons give a backdrop to the patterns portraying the essence that makes each season special. The shades of pastel pinks and purple, sultry yellows, burgeoning greens, withering browns and cozy blues render different moods to different living spaces. The mandala designs, in retrospect add a spiritual and mystic touch to the walls as they have long since been revered for their connection to the creation and sustenance of the universe. Together, the patterns and colors weave a beautiful aesthetic element transforming our buildings to better suit our lifestyle.

Continuum by Panache is an adventurous venture done with the spirit of spreading happiness through inanimate things in the materialistic world we live in today and giving meaning to even the most insignificant and simplest spaces.

If we google, ‘what is design?’ it has specific definitions like ‘ a plan or drawing produced’, ‘ a decorative pattern ‘ etc. But according to me I don’t think design can be defined. Basically design has no boundaries, I might consider design as something that is  created using creativity and my colleague may consider design is to construct and others may have different opinions and so on. Not everybody believes in one definition of design and not everyone can like the same design.

To me, design is a representation of one’s self. Half of what designers portray have themselves in it, their likes and dislikes that can be noticed in the style and colors they use in their works. Design is one of those fields where there are no rules, no standards, no fixed processes to follow etc. There is a lot of freedom in design, to create and portray whatever one wants. Design can be problematic at the same time it might even give solutions.

Design is very wide in range and globally popular. We can see design in everyday life from the products we buy off supermarket shelves to the furniture we sit on. Design can never be summarized into one single thing.

Design is basically the representation of every designer.