Design Dialogue

(March 2022)

Vinay Reddy

Vinay Reddy, from Sickle Innovations; recipient of many awards and recognitions from the industry as well as the Government of India. The speaker presented the phenomenal innovations that his team has achieved by designing products for the farming sector. 

Vinay demonstrated the range of work Sickle Innovations is doing in the line of farming. He systematically explained how the projects go through a thorough consideration using the design process to come up with a usable, feasible and marketable product. The talk uniquely threw light upon all the hurdles and apprehensions a novice innovator may face while going through the stages of the design process.

(January 2022)

Dr Ravindra Rajhans

Dr Ravindra Rajhans is a retired General Manager (Cab Design at Tata Motors – ERC). He has 38 years of cumulative experience working in the industry as well as in academics.

(November 2021)

Vijaybahu Joshi

Vijaybahu holds a Master’s Degree in Design from Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay and a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from The School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

Vijaybahu Joshi, presently working with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd as AVP – Head of Experience Design; looking after multiple design portfolios.

Vijaybahu initiated a discussion about branding as a process; how it applies to simple objects around us. He established through examples; how our limbic brain is operating for us, as well as how branding for a product or a company is built on these capabilities of the human brain. Branding is based on recognition, recall and emotional response, which is highly subjective in nature. 

Vijaybahu also touched upon the evolving trends and new media in branding such as social media, brand integration and established how marketing and branding are becoming implicit. He also shared a few technologies that may be employed by branding/ marketing agencies.

(September 2021)

Prashant Nandiprasad 

Prashanth Nadiprasad is an architect and industrial designer.

He is the founder of Etagi Design Collaborative (started in 2011) a “Multi Design Disciplinary Firm”, primarily providing service in the core areas of Master Planning, Landscape Design, Architectural Design, Interior Design and Product Design.

Prashanth is also an academician at heart and has been associated with the Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Architecture, Bangalore.

He covered the meaning of architecture and how it differs from engineering. The speaker also elaborated on some interesting facts and numbers about how architecture is currently practised in India.

Prashanth presented one of the ‘Etagi’ projects to the audience; by demonstrating elements of space planning, and experience design via the selection of materials and design detailing. The last section of the talk was about learnings and takeaways of architecture and design from the speaker’s point of view.

(April 2021)

Aditi Babel

Aditi is the founder and head designer at the Aditi Babel Design Studio(ABDS) and she primarily works in the field of information design. Aditi has completed her master’s degree in design from IDC, IIT Bombay. She went on to study Traditional Book Binding, Creating Limited Edition Concept/ Artist Books & Traditional Print Making, from the Santa Reperata International School of Art, Florence, Italy. ABDS under the label ‘Babel Books’, their valuable associations have been with Harvard Business School, IIT Bombay, The City Palace of Udaipur, IIM Udaipur, Welspun and Tulika Publication to name a few.

Aditi took the participants through her journey from learning applied and fine arts, the master’s program in design. Her experiences during her bookbinding course were thought-provoking. Aditi’s style of work has been a culmination of her multifaceted education and the participation from local artisans that work with her. Various prestigious projects were shared through an impressive visual presentation and impactful stories that accompanied the visuals. ABDS’s latest experiments that push the boundaries of bookmaking were also shared during the session.

(February 2021)

Nancy Kumar

Nancy has studied a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from NID and further a masters in Interaction from the prestigious Domus Academy, Italy. She is currently working as a Strategic Design Manager, Growth & Innovation at Airbus.

Nancy’s talk was focused on design methodology. She demonstrated the importance of three pillars of design namely, feasibility, viability and usability. She also demonstrated how design thinking can be implemented in designing the user experience for products and services to assist healthcare.

(December 2020)

Dr. D Udaya Kumar

Associate Professor and Head in Department of Design, IIT Guwahati. Udaya’s core area of interest as well as research is typography, with a focus on Tamil typography. Young Indian Leader, CNN-IBN, Network 18. Udaya has designed the famous Rupee symbol, that has an international standing.

Udaya’s talk focused on the evolution of the Rupee Symbol. He demonstrated how it is connected to Indian scripts, other national symbols and our culture. The presentation also demonstrated the translation of the symbol on various graphical co-laterals like price tags, tax bills, train tickets and digital displays. Udaya also shared the insights about the research he went through while designing the symbol and the presentation of the concept to the government authorities.