Food across Communities: Macro Micro investigations in DCC

DCC2008 Paldi Group 2: PG Disciplines at NID: Graphic Design, Film & Video Communication, Furniture Design and Ceramic Design: Assignment one: Mapping the known universe of Food: Producers, Converters & Consumers.

M P Ranjan

Image 1: The Producer Group with their model of the production pyramid and the variety of food types at the circular base.

The last batch of students who are taking the Design Concepts and Concerns course here at Paldi campus of NID were asked to look at the theme of Food at the Macro level of exploration in three groups, each looking at three stages through which food travels from the land to our plates, from the point of Production, Conversion and then Consumption. This kind of Meta investigation is encouraged in all design journeys since it is a good point of departure for any design task to take stock of what we know of a particular subject or a theme that is being addressed and to try and map this territory as clearly as possible before embarking on a further journey of research and experimentation to discover what we do not already know. As a group process, this kind of articulation of what we already know about the broader contours of a discipline or a particular subject is very useful to discover the depth of understanding that is present with the group members as well as get a glimpse of regions of uncertainty and in particular the areas of ignorance, which could inform the later stages of research in those specific and identified areas.

Image 2: The Producer Group making their presentation to the class.

This batch was divided into three broad groups that included, Producers, Converters and Consumers, since the focus was on Food and we were keen that the groups would explore regions that were beyond the ordinary, to include areas of agriculture, nature and food production through the Producer focus group while the broader contours of processing, trade, branding and distribution could be covered in some detail by the second group which we called the Conversion focus group. The last group looked at the whole area of Food consumption lying at the far end of the supply chain by looking at the Consumer as a category along the long path from growing to eating. Each group went through the processes of brainstorming and categorization to discover and articulate what was known to the group and from these explorations they built models that could be used for a show & tell presentation about the insights gleaned from the whole process.

Image 3: The Converter Group gathered around their Sun metaphor with the long supply chain as a literal exhibit on the floor.

This batch of students came from the disciplines of Graphic Design, Film & Video Communication, Furniture Design and Ceramic Design, all post graduate students, from a variety of disciplines which brought a good mix of variety of skills and abilities to the group processes in this course. The three groups had an equal number of students from all the participating disciplines since the process of selection ensured an even mix in the composition of each team. Three coordinators volunteered at first and they then selected one team member from a particular discipline by turn till all the members from that discipline were assigned to one of the three groups. They then moved to the next discipline and selected additional team members by taking turns and all the disciplines were covered in the end. Each group had an even mix of students from all the participating disciplines and in the end we took lots to assign the three meta themes to each of the groups thus formed to ensure that the whole process was democratic and not pre-determined by any one including the teachers.

Image 4: The Consumer Group with their “Last Supper” metaphor to capture the huge variety of conditions of food consumption across India.

The three groups wee given a day and a half to explore what they already know about the chosen and assigned theme through a process of brainstorming and categorization and the group then built a structure that was based on the discovered words using a metaphor that best captured the meaning of the joint investigation that the team had discovered during their explorations of the theme. The producer group came up with a Pyramid of concerns with the hierarchy of governance flowing down to the roots in the variety of agricultural products on one side and dairy and poultry products and fisheries on the other two sides of the triangular pyramid. The circular base was strewn with images of all kinds of food alongside words that the team had gleaned during their intense explorations of the day before. The second group on the other hand made a sun like image that radiated from a soft centre in rings of growing magnitude before breaking out into rays that extended around the circle, each touching upon a key issue that the group had identified as being important for their analysis of the Converters in the chain of the supply of food in India and across the world. The chain was represented by a set of large paper links that formed a “Chain” along the ground from the sun to a remote location across the room. The third group used the metaphor of a complex dining table, almost a last supper, in their representation of various categories of eventual consumers, from the poor and the hungry to the rich and the affluent, each located at opposite ends of the table. The installation was set on the ground and words were literally sprinkled on the floor in meaningful groups and paper plates with images of food and chairs that expressed the status of the consumer by their form were the highlights of this particular display. The representation achieved by this group was quite stunning in effect as well as in structure.

M P Ranjan

Incubating Design Opportunities: DCC2008 Paldi 01

… Design Concepts & Concerns…

Incubating Design Opportunities: Food, Inflation and the Economy: DCC2008 Paldi 01

Image: West Bengal team with their huge Sun icon and the design opportunity thumbnail images distributed along the categories identified by the Solar flares, each named in an appropriate manner.

After trailing all the other groups and getting sharp critiques from their peers in the first two assignments the WB team has come back strongly to make a clear statement showing a huge leap forward in their understanding as well as their articulation of all the design opportunities identified and sketched by the group members. The model and the visual presentation was very powerful indeed.

Image: Goa team with their radial model surrounded by all the thumbnail sketches of the design opportunities shown as a horizontal display with the viewers traveling around the model to look at it closely.

Goa team continued their effective radial model and they offered a modified structure and this time to accommodate the categories that they have identified for their numerous design opportunities for the theme of Food, Economy and Inflation with reference to their chosen region, Goa.

Image: Rajasthan team in front of their display of design opportunity maps that have been broadly categorized into areas of concern and value.

Rajasthan team used the broad categories of Ecology, Awareness, Culture and Economy to arrange all the design opportunities that the team members had articulated during the thumbnail brainstorming and exploration phase. They are seen holding their individual scenarios based on an agreed selection arrived at through peer review within the team.

Image: Uttarakhand team in front of their display of design opportunity thumbnails in the NID Foyer and they hold in their hand their individual scenario visualizations.

Rajasthan team had an interesting categorization of all the design opportunities that the team members had imagined and articulated. These were divided into broad categories through a process of sorting and categorization and they used the categories of Education, Food Preservation, Community Development, Industry, Water (Mineral), Transport and also a special category for Policy and Legislation that was also proposed.


Image: Detail of Goa model and design opportunity thumbnail sketches

… Design Concepts & Concerns…

Design Opportunities Presentation: Water, Sun, Hills and Desert

…>…Design Concepts & Concerns…

Design Opportunities Presentation: Water (Goa), Sun (West Bengal), Hills (Uttarakhand) and Desert (Rajasthan)

Image: Goa group took their radial model and modified it to accommodate all their design opportunity thumbnail sketches along the various categories identified by the group (Right) and the West Bengal group used the Sun as a metaphor to map out the various categories in which they arranged all their design opportunity thiumbnail sketches (Left).

The four groups dealing with the theme of Food in the four selected regions of India made their group presentations in the NID Foyer yesterday. Goa, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan were the areas of focus for this batch of DCC2008 which just concluded at Paldi and this gives us the platform to reflect on their offering during this course. Just as the Gandhinagar students had explored four other states of India these students gave us a glimpse of their imagimation for the issues and opportunities that they saw after their journey through the various stages of this course that included the exploration of the theme leading up to the development of design opportunity maps and then onto individual scenarios for one idea that they felt needed their full attention.

Image: The celebration at the end of the course with students and faculty bunched around the Goa model that was displayed on a group tables moved in from other rooms near the Foyer, impromptu but instantly effective.

The groups gathered at the Foyer at NID Paldi and each put up their design opportunity maps for all to see. The sky was overcast and the sun was almost gone but fortunately the lights in the foyer were discovered and this gave a renewed life to the presentations and we were able to photograph all the submissions and also record the individual scenarios which will be shared in another post after the groups have been discussed in some detail.

…>…Design Concepts & Concerns…

Rajasthan: Song, Drama, Theatre and Games as Metaphor

Design Concepts & Concerns

Image: Team Rajasthan with their Board Game as metaphor and their Puppet Theatre to drive the point home.

The Rajasthan group used all the devices in the book to make their presentation. Starting with a song and a puppet show they told a story of a Princess and her new fangled ideas for bringing prosperity to a dry land. However the plans go dry and some problems emerge needing the attention of the King and his consort as the story unfolds. Their understanding of the complex interplay of various factors come out clearly in their first blast of theatre and drama to make their point.

Image: The Rajasthan team used a digital presentation to share their detailed structure for Food and the various categories of influencing factors, very detailed but long winded.

A very detailed structure gave the team a fairly deep understanding of the factors but since they used a digital medium that was linear in the mode of viewing the audience could not quite keep all the factors in their mind. This led to the discussion of George A Miller and his concept of the number seven and the limits of the mind memory span. This gave the class a view of an alternate platform that could be used and they could examine the pro’s and con’s of the various methods used by all the teams.

Image: Multiple views of the Rajasthan groups presentation using various methods to share their exploration of the theme and share their findings and insights with the class.

This group had the benefit of all the other presentations since they came last in the sequence but not to take away from the offering from the group the class appreciated the rich show and tell that they used.

Design Concepts & Concerns

West Bengal : Boat Fish and Fish Boat as Metaphor

Design Concepts & Concerns

Image: West Bengal team members with their Fish-Boat or Boat-Fish model.

The West Bengal group bounced back and surged foreward after the drubbing that they got in the first round of building models. What they missed out everyone else got to learn from, “fail early to succeed sooner”, as the slogan from the IDEO group says.

Image: Team members explaining the various parts of their model of Food in the context of West Bengal using their metaphor as an aid.

They chose to make a three dimensional model and the disadvantage was that it had more that one side and they had to work twice as hard to mark both sides of their Fish-Boat or should I say Boat-Fish metaphor to capture their understanding of the West Bengal food scenario as they had understood it after their meetings with their experts.

Image: Multiple views from the group presentation and the discussions that followed from the West Bengal team show.

The team however still did not have the deep understanding that a coherent structure would have provided them and the critique was sharp and the discussions quite revealing. The effort of making the huge model was however appreciated by all the particpants. However the consensus in the end was that the group missed out on using the richness of the model fully since the categories were quite macro and the finer aspects were not integrated into the final model but kept on the various external elements still to be brought into a central area.

Design Concepts & Concerns

Goa Group: Fish, Boats and Beach as Metaphor

Image: Goa group with their massive model and metaphor representation with the Fisherman in the foreground and the Goa Tourist map and persona in the background.

While the Goa group had very rich palette of images to support their presentation it was their structure that was truly memorable. Using a radial structure they built their structure about Food, Inflation and the Economy with the Meta factors around the circle and the process questions along the radial axis. This gave them the possibility of using the rings to represent the various parts of their structure in a very interesting manner.

Image: Radial model of the rich structure by the Goa group with the Fish, Boats and Beach Metaphor with the Fisherman in the foreground.

The structure model was further strengthened by the use of small iconic images strewn all over the diagram that helped us locate the major ideas visually while getting an overview of the structure. The Move in understanding was huge. While the first presentation that was based on what the group already knew was skewed towards a sort of outsider view of tourist Goa the second round saw the group connecting with all the right kinds of people who can be called experts and this led to a huge shift in understanding.

Image: The Goa team making their impassioned presentation with all members taking the stand and making a pitch with a very high level of motivation.

The presentation which had all the team members participating was truly memorable and of a very high quality. In the teachers experience this is by far the best effort in many years in the PG programme at NID. I would request the students involved to make a textual note of their experience and to share this with all of us so that this experience can produce durable learning that Prof Bruce Archer had told us about when he visited NID in the early 80's to give the Sir Misha Black Award for excellence in Design Education to the then Executive Director of NID, Ashoke Chatterjee. He told us that experience by itself does not produce knowledge, but it is the reflection on experience that does create deep and durable knowledge.

This assignment is therefore a way for groups of individuals to first map out what they already think they know about any chosen subject through brainstorming and categorisation followed by rounds of modelling to find structure and finding a suitable metaphor to map the discovered structure for all to see and understand. The next assignment has the students sharing their understanding with real experts and through research and the process of modelling, finding structure and making a metaphor so that the findings can be shared in a coherent manner. This process also has the effect of clarifying the concepts in ones own mind as well as in locating insights that would drive the process of opportunity mapping and decision making as the design process goes forward.

The other two groups too have completed their second round which will be reported here later in the day. We need to meet today to review all the MeBoards, perhaps in the SDM studio and the final opportunity maps as well as the individual secnarios will be exhibited in the NID Foyer on Tuesday the 12th August 2008 at 5.30 pm IST. We have booked the Foyer space through the NID Academin Administration and we look forward to a live participation from faculty, students and invited guests.

Uttarakhand Group: Mandi as Metaphor

Image: Uttarakhand Group assembled in their Mandi Metaphor for their presentation.

The Uttarakhand Group was the first to complete their model by the evening today so we decided to have their presentation while the other three groups would have theirs tomorrow morning. The team worked out a way to reuse their Himalayan Mountain range model by using it as a backdrop to locate the wild life and fauna of the region while the main exhibit was that of a Sabji Mandi or vegetable market through which they tried to explain the current level of understanding about Food and the chosen region in the context of design possibilities going forward.

Image: Uttarakhand Group assembled in their Mandi Metaphor with the teachers included.

The Mandi metaphor was however not used as effectively buy the group to make their presentation as it came out in the discussions and critique that followed the groups presentation. According to the comments from the teachers it showed a lack of an articulation or visualisation of relationships that formed the core of the concerns that the group had indeed identified and expressed as very interesting images of islands of concerns that were arranged on the backdrop. The four main headings of Production, Distribution , Consumption and Impact did offer the group an adequate framework for linking the various sub-groups and issues that were in the field of vision but the audience felt that they missed showing the linkages between all the issues covered there.

Image: Uttarakhand Group assembled in their Mandi Metaphor as the class presentation progresses.

Further the lack of detail at the next lower level of the structure was also pointed out in the arguments and comments that followed. The Mandi visual was quite effective in getting a feel of the place and the context as a whole and I used the metaphor of the Constellations to show that association of star groups were given meaning by showing the invisible lines that gave the groups its form as a visual symbol which made it memorable and recognisable in the rich ground of all the other stars. Each illustration was rich and when the team explained the model it was clear that the team had come a long way forward in their understanding of both Food as well as the context on the ground in the Uttaranchal region through their meetings with experts in the field, but the group failed to tell us who they met and how the insights were actually collected and put together in their model. In all the group efort was appreciated by the class particularly since this group was able to meet the very tight deadline and come through with a fairly high degree of effective representation and discourse.

We do look forward to some rich presentations from the other three groups in the morning tomorrow. The order of presentation will have the Goa Group making their presentation at 9.30 am and this would be followed by the other two between 10.30 and 12.30 pm tomorrow. The afternoon session is for the next lecture on Design Opportunities after which the groups will start work on their next assignments dealing with Design Opportunities in the area using the formats that have been developed for this purpose.

Late Night Edition: DCC2008 Paldi01

Image: All four groups ready with their respective models, stucture and metaphor for the theme of Food across four regions of India. Uttarakhand (top right), West Bengal (bottom right), rajasthan (bottom left) and Goa (top right).

Working with very few breaks the teams were all ready for presentation by 2.00 pm in the post lunch session, a little behind schedule, but this is acceptable since it is the first time that these groups have worked together and much learning is still to come. The results are quite encouraging and in the evening we had completed the discussions and presentations of two of these groups, Uttarakhand and Goa. We will report in some detail about these presentations in another post. However for now, the two presentations were actively participatory with a number of students coming forward to make critical and constructive statements, a good sign towards a healthy peer review culture in the days to come.

Design journey-DCC-2008-PG campus

Image: Sonal Chauhan with Prof M P Ranjan in the DCC class at Gandhinagar.

It has been a great experience being part of DCC team.
This was my very first encounter with DCC as well as Professor Ranjan , since I have joined this institute very recently.
In My college days we had no opportunity to learn this course and it was added later for the fortunate ones. Being from the so called “Design Community” I believe that design is what you think you can do to enhance life, product, feelings, experiences, dreams or aspirations .But what leads you to design outcome is your approach towards it.

I must admit DCC-2008 has added a new dimension to my design approach. Though seating on the other side of the students, I was very much a student . But it was a dual learning for me i.e. student as well as faculty trainee( a new breed of Student).It was great to learn ways to achieve design solutions.

KNOWING THE UN-KNOWN – was the first assignment where focus was on the first hand data that one would have stored in mind consciously& unconsciously. Gathering that data (Brainstorming) and using it to make model structure followed by metaphoric representation - would have been quite a task for beginners. It was a process which would lead you more and more towards identifying unique design opportunities as you clear each step (read: assignment here). I have witnessed it that students had to work extremely hard and they were enjoying to dig more and more to gather data/information. Learning was so much from the student presentations that I felt like getting in to one of the group and actually going through the experience of making of that learning.( which, I couldn’t allow myself - with some block)

ME BORD – was more to identify ,analyze and assess our own self. Again knowing the unknown in a way. It was to know one’s love, pride, fear, mental block, inhibitions, strengths, weakness, commitments, dreams, policies, nature and other interests.
What was equally important here was coming with information/ideas and making it in to visual communication .We all know the power of words but this targeting power of images.( Image power) And it is so much true, that some times you cant have enough words to explain or express and same can be done very crisply with just one image.

Having open forum to debate , discuss and express views , at the end of every presentation involves further crisscross of data, brainstorm, a new emerging approach, people’s eye view and a lot more that (may be my dictionary would limit me with).
I relished that part of it more since, I was not part of group presentations and so the rich experience they have had.

Working hard and making people work hard – is something every student must have learned from DCC and so have I( all in good spirit).As working in groups have certain advantages as well as disadvantages. And DCC module surely adds those group dynamics and leader ship qualities to the students.

I wish i was there in each of the class gathering. Myself was quite a silent observer through out the class and would vouch for the constructive feedback that came in with each presentation, from the Professor Ranjan, Harini, Ayan, or student group themselves. I am thankful to all for sharing such rich experiences . My best wishes to Gujarat, Kerala, North East, Punjab groups for their final presentation and ahead.

Late Morning Edition: DCC2008 Paldi01

Image: Work in progress with all teams rushing to meet the new deadline which has been posted at 2.00 pm.

Groups have reassembled after the break and working almost non-stop with a few hours of sleep over night. The metaphors are taking shape and the structure is being frozen by each of the groups exploring Food, Inflation and the Economy as the major theme for the brainstorming assignment.

We will assemble again at the studios after lunch and take group photographs of all team members in front of their presentation models and then move on to the review of each presentation by turn. The first group to finish and report will have the first go with the presentation. We look forward to it.

DCC2008 Paldi Batch01: Course commences today

Image: Four volunteer coordinators and views of the class in session at the NID Paldi Auditorium in the morning and the post lunch session.

The theme of Food, Inflation and the Economy continues into the second batch for this year with the first batch at Paldi forming their groups and commencing work on their first assignment, mapping what we already know from our life experience. The subject and theme is Food and the four groups are to look at four assigned regions of India, namely:
Group 1: West Bengal
Group 2: Rajasthan
Group 3: Goa
Group 4: Uttarakhand

The members were drawn from all the participating disciplines namely, Animation Film Design (AFD), Transportation & Automobile Design (T&AD), Product Design (PD), Textile Design (TD), RMIT Exchange Students (RMIT), and Strategic Design Management (SDM 2nd year batch). We asked four student volunteers to step forward and act as coordinators and each of these coordinators was asked to choose one member by turn from each of the disciplines so that each group was composed of students from all disciplines. Each group has 17 members including the coordinator.

The four groups will now sit together and brainstorm to discover what they already know about the subjects of Food and their chosen region with an aim of developing a meaningful structure that could aid their deeper understanding of the subject at hand. Once they have categorized the words into an agreed structure the group would develop a metaphor on which they can locate their structure before making a presentation to the whole class which is scheduled for Wednesday (day 3) at 10.30 am in the Drawing studio on the second floor at NID Paldi.

In the discussions and the lecture that preceded the group formation we were able to discuss the massive changes that have been taking place in our understanding of design, both at NID as well as across the world. I was able to touch upon some of the directions with the use of my prepared models and lectures such as Understanding Design, the IDSA lecture titled “Giving Design Back to Society: Towards a Post-mining Economy” (download here the presentation pdf 812 kb) and my EAD06 lecture titled “Creating the Unknowable: Designing the Future in Education” (download pdf file of the paper 50kb and presentation 4.1 mb here) which was a description of the DCC course as it is offered to the Foundation programme at NID and its evolution at the Institute over the years. This gave us an opportunity to discuss briefly the role of the Bauhaus and Ulm schools of design in the shaping of modern design as we know it today and how this has been further transformed at NID and through the work of design thinkers across the world. In particular we referred to the contemporary books by Klaus Krippendorff – The Semantic Turn, Harold Nelson and Eric Stolterman – The Design Way, and the early work of John Chris Jones in shaping the whole area of design theory in the 60’s and through the mid 80’s as the movement in Design Methods and Design Processes. We used the Wikipedia entries on the subject by a quick web search using Google, very convenient indeed. I hope the students take the keywords discussed in class and connect with the larger history of design through their research on the web in the days ahead.

Reflections on DCC2008: Neeta Khanuja

Image: Reflecting on the assignments and lectures during the DCC course Neeta Khanuja has proposed this model of her understanding of the Design Process. Her description of the diagram is quoted below from her email message sent last night.

Exploring and being present to Reality:
Designing is something that cannot be done in isolation. As said by Ranjan in one of his lectures: Difference between a designer and an artist is that an artist works in isolation and comes up with a creation that is an expression of his inner self but a designer is the one who explores the real world and with his creative aspect comes up with an output that works as a solution to the real world problem. So exploring the real facts and knowing the present scenario initiates a designing process and is crucial in itself. This exploration can be done by observing and experiencing the real world. Talking in context of our DCC assignment that was food and inflation in Punjab, brainstorming, interacting with real world and getting insights made us present to the current scenario in Punjab.

Identifying problems and visualizing futristic possibilities:
On being present to the real scenario next step a designer is supposed to take is to figure out the reason for his research. This reason may be a problem that he tends to solve or it may be an urge to create something which is not there but has a potential to exist and which can have a positive impact on the current scenario. In our assignment in this step we identified current problems and futuristic possiblities related to food in punjab with a vision that 'Current problems and possiblities will lead to future opportunities'.

Following a procedural approach:
There is a specific process that is to be followed when it comes to designing. No solution can be designed out of the blue without the presence of a supporting
process. The process that we followed for our assignment consisted of three steps:
Brainstorming,
Making a structure,
Metaphor representation.
It is not a matter of concern that how many times a process is repeated but the point that matters is that the process is whole and complete within itself so every time it is done all the three steps should be followed.

Finding solution and visualizing opportunities for figured possibilities:
This is the step when creative aspect works at an optimum level. The output of this step is in the form of Design Opportunities. Design Opportunities can be looked upon
as fruit of the whole process. In context of our DCC assignment this step in itself consisted of two steps. First is figuring out design opportunities in a group. This will be the sum of all the ideas of group members. Second step consists of taking a design opportunity that inspires us as an individual, exploring all its aspects and coming up with a detailed scenario.

Giving a visual representation to the reached output :
As said by Ranjan: Visual Representation of one's concept is the skill that a designer should always possess. In our assignment we will end up in visually representing the design opportunity we picked up in a way that the concept gets conveyed to others with all the details and insights that we have for it.

With Regards,

Neeta Khanuja
NMD 2008-09

Information from the Field: Presentations by Groups

Information from the Field: Meeting Experts in the Field

Punjab

The Punjab group occupied the NID Gandhinagar Auditorium as their presentation space and transformed it into a truckers paradise with a mandi ( a market) and a dhaba (a roadside eatery usually on the highway) on the side of a highway with the front of a truck at one end and the back of another at the other wall, both connected by a line of trucks marked on the ground, each representing a particular aspect of the theme, Food and Punjab economy. The group had earlier done their brainstorming to articulate what they know about the subject as a group and they had built a model and transformed it into a metaphor that could capture the essence of what they had discovered that they know. Based on this model they developed a research strategy to search for ‘experts in the field” who were accessible near Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar or those who could be reached in the brief time available by phone or through the web so that they could fill in gaps in their understanding of the context as well as obtain insights that they could use in the next phase of their design journey which would deal with the identification of design opportunities in their chosen space. The larger than life image of the truck front was anthropomorphized with the turban of a Sardarji, the Sikh driver who would represent Punjabi persona for the rest of India. The back of the receding truck at the other end of the room had panels that helped categorise the key issues that the groups had discovered and prioritized after their meetings with the experts, people from local dhaba, Gurudwaras and from Punjabi households near their school.

While the team efforts at visualization was highly appreciated by the per group reviews the presentation had the feel of a White Paper used by Planners. Here the critique focused on the depth of macro- issues that the group had brought to clear focus but what was missed was the texture and feel of the micro aspects dealing with food from Punjab, the taste the content and the opportunities that these represented for design action in the future.

Kerala

The Kerala group persisted with their Boat House image for their second presentation and on the wall of the house-boat they had a structure mapping the various relationships that they had discovered during their engagement in the field with numerous Malayalees living and working in Gandhinagar. These people from Kerala had an association of about 1500 people mostly working in the Government of Gujarat and some who acted as service providers retailers and provisioners for the community from Kerala to meet their special needs. The structure was far improved version of the one they had presented in the first phase but still lacked the particular details that were so critical for design understanding. The group did attempt to make a list of design opportunities but the cloud and birds in the sky in one corner of their model was not enough to capture the richness that lived in their minds but was however not visible to the others outside the group. The group did develop a good deal of discussion with their presentation and it was becoming evident that the whole class was getting clued in on the finer aspects of design discourse since there were lesser questions for clarification and more incisive comments on the subject and content of the presentation from the class participants.

The impressive image was indeed huge in scale and the bananas and coconuts used in the diagram did capture the feel of Kerala from a distance but the finer aspects still eluded the group in their representation although the descriptions made by individual members did show a much deeper understanding in their minds but this did not show up on the image. This was pointed out to them as a missed opportunity in the attempt to show and tell. Words alone may not be as expressive as those supported by image scenarios that could deal with the form along with the structure while the story unfolds as the presentation progresses.

Northeast

The Northeast group also took the first tentative steps of building a terrace cultivation model in the first presentation to a more expressive model of the terraces using a three dimensional construct to represent the fields on the hilly landscape and with a backdrop of hills to represent the potential and the findings from their foray into the field to meet experts. The group had visited several local institutes in search of people from the Northeast and through this they did connect with some new and interesting insights about food and the local economy. However the approach did not help the group visualize the finer aspects of their findings since the model did not have any images dealing with the words that they had used as sign boards that were stuck onto each layer of the terraced fields in their model. Like the Kerala group they too had succeeded in making a well categorized structure of their findings with each zone in their model dealing with one major category but the visualization opportunity was however missed. Further as the team members made their presentation each of them would read out from a list in hand and they did not use the model as a prop for their show and tell which made the presentation less memorable for the audience since although we had a huge model in front of us the group did not use it to make their presenation. However such failure was useful for the teachers to make the critique which is good learning for all the class.

The group did emphasise the huge cultural diversity of the region and the diversity of food types and the range of tribes of the region, which represented a great opportunity for exotic offerings from the region as a whole. This group had an area that was less known about and with fewer experts to be found at short notice and they however had to do a lot of imagination to fill in the gaps in information from the field.

Gujarat

The Gujarat group was the most fortunate on the one hand since they were immersed in the region that they had to study but they were also disadvantaged by the short time that they had to do their research. The presentation of the group used two powerful images, one of a dancing Garba Girl in her traditional dress of Gagra and Choli with a Dupatta and the other with a map of the region that was overlapped with some of the key industries and infrastructure that contributed to the food economy of the region. This model was particularly expressive and the team was able to use the images to good effect in making their presentation memorable. The various parts of the dancing girl were used to categorise their findings about the food habits of the Gujarati and also about the various food types that the region had to offer. They explained their findings with a great deal of conviction about the organization of the food types and then went on to map out the areas of opportunity for the Gujarat region in the whole spectrum of Food related economy that includes the dairy industry, the fishery industry and the vegetarian snack food industry which uses the specific advantages of the Gujarat geography, culture and location as well as the entrepreneurship of their people.

The Gujarat team presentation was particularly rich since they were able to transform the class understanding of the use of personas in the capture of insights from the field. They met up with several well chosen individuals who were modeled in the form of personas and the story of these individuals helped capture the abstract information in the form of real and tangible insights that were informed by a particular context in which each of them were situated. So Induben, Amit Patel, Nilesh, Bhavana and Tasneen each offered a rare but coherent insight that the team was able to bring back to support the arguments that the team had to offer during their show and tell session in the class. The Amul Girl featured in their model just as the SEZ that is now the talk of the town in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad and the Gujarati thali and the Farsans or fast food of Gujarat all had their place in the map that the group had on offer, a rich and visually stimulating insight indeed.

DCC2008 Regions and Teams: Brainstorming and Structure

Image: Four teams of students, Punjab (top left), Kerala (top right), Northeast (bottom right) and Gujarat (bottom left). The names of each of the team members are listed below.

Four teams were formed to explore the theme of Food, Inflation and the Indian Economy from the perspective of what the team members already knew from their life experience. This was carried out through a couple of rounds of brainstorming that was followed by categorization and a process of finding an agreed structure that had a hierarchy of concepts that are arranged in a meaniungful manner. This structure is then reinterpreted in the form of a visual model that could be shared with the class as a whole and the Gandhinagar Atrium was chosen as the venue for the presentation and each team was assigned one wall space on the four sides of the Atrium.

The groups presented their findings by turn, Punjab, Kerala, Gujarat and then the Northeast. The class slowly warmed up to the mode of discussion since in the beginning they were not yet quite used to open discussion and debate in a constructive manner. However as the day moved on they became more vocal , asked questions and then started making comments and sharing insights and experiencing the peer review process that is so important to design understanding. Prof Klaus Krippendorff has often repeated his conviction on many online design discussions such as the dialogue of the PhD-Design list, that design is always mediated in language and as designers we will need to understand this dimension of the design discourse if we are to use the process effectively. In his book the Semantic Turn, he has developed this idea into a well structured theory of design that is still not understood by the design community at large.

KERALA

Sanjay Kumar (Coordinator), Abhishek Dwivedi, Kanika Malhotra, Gauri Kathju, Deepak Nanaware, Ruchika Sarda, Kirti Anand, Shambhavi Gupta, Shambhavi Gupta, Sharanya Rukmangadhan, Charuta Bhatt, Kabeer, Vidula Aher, Ritu Ganguli, Austin Davis, Pritesh Dhawle, Purvee Jain.

PUNJAB

Darshana Tatibandwale (Coordinator), Salil Bhargava, Jyoti Rani Rajput, Shuchi, Ramshi P Hamza, Rohini Shitole, Shubhi Shrivatsava, Neeta Khanuja, Swati Agarwal, Raghavendra Singh, Ankita Patel, Ishita Singh, Shakuntala Marndi, Sumeeta Chanda, Ashish Kumar, Kanika Bhadwaj.

NORTH EAST

Sanmitra Chitte (Coordinator), Prasurjya Phukan, Ananya Chatterje, Gavin Francis Remedios, Niharika Sethi, Amanjot Kaur Sandhu, Neety Rai, Shailaja Pahuja, Asif Kureshi, Sanjeev Gupta, Gauri Pandey, Janki Mallick, Nalini Bhutia, Swati Bhartia, Vikas Gupta, Venus Mehandiratta.

GUJARAT

Archana A (Coordinator), Priyadarshini Mohapatra, Vipin Singh, Xavier Dayanandh, Abhishek Maithul, Pranav Gupta, Ritika Mathur, Sagar Raut, Midhun Subhash, Chetan Sharma, Awantika Kumar, Fatima Jaliwala, Pranita Mujgelwar, Linda Lee, Pranjal Rai, Prarthana Ahuja.

Design Opportunity Mapping: Coastal Maharashtra India

Image: Terrain model to capture and present Design Opportunity Mapping for effective water conservation and management in Coastal Maharashtra, India by the DCC team.

The Coastal Maharashtra team used a terrain model to locate all the design opportunities that they had arrived at as a group using the small A5 size format that was provided to them. Each member of the team presented their ideas to the class and this was preceded by an overview of their categorisation of these opportunities. Then teachers too gave their comments and the critique from the class suggested ways forward from here.

This method of working has been found effective in getting a deeper understanding of the macro and micro issues and opportunities for design as part of this course at NID. Each group spends time brainstorming, researching and exploring collectively as well as individually before the findings that may be intermediate in nature to the rest of the class. Each group shows interesting insights that are discivered along the journey and these form a cumulative learning for the whole class since all five groups look at diffetent regions or areas of focus within one macro problem area at a time.

Business Models from the Field: Chaiwalla.com and DCC

Learning about Business Models from the Field: The Chaiwalla.com assignment and DCC
Image: Prof. M P Ranjan explaining the Systems Design Model to the DCC class. This four stage process includes User studies, Scenario Visualisation, Concept Detailing and Business Model development.
Several years ago, as part of the DCC course, we realized that strategy and planning were as important as concept and product detailing if a particular set of design offerings were to be successful in the marketplace. Unlike technological innovations and science innovations which can be proven in the laboratory or be subjected to peer reviews for validation, design innovations and design offerings are of a class that can be measured and the success of which can only be tested in the marketplace and this makes it truly complex to prove. The producers who have almost the same quality of product on offer can only differentiate their offering by the thoughtful development of their business models. So we see objects being converted into a service offering through a lease finance model or a service being dematerialised through the use of technology and the shift could be in either direction and the winner is the one who can capture the imagination of the consumer and offer a special convenience that the other is not able to offer.

Learning business processes is seen as the exclusive domain of the management graduate and not that of the designer, however as teachers at NID we realized that without this knowledge being integrated into the product creation and development process, the impact of the new product or service offering would be essentially incomplete. This led to the creation of the four stage systems design model that I presented at the CII-NID Design Summit in 2001. This model was several years in the making and was an implicit part of the DCC assignments over many years before it got formalized in the Design Summit paper and presentation which is called “Cactus Flowers Bloom in the Dessert”.( download pdf: Part 1 of 3.6 MB and Part 2 of 4.6 MB and paper of 123 KB) Much earlier, in 1998 we had asked a group of students in the DCC class to go out onto the streets of Ahmedabad and study several street food vendors in working groups and come back to the class with an understanding of their business processes and strategies. We called it the Chaiwalla.com assignment and it was an instant success since we realized that the students were indeed able to observe, interact and understand the structural, functional and performance attributes of the business particularly since these were small and micro enterprises that were managed and effectively carried out by one entrepreneur with a small team of supporters, many from within the family itself. We have offered this assignment to all batches since then and the learning from the explorations and presentation that go across three or four days is very rich indeed. The contacts in the field, we found, were also open to share much information and insights with the students, but there were others who were either suspicious or indifferent to the needs of the students. On their part the students learned how to be diplomatic and deal with the very public interactions with care and empathy. Besides learning about fieldwork and about gathering information first hand from the live subjects the students also developed insights about start-up entrepreneurship and how some of these individuals learned to cope with poverty and to deal with it rather effectively. The revelation that the students usually came back with was that some of these individuals earned more each day than their teachers, their own parents in some cases or even officers in very respectable and well known large business enterprises.

The assignment that evolved over the years included the forming of five or six groups, each being assigned to research one kind of street food vendor through direct contact and observation in the street. Students were briefed about various issues to be kept in mind while making these field observations and in the interviews that followed The criteria for the selection of the vendors would be based on a quick survey of a number of such vendor locations and to seek out the ones that were basically cooperative as well as those who provided some significant attribute such as proximity to public facilities, apparent success by the customer draw that was exhibited in the preliminary observations, and the presence of other differentiators which the group feels would be worthy of deeper examination. Over the years we have had our students look at Street Tea vendors (The Chaiwallah), Omlette makers (Omlettewallah), Fried Bhajiya makers (Bhajiyawallah), Paav Bhaji wallah (Fried Bread and mashed vegetables), Golla wallah (Crushed ice on a stick), Pani Puri wallah (Puffed Puris with a sour dip) and so on, all favorite Indian street foods, all served from Laris or informal carts, by small and micro business enterprises, each run by a poor but determined individuals who is trying to build a livelihood in a harsh socio-economic environment.

Each group of students are required to make repeated visits to the chosen locations for observation and use the insights to model the flow of resources, finances and build an understanding of the visible as well as intangible assets and processes that have been incorporated to make the particular business a success. Through the interviews that are also required to get an understanding of how the story pans out across the year or a longer period and in some cases get an understanding of the history of the establishment and its various successes and periods of crisis, of which there are many being so exposed to the vagaries of the street environment that is at once full of opportunity as well as challenges. This collective understanding is to be mapped out using the group processes of discussion, dialogue and modeling from which would emerge a coherent model that can be worked into a suitable metaphor that can be used to share their understanding with the rest of the class. The students would be required to make a rich visual representation of their model in the form of a wall size poster for presentation and this would be used as a prop to explain the concepts that they have gathered about the particular business that they have studied. Teachers use this opportunity to connect the students to possibilities for further study and they are in turn quite ready to follow up on these leads since the learning from the field is quite deep and highly motivating as well. We look forward to seeing how this particular batch respond to the field study challenge particularly since it happens across the Holi festival weekend with all its associated distractions, but we are sure that they would stay focused and get the job done in time. Only time will tell.

Work in Progress: Rural India Models scheduled for Sunday

Images: Self reflection images on the class softboard that have been up for review and discussion as the class goes forward.
The first assignment that had most of the students articulating their life experiences and self reflection as a composite image was very exciting and provided a rich tapestry of image styles and disclosure levels all embedded in the A3 size paper images that have been on the softboard for the past three days now. There has been much discussion about each image in small groups of interested students and we will have a group presentation in class using projected digital images so that a large group can appreciate the story that would be shared by several of the students when we assemble again as a group later next month.

The students who braved and toiled to work on a holiday are here to share their unfinished models of their respective regional village economy models. Some I am told missed the photo session since they had crashed out having worked at night or that they had taken flight to meet their parents in the age of cheap air travel which brings Pune and Delhi within easy reach for some of them.

The final presentations for this assignment are scheduled on Sunday (tomorrow) at 10.30 am and we have proposed to have ice cream for all participants to celebrate the extended cold wave in Ahmedabad as well as the end of the first week of this module of the DCC class for the Foundation students. Those missing the presentation will also miss the ice cream and the great learning experience that the show and tell sessions provide. All students will now spend one week doing SLA classes (Science & Liberal Arts) and then another two weeks in the chosen village as part of the Environmental preception class. We hope that they will be able to test their groups models with the reality check that the field visits will afford them and that they will use this opportunity to speak to the "experts", people who live and work in the rural areas in the numerous occupations that they will see and interact with during their stay in the village in Gujarat. Although each group is dealing with a different part of the country, they will be able to get a fiirst hand feel of the issues and concerns of rural India and use these insights in their work and learning at NID in their move to becoming designers who are sensitised to the needs and concerns of a large part of India.

The five groups and those who were present in the class today were captured on camera and their semi-finished work is shown below with a brief caption to identify the region that the respective group had brainstormed and categorised all based on their own life experience that was available to the collective as a starting point for their journey during this course.

Image: Model and metaphor of Rural Desert Rajasthan

Image: Kerala Rainforest as a location for rural culture

Image: Coastal Maharashtra and its dominent rural ecology

Image: Foot Hills of the Himalayas as a reference for rural design opportuinities

Image: Notheastern Hill Region as a base for design action in India.

Design Opportunities in Rural India: DCC2008 for Foundation students at NID

DCC2008 for Foundation students at NID began this week and we have chosen to look at trades and occupations that can add value and create wealth in rural India through design in the age of the creative economy.

Image: Exploring and reflection of the self and the rich picture models produced by the students.
The time is here once again to start the Design Concepts and Concerns course for the batch of students in the Foundation Programme at NID. This year we have 75 students in the class and we have decided to look at trades and occupations that could be enhanced and value added by the use of design. Design can be applied to the creation of new products and services and it can be used to improve the efficiency and comfort levels of the people involved in the trades itself and also to the services offered by each of these. With the arrival of the creative economy we are sure that many of our traditional trades will reinvent themselves with the use of design and offer high value to both the practitioner as well as their clients. Some of these ideas are discussed in more detail on my blog called "Design for India".

Image: DCC Blackboard with the discussion on the area of models and their role in design research and action.
This time our course has been truncated to one week in the first phase and to three and a half weeks in the second phase with a gap of three weeks when the students will do the SLA course in one week and have two weeks in the field for their Environmental Perception course. We have therefore modified our course offering and packed two assignments in the first week, one dealing with exploring and expressing the self through a process of introspection, reflection and expression in the form of a composite image which can be used to share their own story as a rich picture model. This is the first of the many models that the students would build during this course. Most students did not know what we meant by the word “Model” in the context of design exploration and this gave the teachers an opportunity to explore the concept and all its dimensions in a lecture discussion session in the class yesterday after a brief introduction to the various dimensions of design as we know it today. The DCC Blackboard seen in the picture will show the gist of the discussions in class and the words were contributed by the students as the discussions progressed, they quickly grasped the meaning of the term and the use of models in the design of new and innovative offerings.

Image: Rich picture representations of their self image on display in the class softboards.
The students made rich pictures of their self-reflection and expression assignment. These are displayed in the class and each student was asked to share their story with three other students over the next three days. Based on this sharing they would be able to develop a text that each would send to one close relative (an uncle, aunt or even parent or friend) as well as to the teachers of the course and to some of their classmates and all of these would be documented with the digital image of their picture and be made available to all the students in the class. We hope that by doing this they would be able to appreciate the role that each one of us plays in shaping the design directions by the value systems that we hold dear and how these would shape the decisions that we made on behalf of others in our design journey. The design journey is one of exploration and research that leads to the gathering of numerous insights that are based on these current and past explorations and insights. Insights get accumulated over the journey and these provide a certain degree of conviction based on which our design decisions are invariably taken. These are not just based on facts but also on feelings and convictions that would be influenced by the philosophy and ideology held by the designer. The paper and the model on the Design Journey that I had written earlier this year was circulated to all our students and we will be discussing this paper in class as we go forward with the learning in this course.

Image: Students of the DCC2008 class attending the lecture discussion session on day two.
The second assignment is based on what the students already know in their conscious and sub-conscious mind about a given topic. This year we have decided to make the first week a sort of preparation for the field work that would be undertaken as part of the environmental perception course when all the students will be visiting a village near Ahmedabad and using this visit to sensitise themselves to design opportunities in the rural sector as well as give them a first hand exposure to the India reality on the ground. In this assignment they are divided into groups of fifteen students and each group has been given the task of exploring amongst themselves their understanding of an Indian village and its challenges and opportunities based on what they already know deep in their collective minds. The groups have been assigned the following five regional situations and the context that is established by the very incomplete description of the village type and location in the broadly defined regions mentioned below.

Coastal Maharashtra
Himalayan Foothills
Kerala Rainforest
Northeastern Hills
Desert Rajasthan

Image: Brainstorming session in progress
Students are expected to brainstorm and identify all the attributes of the village type in question and try and capture in as rich a picture as possible without necessarily doing any external research from books or interviews with experts which is reserved for another stage in the course. Based on their brainstorming and the key-words that the group identifies they are expected to sort and categorise these into an agreeable structure that would be meaningful to the group in the form of key-words and hierarchies that make sense. The structure needs to be as complete as possible and the areas of ignorance too may be identified at this stage. The students would then develop a metaphor that could be used to express the structure in a memorable format and that which has a contextual relevance to the team as well as one that would make sense to most viewers as well. They are then required to make a presentation and tell about their journey as well as their findings to the rest of the class in a well prepared presentation and show and tell session that would be done in the class on the scheduled time. This presentation is now planned on Saturday morning at 10.00 am in the classroom at NID. The sequence of presentations would be decided by the teachers. Besides these inputs in class as well as the papers that were distributed we have set up a server based resource on the NID server for digital resources that are available on the net. Links to world thinkers and experts in fields that impinge on the subject at hand are made available through this channel. For instance we have links to hazel Henderson’s website and to her papers on development economics which the teachers feel are very relevant to the task at hand. Similarly, the links to DOTT07, the Design Council UK, Kaos Pilot, NextD and PhD-Design list are some popular design and inspirational resources that are shared with the students in the class. We will add resources as we proceed with the course and students too would be contributing new links and resources as we go forward with the course.

Image: Student reflection about themselves shared on the softboard as part of assignment one, Self Image.