A future led by corporate projects

Good on you Peter Jones. So well put. I will push for a more radical position – but ‘led by corporate’ is a damning statement. You slave you, designer you. You are part of the problem – but do go there (below) and read his words. And if it works for you – I will [...]

Soumitri Varadarajan Keynote Address

Conversations 48 deg C – a two day symposium brought together Indian and international experts on ecology, urban space, architecture and public art.
Keynote: Soumitri Varadarajan, RMIT
Response: Sanjay Prakash, Energy Conscious Architect
Chair: Ashok Lall, Urban Planner Architect Provocateurs include: Amar Kanwar, Artist; Bharati Chaturvedi, Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group; J.K. Dadoo, Environment Secretary, Government of [...]

Artefact

artefact
Any object that has been used, modified, or manufactured by humans, such as a tool, weapon, or vessel. In art, an artefact is a product of human skill and creativity, while in archaeology, the object may be a simple item of importance and interest.
Armenian Architecture – VirtualANI – Glossary
Any small object that has been manufactured, [...]

Design School Vision

I finally started writing – the tool kit for a new School of Design. A tool kit because a vision is so self aggarandising. Tool kit is so much more participative. For now the tool kit has three parts – a way to do a take on design.

1. The Agenda – which in this case [...]

The State of Design Education in Nova Scotia

The State of Design Education in Nova Scotia | Brightwhite Design
I am extremely interested in all aspects of the design profession, from how it’s taught to how it is practiced, especially as it relates to online or ‘new’ media.
It seems that our local educational institutions are largely out-of-touch with the skills, design processes and requirements [...]

Accelerating Innovation for Development

Accelerating Innovation for Development
Innovation, the process of developing ideas into products and services, is a major driving force in global economic growth and development. Historically innovation has been done within institutions, whether companies or non-profit organizations. Innovation generally tends to be a closed process, relying on a limited pool of human resources and knowledge (albeit [...]

Method U

I have been following Kahane’s Solving Tough Probelms for some time now. And have taken many bits of method U into my own practice.
The best bit about it is in this text – from Zaid Hasan – Connecting to the Source: The U-Process.
‘instead of planning and designing you just start. You take the first stp [...]

Daily Dump

Composting Service in Bangalore India. By Poonam Bir – a designer, graduate of NID.
home | Daily Dump
Daily Dump offers a range of products and services that help compost at home.It also provides solutions and knowledge through an open source platform.
As a service, Daily Dump helps you manage your household waste andconvert it to useful high-quality [...]

Quest University Canada

Is this the way forward for our universities.
Quest University Canada
Quest University Canada is…
An innovative, secular, not-for-profit, liberal arts and science university located in a spectacular location – Squamish, British Columbia.

Daily Dump

Composting Service in Bangalore India. By Poonam Bir – a designer, graduate of NID.
home | Daily Dump
Daily Dump offers a range of products and services that help compost at home.It also provides solutions and knowledge through an open source platform.

As a service, Daily Dump helps you manage your household waste and
convert it to useful high-quality [...]

Stanford D-School

Is a focus upon the needs of corporations the same as a focus upon the needs of people. Corporations are into people-focus like they are into CSR and triple bottom line. But can they do emotion – can they privilege the faint voice?
More significantly how can they do ‘disruptive innovation’ like stuff – with small [...]

£200 000 for Public Service Design

£200 000 for Public Service Design « Redjotter’s Weblog
Designers are being sought to improve public services.
“The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills has put forward an initial £200 000 to support the Design Council’s Public Services by Design scheme, with the goal of bringing a range of design skills to bear on the emergency services, [...]

The Membership Project

About the Membership Project | The Membership Project
The Membership Project explores how the social web and other factors are changing the ways in which we may belong to groups and organisations.
We believe that these changes will have major implications for civil society institutions, ranging from national charities to local groups.
Put simply, will people still pay [...]

Is this the real story of service design?

This is what the wikipedia says about service design.
But I see this as just one strain – this is when product designers took their methodology into the design of services. And they needed to do this when they realised that the internet integrated business economy was being constructed more and more as a a [...]

Digital Industrial Design

Can we visualize a new kind of Industrial Design education – called for a bit “Digital Industrial Design Education”?
Where the process of design is:
1. Primarily digital – so its not then about hand drawing, or workshop practice.
2. Independent of ‘manufacturing’ priorities – and so is significantly ‘form’ and ’shape’ orientated.
3. Similar to graphic design in [...]

More Social Innovation

“The world needs more social innovation—and so all who aspire to solve the world’s most vexing problems—entrepreneurs, leaders, managers, activists, and change agents—regardless of whether they come from the world of business, government, or nonprofits, must shed old patterns of isolation, paternalism, and antagonism and strive to understand, embrace, and leverage cross-sector dynamics to find [...]

Richard Buchanan Leaving School of Design

Richard Buchanan | jamin.org
Today we learned, in an apparent slip, that Richard Buchanan is leaving the School of Design. At the very end of class, in a conversation largely framed around the question of what is design, he mentioned that he would be a professor of information systems, “whatever that means.” There was a pause [...]

Cranbrook Academy of Art

Welcome to Cranbrook Academy of Art
In other words, Cranbrook is far more than just a place to go to school; it is a community. Whether you are making art in your studio (all Academy of Art students are assigned their own personal studio space), swimming at the Williams Natatorium, attending a lecture in deSalle auditorium, [...]

ARt+Design

The School of Art + Design at Montgomery College
The School of Art + Design is a unique program at Montgomery College, offering an art school environment for college students majoring in studio art or graphic design and noncredit students seeking new or improved skills in fine and digital arts.

Describing Art and Design Education

Art and Design Courses
Art and design education is remarkable for its diversity. Broad subject definitions include Design, Fine Art and History, and Theory of Art and Design. Design based courses are offered in a huge range of disciplines from craft based areas such as Furniture Design, Ceramics, Textile Design, and Silversmithing and Jewellery, through Fashion, [...]

Service design as a growing discipline

Design Council | About design | Design disciplines | Service design
Business and management courses are fast-growing areas in education and increasingly, courses or modules in these courses are being included that show how to manage products and services. The design of services is a natural component of such courses.
* [...]

Car design in India

Automotive design gets ready for a greater role in India
The initial flow of companies setting up design centres has led to as many as 15 institutes introducing courses in automotive or transportation design in the country.
Auto design is also getting more classroom space in design centres that have traditionally focused on other industries.
The National Institute [...]

Dear Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
The Knowledge Commission was given an ambitious mandate to strengthen India’s knowledge potential at all levels. We had agreed that if all sections of Indian society were to participate in and make use of the knowledge economy, we would need a radical paradigm shift in the way we thought of the [...]

All things being equal

CC June 2006 — Special Report

All things being equal

Multiple Index Related Affirmative Action (MIRAA) – a more
effective system for equal opportunity

BY PURUSHOTTAM AGRAWAL
[...]

Jambudvipa

A few years ago I sat in a cafe listening to Parag tell me about what he was doing in life and what his goal of work was. He spoke eloquently about what he and his friends/ contemporaries were doing to bring about social change. I heard of Jambudvipa for the first time from him. [...]