On Form and Design

I have now been teaching form and design for the better part of two decades. In this period I have had occasion to try various methods, exercises and theories of form development. So I went in to teach today and spoke of the background, the pitfalls of the ‘trade’ mindset in design, and of the [...]

My 2009 writings

“Service design for India: The thinking behind the design of a local curriculum.” … TAKING ON AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN EDUCATION: CURRENT PRACTICE AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND PRODUCT DESIGN EDUCATION.

Service design for India

Soumitri Varadarajan – Service design for India: The thinking behind the design of a local curriculum | Re-public: re-imagining democracy – english version
It was in the 1970s, a full ten years after the new design schools had been set up in India, that you see a lot of activity on the contextual discourse of design [...]

Personality of my Blog

I saw this personality test for the blog post in Jamin and headed off to try my blog out. I (the blog) came out as an INTJ. And here is the description of the personality. You can go off and try the test for your blog too.
Typealyzer
INTJ – The Scientists
The long-range thinking and individualistic type. [...]

Back Soon

I am taking off for Christmas. And have promised myself I will not blog over the break. I will spend all my time with my family and be available for the kids. In a non distracted fashion. So this blog is on ‘away’ mode for two weeks (atleast).
Meanwhile – go on take a look around [...]

Going Slow for a bit

I am away from my desk – at a retreat – so not posting as much. Not browsing as much.
So all my alerts are mounting – and all the feeds are adding up. I scanned today – before going in to the discussions – and found some really exciting stuff there. So you will have [...]

Another year comes to an end

Its November – and I have finished my teaching for the year. So I am not thinking of my students – but am focussing upon the world of ideas. Typically in this period I reconnect with the core of by practice. I was asked yesterday – what my dreams these days are. I said I [...]

Social Entrepreneurshp for Designers?

And I thought I was on to something new – when I propose to go full tilt into involving students in the sort of work I have been doing since 1994.
Grain News: Sami Nerenberg to teach new RISD studio: Design for Social Entrepreneurship!
The Rhode Island School of Design has asked our Sami Nerenberg to develop [...]

Are Bloggers non-professional?

Stehen Cohen in his blog comments:
The false dichotomy of the schism between the professional journalists, journalism educators and academics and the world of new media, particularly as embodied by bloggers prevails. It seems largely perpetuated by a somewhat chauvinistic attitude on the part of some professional journalists who cling to the notion that a blogger, [...]

Innovation with a Social Face

That is something I believe in – innovation and sociality ofcourse.
But I also disagree with the dominant discourse in design – which I feel is elitist and marginal.
I’m Soumitri Varadarajan, designer, blogger, occassional photographer and full-time daydreamer. I live in Melbourne, Australia with my two excitable children, my soul-mate and Moshu, a medium haired moggie. [...]

Old Bio Text

Soumitri Varadarajan has a keen interest in marginal and neglected discourses. This has led him to construct projects dealing with marginalised communities (Waste workers), the rescuing of the ignored artefact (object culture of the poor) and the amplification of the marginal voices (Diabetes). His approach amplifies the social discourse surrounding objects and systems, and provides [...]