Design Vacuum

 19th Nov 2013, The Financial Express - Brand Wagon

As you drive around any metro or even a small town in India, you see mushrooming buildings of steel and
glass framing an emerging skyline. These buildings are modern, cookie cutter boxes, with tons of glass and steel and are clones of any such edifices in the world—be it Dubai, London, Singapore or
New York.
Anyone who knows India knows of the dust and dirt on the streets. In that scenario, glass? The cleaning systems are rudimentary—and square feet after square feet of glass is difficult to keep clean.
The glass surfaces everywhere have begun to collect visible amounts of dust and dirt—and each building spends enormous resources on fighting this battle. And that is just the problem with some of the functional aspects.
The inspirations for architecture in India could have been many—from digging into the rich tapestry of architecture and design history of India, to the understanding of local materials that are both environment friendly and cost efficient, to an inquiry into Indian public spaces and the collective expressions in those. The starting points of inspiration are many.

India is a land of transposed design. Indeed, I believe this to be a theory true for most developing nations.
Progress means picking up designs from the developed nations of this world and super-imposing them on the developing nations—with little thought or attention to local contexts.
Why does this happen? Why has the power of design been consistently overlooked by developing nations in everything—from airports to large hydel dams, from consumer products to malls, from clothing to automobiles? There are no more than a handful of local insights or solutions.

In a country that is hot and humid— like India is, men’s collars turn black and grimy every day, detergents sell proverbial tons thanks to their ability to clean collars and yet in the shirt wearing history of modern India, there is no record of any innovation on the collar. It is not that this is a nation of people who lack the intellectual capital. Far from it. Nor a nation that does not show an entrepreneurial orientation to adopt
new ideas.


Again, far from it. Then why is design not part of the Indian consideration?
The answer lies in history. In 1657, an Elizabethan era of scientific inquiry, when the western world was inventing the pendulum clock and understanding the principles of probability—Aurangzeb, a particularly ruthless and regressive Mughal emperor was ascending the throne of India.
By 1757, when the spinning jenny was heralding the industrial revolution, changing the way people lived and worked and giving the first taste to capitalists of the profits to be enjoyed through industrial design, the seeds of belief in the power of design were sown. When the first cars and the Macadamization of roads were defining a new way of life, India fought and lost its first battle of independence, the Battle of Plassey, to the

East India Company, which quickly established the latter’s rule. The ammunition and ships they brought with them helped them establish a stronghold in the country. And the systematic plunder of India’s natural resources and the decimation of local enterprise began as even the most basic commodities such as salt and sugar began to be imported. This was also an era when imported fabrics from Manchester took over the local markets and local weavers and craftsmen began losing their livelihoods. This then, is the beginning of a super-imposition of external sensibilities and aesthetics on the local population. Local enterprise shriveled and toeing an imperialist line was mandatory for economic profit. The power of design was completely absent.
In another 100 years, by 1857, the zipper, the safety pin, the fax machine, fibre optics (yes, 1857!) and hydrogen fuel cells were all invented, while India fought and lost the second battle of independence—also called the Sepoy Mutiny depending on which side of the Himalayas you come from. It was importing everything finished and designed and was exporting everything raw and unprocessed. Every bit of value addition was done outside the country—and there was never an economic benefit of design that was demonstrated to the local population. Everything indigenous was slowly lost.

A decade after India gained independence, in 1957, India was trying tocatch up with the world. And it transposed development into India. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad— was modeled after Harvard Business School. The architect—Louis Kahn— designed what was perhaps his finest work, but with no integration of the Indian societal context in design. The management education in India needed to
understand the social context of sons inheriting family businesses and needed to enable them rather than

create managers for multinationals companies selling soaps and detergents and a well-segmented demographic. The Indian Institute of Technology was modeled after MIT, medical schools were set up and all indigenous forms of knowledge in medicine and sciences, to say nothing of the arts and crafts, were fading. The world had already tasted space travel, nuclear energy and computers and India was in a hurry to stay abreast with the world.


The same was true in case of large infrastructure projects such as hydel projects or big engineering projects. There was never a search or a debate about local micro solutions that maintained the local ecological balance and became a source of livelihood rather than uprooting the local population.
In this historically challenged world of transposed development, the Indian entrepreneur never learnt the fruits of design thinking and manifestation. The economic power of a new idea, service or product that met the local needs was generally not experienced. The luggage that needed to become a seat at the crowded railway station never got made.

This dependence on transposed thought extends to the word of branding as well. Not only is the product design cut and pasted outside the context, so is the brand, its positioning and its packaging.
Local studies in semiotics and mining of deep cultural insights to understand implications on design and brand creation is often not practiced in category after category.

When Amul decides to propagate the much vilified ghee, by saying one spoon a day is good for you or Cadbury identifies a place for chocolate as a mithai equivalent—the brands see a sudden explosion in the market place. It is my belief that a deep cultural connection is necessary for a successful
brand and product design to exploit the market potential to its fullest.

Alpana Parida is president of DY Works (erstwhile DMA Branding). The views expressed here are her own.

"Innovate or Die is the Mantra"

7 Nov 2013, Print Week India

On the first day of Print Fair, Alpana Parida of D Y Works stressed the necessity of innovation for the printing businesses to survive.
In her presentation 'Printing Industry - The Next', for more than 60 delegates in the audience, Parida showcased how it is important for any business to define itself. Citing the example of Kodak, Parida said, "When a business is defined in relation to the technology, they tend to fail as the technology matures and advances," said Parida.




She shared an instance where a manufacturer of printed bags, when they found no value addition in the jobs being produced, started making security envelopes for banks. "Today, he is not just a printer but a security solution provider," added Parida.

Parida highlighted the fact that there is very little integration between the three important aspects of a job namely substrates, design and printing. She said that there has to be a synergy between these three to bring about innovative concepts that would make the printed products more relevant in a world where print seems to be on a decline.

Parida observed few industry trends such as decline of personalised printing, move towards sustainability, down-gauging of packaging,  functional packages, making packaging to work harder namely as point of sale etc.

"Change is the only constant; the sooner we learn and plan accordingly, it is better for our business," concluded Parida.

PrintWeek India, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai, is hosting ‘Print Fair’, a five-day event to showcase the depth and breadth of top print work and print ideas in India. The show runs from 6 to 10 November at the Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai.

By Rushikesh Aravkar

Alpana Parida is President of DY Works , a leading brand strategy and design firm

A ‘Brand’ New Experience!

After a half hour journey in the Mumbai locals and several failed attempts to get a taxi to office, I reach DY Works every morning. And here begins a good new day, with a proper balance of work and fun (more fun sometimes!)

The month of June passed by in a flash; time flies when you’re doing what you like, and actually enjoying everything you’re doing! It was my first time in Mumbai, my first internship, and my first experience in a Design and Marketing firm, and it’s right up there in one of the good summers I’ve had. I did take some time getting used to the office and how things run here, but in a week’s time, I felt at home, and a part of this company!

Just as much as I enjoyed it, being in the Creatives Team was a learning process, and working with design pros like Dharam and Kiran added to that. Over the five weeks I was here, I worked on quite a few projects, allunlike each other, and that really opened up my mind to how design can work in different ways!