This initiative is inspired by the discussions on the online forum

MacroDesign for India

 

 

...continuing the thread, the business world nid design awards 2006,  reflect something very interesting. This is also linked to suggie goels enthusiastic enquiry on Indian design, keeping in mind India's past, which obviously filters into today and tomorrow as culture. Firstly congratulations to all the awardees! 

 

In the bw-nid awards of a total of 11 design categories, one category is for social development. 

Lets analyse this a lttle further, it seemingly boils down to 10 industrial production categories,(accessories, entertainment prdt, four wheeler, two wheeler, etc.) and  knowledge economy based categories,(such as digital media, more categories for information design and others should come in definitely), this is  91% percent, and 1 OTHER, the category of social development, 9% percent. This reflects  Indias growth and development model. India's path to development is obviously  industrialisation,( no problems with that) industrial growth, knowledge economy growth, centered in its large towns and cities. This development is happening with the educated population composed of x no. of people, living  in our cities bursting at the seams, over trafficked and under infrastructured. This society is serviced by rural folk, arriving from neighbouring villages or far and wide, supplying the labour for the construction boom, the drivers, maids,taxi drivers, the small entrepreneurs in urban and semi urban slums. These for convenience are called India A and India B. Very few businesses live directly , firmly in both. Village, to urban slum , to glitzy malls. Currently there are huge complexities involved in cities attaining agricultural land to expand their boundaries, SEZ's are facing the same. U either expand your cities so that your entire rural population lives there, works there and consumes there or.. u create businesses that employ India B where it is, and encourage it to consume where it is.

 

The business world awards if reflecting the exact situation that is India today,( not being addressed comprehensively by the business community today), could be 11 categories as is, and 33 or 44 or 55 categories in the OTHER, category of social development, for no other reason than that reflects real India. 

 

Everyone is trying hard to remember that the bulk of our population is still uneducated and living in villages, and our growth models need to look hard at this and there is no one we can copy from, we have to lead the way on this. So macro thinking is essential and like Athvankar said this is not just for Design alone to do, it has to engage with a lot else.

 

Today India's growth is being fueled by liberalisation. The government reacts to industrialist and corporates. Let for starters design engage for macro issues also( it is already for micro issues) with industry and corporations. As Athvankar says again, it may be premature for this, also, but lets put out the roots on this. 

 

There is a lot of lip service being paid to overall development at all levels. There are very few models. Rural microfinance is at best enabling rural folk to become traders, they save money, borrow money to sell to each other.  They buy a cow, goats, powder and package masalas. There is a huge dearth of hard core production based activities, value added activities emerging in decentralised scenarios. I personally feel in the near run such models can only come from the private sector, not  from the ngo sector or govt. The exact act of making stuff and selling it, economic activities, even of ideas, is not the forte of ngos and govts. This is the land of business acumen, vision and entrepreneurship. Businesses have to be sold the win win there is for everyone to embrace alternate wealth creation routes. Industree is following one such route, its difficult but happening. 

 

This now links up to Suggie goels query on" Indian Design aesthetic" The space for  Indian Design to flourish within or to even raise its head, or put out a few roots is immensely limited  as long as our growth models , our production methods are single faceted, copied from Western industrial methods. For a strong Indian aesthetic to emerge in industrial design we have to look at product categories where the production methods are mixed.

 

extract...What I would like to look into and study more deeply is the transition and connections between Indian Art&Crafts and the current state of our Design. How it influences our thought processes and how big a role does it play in our overall creativity? I personally believe that currently the Indian society is more craft and decorating based than truly design/style based. Do we have a particular "Indian" design aesthetic? To truly stand out globally as designers we have to establish our own identity and style...How do we stand apart from Italian Design.. or german design.. India has such a vast and rich art and craft heritage....

 

Why should an  Indian design of an industrial product stand out from italian or german design, -" form follows function" so form will follow function, Indian functions will definitely be different from Italian or german functions, they dont eat idli we do, so our mixer will also be a grinder or whatever  and will be friendlier,or whatever  but it will largely more or less look like an italian or german mixer, because the production technique and materials are the same. Its an industrialised product. Industrial is global.

 

Transition and connections between indian artand crafts and the current state of our design are  happening, in what were once major hand made  sectors,but have grown immensely due to mechanisation.( obviously good) It will happen for clients and corporations who work in this sector. It is happening hugely in the Indian fashion market, in the homefurnishing market, ( here most  handloom designs are generated on powerlooms now)in the home accessories( Hand made products and aesthetic is often machine made now) and jewellery ( hand made jewellery , is become more and more mechanised), but no surprise it cant happen much in the industrial sector, where the production techniques and bench marks are set by Western styles, and the product looks good to the consumer only when it looks most japanese or italian or German, We could try a kanjivaram screen printing job on the mixie/ grinder  base, to see if the idli making consumer  likes it better but I somehow doubt it. 

 

Yes Indian society at large is more decoration based, but only on some products, I think mental lines are strictly drawn. My personal feeling is the more natural the consumer( less influenced by western tastes) the more decoration based he/she is. So the consumer needs to be defined on this. We were unable to sell grass placemats,in India, till we put gold brocade borders on them, then they started flying out. North Europeans rarely buy a grass placemat, since they cant put them in a washing machine, leave alone one with a gold brocade border. Consumers usually buy products they can connect with in some way.  ( The North European connects with the grass, but the sense of hygiene is stronger as there is no domestic help and the housewife does not want to hand wash) So the connections are for the designer to make. The more sophisticated the consumer and the product, the more sophisticated the connections. The Fabindia customer, is not supposed to be the kind to like  brocade on their placemats( But they like it on their clothes now). The Industree customer does. There are the cotton ethnic types and there are the shiny ethnic types.And so on. 

 

But basically  my gut feel is that Indians love visual complexity. They have the capacity and need to see in layers. They have loved buying and making things with a lot of information in the colours, patterns . Traditional arts and crafts have made huge inroads into the average Indian garment aesthetic. i used to go saree shopping with my mon 25 years ago, to see this grotesque mill printed aesthetic, a complete mish mash, but now its beautiful to see mill prints mostly inspired from the traditional handloom and the block print sector. 

 

Indian design is making inroads through Entrepreneurship. At Heimtextile Frankfurt, Jan 2007,the worlds largest and most important Home furnishings show, three designer owned companies, Tala( Neeru Kumar, TD,NID), Indian Cornucopia(Ashok Rai,TD, NID) had large , prominent displays in the ASIA VISION hall, Industree was the third , a first time entrant, not yet in the asia vision hall. I wonder if there were any other designer owned companies from any other country.

 

Neelam pd nid 85/86 bangalore.

 

 

 

WE NEED MACRODESIGNERS

 

If I follow the evolution of the field of design, I do believe that we have borrowed concepts and inspiration from a variety of fields including architecture, psychology, sociology and anthropology. In continuation of my earlier post on scaling design, I have been wandering around (intellectually) to search for new inspiration and concepts that would help me develop my ideas about taking design at a more strategic and mass scale. I think I have found some direction and want to share it with you, so that together, we can help define new directions, ideas, tools and language for what I now propose to call "MacroDesign".

 

 

I am now going to borrow concepts from the field of economics. As you all know, the field of economics is broken down into two distinct areas of study: microeconomics and macroeconomics. The branch of economics that analyzes the market behavior of individual consumers and firms in an attempt to understand the decision-making process of firms and households is termed as Microeconomics. It is concerned with the interaction between individual buyers and sellers and the factors that influence the choices made by buyers and sellers. In particular, microeconomics focuses on patterns of supply and demand and the determination of price and output in individual markets (e.g. coffee industry). I propose that what we as designers have been engaged in for a long time is Microdesign.

 

Macroeconomics, on the other hand, looks at the big picture (hence "macro"). It focuses on the national economy as a whole and provides a basic knowledge of how things work in the business world. For example, people who study this branch of economics would be able to interpret the latest Gross Domestic Product figures or explain why a 6% rate of unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing. Thus, for an overall perspective of how the entire economy works, you need to have an understanding of economics at both the micro and macro levels."macroeconomics," and saw it was a matter of scope and scale. Macroeconomics examines whole economic systems and how different sectors interact. This perspective considers issues of income, output and growth, inflation, and unemployment. National economic policies and complexities of industrial production come into play. (Investopedia 2006)

 

The bottom line is that microeconomics takes a bottoms-up approach to analyzing the economy while macroeconomics takes a top-down approach. Regardless, both micro- and macroeconomics provide fundamental tools for any finance professional and should be studied together in order to fully understand how companies operate and earn revenues and thus, how an entire economy is managed and sustained. (Investopedia 2006)

 

There is some learning for us and a great opportunity to take Design to a strategic level, if we study the evolution of these two types of economics. Design Education, in my view should incorporate MacroDesign concepts, especially at graduate level. I do believe that organizations that operate at higher levels such as governments (local and national), International development agencies (such as UNDP,  WHO, UNESCO), International consortiums of Global corporations and many such macro level organizations would benefit from professionals specializing in using design and innovation as a macro level thinking process. I am beginning to think that the body of knowledge within the design field is limited by our focus on bottoms up approach (which is critical), and has not been balanced by people dedicated to top-down thinking as well. It is time design students have the opportunity to pursue careers in MacroDesign and become evangelists for MicroDesigners.

Events:

We are endorsing: