“I refuse to add to the chorus,” said DOPE, as the the Designer Of Practically Everything was known to his colleagues, “dissing the Rs 2000 note’s design. Instead, let’s treat it as an occasion to ask explore what design means.”

I looked sadly at the new Rs 2000 note my newspaper had sent for the interview. We sat in a bare, brightly daylit room, whose walls were covered with a jungle of cardboard shapes, and unrecognisable sketches made with fat markers.

There are as many definitions of design as there are animals, he insisted, and it’s continually evolving. And as with natural evolution, all definitions of design co-exist, said the DOPE, watching a linear drawing of something come to life on his laptop screen. Just as bacteria, fish and humans coexist, and even feed off each other. None is superior: all thrive.

There are as many definitions of design as there are animals, and it’s continually evolving. And as with natural evolution, all definitions of design co-exist.

Let’s use this Rs 2000 note, he said, much to my relief, to illustrate how design has evolved. He held it up to the table lamp and peered at it through a small lens.

For many people, design is decoration. This was its dominant 19th century meaning, produced by artists, artisans and ‘makers’ of all kinds in two or three dimensions. This note has several kinds of ornamentation, as though different artists were at play; older notes show a more grace and coherence.

Design is persuasion. The market and media explosions of the 20th century created design as persuasion, to sell goods, lifestyles and even ideas (join the war effort, for example).

Design is product. Industrial design extended desire to appliances and automobiles. It also made us conscious of progress, of how things work, and introduced new materials into our lives. A currency note, said, DOPE, must be durable and easy to handle, especially by ATMs (and not need lakhs of them to be re-calibrated, unless there’s a devious design there). It must be difficult to manufacture, on budget, and include an array of visible and hidden security features.

Design is discourse. As Art began to respond more consciously to the changed world of the 20th century, and ideology became the bridge between the arts and design. Constructivism, futurism and and other intellectual movements left their impress on design, unleashing a series of assertions on what design ought to be, for the first time.

International modernism, a mid 20th century bloom, called for a universal, rational approach to form. A doctrinaire modernist might give primacy to the universality of the banking function, with a clear, highly legible (in all light conditions) design, equally at home in India, or Germany. Even the Rs 2000 note could have done with numerals positioned and sized consistently with older notes, or provided a better way for the future.

Post-modernists might see a kind of imperialism in this ‘narrative’ of universal functionality. They might also argue that Gandhi’s image is a fraud perpetrated by power, advertising morality in the face of a corruption: off with his portrait.

Design is brand. In this age of commercial symbolism, this Rs 2000 note design under-represents the national brand; and second, offers an out-of-touch, backward projection of India. The Mangalyaan may have replaced dams and kisans, but the note’s design hardly projects capability or confidence. It suffers from all the gaudy, verbose clutter that we have come to expect, so what’s new?

In this age of commercial symbolism, this Rs 2000 note design under-represents the national brand; and second, offers an out-of-touch, backward projection of India.

These perspectives, said DOPE, sneaking a quick look at a dancing line on his laptop, are overlapping and simultaneous. They are not exhaustive: we can see design as culture, for example. But note that each of these is concerned with form, physical or visual.

Two relatively recent perspectives promise to transform that.

Design is experience. Experience designers (like UX designers) seek to map money’s journey from bank branch to wallet to exit, from the user’s point of view. But beyond this, she may muse on the experience of payment, physically or electronically, making it smoother. She might even ponder the ATM, and collaborate with a product designer to re-work it. Demonetisation as an experience? Sure, though her compulsion to prototype solutions with real users might be the deal breaker! DOPE chuckled for a minute at this.

Finally, design is thinking. Attracting interest lately is the designer’s ability to deal with incomplete information, and tackle complex situations by creative experimentation, and learning from failures. It aims to think beyond products, about systems, creating a pure problem solving process.

If such a designer thought about a cashless future, she might muse that electronic payments might not reach remote areas for some years. In the interim, imagine local-area cash, valid only in a specific off-network area and bankable in designated machines.

Perhaps the sheer mobility of cash makes it king. Networks fail unpredictably; a small bribe needs to be paid to a cop; a pushcart vegetable seller might have lost his card terminal. Maybe ATMs could dispense ‘temporary’ cash with 3-day validity, introducing friction as a solution to discourage cash.

Could this friction could be physical, giving cash a less convenient form? Maybe notes should occupy space proportional to their value. Imagine a 10,000 rupee note as thick as a sandwich, or as big as a tabloid page.

Psychological issues may obstruct a perfectly electronic world. Cash is a natural, visual means of relating to money; dashboards are not. Alternative visualisations of money may be needed to counter cognitive blindness.

Psychological issues may obstruct a perfectly electronic world. Cash is a natural, visual means of relating to money; dashboards are not.

Such apparently whacky alternatives frame the problem in productive ways, break the rut of the past, and eventually lead to previously unimaginable, working solutions that move us from an existing situation to a preferred one.

The post The Currency of Design appeared first on ICD | Blog.

We learnt a lot about design, and about ourselves, in the last month. Our studio recently curated an exhibition, which pitted ten products by a Swiss product design firm against ten objects from our culture, to ‘tell their stories’.

The pairings aren’t direct. Finding a counterpart requires a matching cultural context, which often doesn’t exist, so we tried to discover conceptually analogous matches.

Deep Design looks at the test result, treating the Swiss products as provocations. Decoupled from the their Swiss matches, the selection has its own fingerprint. Discover inspiring new products, and rediscover some old ones.

As we reflect on what fascinates us, dogs us, or challenges us, here are some of the themes.

The Commonplace

First, finding designed products was hard. The product design industry in India is thinner than Europe’s. Accordingly, we responded with commonplace, ubiquitous objects.

The Chai Carrier is an example of ‘silent’ design, that has been evolved, rather than consciously designed, by anonymous creators. A more primitive form of it is improvised from twisted wire.

These commonplace finds, as with products of evolution, follow a ‘just enough’ ethos in their construction, showing a marvellous frugality of material, minimal tooling and technology, and opportunism.

commonplace finds, as with products of evolution, follow a ‘just enough’ ethos in their construction

But how well they serve their context and purpose! The Chai Carrier will travel on a lift to an office, or up a bamboo scaffolding to a welder working high above the street.

The God Tile is opportunistic: transferring a ‘God photo’ on to a standard white ceramic tile adds great value. It’s a zero-footprint puja point in the tiniest home, or a ready decoration for the tiny, high maintenance temple on your pavement (and for another use, see WIT).

The Phat Phat Boat and Banta Bottle fall are also commonplace objects but have other points of interest (see ALIEN REPORT).

Alien Report

Like the brand Bata, we may think of the Phat Phat Boat and Banta Bottle as Indian, but all three are have 19th century European origins. In India, the Boat and the Bottle became popular before independence, when markets were much more open than at any time between 1947 and the 1990s. They have survived, if only barely, the onslaught of Fisher-Price and Big Soda. A small legion of fans keeps them alive.

The Banta Bottle (patented 1872 in England as the Codd bottle but manufactured in India) contains an ingenious glass marble that serves as a pressure lock. On opening, it rolls back into the neck ready to be used for the next filling, magically letting soda flow freely when you swig. A genuinely sustainable bottle.

Like the Chai Carrier, the Bottle now enjoys a claim to an inverted chic, because a new, tony urban class now finds the street’s artefacts and language exotic. The Phat Phat Boat (an English patent from 1891) is powered by a tiny oil flame. It responds to nostalgia and parents’ yearning for simplistic, educational toys that are tactile. It’s made from recycled tin (scoring eco-points) and sold online under a creative commons license, a very 21st century touch.

Craft

It’s difficult to think of Indian design without traditional craft. It gives it identity, and a good deal of commerce. Outside textiles, though, it’s hard going. An unchanging discourse centres on ‘saving’ skills and communities, challenging designer-entrepreneurs to find new uses for objects or new techniques that can connect artisans to the market.

challenging designer-entrepreneurs to find new uses for objects or new techniques that can connect artisans to the market

Varnam’s Bird Hooks are a reuse of traditional turned-lacquer toys. They can be fixed to a wall to just charm, or hang up your T shirt or hand-bag. The maker’s effort to build a modern boutique brand around it is noteworthy, with attractive packaging.

The Unipod is an ingenious lightweight frame structure which exploits the lightness and tensile strength unique to bamboo, resulting in a portable seat that can bear 200 times its weight. By leveraging artisanship rather than products, it’s a compelling story of the melding of modern design and traditional skill.

Wit

…is well and alive. The Indian Standard Time watch is a copywriter’s gag which turns our chronic lateness into a national joke we can wear proudly on our wrist. Money Tree visually pictures the old warning about trees and money, but creates an arresting image of the cycle of money, with the air of a shrine to money. SwitchMe is a simple amusement, half toy, half appliance, letting you switch on your salt or pepper.

The first two ideas draw on two cultural strands that hold meaning for us: lateness and Lakshmi. All three are children of this age, employing a type of verbal humour that travels well on the internet. (Another cultural idea, in a different class of wit is the common use of the God Tile on the exterior wall of a building, to discourage passers-by from using the wall as a pissoir or a paan-spittoon).

employing a type of verbal humour that travels well on the internet.

Modern Product Design is not a Footnote

Our studio was conscious that our selections would represent India in a particular way. Craft, and anonymous ingenuity are all very well, but what about professional Design? Three of our picks are outstanding examples.

Ticket’s Etherena IUE is empowering and inspiring. It inserts a pre-loaded IUD in a one-handed, no-touch action. Its curvature eases the process, avoiding pain, injury and sepsis. The simple push-pull knob action needs minimal training. It won the prestigious Red Dot Award in 2013.

The Unipod’s contribution has been detailed above, and has won several awards; the SwitchMe is well awarded, and has been shown at the MoMA.

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