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Lekha Washington pg 22 | Photographed by Joseph M Daniel India Art Fair 2015 02 Aarohi Singh 08 Shaivalini Kumar 14 Puja Bhargave Kamat 34 Mu design 42 Roshan Choudhary 48 Ketki Jadhav 54
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Editor in Chief | sudhir@indidesign.in
March 2015 | # 57
Sudhir with other jurists at Zeegnition Auto Awards 2015 at Lavasa
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Lekha Washington pg 22
Five Ways to Measure Success We all want to be successful, but how do we know when we are successful? Designers estimate success in many different ways. Here are a few:
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| Photographed by Joseph M Daniel
India Art Fair 2015 02 Aarohi Singh 08 Shaivalini Kumar 14 Puja Bhargave Kamat 34 Mu design 42 Roshan Choudhary 48 Ketki Jadhav 54
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Designindia was founded in 2002. It was started as a platform for interaction for the design community in India and abroad. Over the years it has grown into a forum spread over many social and professional networking domains, linking design professionals into an active, interactive and thought leading community.
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1. Having Money Surprisingly this may rate as the highest priority for a fresher, but as you reach commercial success, you realize that commercial success is not the benchmark for success. That is perhaps because now you are ready to get to other benchmarks. But remember, no one pays for talking or thinking, so you better see earning as a measure of success too. 2. Having a Reputation You start hearing about yourself, your projects or company from people who don't know you. 3. Getting Awards When you are starting out, this is a good way to know where you stand, or if you are getting there. Any awards are good. 4. Having Ambassadors Your clients want to impress other people by introducing you to them. They feel proud to know you and want to be a part of your success. 5. Becoming a Magnet You will attract people, ideas, invitations. There will be a demand on your time and attention. Most of these can be managed. However, if these are happening to you, one piece of advice...stay humble. It all goes as quickly as it comes. Sudhir
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artist
ART WITH HEART Bangalore-based Aarohi Singh’s paintings reflect her inherent sensitivity to the world around her
What is it about painting that appeals to you? AS: The tactile feel of the canvas/support and the paint is something I relish. And the colors too. Colors convey so much more than the obvious. I find the process of trying to control how paint flows on the support both frustrating and liberating. To me it is amazing that any artist can position seemingly random lines and splashes on a flat surface and create something that is almost alive. I know what I want to create most times and sometimes magic happens - the feeling I want to express is on the paper without conscious thought. Somehow physically touching the paint lends itself to a kind of ceremony as opposed to fingers dancing across a screen with a stylus, which I believe would be sterile and lifeless. On the computer screen, the 8 POOL #57
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graphic design
BOUNDLESS IDEAS The immense possibilities of graphic design are what drew Shaivalini Kumar to the field
The lure of design Being raised by educators (my father, a computer science professor and my mother, a political science teacher) I have always had a technical yet unique way of looking at situations. My parents always aimed at imparting knowledge to me in unique ways, trying different methodologies of teaching, and experimenting with thought processes.
which contains many permutations and combinations of applying art and problem solving methodologies. The vastness and possibilities of the subject fascinated me, which is why I decided to do my professional diploma in Visual Communication Design from Srishti School of Art and Design in Bangalore. I started working with Bangalore-based online portal Chumbak in my second year of college. Now that I’ve quit, I am doing freelance work and plan to move back to New Delhi. 3-step creative process
I started off wanting to be a character designer. I loved illustrating and creating characters and building stories around them. In 2011, I became part of an online portal where character designers from over the world would meet and compete. It exposed me to various styles and the thought processes of other artists. I have also always loved illustration. It is extremely personal to me and very reflective of my thoughts and personality. However, when I learnt about graphic design through my elder sister, and through books, magazines and word of mouth, I realized that it would be a great platform to combine my illustration and art knowledge and learn how to master the more technical side of design. Graphic design is a mother discipline
My design process can largely be segregated into three main aspects, the first being brainstorming with the client. A lot of clients approach me for my ‘style’. Often the client has a visual in mind and I too have a visual in mind. The idea of this brainstorming session is to reach a middle ground which establishes a concept with a fresh perspective from my end and an outline and parameters which the client creates. This helps me streamline my concept, post which I work out a mood board /inspiration board which contains visual representations of ideas, art, fonts, color palette and themes. Next I move on to making style sheets, which are essentially my explorations of three to four design directions that I feel will
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cover story
WASHINGTON POSTS
The Dot Chair 22 POOL #57
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jewelry design
HIDDEN STORIES Puja Bhargava Kamat of Lai Designs believes there is more to jewelry than meets the eye How did you get involved in design? PBK: After my schooling, I did a graduate course in Accessory Designing from NIFT, New Delhi. Though I was a science student, I was always good at sketching and was fairly creative as a child. I had taken the NIFT entrance exam for fun and when I went for the final round of interviews I fell in love with the B.V. Doshi designed campus and felt I really had to be there! It sounds like a really silly criterion on which to base such a big decision but I really didn't realize the impact of that decision on my life at that point. I'm blessed to have parents who believed in letting us make our own decisions and doing what really interested us versus following the herd. So there I was, a quasi-geeky kid wandering quite by chance into the amazing world of art and design! How did Lai Designs come to be? PBK: After many years of providing design services to a number of leading national and international jewelry houses and working
with craft clusters across India, I decided to venture into producing my own designs. This was a decision born out of the realization that silver jewelry was one category where my three big passions converged: working with crafts and traditional skills, jewelry, and history. Since the beginning I was very clear about the kind of jewelry I wanted to produce under Lai: jewelry that has a strong story to tell, is very well crafted, and above all, ethically made and fairly priced. ‘Lai’ is a Sanskrit word meaning 'the beloved one'. Incidentally, it is also a word in Old French, meaning ‘a lyrical, narrative poem written in octosyllabic couplets that often deals with tales of adventure and romance’. Who is a Lai customer? PBK: I'd say Lai is for every urbane, thinking, aware, well traveled woman who is looking for ways to bring into her wear her love for different cultures and their esthetics. Lai provides her the opportunity to do so with her jewelry choices. And that is why story telling through jewelry is so important to us. We don't do over the top or too edgy stuff. We like our jewelry to be subtle in the way it complements its wearer. Our jewelry is never ever intended to be larger than the wearer.
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architecture
RURAL INDIA, MODERN ARCHITECTURE Mu design’s brick house project is a wonderful example of contemporary architecture in a not-so-urban setting When it comes to India, the maxims of design and decor are limited to the city. However some of the most unique and intriguing architectural designs are always in rural set ups, with bountiful access to nature. For Mu design as an architectural firm the challenges of design have resulted in luxurious solutions such as the Wardha brick house project. Set in an up and coming satellite town of Wardha in northern Maharashtra, this project has become the talk of the town in the region, from Nagpur to Yavatmal. What inspires the design philosophy is the idea of being one with nature in a living, breathing wire cut brick house. The design is not just green and sustainable as per global standards but also a very good example of space that feels alive. Design Aspects Climate Control Wardha, being at the center of the nation, has extreme weather at all times. The rains, although restricted to fewer days, are harsh and prolonged; the summers and winters are opposite extremes. With this in mind it became imperative to make sure that the house was comfortable throughout the year without actually using external modes of heating/cooling or weather shading. This was achieved by the use of sloped roofs and thicker walls. The walls in fact follow the Laurie Baker technique of cavity brick walls thus using air as the insulation cover for the entire house. The result of this technical detail results in a temperature difference of 5-8 degrees Celsius between the internal and external atmosphere at all times. The technique is called ‘passive cooling’, where the structure in itself becomes the shell to preserve the internal climatology. 42 POOL #57
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fashion
COLORS OF SPRING Roshe’s new collection features a plethora of bright hues and eye catching prints
‘Handmade and heartfelt clothing’ is what Roshan Choudhary’s label Roshe is all about. SS15, the label’s latest collection, celebrates the seasons of spring and summer through ‘the colors of mother Earth’ - ecru, rust, black, pink and orange. Says Roshan, “Roshe SS15 is about Nature and its natural surroundings.” But that’s not all that is striking about this easy-to-wear collection. It’s also a collection with a conscience. Roshan, who started the label in 2012, is doing her bit to help traditional craftsmen who tend to get exploited by the entire marketing process. “We have used the weaves of Madhya Pradesh,” informs Roshan. “We had come across the poor belt of MP which had tremendous challenges. We got engaged in strengthening the livelihood of the poor by marketing their weaves at 48 POOL #57
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