Start Note *
# ^
ter e
“ Starter Note
Abhay Sharma
Ethics is the study of that which is right and wrong, encompassing morality and the philosophy of one’s life. While we try to assess if our acts are ethical or not, we find more complex ethical situations. The design language of this publication aims to meld while comprehending.
LinkedIn Behance
Word from the Editors
*
Ishita Neema
Esha Agarwal
Word from the Editors
25.04.2022
#
Word from the Editors Ethics is a pretty common word, but aside from its moral, and philosophical implications, how does it affect us as budding professionals? Today’s creative economy may have clear goals, but the methods to achieve them are often obscure. Through crossdisciplinary conversations with engineers, philosophers, and designers, this edition aims to reconstitute and comprehend ethics. Whilst exploring topics like character and personal values, performance integrity, product integrity, and personal ethics.
*+
After a prolonged hiatus, we are pleased to present the first edition of Weave Magazine’s second volume, which is populated with the minds of inspiring leaders such as Arundhati Kumar, who has provided food for thought on ‘Ethics in Design, Business, and Technology,’ discussing breaking biases and discovering a new ‘Beej.’ Janaki Kumar of JP Morgan and Chase discusses the power of gamification and how it can lead to new opportunities. Supriya Kulkarni of The Ethics Company speaks about ethical considerations in the design process, Arin Bhowmick discusses sustainable products and AI for user trust, and Poornima Seetharaman discusses inclusivity in the gaming industry. In Addition, we are happy to present visuals and essays on the subject, as well as other works by our own students. Finally, we have a written time capsule from Miral Zafar, Founding Editor, Weave Magazine, reflecting on her journey. The journey of creating the magazine and journies yet to come. Ishita Neema
Esha Agarwal
Table of
Contents 01 How to: Sukanta Kundu
02 Feature : Arundhati Kumar
03 Thought Leadership : Janaki Kumar
04 How to : Supriya Kulkarni
05 Case study : Madhumita Gupta
06 Personal Projects :
07 Student Article : A Case study of Ethical Issues at Shein
08 Inspirational : Arin Bhowmick
09 Interview : Manil Dodani
10 36 days of type :
(Head of Design at JP Morgan and Chase) Forging ahead in the Design Industry
(Director of Design at Myntra) Warehouses to Wardrobes in a Stitch
Deepshikha Sengupta
Business and Marketing Director,APAC at Landor and Fitch) Let’s Talk Branding
(Founder and Chief Visualiser at Beej) Breaking Biases
(Founder of The Ethics Company) Ethics in Design
Jagriti Kale & Neha Natu
(Chief Design Officer at SAP) Responsible Design is Easy When Users Are Your North Star
Yug Chaudhary
*
(Dean School of Design, MIT ID Ujjain, Avantika University) Principles and practices of Ethical design
11 How To : Suhasini Paul
12 Thought leadership : Anushka Tendolkar
(Co-Founder at Paul Studios) Navigating the World of Toys
(UX Designer at Ultraviolette) Weaving Design as Anushka Tendolkar
13 Photo story
14 InFocus : Saikat Biswas
Anantvijay & Sriram Ajith
15 Thought leadership : Poornima Seetharaman
(Director of Design at Zynga) Ethics and inclusivity in the gaming sector
17 Poetry : The art within art Saughandhika Kale
(Director at Empoise) Enjoying the Constraints.
16 Student Article :The value of sensitivity in design thinking Sarthak Sambhatnavar
18 Down the Rabbit Hole :The Bang Bang Theory Janlyn Joyce
19 BTS from the Founding Editor : Miral Zafar
20 Team Weave 25.04.2022
08
Vol.2
“
Issue 01
Those who are motivated only by desires for the fruits of action are miserable for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.
“
09
Sec 01
Bhagavad Gita
Principles and Practices of
Ethical Design
How to
Sukanta Kundu Dean School of Design, MIT ID Ujjain, Avantika University
With expertise in aesthetics and product innovation, Sukanta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur with a specialization in Aeronautical Engineering and did his masters from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad specializing in Industrial Design. India and China, Sukanta has been associated with many illustrious brands such as Bajaj, Philips, Surya Roshni, Fiem Industries etc., holding more than 29 years of experience in India and China, spearheading the product design vertical in Home Appliances and Luminaries, introducing new product concepts and revamping the available products from concepts to production and a black belt in Design for Six Sigma, he has set-up factories in India, leading Research and Development. LinkedIn
What is Ethical Design or Design Ethics? Design ethics consists of the moral behaviour and responsibilities in practising design as a profession. It is designing products or services with the morals, beliefs and principles of designers and the business owner. A designer ought to remember, whether it be a website design, a marketing campaign, or a product, it will have an impact on real people, and such effects can create ripples that will not only affect the user but may percolate to the whole or part of the society. Ideally, the designer should take responsibility for the efforts of his/her design but in our ever-changing socio-political and cultural scenario, such status quo keeps shifting.
We know that “Design” as an activity has existed since pre-historic days when the early man tried to solve problems in their daily lives and came up with solutions to make their lives better. But for the last hundred years or so, the world has been conscious of “Design” as a wellthought-out activity and then came as a profession of choice for some. The definition of design has widened from developing new products and services to creating an experience for a better life. With the stage fully set, now we have started thinking about ethics in design and the ethical behaviour of designers.
“
Most principles of ethical design revolve around “Respect” – respect for human rights, efforts and experience.
“
The Principles of Ethical Design
Respect
Most principles of ethical design revolve around “Respect” – respect for human rights, efforts and experience. The pyramid of “Ethical Hierarchy of Needs” created by Aral Balkan and Laura Kalbag illustrates this. Each higher layer of the pyramid rests on the lower one and it would collapse if there exist ethical issues in the lower level.
“
No matter how a designer practices ethical design, it is important to hold on to one’s beliefs and moral principles. Avantika University April 2022
“
Usability and User Involvement This is a basic requirement. Products and services are designed for targeted users. Designs have to be human-centric and usable. It should perform the task expected by the users and should meet their needs. The design should also reach a higher level of being easy and pleasant to use. And this would lead to a delightful experience for the users. Usability can be checked easily by checking its five components: Learnability – How easy it is to use by first-time users? Efficiency – How quickly the users can perform their tasks? Memorability – What was the experience of return users retaining their learning? Error – How many errors do the users make and what is their severity? Satisfaction – How pleasant was it to use the design? To achieve a high level of usability it makes perfect sense to involve users actively and continuously involving them from the early stages of the design process. They give their requirements and test the intermediate design which will help the designer to refine the design and perfect it. After all, it is the users for whom the designers develop a product. Accessibility
Transparency
Privacy
Products and services are designed for users. It is imperative that designers not only think of and design products for normal users but also for those who are unintentionally left out. These extreme users are sometimes those with special needs and a designer has to also take them into account while developing designs. Sometimes accessibility can also be impaired due to inadequate description or information.
It is the moral responsibility of a designer to be transparent and inform the users fully about the options available and their possible effects, so the users can make appropriate decisions. Vital information regarding choices to be made by the users should not be suppressed, inadequately informed or be misleading and ambiguous.
This is always a much discussed topic. In the usage of a product and collecting user information during the process, how much user data is revealed or used to exploit the user is debatable. Collecting more than necessary information and using it for targeted advertisement is breaching the users’ right to privacy and is not in the best interest of the users. Designers should also understand that their creation will form only a small part of the life of the users. A good design should be the one that is available when it is required and will not disturb the life of its users. Designing an unobtrusive product also is a part of respecting the user’s privacy.
How to make designs more ethical? The easiest way to adopt ethical design is to follow the above principles and embed them in the design process. It is not advisable to add the ethical elements at a later stage of the process. A good way to start the design process is to connect to the mission and values of a company and implement these morals in the design. As a designer one can challenge the company to live up to its promises and support it to carry out its mission. Often assumptions made by designers can land them in trouble, especially when direct contact between the designer and the user does not exist. Keeping a track of such assumptions, testing and verifying them will give designers a lot of mileage.
*
An important step toward ethical design is to ask penetrative and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the design and analyze the answers without bias, and then make corrections and improvements wherever required. No matter how a designer practices ethical design, it is important to hold on to one’s beliefs and moral principles – this will guide the designers to the best possible outcome and the users will be thankful to such designers.
“
An important step toward ethical design is to ask penetrative and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the design and analyze the answers without bias, and then make corrections and improvements wherever required.
“
Avantika University April 2022
Feature
Breaking
Biases Arundhati Kumar
Founder & Chief Visualiser at Beej Having spent a major part of her career as an HR professional, working in the hospitality, banking, insurance, media and consulting sector, Arundhati Kumar has always been a leader. In 2019, her steps towards being a more planet conscious citizen led to the birth of Beej, a lifestyle and accessories startup, with the co-existence of lifestyle sustainability as the core to work with various plant-based materials creating designs that combine the best of new-age materials and Indian craftsmanship. LinkedIn
A Beej Sown Starting out entrepreneurship is a roller coaster ride, there are days that ask questions and days that answer. With Beej the challenge is that it is a totally new concept, there are no precedents for it. I go around explaining to people why our materials are different, why they are so expensive and I am always greeted with statements like “No one in India cares about sustainability.” “You guys are too expensive”. I receive these statements not just from critiques but well-wishers too! What matters is to stay the course, keep going and believe in yourself. I consider myself fortunate to have customers, people from the industry, and friends who endorsed the idea, it motivated me and built my confidence. Source Credits: https://studiobeej.in/
So, Beej truly sprung up from my curiosity and excitement of doing something new, I did not consider how hard it could be, I said “It’s new, nobody’s doing it, sounds exciting, Let’s do it.” That is about as much thought as I put in when I started my business, then began the process of presenting our business idea and incubation. We finally launched in January 2020 and the pandemic hit in March. All I had was the confidence that Beej was a good idea.
“
*
Look to break the bias, be it in silhouettes, materials, colours, fabrics, or explorations, everything can have its bias broken, do not let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do “You can do anything”.
Branches to Blossoms
“
My business started from a google search, after working for 18 years in HR I got bored, I wanted to do something different. My father owns a leather export company, he invited me to work for him when I told him that I wanted to start my own business. I recall the exact day when it came to me, I was sitting in my workspace and googling ‘Alternatives to leather’ and suddenly a whole new world opened up to me of materials I did not know about even though I grew up with the leather business. And I thought “Wow this is cool.”
Anything that is created to be sustainable is more expensive like recycled fabric is more expensive than virgin fabric.
Source Credits: https://studiobeej.in/
Beej is trying to bridge the gap between sustainability and cost-effectiveness every day. Most material research is occurring outside India as it requires a lot of investment of time and money, a lot of vegan and sustainable materials have been testing the market for 4-5 years unfortunately, those materials remain outside the country. However, I am conscious of the fact that Beej needs to work with more Indian materials for two reasons, cost-saving and the carbon footprint, importing materials creates a large carbon footprint, reducing our sustainability. This year we have been experimenting with various materials like burlap and hemp, we look forward to sharing our studio’s creations with the world, the idea is to combine different materials to create cost-effective alternatives.
Avantika University April 2022
At Beej sustainability is not one part of our brand, it is like a business filter, I cannot say that I am working with ethically sourced materials while I am manufacturing it in a dingy place, treating my employees unfairly, similarly, I cannot create sustainable bags while packaging it in excessive plastic. The philosophy that we have adopted is “Start if you want to be a conscious brand, start viewing sustainability in all aspects, treating it like a filter.” At Beej, we use this filter in every aspect of our business from material sourcing itself! We try to go with designs, patterns, and silhouettes that minimize waste, we do not throw away any of our waste, we collect it and re-purpose it, recently we launched a beautiful jewellery collection made from the waste we had been collecting for 2 years. When it comes to packaging, Beej’s packaging is entirely plastic-free and zero-waste, we tell our customers that “You do not have to throw away anything, you should be able to use everything that comes with it”.
Source Credits: https://studiobeej.in/
“
At Beej sustainability is not one part of our brand, it is like a business filter.
“
Thoughts Put into Practice
Ethics and Aesthetics combined. The truth of the matter is that even today the number of Indian consumers who are willing to buy a product because it is sustainable is minuscule, people first come to the product because it looks stylish and they like it. Then once they read more about the product it is an added bonus if it is sustainable, most people are unwilling to sacrifice their fashion quotient to support sustainability. Beej keeps an eye out for trends, we try to give people what they want, one of our values is that we are ‘trend agnostic’ we are not overly bothered by seasonal trends because we know that after 2 or 3 months it will go out of fashion, we do not want to promote that as it is wasteful and as such, we try to create more classical designs, which are more trend agnostic and can be used for a long time.
Source Credits: https://studiobeej.in/
The Next Step Gen Z is an audience that brands cannot ignore, they deeply care about their surroundings, they like to purchase from brands whose values resonate with them, they are concerned about the climate, environment, and the world, they feel that they are going to inherit the worst of the world. I believe that if as brands we can work with them, design with them, and for them, at prices they can afford a best-case scenario can be created because the idea is to get people to adopt these ideas early on. What is the point in being a brand that preaches sustainability if it cannot reach out to the audience that cares about it the most because they cannot afford to buy it? This is a problem at Beej as well and every day we get a little closer to solving it.
“
Unearthing Potential
Starting out entrepreneurship is a roller coaster ride, there are days that ask questions and days that answer.
These are very exciting times for Indian fashion. Fashion is a rapidly changing industry now, what you learn in college is never enough. Keep your eyes and ears to the ground, watch out for research and new developments. As everything is eventually to be commercialized, I advise creatives to work on their maths as well. As designers try and see things from different angles, what are customers saying about a product, what researchers are saying about it, and what are critiques saying about the same product? We need honest designers, ready to change the world. Look to break the bias, be it in silhouettes, materials, colours, fabrics, or explorations, everything can have its bias broken, do not let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do “You can do anything.” Written by : Suchira Biswas and Jineet Shah
“
Thought Leadership
Janaki Kumar
Head of Design, Commercial Bank at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
J
anaki is a thought leader in design-led innovation. She has spent much of her career leveraging design-thinking, consumer empathy, and co-innovation to establish, coach, and inspire high-performing design teams. Having delivered a TEDx talk in 2014, the Silicon Valley Business Journal named Janaki the Woman of Influence in 2016. She is a frequent lecturer and author on the topics of innovation and design. She is the author of Gamification at Work — Designing Engaging Business Software.
Forging ahead in the design industry
Creativity
The Learning Loop
Design Ahead
I believe that consistently exercising creativity is critical for design-led innovation. The more you practice, the easier it is to utilize it in everyday situations. A good designer recognizes that there are many solutions to a problem and strives to deeply understand the core and the context of the problem before offering a solution. Often creativity is conflated with artistic ability but that is not the case. We all have creativity and we can use it to solve problems we face every day. For example, you start cooking a dish and realize that an ingredient is missing. Thinking out of the box, you may experiment with a substitute ingredient and make something new and more flavorful than what you started to make.
Design covers a wide range of disciplines. While designing you need to be a good team player, bringing together a variety of perspectives and ideas together. Using the “Yes And” mindset, where no one’s ideas are rejected ensures an open and interactive environment where a broad set of ideas are discussed and considered. To enable nondesigners to understand the design-led innovation process, it is important to communicate without jargon and anchor the team on a common vision of the customer experience. Understanding when, as a designer, you need to take the lead is crucial to success while still ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard and is part of the process.
When solving problems in the workplace, it is important to understand technology and business in addition to design. Although it is difficult to be an expert in all areas, having a basic understanding of crossfunctional disciplines is important for designers to elevate their impact.
“
Excellent cooperation emerges when someone seeks to write down their views rather than discard them.
“
This process can even apply to students making career choices. Employing design thinking, conducting research and speaking to others will lead you to a better outcome.
Schools and universities provide a foundation, but it is up to us to continuously learn and build on that foundation. Learning ‘how to learn’ is of paramount importance. Develop strong relationships with your coworkers to cooperate and bounce ideas off of and learn from one another. Stay informed and apply your humancentred design skills for the best outcomes both professionally and personally.
When you go out into the world and start observing people, you will notice that there are many problems to address. First, examine them carefully and determine who you are solving for, and then determine whether this is a problem worth tackling. You may be directing your energy in the wrong direction if you do not choose the correct challenge. Choosing the proper problem based on your abilities and the influence on the user is what will truly make a difference. After you have decided on a problem, you might come up with several solutions. It is important to test these solutions early and understand which might work.
process helps identify the best solution. It starts off by gathering a broad set of solutions. A good way to do this is to use the “How might we” technique. In the final stage, we narrow down our solution set to the best possible solution by testing them with low fidelity techniques - wireframes or paper prototypes.
Gamification in Finance and the Finance Industry Gamification is more than simply turning everything into a game. Rather, it is applying gaming principles to engage the user. If you use the power of games to give people an opportunity to do something that they want to do, then you are doing good. For example, many younger employees tend not to save for retirement. Existing systems expect them to predict when they want to retire and calculate the amount to save. How might we use the principles of gamification to help employees start their retirement plans? By simply doing these calculations for the employee based on their current age and the average retirement age the system can define the mission for them. We use
Innovation in many methods
Using the power of games to give people an opportunity to do something that they want to do, is good. If you are using the power of games to get people to do something they do not want to do, then it is evil.
“
In my experience, I have found the double diamond approach to be fantastic for coming up with novel ideas. In this approach, you first start broad and understand the user’s journey from end to end. Then start focusing on which area or problem you are going to address. The second diamond in the
the game mechanics of challenge and feedback to help employees progress towards that goal - very similar to a game. This simple change significantly increased the number of employees starting a retirement savings plan. This is a good example of using gamification to nudge employees to make decisions that are in their
The best thing that you can learn is learning how to learn.
Empathy Empathy is truly understanding the world from the perspective of the user by using the power of direct observation to understand their needs, aspirations and pain points. It is essential to ensure that you have access to your users. Speaking to proxies for the user (e.g. salespeople or customer service representatives) will only give you a partial picture. From a gamification perspective, empathy helps you understand the “player,” in this case, the user and their mission which in turn, helps you define and build a better solution for them.
In HCI (Human-Computer interaction) we evaluate products through the lens of three dimensions: efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Going forward we need to add a fourth dimension of engagement. This is to remind designers that we need to help users adapt our products before they can use them efficiently, effectively and satisfactorily.
Conclusion Design is a tool to transform and deliver innovative solutions to the world’s most complicated problems. Shaping the future, designers need to go beyond the craft of visual design and apply techniques like systems thinking, design thinking and gamification.
Written by: Ishita Neema and Jineet Shah
How to
Ethics in Design
Based in Jakarta, Supriya is a business and tech enthusiast, working on brand transformation, human-centred design, and ethics. Featured among the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics 2022, and a Finalist at DEI in Voice, Women in Voice Awards 2021, Supriya has researched on voice industry, and the impacts of digital voice assistants. Having done branding and strategic design projects, she has an advertising background and strives to evolve continuously. LinkedIn
Some equate ethics with morality, or with compliance and regulations; others believe it is just ‘nice to have’ while a few feel it sounds ‘accusatory’. Ethics could be described as a set of systems, beliefs and behaviours that is followed at different levels: personal, professional, organizational, or industry. It is largely about how we make decisions, a translation of our beliefs into choices and actions.
Supriya Kulkarni
Founder of The Ethics Company and Pink Tea Company
While everyone has their own definition and interpretation of ethics in design, I like to believe that it is ‘responsible and informed decision-making’ about how products, services or experiences are created. Ethics has always had an important role in design, but now it has become critical to integrate ethical decision-making into our work processes.
Why Ethical Design? The role and scope of design are evolving rapidly. Emerging technologies are redefining how and what we create, and how users experience it. Our designs incorporate multiple disciplines (like interaction, industrial, environmental, etc.), delivering these as individualized, interconnected physical and digital experiences.
A few years ago there was a video of a ‘racist’ soap dispenser on social media- the dispenser recognized and dispensed soap for fair skin, not for darker skin. Then there was a credit card launched by a big tech company, which gave female applicants lower credit limits as compared to males, because of the biased algorithm which made these decisions. Products like these lead to outcomes of unfairness, injustice or inequity.
Spotting ethical issues The first step to ethical design actually begins by learning to spot potential issues. These can arise during our work process, reflect in the products we create, or result in unethical outcomes, negatively impacting users, non-users, communities or society. Let us look at some examples:
Many websites and apps extract more than necessary data from users by making them accept terms and conditions under a blanket ‘I Agree’; some use tactics from behavioural psychology to hook users for increased engagement, while others make it deliberately difficult to unsubscribe from their services - all these take away choice, control and autonomy from users. Some social platforms which are meant to bring people together end up making them feel more isolated, while certain apps can make vulnerable and undiscerning users experience bodyimage issues, depression, stress or anxiety.
“
Very importantly, by ‘design’, I refer to the entire process of strategy, design, development, deployment and management, and the term ‘designer’ includes every individual involved in the process of decisionmaking, whatever their actual role may be.
“
We also often deal with sensitive user information- biometric data, location history, spending patterns, mental attitudes, behaviours, etc. Our users could be local or globalany location, geography, time zone, culture, with different social attitudes or mindsets. What we create, and how we create it, now has the ability to influence, impact and affect not just thousands, but millions. As the complexity of our design increases, so does the possibility of ethical issues arising. Considering all that could go wrong, responsible and informed decision-making is crucial.
Types of impact Most of these issues and their outcomes are unintentional consequences of uninformed business strategies, processes or design decisions, they are not necessarily deliberate attempts to cause harm. However, they cause negative impacts at multiple levels, be it financial, emotional, mental, social or physical harm to people’s well-being, erosion of trust in services or products, increased legal risks for companies, and damage to brand or business reputations.
So, anticipating how our design could potentially create these negative impacts, and proactively building safeguards against them is a crucial aspect of ethical design. Very importantly, by ‘design’, I refer to the entire process of strategy, design, development, deployment and management, and the term ‘designer’ includes every individual involved in the process of decision-making, whatever their actual role may be.
Ethical design considerations For ethical and responsible outcomes, consider these points in your design practice. 01. Ethical design begins with the right mindset, approach and intention. 02. Ensure inclusion and transparency throughout the process. 03. Collect, store and use people’s information fairly, with rightful consent. 04. Designs can reflect the biases of creators, so consciously guard against this by incorporating diverse perspectives and involving actual users during the process. 05. Shift focus from user-centred to being human-centred. Consider nonusers, excluded people, as well as the environment. 06. Make sure using your design will not cause financial, emotional, mental, social or physical harm.
07. Consider if your design could lead to outcomes of inaccessibility, unfairness, discrimination or inequity to individuals or segments of society. 08. Try to use transparent, fair and explainable tech systems for ethical outcomes. 09. Avoid designing in ways that manipulate or nudge users into taking actions they do not want to. 10. Take accountability and ownership for the decisions and outcomes of your design. 11. Lastly, measure the success of your design based on its impact on users and society.
“
Designs can reflect the biases of creators, so consciously guard against this by incorporating diverse perspectives and involving actual users during the process.
“
Final takeaways
While ethics in design is an extensive topic, these are some quick takeaways: develop more awareness about ethical issues and their resulting impacts, ensure consistent application of ethical considerations in all stages of work, use ethical design as an advantage to create a positive impact on human well-being, increase user trust, and uphold the reputation of brands and businesses.
Case study
Warehouses To Wardrobes in a Stitch
Madhumitha Gupta
Design Lead and Director of UX at Myntra An evangelist, speaker and mentor with 20 years of experience in User Experience Design leading and inspiring multinational designers, Madhumita Gupta is a passionate design leader with a flair for product conceptualisation and building strategic roadmaps. She believes that ethics can make or break a business. LinkedIn
Background The Fashion eCommerce market is estimated to grow to $1 Trillion by 2025 and grow 141 times in India between 2020 to 2025. During the early stages of shopping in the eCommerce journey, ethics are not a primary concern for users, finding the best deals, styles and earliest deliveries are, however, as purchase intent grows, transparency, ethical sourcing, and quality become critical in decision making. In the report entitled ‘The Future Shopper 2019’ 55% of respondents from the Gen Z cohort stated that brands’ ethical and moral values influence their purchasing decisions.
Definition of Ethics Chris MacDonald defines ethics as “critical and structured philosophies that study people’s behaviours.” According to MacDonald, ethics is structured because it is a system of unifying diverse opinions into a set of ethical common rules. “For practical purposes, ethics means providing reasoned justification for our choices and behaviour when it affects others and reasoned justification for our praise or criticism of other people’s behaviour”. (MacDonald 2010)
David Parsons (Head of UX, Xerox) defines ethics as a set of rules of conduct expected to be followed for cultural and legal reasons. In the business context, it translates into principles that guide a organizations way of doing business. Ethics set standard rules for people to follow in tradeoff situations.
“
“
In the report entitled ‘The Future Shopper 2019’ 55% of respondents of the Gen Z cohort stated that brands’ ethical and moral values influence their purchasing decisions.
Why do companies need to be ethical?
Ethical business not only helps the company but also its stakeholders i.e employees,customers, suppliers, and investors. For employees, good ethics builds loyalty and motivation. For customers, it builds trust and engagement. It holds suppliers accountable and reliable. Finally, for investors, a good reputation leads to better returns on investment.
What are the ethical issues fashion eCommerce businesses deal with?
Ethical issues faced by eCommerce businesses can be classified into 5 areas, namelycustomer privacy, security, customer benefit, environmental sensitivity, intellectual property and workplace conditions. For a brand with warehouses that are internal and supplier managed, companies need to build strong policies in each of these 5 areas to resolve ethical dilemmas. Avantika University April 2021
Case study
@theweavemagazine
How do companies manage ethical issues like privacy, security, and integrity in the best way possible?
At the core of ethics lies the trust model, as suggested in the book “Trust in the Network Economy”. Organizations invest heavily to protect customer data by providing state of the art security. Compliance and data security policies protect data ensuring customer privacy is never compromised.
“
Whatever the size or niche of a company, people are no longer satisfied with just a great deal or an innovative product or service. They want to know a company is involved with something ethical or helping someone for good when they buy from a company.
Merchant legitimacy and fulfilment need to be assured through branding and consistency. The focus should be on keeping app content as close to reality as possible. A strict vendor onboarding process and elaborate catalogue quality checks ensure that the product description is never inflated, prices and offers do not violate trade laws and the product meets the promise of quality and authenticity. Designing tools for partners which set clear expectations can help in achieving these goals. In case of conflict between business and customer goals, decision matrices help in cost-benefit analysis. App design and content set the right tone ensuring users that they are in control of their information and the ability to share feedback seals trust. To be environmentally sensitive, brands should move to plastic-free packaging. Copyrighting features and functionalities as intellectual property needs consistent effort and management as copying is simple with the advent of the internet.
“
“
Are ethics important in e-Commerce? The answer is yes. A customer-first approach plays a vital role in tradeoff discussions during cost versus value mapping.
“
What is Out of Scope of Ethics?
Often in discussions on ethics, various topics arise like Workplace engagement e.g cross-functional collaboration, Inclusiveness in product lines e.g support for plus size and Petites, Diversity in the workforce e.g having models from different skin tones in catalogue pictures, Employee equality e.g pay parity across gender, Corporate social responsibilities. Although these are sensitive topics, I believe that they have more to do with culture than ethics. Today, companies are not only expected to cater to ethical concerns but also instill a culture for the greater good of society and the environment.
Conclusion
Are ethics important in e-Commerce? The answer is yes. A customer-first approach plays a vital role in tradeoff discussions during cost versus value mapping. It is hard to often quantify customer satisfaction, trust and delight in revenue numbers. This is where the company values help in driving decisions. Whatever the size or niche of a company, people are no longer satisfied with just a great deal or an innovative product or service. They want to know if a company is involved with something ethical or helping someone for good when they buy from a company.
Avantika University April 2022
Personal Projects
Packaging design
Neha Natu
Desi gir cow ghee
Brief
The challenge of this project was to design a packaging label sticker and a packaging box for Desi Gir cow ghee depicting the rich Indian culture along with elegance and remitting lightness.
*
The very first solid food my mother fed me as a baby in our Southern India household was mashed-up rice mixed with a little ghee. Ghee has been an Indian staple for millennia featured in Indian recipes, medicines and even in Hindu mythology.
LinkedIn Behance
Godan Art Project Brief
The project aims to blend the beauty of Indian Godan Art and the quirkiness of emojis. The process of making emojis started by creating a mood board of Adivasi women, different tribal traditions, and Godan art. The major colours used were red, orange, and green. Other colours like black, blue, grey, and white were used for detailing and as complementary colours. LinkedIn Medium
Jagriti Kale
The main character resembles an Adivasi woman having bright eyes and pallu on her head. Adivasi women do not talk much but express everything with their eyes. The set of emojis focuses on eye expressions and Godan art that is all over the face of the women. I made a set of 9 emojis expressing different emotions like neutral, happy, sad, confused, angry, emotional, in love, sleepy and cool.
%
34
Student Article
A case study of Ethical issues at
SHEIN Deepshikha Sengupta Deepshikha is an aspiring fashion designer at MIT ID Ujjain. Her style screams bold as she dons boots with kurtas and does not shy away from wearing colours. She was intrigued by the Versace and Iris Van Herpen’s collection and that is when she started her journey. She likes to call herself a ‘creative explorer’. Although young, she is passionate about sustainable and ethical fashion. She has big plans for today promising an ethical and fashionable tomorrow.
LinkedIn Behance
Ethical Fashion is a big genre of fashion design creating boundaries and guidelines to maintain the racial, ecological and cultural ratio along with the laws and regulations of one's discrimination. Ethical fashion is a huge category having many branches of understanding, taking SHEIN as an example to acquire a knowledge of ethics; as the brand's prior records show, its ethics have been questioned time to time again and for good reason. Shein or SheInside is known as a B2C (Business-tocustomer) international mass fashion company which was launched in 2008 by Chris Xu in Nanjing in China having a fast growth along with its promotion of “fast fashion” which heavily goes against “sustainable fashion”.
Shein is particularly popular among Gen Zers and young Millennials as its pieces often go viral on social media after they are shared by influencers and content creators, thus increasing the chance to incorporate fast fashion in tempt mannerisms. The motto is "everyone can enjoy the beauty of fashion" which is highly needed in the brand itself but it is contradictory. The combination of Shein's low prices with global shipping truly makes fashion accessible to everyone but has defaulted in quality and the low range of sizes and also recently, the company has been affected by quite a few ethical issues and scandals along with it also offers an alarming lack of transparency about its production chain. To manage and maintain the fast-fashion chain, it has been heard that they are using chemicals in the garments for their
“
It will only be valid if we let the consumers define what ethical fashion means to them according to their personal self, and have brands commit to transparency.
longevity which can indirectly harm the users and degrade the quality of the materials. The Chinese company is plagued with reports of labour exploitation, abhorrent working conditions, and environmental abuse. But more publicly, it has developed a reputation for allegedly stealing designs from established global brands and small businesses and up-andcoming fashion designers, and in recent instances, it is selling the swastika symbols accessories. According to the current time, where sustainable fashion along with the encouragement of slow fashion is on the move, Shein is going along with its own brand value, going opposite of the ethical norms which are established in mass production. Going along with the
“
Ethical fashion is a chain that is created with both the suppliers, the consumers, and even the critics working all along for the betterment and beneficial future investments. Thus, “transparency and loyalty” are a branch that holds both the aspects of ‘inviting’ as well as a ‘repelling’ effect upon the consumers if utilized and understood correctly. It will only be valid if we let the consumers define what ethical fashion means to them according to their personal selves, and have brands commit to transparency. The more information brands provide, the more likely they are to be praised instead of criticized.
“
A brand should provide a level of security and comfort to the users and it establishes the product to only a certain community with a certain size range.
“
fashion perspectives, there are the values of workers and their conditions which need to be taken into consideration. A brand should provide a level of security and comfort to the users and the brand establishes its product to only a certain community with a certain size range. Also, it is enhancing copies of designs of other designers without any authentication.
United by Rivalry
Anish Mulik Arikta Vernekar
This comic strip is about the work ethics in student life that shows hard competition among two individuals over everything and anything. It also shows how ultimately teamwork leads to individual growth.
Anish Mulik
LinkedIn Instagram
Arikta Vernekar
LinkedIn Behance
Cubicles Representing inequality due to hierarchy in the corporate sector, through the space distributed, or say, the Cubicles, the topmost being allotted to the head, with plenty of space, congesting down to occupy just the faces of the employees in the lower levels. Looking closely find an easter egg, i.e., weave’s “W” on all ears. LinkedIn Behance
Akarsh Nimkar
40
Vol.2
Issue 01
“
“
Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.
Sec 02
Albert Schweitzer
Arin Bhowmick
Inspirational
Chief Design Officer, SAP. (EX-CDO at IBM)
Responsible Design is Easy When Users Are Your North Star With over 20 years of experience Arin, is at the forefront of digital innovation. He is passionate about creating innovative digital products. Having led large scale product development and reimagination efforts, he has nurtured and empowered teams to reach their full potential as well as championed design thinking processes, culture adoption — and inclusive, ethical design practices. Prior to this, he worked for companies like IBM, Oracle, Pogrerss Software, etc. LinkedIn
“
Regardless of whether you are a student, working independently, or already embedded in a team, we can all think about the impact of responsible choices in our design work.
IBM is a company, which is over a hundred years old, with a heritage of innovation. It is a company that has reinvented itself multiple times but at heart has always been rooted in values and responsibility to the world. One of the main reasons I came to work at IBM was to help influence the company’s transformation to be a leading hybridcloud and AI company and to be part of that journey by leading with designbased differentiation. Let’s create As designers, one of our primary goals is to create a world where we can all thrive. At IBM, we practice human-centred
“
design, making users our north star. This inherent responsibility to our users is built into our design process and reflected in the experiences we create. Let’s empower diverse teams As Thomas Watson Jr. once said, “Good design is good business”. We believe that applying the tenants of design to drive better user outcomes will reflect in our business results. IBM has a great portfolio of products that serve users needs, and the user experience becomes the value proposition. Great user-centred design improves return on investment, reduces support costs, and increases brand loyalty along with future product adoption and engagement. Several areas come to mind when I think about the topic of responsible design. The first is impact. IBM is an enterprise company, and we are often designing at scale. Because of this, our work makes a bigger impact, and therefore we have a greater responsibility for the choices we make.
As design practitioners, diversity is critical in how we make things, our design approach, who we make them with, our diverse teams, and the users we make them for. Design Thinking embraces these two core principles: 01. Focus on user outcomes 02. Diverse empowered teams At IBM this mindset of diversity is truly embedded into our design culture. From our accessibility practice to our multiple user programs, our goals revolve around inclusivity and empathy. Diversity and inclusiveness are close to the heart of IBM, and I believe that we all have a moral responsibility to embrace diversity in all that we do. I share these examples of what IBM is doing because understanding our practice can help you apply these same principles to your current work. Let’s build more sustainable products It is estimated that 80% of the decisions that influence the sustainability of a product are determined in the design phase. This means, as designers, we must do our work with more intention. We should think about how we might take a more minimalist approach and focus on getting the user to their goal more efficiently.
A very simple and effective user experience is going to be the most sustainable solution. I recently wrote about using design super powers to impact the sustainability of our product. By asking the right questions and using empathy, we have the power to impact all the work we do, including in sustainability. Some examplets of the questions we can ask to impact sustainability are:
If you are interested in shaping responsible design experiences and making the world better, check out IBM Design careers, we would love to partner with you to make a difference together.
01. How might we create the most efficient path from A to B? 02. How expensive is the path in terms of serving up information? 03. Have we considered the (re)usage of data and assets? 04. Can we minimize the processing time, and get data closer to the source?
At IBM, we are building software solutions that help our users make smarter decisions faster. We are creating systems that will impact millions of people and that is a great responsibility. In the world of data and artificial intelligence (AI), it all comes down to designing products our users can trust enough to help them make those important decisions. This focus on trust goes beyond data security and validation, it is about helping our users understand their data, providing relevant recommendations when they need it, and empowering them to create solutions they can trust.Our team at IBM created a great public resource for designers to understand the role they play in building and training AI - the AI Essentials Framework. It helps designers consider intent, and data security while focusing on providing transparency and explainability.
“
We all have a role to play. Let us continue to build a community where responsible and ethical choices are deeply ingrained in our design practices.
“
Let’s design AI that users trust
The Devanagari Maze This artwork was created using the 36 consonants of the Devanagari script. It aims to promote the beauty, heritage, and aesthetic value of the script by the harmonious arrangement of the consonants. The individual letters cannot be easily read, impelling the viewer to really take out time and decode the piece.
Anush Nandakarni
LinkedIn Behance
*
Interview
Let’s Talk
Branding
Manil Dodani
Business and Marketing Director, APAC at Landor & Fitch
With brands like Tata Neu, Zepto, Apraava, Mahindra, Chargebee under his belt, Manil is currently working as Business and Marketing Director, APAC at Landor & Fitch. He believes that brand and design, drive tangible business results and solve real-life problems. LinkedIn
Creativity, with its limitless potential, aids designers in solving challenging issues. Unfortunately, creativity is not defined, and everyone has their interpretation of it. What is your notion of creativity? Design makes a problem easy to understand helping customers choose their preferred solution. Designers should make the design more efficient, optimized, and intuitive. To accomplish the task of converting a problem into a design solution, one should become a brief writer. Merging the ability to define the intent of the design, and then designing it results in a more targeted, commercially viable solution.
“
Brands are meant to create a feeling therefore if you identify the right feeling first then that feeling must be reflected in your strategy.
“
In a deeper meaning, branding is a set of expectations and memories serving as a promise to buyers. Translating brand strategy into reality is delicate, turning words into images and ideas into graphics. What should be done while transitioning from strategy to design for making your brand look professional, unique, and smart?
Think about the outcome you are trying to derive. Design solves a problem while instigating an emotional response. Do you want the user to feel happy, clever, or charged up when they use your product? Brands are meant to create a feeling, so if you have identified an emotional response, then that response is what your strategy and design must rally to achieve. Design and strategy depend on how you wish to evoke emotional responses. So my advice is to write what happens when your brand is interacted with. How one reacts is your end reaction and then you go back to the first step and write the strategy and create the design.
Brand differentiation is not found; It is created. How can designers find the hidden meaning behind the brands and create differentiation? A brand can be differentiated by design, positioning, or both. A brand that is built on a true human insight is truly differentiated. The question a customer might ask before buying a brand is, ‘Are you truly different in solving a problem that I care about?’ Or is the brand something that is just being packaged to be sold differently? Positioning is relative to your competition and stems from a differentiating offer. Branding cannot save a bad product or service.
To start brand positioning, think about the various human insights it is based on, to solve a problem that is different from others, and then you proceed to design to sell that solution uniquely. One example that comes to mind is Dyson. The fundamental problem with vacuum cleaners is that there are so many parts, so Dyson took that away and said that cleaning homes can be easier and should not be seen as a chore. In one of our projects at Landor & Fitch, we sold burgers, by saying burgers are meant to be messy. The truth is, burgers today are sold in a templatized fashion so, in reality, they look completely different from the ads.
It only needs one simple click to abandon a brand, and less than a minute at the keyboard to complain about it to millions. What is the importance of emotions in brand strategy? How can we accelerate brand growth through emotional connections? People buy products or services because they want to feel younger, faster, or better, either socially or otherwise. A powerful strategy that focuses on driving one human emotion throughout. For example, Nike puts an asterisk over athletes on their website and mentions ‘If you have a body, you are an athlete.’ They focus on the fact that anybody can push the limits of a human body to become an athlete. So, every good strategy drives an emotion. Link your brand to a certain emotion, and a market is found. Next, build a brand to address that market. Design is a process of synthesis, exploration, and discovery through stories. How can designers improve their storytelling skills to craft their design process? Storytelling is the most integral part of branding because stories reveal more than facts. One of the best and most known frameworks to write a story is the StoryBrand format, according to which, the customer is the hero, the problem is the villain and the brand is the guide that is helping the customer fight the problem, leading to positive outcomes that change the hero’s life. That changes the angle for the brand, making it not self-referential, but more about how you can help the customer. The best example is Apple, which does not position itself as the world’s most powerful computer, but rather as a tool for self-expression. The ‘Apple Underdogs’ campaign follows a group of 4 people in an office setting using Apple products to change the situation, making their journey easier throughout
“
“
A brand is a promise and a great brand is that promise kept.
Creation is the core of life for any designer. Design is about iterating and evolving. How can designers prepare for innovations in the new market and further evolve the trend according to customer psychology? Customer psychology is crucial to understand as it leads to customer insight. Get away from your screen and visit the shop. As a designer, your job is not only to design, it is to design to solve a problem. Problems can not be solved by sitting at a desk, but by being engrossed in the world. So if you are designing a new shoe, go to the old school shoe shop and see how people try out and buy shoes, to understand their psychology or mindset. One funny example is an airline that wanted to reduce its costs and the designer working on the project flew on their flights, finding out that the people did not eat as much food from the food tray as they were getting. So they reduced the size of the food tray, reducing the weight and costs and saving the airline a lot of money. Such insight through observation leads to optimization. Yet today, we do not let our designers have enough time to immerse themselves in the world. Any advice for young minds who want to join the brand and design industry? Do not copy-paste CV emails. Showcase yourself meaningfully and uniquely as a brand. Are you intellectually curious, hilarious, or have something unique to put forward? Understand things like analytics and how the metaverse is operated. Most companies have great courses online on how the world works in terms of platforms and media. If you are trying to break into this industry, find a mentor, not a company. Whom do you want to learn from? Build your application unique for them. Is it immoral for a company to fail to deliver on its promise to its customers? ‘A brand is a promise, and a great brand is that promise kept.’ If a pizza brand said that it could deliver in a certain time frame and failed to do so, is that not damaging the brand’s reputation? We frame a strategy to become guardians of the brand. As a guardian, you frame a promise, without knowing anything beyond, can this brand live up to the promise? If yes, no problem, but if not, it is up to you to tune that promise so that it can be achieved. You either keep the promise or beat it.
Written by: Ananya Gupta and Jineet Shah
*
36 Days of Type 2022
*
Yugh Chaudhary The best thing about 36 Days of Type is the flexibility to create type-forms in every imaginable expression. It could be paintings, calligraphy, minimal shapes, 3D forms, origami, collages, pictures, and whatnot.
My aim here was to design letterforms in such a manner that we can see a fusion of a relatively minimal approach while also achieving an Indian touch. All of the letterform structures are made out of simple shapes, with a thin line pattern and circular forms filling in the negative space complementing the Indian mood along with some vivid colours.
*
Behance LinkedIn Instagram
How To
Navigating The world Of Toys
Suhasini Paul
Co-founder&Toy Designer - Paul Studio A designer, speaker and businesswoman whose success lies in taking concepts to reality by connecting the right resources with the people she works with. She designs the surprise toys found inside Kinder Joy for the Indian and global market, sports toys for Disney, India, and break-time playthings for ITC Foods. Along with her husband Paul Sandip, she runs PAUL STUDIO in India. LinkedIn
As one of the founders of Paul Studio, setting up a studio and building a business was not an easy task, the biggest challenge was spreading awareness amongst parents about selecting the age-appropriate toys for children. As a designer, this is the first thing I keep in mind while designing toys. It is also important to make manufacturers realise the importance of in-depth research before designing or conceptualising toys. The most surprising and memorable opportunity was to design toys for Kinder Joy. It was gratifying to see my toys being manufactured by Kinder Joy. I was on the top of the world when I bought Kinder Joy chocolates, and in one of them, found a toy that had been designed by me.
*
* Imagination turned into reality While designing, I keep in mind the users who will be playing with the toys and the manufacturer who is going to produce those toys. The design process begins with observation and needs identification through in-depth research which leads to analysis and conclusion on what has to be done, be it a board game, puzzle, or wooden toy.
“
The Internet is a window to the world. Any information they seek is at their fingertips, which is good, but anything in excess is harmful.
“
I am inspired by the holistic behaviour and experiences of children whether it be physical, cognitive, social, emotional, or cultural. With these insights, I conceptualise the toy. Detailing the toy is a vital step toward making it user-friendly and costeffective, and maximising its perceived worth. It takes four weeks to design a toy and three to four months to make it to the market.
Well designed toys are foremost for a child’s development. During the design and conceptualisation phase, designers need to marry all the parameters like the right materials, safety, play value, costing, ease of manufacturability, and children’s needs. Sourcing the right material and ethical production processes are of utmost importance because it not only affects the environment but also the users.
@theweavemagazine
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” - Plato
“
*
Benchmarks for choosing toys Toys play a massive role in developing a child’s persona and thought process hence it is important to choose the right toys for your kids. Different toys are available for different age groups of children, catering to different aspects of a child’s life. Educational toys lead to the development of a child’s motor and social skills, puzzles instigate problem-solving skills, and roleplay toys allow children to practice roles eventually gaining confidence and learning important life skills. Toys make children more self-reliant and resilient and these qualities are inculcated by a variety of toys, games, and play activities.
The design process begins with observation and needs identification through in-depth research which leads to analysis and conclusion on what has to be done, it can be a board game, puzzle, or wooden toy.
Parents are ultimately the best judge about the abilities, interests and play needs of their children. The best toy choices would be those that will challenge the baby but not frustrate him/ her. Toys are classified per age group. The chosen toys should always fit the baby’s cognitive and physical level of learning. Toy safety is an important aspect to keep in mind while buying toys. Toys should not have sharp edges, uncomfortable fabric, toxic colours and loose parts.
“
“
“
Well designed toys are intrinsic for a child’s development.
Games vs Toys For smaller age groups, infants and toddlers, physical toys play a vital role in their cognitive and physical growth. Here, tangible toys dominate digital games. The importance of tangible toys is increasing as parents are more exposed to infinite knowledge about these toys. Nowadays, parents are conscious and aware and are spending more on toys for their babies than a decade ago and this is an exponential curve for the next coming decade. The popularity of physical toys prevails and it will continue to rise in the coming years. The Internet is a window to the world. Any information they seek is at their fingertips, which is good, but anything in excess is harmful. So if we optimize the use of screens in our child’s life, it is not so worrisome. We need to balance physical and digital play. Parents can introduce to their offspring a wide variety of freetime activities, like spending time with their friends and playing indoor as well as outdoor games with them, which can help develop a healthy body and balanced mind. Arrange activities that help children cut down their screen time. Find out your child’s passion and encourage him/her to pursue that, make the games/toy/products available to them and also participate in those activities with them to give them momentum initially. Then surely children will pursue their hobbies, play with physical toys as well as manage to play online games.
Thought Leadership
Weaving Design as Anushka Tendolkar. Senior Visual Designer, UI/UX Designer, Ultraviolette
“
After all, there is nothing like ‘original’ in the world. Everything is inspired by something else.
“
Anushka Tendolkar graduated as a Communication designer and started working with homegrown businesses eventually leading to bigger brands like Adobe, Dentsu, KFC, Kyoorius and also made it to DesignxDesign’s curated list of 20 under 30 designers in India in 2021. She is currently working at an automobile company- Ultraviolette Automotives and exploring the field of UI/UX design.
LinkedIn Instagram
One of the most famous quotes that has resonated with me is “If you can design one thing, you can design anything” by Massimo Vignelli. I have always gone above and beyond what was expected of me to push my limits and one such thing that I participate in every year since 2017 has been 36 days of type, a global challenge where designers participate in creating their versions of the English alphabet and 0-9 numbers. The most interesting part - there is no reward so everyone participates just to nurture their creativity. But with so many people taking part in the challenge it is fairly easy to get plagiarized by someone or come under the plagiarism radar yourself. After all, there is nothing like ‘original’ in the world. Everything is inspired by something else. And that is exactly how I approach my work. While outright copying someone else's work is plagiarism, taking different aspects and pieces of work and combining them to make it your own is being inspired. I always make sure that if there is
a particular piece close to my inspiration, I credit the artist for inspiring me. This way, you not only give credit where credit is due, but you also gain respect for being transparent, a rare quality in the creative world that should be more prevalent.
Fast Tracking understanding ethics at Ultraviolette
“
I have discovered the ideal balance by combining all of my skills in branding, illustrations, and UI/UX to practice design the way it was always meant to be—cohesively.
“
Personal ethics in my design process
While my design career has been quite diverse in terms of the industries I have dabbled into, my current role at Ultraviolette is something I never envisioned myself enjoying as much as I do. Automotive UX, while it has always been a part of the vehicle design process, has now become even more extensive due to the integration of tech with the boom in electric vehicles. I have discovered the ideal balance by combining all of my skills in branding, illustrations, and UI/UX to practice design the way it was always meant to be—cohesively.
“
I believe in ‘play’ as part of my daily routine and its grave importance to leading a more creative life.
“
The form vs function debate feels redundant to someone like me, whose priority as a visual designer, has always been to create aesthetically pleasing designs. Form and function go hand in hand and in some cases, form outlives function. However, as a UX designer in an
automotive company, my top priority is safety. While the vehicle itself is not designed by me, the experience around it is. The responsibility of ensuring the safety of an automobile through design is a big one, which automatically makes ethics around it unavoidable.
One of the most interesting things to work on has been the bike display console. The display designs have gone through colour testing indoors as well as outdoors in peak sunlight, with and without a helmet on. To make sure the experience is inclusive, the colours are also tested with AAA accessibility to ensure the contrasts are friendly to those with colourblindness. The typography on the console has been designed in a way that the letters are clear, and monospaced for better readability even at high speeds. As a brand designer for a new-age automotive company, I make sure our tone of voice is never sexist and welcomes
audiences of all genders. We make sure our brand language is not overly masculine and all these have been weaved in together because of the various kinds of audiences I have catered to with all the different brands I have worked with.
Ethics in Personal life
life. No matter how swamped I am with work, I try to do something for myself which doesn’t revolve around work, be it cooking, playing a Ukelele, working out, having a long shower with some nice music, catching up on my favourite TV shows and enjoying movies. If ‘play’ is not part of my day, I tend to get cranky which has a domino effect on my mental state for a few days. And this kind of mentality has been instilled in me because I grew up watching my mom manage a home and her work together, which naturally seeped into me as an adult. The responsibility of living alone (actually with friends) and managing a house already comes with its set of problems and chores, but it pushes me even harder to make time for myself and continue building on my personal brand- to make personal work, collaborate with people I look up to and be an active part of the design community in India.
I get a particular question way too often, from friends and followers both- ‘How do you manage to do so many things? Do you have extra hours in the day?’ My ethics are deeply connected to how I treat myself, my work and my body. I am particular about discipline when it comes to being organized and also towards my health. Having grown up playing badminton, basketball and table tennis on a competition level and then hitting the gym since While I learnt most of I was 16, I have always my skills by putting in made time for my fitness. the extra hours and trial and error, studying in a I believe in ‘play’ as part design school had an of my daily routine and impact that changed its grave importance to my life forever. It opened leading a more creative me up to things beyond
my imagination and made me harness my emotional powers in a purposeful way which now bleeds into my work all the time- whether it is designing for accessibility or creating relatable illustrations for my Instagram!
^
Photo Stories My photographs are in a way an extension of my thoughts and beliefs.
Sriram Ajith
^
Vol.2
Narrative and Sequential Storytelling I believe in slowing down, reminding individuals, that life is more than just a race, and to focus on the little moments.
Issue 01
^
I channel the significance of emotional wellness, and self-improvement, into understanding how everybody is unique and deserves to take up space in this world. LinkedIn Instagram
^
Vol.2
The goal towards the end is to give a fresh editorial experience. Fusing photographs and writing to portray thoughtful narratives and sequential storytelling strategies.
Issue 01
*
*
01
Photo Stories
^
Vol.2
Issue 01
LinkedIn Instagram
Naturally Unbound
^
The Yamuna Ghat is a perfect blend of action and calmness, you can see photographers struggling to get the perfect shot alongside oblivious, enthralled devotees. In this whirlwind of life, it’s easy to forget our roots in nature. I’ve used monochrome to represent the contrasted life.
Anantvijay
02
@theweavemagazine
Infocus
Enjoying the
Constraints Saikat Biswas
Director, Industrial Design, Empoise Saikat studied industrial design with the specialization in product design from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India and Pforzheim University of Applied Science, Germany. He worked for some of the largest global consumer electronics companies around the globe, his projects are of a varied spectrum, from creating mobile phones to designing trains. In 2010 he co-founded Empoise, one of the leading Industrial Design Studios from India that has collaborated with companies ranging from stealth mode startups to Global Fortune 500 brands like Samsung, GE, Cisco, Schneider, Qualcomm, Tata, Reliance, Wipro, Videocon, Lava, Luminous, Zebra, and many more! LinkedIn
From the vantage point of a design student or a young designer, design constraints often seem like a limit to ‘unbridled creativity’. However, in reality, design constraints are usually the clues that give a structure to the design process, maneuver it, and actually inspire innovation. I will make the case for how design constraints, used consciously, can be not a foe but a friend during the design process.
Every object that we interact with daily is the result of a design process shaped by its constraints and context. During this process, myriad decisions are made by the industrial designers and their teams, aimed at improving our life through well-executed designs.
Design constraints are conditions that need to happen for a project to be successful. These constraints help to narrow down choices while working on a project. Many different kinds of constraints business goals, budget, timeline, technical specs, target users’ needs and aspirations, design principles and brand design guidelines - shape our solutions to design problems.
“
Design innovation is often driven by the interplay of constraints during the design process, which is why the design constraints are not restraints but factors that help designers and foster creativity!
“
With so many different types of constraints, it is certain that some of them may conflict with one another in a particular design project and this can often feel limiting, especially for the young designer. Making the appropriate design tradeoffs to resolve conflicting constraints requires dexterity and good judgment that comes with experience. What is interesting is that design innovation is often driven by the interplay of these constraints during the design process. This is why the design constraints are not restraints but factors that help designers and foster creativity! Design constraints should be seen as a set of clues that help designers triangulate between the problems, resources, and criteria inherent in every project and prevent precious time wasted on extraneous design concepts.
How we do it at Empoise Since 2010, every project we have worked on at Empoise has been shaped by design constraints, perhaps more than any other factor. A good example of bringing innovation and making a design unique is the Coin Mesh Network Sensors we designed a few years ago.
Avantika University April 2022
“
@theweavemagazine
Design constraints can not only be a great aid to streamline the design process but also sometimes bring about unique design solutions that would not be thought of otherwise.
“
The design is simple and compact with a single multi-colour RGB LED to show the various options for the status of the device. The silicone casing makes the device splash and weather-resistant, and this provides a good example of how design constraints or limitations can shape the final design to make it unique and iconic.
The device needed to be IP rated (water and dustproof) as it would be used in indoor, outdoor, dusty and humid conditions. In an ideal situation, we would have made the mechanical design IP rated (with silicone or elastomer gasket built-in to resist dust and water) that would have required double-shot injection moulding and also more development time to accommodate the trial and errors in the prototype and pre-production stages before going to production.
“
Design constraints should be seen as a set of clues that help designers triangulate between the problems, resources, and criteria inherent in every project and prevent precious time wasted on extraneous design concepts.
“
Coin is a tiny device for real-time asset & people tracking, condition monitoring, smart home, and office & security solutions. It forms a peer-to-peer mesh network of tiny low-cost sensor nodes that can be used for diverse applications. A gateway assigned to these Coins collects data and transfers information to the API over Wifi or GPRS.
“
Once we change our perspective about design constraints and start seeing them as a catalyst of creativity and innovation rather than a hindrance, we will be able to harness their potential and start enjoying the otherwise arduous journey of designing a product and bringing it to life.
“
However, the company that made Coin was a small startup from India and did not have a budget to accommodate such development costs and production investments. So we resorted to another approach - of making an outer silicone sleeve, made with a lower investment that works almost as good as any other expensive solution without hindering any functionality of the device significantly. As a result of the constraints, we derived a final design with a unique translucent and double-layered look that we did not think of during the initial ideation and concept development phase. Had we not faced such limitations, we would have gone with a typical IP-rated design approach that would work well, but may not stand out. In summary
“Design depends largely on constraints. … Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem—the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible, and his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints….” - Charles Eames Once we change our perspective about design constraints and start seeing them as a catalyst of creativity and innovation rather than a hindrance, we will be able to harness their potential and start enjoying the otherwise arduous journey of designing a product and bringing it to life.
Avantika University April 2022
Thought Leadership
Ethics and inclusivity in the gaming sector
Poornima Seetahraman
Director Design, Zynga. Poornima has been part of the gaming industry for 16+ years. She is currently a Director of Design at Zynga. She has worked on franchises like BioShock Mobile, How to Train your Dragons, Neopets, and FarmVille 2: Country Escape to name a few. She is a Women in Games Ambassador at WIGJ and the founder of Women in Games India (WIGIN), multiaward winner and a Hall of Fame Inductee at the Global WIG Awards 2020, making her the first Indian game developer to receive such an honour. You can know more about her at http://drowlife.com/
My journey started at the age of sixteen when my friends introduced me to games like Age of Empires II and Warcraft III. From there my interest kept growing. During my college days, I created campaigns for these games, and shared them with my friends to get feedback for improvement, not knowing that this was game design! After graduating as an engineer, I was recommended as a game design programmer and had a month to come up with a Game Design Document (GDD). Back in 2006, there were few
“
Educating ourselves is supercritical.
“
resources for this. I relied on articles by Ernest W Adams and Tom Sloper. Enjoying the process made me realize how beautiful it is and what I wanted to pursue. From there, I worked with different companies, honing my skills, and contributing to the gaming industry. While I have worn different hats across my career, game design and the process of creating will always be close to my heart. As designers, we cater to our target audience with the kind of products we are making, and that is aligned with our business values. Finding that intersection is critical when beginning. Although you are not limited to just that, that is how you make your mark. Like the current organization I work for, Zynga is a known trendsetter of
social games, where you can play with friends, and play different games that appeal to a diverse audience. These are the values retained while expanding our portfolio to various genres and platforms. People running the company and their approach to it, invariably have an impact on end products, along with the team. Aspects like ethnicity, inclusivity and diversity are key, having gender-neutral characters or ethnically diverse characters are some simple levers to address these ethics. Various mediums can help to create a better ecosystem, an experience that is more diverse and perhaps more realistic, and
utilize it to break some ageold norms. As designers, letting go of inhibitions and aligning with socio-cultural changes help us design better. Putting ourselves in the shoes of our diverse target audience helps. Player first approach is key. Games like Last of Us, Gris, and Celeste do a great job at this. At Zynga, we have multiple DEI initiatives at the organizational level that reflects in the games we make too.
“
Everyone who plays games is a player, a gamer!
We have evolved from creating idealized body images and female objectification aimed to appease to cis-male gamers to creating powerful female characters today and providing customization aspects into the hands of the players. The evolution of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider is a classic example. There are so many games where gender has gone beyond binary and in some cases, gender itself is eliminated or even normalized to be non-binary. User behaviour changes according to social norms, and with that, we have evolved too. Here unlearning is the key. Educating ourselves is supercritical. This further helps us fuel our inspiration and the more we learn,
the broader our mindsets become. Another way we restrict ourselves from growing and learning is that we often think that exploring and learning are not part of our daily routine and only doing certain tasks defines our performance. “Me time” is critical in personal and Our brains professional life, we underestimate the impact of downtime. are like machines that need some relaxation and maintenance to run smoothly. Healthy habits should be not just for physical health but also for mental and emotional wellbeing. There too exists a bias or perception issue about elitism in the gaming industry. Hardcore gamers are not the only set of players that the industry
“
“
looks at. A big share of the market is casual games. For this, I came up with a broad-minded spectrum.
As designers, letting go of inhibitions and aligning with socio-cultural changes help us design better. Putting ourselves in the shoes of our diverse target audience helps. Player first approach is key.
While some aspects of a game are defined as casual or hardcore, it only comes down to the players. We play for our reasons, with motivations independent of the game itself. Tetris, a classic arcade-style puzzle game that is considered a casual game, has a hardcore world championship competition as well. Gamers can be further categorized as:Casual gamers: who play games when they get the time. Mid-core gamers: who try to keep aside some time to play games. Hardcore gamers: who prioritize games over everything else. Today is an age where players who enjoy God of War, Florence, FarmVille, or High Heels can all coexist and call themselves
gamers! Designers need to realize this, otherwise, they are limiting themselves. Everyone who plays games is a player, a gamer!
“
OG Unites
Ayursha Nimse
This illustration manifests a scenario of original creative work owners jointly fighting back against plagiarism. Along with that, it attempts to show other related aspects like the fading line between taking inspiration and copying.
LinkedIn Instagram
“We care. Don’t We?”
Pragna Tulshian
Totally ordinary to treat yourself to chocolates after a job well done, shopping for clothes that are on a sale and buying a cute rainbow lamp from your favourite online store which you did not really need. Do we really know what happens behind the curtains? Are we fixing the world or breaking it apart? LinkedIn Instagram
74
Vol.2
“
Issue 01
Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.
“
Sec 03
Albert Schweitzer.
The Value of Sensitivity in Design Thinking
Sarthak Shambhatnavar Visual Communication Design Student
An aspiring communication design student of Avantika University, keen on learning multiple communication design aspects like illustrations, branding, typography, character design, creative thinking and content writing. He keeps on learning and increasing his knowledge, about various concepts enhancing his worldview and skillset. Description: This article is the thought process behind the book “Labyrinth of the mind” written and illustrated by me. It sets out to include and put more focus on sensitive topics about mental health and the process of writing and illustrating the book. Design thinking plays an important role in both the layout and designing of the book and in the contents and placement as well. This article speaks about the value a self-observation and a self-help book can provide through the major elements of design thinking and considering ethics as an asset.
LinkedIn Behance
“
It helps you stop, think, breathe and continue discovering what your mind is made of; unlimited possibilities and limited emotions, making you aware that you do not have time to dwell upon what you do not have; to move forward with what you have.
Moral sensitivity, on which the book is focused if neglected even in the simplest design, can have harmful repercussions on a large group of people. The book expresses it, by actively promoting the importance of channeling our thoughts through our minds. The mind is not as complicated as the world persuades you to think it is. Thoughts make the process complicated. Speaking of sensitivity, mental health is a massive spectrum yet talked about by a few. Society's stigma often cages minds that want to be set free. It is important to let our thoughts free, to accept ourselves, explore further, and value these explorations but not to
waste time on what is inevitable. We can think beyond our thoughts, but we always see a deeper picture within our values. That is what should drive us to be the best version of ourselves, and not obsess over the idea of "perfection". The idea of perfection is not to be perfect, nothing is. There can never be a perfect balance of emotions, yet we perceive a balance in how we control our emotions. People will often convince you that negative emotions should fade away in secrecy. People do not; or to be more precise, people don't know how to channel those in a healthy manner. With a healthy process, you either learn to evolve these emotions into positive ones, or they
“
slowly disappear and your mind has space for newer emotions. This book brings out a visual element where the reader can relate to the concepts not just with words but with illustrations as well. Encountering many visual challenges to make the book more comfortable to the reader, a particular colour palette was chosen to understand
“
Moral sensitivity, if neglected even in the simplest design, can have harmful repercussions on a large group of people.
the reader's mind. The actual conduct of placing the elements of the book to soothe the reader's mind while relating was focused. Self-help books are often mistaken for providing the correct answers. Is it ethical to have a single answer for so many people? This project was meant to create harmony and balance in the initial stages where the reader sets their mind to focus on correspondence and compatibility of the context presented. It helps you stop, think, breathe and continue discovering what your mind is made of; unlimited possibilities and limited emotions, making you aware that you do not have time to dwell upon what you do not have; to
move forward with what you have. Accepting and moving forward, especially during these times, is vital, to clear your mind by reading. The aim of the book is to know about one’s emotions and how an individual tackled that experience. Those delusional experiences, perceived by normal human beings, are flawed.
“
The art within art. Saugandhika Kale There aren’t enough words to describe art, as it solely cannot be fathomed by a single meaning, but is rather found in places, people, stories rather beaming, like the sun rays falling on cold window panes, like a song that stops playing still echoes music that stays, like a painting can speak for itself, or books carefully stacked on the shelf, it carries the weight of emotions too ‘absurd’, talking to you without speaking a single word, like an endless night filled with the possibility of shooting stars, leaving you thinking about how art can leave scars, scars from discovering what art truly is, it is pain covered in paint strokes forming a bliss, it is happiness pouring down with the first day of rain, it is poetry and pieces that rhyme and keep one sane, it is sadness found in your sketch that you think is lame, art isn’t what you think looks nice, but what completes one when they’re in pieces, it isn’t something you look at, it is something you breathe in, something you live for, and what you die with.
ZARA: A DEVNAGRI TYPE EXPERIMENT
Ishan Nakate
Aimed at unveiling the brand values of Zara, spotlighting their unethical impacts on the society and environment, this logo redesign experiments with Indian Script. Simultaneously, swapping the current logo’s emphasis on aesthetics the brand tries to portray, the true Industrious, Metallic, Inorganic and Unpleasant actions it reflects and tries to hide. Instagram
Down To The Rabbit Hole Janlyn Joyce
Art Credit : SamridhiSamal
THE BANG BANG THEORY
A budding designer, aspiring in the field of industrial design, Janlyn is pursuing the 2nd year of her bachelor's program. A colourful personality she is quiet but engaging when she speaks. Janlyn has a passion for research, comedy and writing, in this section, she explores her passions while giving us all some wellneeded laughs
We all know how the world started or do we? Many scientists came up with some cool theories but the most intriguing GOAT, yup that’s the word; is the bang-bang theory (or the theory of how the world actually came into existence). The theory somewhat talks about how the whole universe was just a spinning ball of fire and it shook out some pretty nice things like the Earth, the Milky Way and even Pluto which, sadly is no longer with us, similar to the anime scene where the sun spins like crazy or like a Beyblade, no exactly like a Beyblade emitting sparks and stuff.
So coming back to what this whole magazine is about, for the namesake we will be talking about the play of design in this socalled theory: Even though it seems like this whole thing just happened overnight or what I would like to call haphazardly but it did not. In fact, it follows the principles of design quite blindly like how state board students prep for exams. Starting with contrast, what better example than
the phenomenon of day and night both being on either side of the scale and following up with emphasis, kinda sus for the whole world to revolve around the sun but okay. One thing I find funny is the point where hierarchy is totally demolished in the way of size cause Jupiter is literally useless, lets's go earth! And the universe really said copy/paste with repetition and all the stars in the sky. Playing with proportions and at the same time perfecting balance as the creations worked their way with the planets and their moons but probably wondered about the rhythm but finally figured it is the beating heart of existence. The rings of Saturn are the “topic” to be talked about as some legends say they are still spinning as an aftereffect, constantly in motion. But we all know the real MVP is unity cause it definitely got its stuff figured out. Quite unknowingly messed up with the white space part cause there is just space and no white but totally scored on the variety cause literally have you looked around, well the scientists definitely have; further letting them come up with this theory.
And I know nothing ever goes down without a fight as many might say but this is just comic relief so to further prove my point, I would like to close this down with a quote from the interview of the first-ever life form to step into space *loud monkey noises*. p.s.: If the universe can follow these principles quite ethically; you can too. /*mic drop*
BOOK REVIEW
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE AGATHA CHRISTIE.
Saee Joshi
Ten strangers. Nine targets. One murderer. When eight people are invited to a house far off on a remote island alongside two others who work there by an anonymous source, things take a terrifying turn as they start getting murdered one by one. The book is delightfully unpredictable. Agatha Christie has outdone herself yet again. Inspired by the nursery rhyme ‘Ten Little Indians’, she provides a sense of uncertainty to the reader making us increasingly excited for the finale of the book. I would recommend this book to everyone. Give it a shot! You’ll be surprised! PS. Those who don’t read, no worries! Go watch the series by the same name. You’re welcome! ;)
85
BTS from the Founding Editor
Miral Zafar
*
A student of design, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Weave. The creator of Weave and one amongst many who got it so far, a passionate and thoughtful person, it is not difficult to see why she was the editor of a magazine. LinkedIn Behance
An all-nighter on a video call with Yashi and Saumya till 4 am, sleep drunk editing content and design elements page by page, resulted in our first successful launch. I simply had a vision for a college magazine during lockdown which came to reality because of the Industry Relations team, the sweat, swears, nearly giving up, and over-working loyal friends who volunteered. Sticking to a bimonthly schedule, it was never a dull moment at Weave. Our first launch was immediately followed by our very first crisis, the first of a series. A content-related disaster, Zeel and I got the biggest scare when one of our authors replied in anger at the way their article was edited. We profusely
*
apologized and swore never to publish without getting post-edit conformations. The second mistake was delayed author replies. I remember Surabhi and me recklessly trying to get in touch with one of our major authors, whose article I had to edit while the launch was happening. Luckily we slipped the article just in time for the edition link to go live. Now that we got into the groove of tasks, making the most effective Excel sheets, setting google calendar reminders and strict work-talk-only WhatsApp groups, the editions were on a roll but it wasn't reaching everywhere the pressure shifted on Shubhankar and the Marketing team. More than releasing magazines and making multiple industry connections, what I treasure most are these moments of pressure and the support everyone showed. The one-on-one conversations while discussing the cover page ideas with Ishaan and Aayush, rephrasing sentences with Jigyasa and Suchira, picking the brains of Anush and Sriram from Marketing on design ideas and interviewing authors. I have had some of my biggest fangirl moments interviewing and interacting with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Farid Bawa and Roshnee Desai, just to name a few. Weave was an enriching journey. I am grateful to every person who contributed to Weave even for singular editions, and our industry guides. Finally to the new gen, you guys already Show Determination and are killing it. Just remember to Always have a Good time in the process. I know you will all come out as Real Leaders.
Special Thanks
Miral Zafar Surabhi Bajaj Shubhankar Nandapurkar
Team
Weave
Raghav Pandya Guide
Design Team
Author Research Team
Deepak Roshan
Nupra Dharod
Anup Dahale
Siddhi Mahale
Lubaina Mizwan
Naina Heble
Samridhi Samal Srushti Dhobley Abhay Sharma Jignesh Pradhan
Marketing Team
Content Team
Editorial
Ayush Pansari
Suchira Biswas
Esha Agarwal
Dhanashri Umak
Mrunmayi Bhombe
Ishita Neema
Lavanya Naidu
Anvesha Dubey
Rajdatta Malusare
Ananya Gupta
Mansi More
Jineet Shah
Tech Design Business Guys
This text is absolutely bogus indeed our designers believe in balance so ignore this text well i could instead do some Lorem ipsum.