MP Ranjan on PhD-Design_Mstr_2003 Sept to 2013 May

MPR on PhD-Design_Mstr 2013 ©©2013 M P Ranjan page 1/232

MPR on PhD-Design_Mstr 2013 May.docx

Reflections on PhD-Design: A collection of posts on the PhD-Design discussion list by Prof M P Ranjan over a ten year period: 2003 to 2013 <[email protected]>

Prof M P Ranjan

Professor – Design Chair, CEPT University, Ahmedabad

Author of blog – www.DesignforIndia.com

Posts on PhD-Design discussion list by Prof M P Ranjan upto 30 May 2013 from 01 September 2003 in

response to various comments by list members who are all either teachers at design school or those

interested in design as a discipline and a group of PhD scholars currently engaged in their pursuit of a

PhD in Design. PhD-Design was created to discuss, and exchange information about PhDs in design. In

the past 10 years the list has grown from 1200 members to about 2800 members today. The list was set

up in 1998 after a conference of the Design Research Society and has remained active ever since. The

List archives can be seen at this link and it is open to anyone who is interested in the topic. While

anyone can view the archives, one needs to register in order to post to the list.

<www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/phd-design.html ‎>

The most recent posts are in the front while the earliest posts are at the end of this document arranged

in a descending order a total of 191 posts till date.

The first line of each post is assembled from the list archives showing the List serial number, date and

time of post followed by the subject head. The second line is my own reference number with date while

the rest of the post is from my particular submission to the list on that day.

021827 2013-05-30 20:50 Re: Design of Fire MPR on PhD-Design_2013_05_30-02

Dear Harold and Klaus

I would love to join you at the beer session as the key to design and understanding its inner workings lie

somewhere between imagination and articulation, visualisation and language based communication that

inform all the action stages thereafter.

M P Ranjan

from home in very hot Ahmedabad

30 May 2013 at 8.50 pm IST


021823 2013-05-30 15:04 Re: Design of Fire MPR on PhD-Design_2013_05_30-01

Dear Harold and Klaus

I have been using "Fire as a Metaphor" for design at the systems level since 1993 when a group

students in my systems thinking class at NID proposed an image that used Fire as an image that could

explain the various flows and processes that influence design in a culture and also show its impact on

society and the environment. You can download the image along with other design thinking models that I

use to explain the various dimensions and processes of design action and design thinking from my

Academia.edu site here.

<http://www.academia.edu/3627352/Understanding_Design_Models_Fire_Values_Levels_Process

> More recently, after a meeting at IDC, Mumbai some ten years ago, I developed a model to explain the

role of design in shaping our civilisation and Fire is at the very beginning of the journey. This model can

be downloaded from here. This places design as a human ability that ore-dates Science as well as Art,

Take a look. <http://www.academia.edu/3626560/History_of_Design_Model_Stool_and_Fire>

Klaus, thank you for your inputs on language and communication. The evidence of Visual

communication comes very late in the human evolution since cave paintings and other external images

seem to appear quite a while after the appearance of tools. Symbolic communication is a more evolved

form of design it seems. Vocalisations and verbal language must have evolved much earlier but there

does not seen to be evidence that can help us date the development, or is there any? Richard Dawkins,

in his book The Ancestor's Tale (2005) places the first use of Fire for security only as far back as one

and a half million years ago based on scientific evidence of the ground magnetise the soil when a fire is

built repeatedly at one place, usually in front of a cave. (Page 60 - story of the Ergasts) If, such use of

Fire, before the art and science of fire evolved is accepted as an act of Design, a leap of faith, then we

can extrapolate and say that all of science, in its early stages is based in its early explorations on design

and design thinking. Klaus in his paper "Design Research, an Oxymoron?" Krippendorff (2007) suggests

this in his own way. This is how I read it anyway. What do you think?

With warm regards

M P Ranjan

from my Mac at CEPT University

30 May 2013 at 3.00 pm IST

021799 2013-05-27 10:30 14 papers on bamboo & design uploaded on Acedemia.edu –Ranjan

MPR on PhD-Design_2013_05_27

Dear Friends


I have uploaded a collection of 14 papers written between 1983 and 2011 on my Academis.edu site

under a new section titled Papers on Bamboo at this link here.

<http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP/Bamboo-papers> These papers on bamboo related design

research represent field explorations and design action and insights from these numerous projects and

can be read along with the development of my design thinking theories that are informed by these and

other real life experiences at the National Institute of Design and these have been arranged in a

chronological order for future reflection and research use.

<http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP/Design-Thinking-papers>

With warm regards M P Ranjan

from my Mac at home

27 May 2013 at 10.30 am IST

021797 2013-05-26 22:29 New Collection of Papers on Design Thinking from 1994 tlll date - Ranjan

MPR on PhD-Design_2013_05_26-02

Dear friends

I have uploaded a new collection of old papers on Design Thinking from our India experiences at NID

Ahmedabad on my Acedemia.edu web site at this link below. These 13 papers are what I could locate

just now but there are more which I will look for and add at a later date. Take a look here.

<http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP/Design-Thinking-papers> Some of these have supporting

visual slides that you can find under Conference Presentations section here. More later....

<http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP/Conference-Presentations> I have been doing some spring

cleaning with my digital archive that has been collecting dust since 1990 or so....

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at home on the NID campus

26 May 2013 at 10.25 pm IST

021796 2013-05-26 09:56 Language and design - Ranjan


Language and design - Ranjan

Dear Prof RAMA KANT AGNIHOTRI

Your article in the Hindu of 25th May 2013 makes very interesting reading.

<http://tinyurl.com/q9fvzq3> I have posted two comments there and these are quoted below for your

immediate review and I am sharing these with the design community at large as well. I Quote "Wonderful

insights on the nature of language and its living variety here in India. However the issues and proposals

for going forward as stated in the last paragraph may need to be debated with a different mindset of

imagination. Here, I refer to the easy mindset of accepting science as the only way forward. While there


is a science of language there are other dimensions to be studied and understood. How do languages

evolve? Why do languages exist in such diversity? and How do we help preserve this variety and

through this the cultural knowledge that the diversity represents? These and other questions have been

discussed and debated by some of us in the design community but these debates have not been on

scientific forums from where we are debarred by the process of peer review. So our debate takes place

inside the marketplace through our work and expressions in research and actions of design offerings

that deal with language just as it does in other fields that need Design. More.... Design as a way forward

stems from experience in designing for language that creates new opportunities and not just for analysis

of what exists but an opportunity to create new forms and structures that are the need of the place and

time. My former students from NID have designed new typefaces to meet various challenges and new

expressions for books and multi-media settings. In some cases even new scripts for languages without

an existing or living script through a process of design. Neelakash Kshetrimayum <

http://tinyurl.com/np59uem> created a Manipuri script and Vaishnavi Murthy <

http://tinyurl.com/o9toh5k> on Tulu and Neha Bahuguna < http://tinyurl.com/qcs6z33> a Hindi as

written by hand and Satya Rajpurohit <http://tinyurl.com/p7h4svg> a range of digital fonts. Mahendra

Patel (NID) <http://tinyurl.com/pxd5pm6>and (late) R K Joshi (IDC), <http://tinyurl.com/ntfunw8>

both teachers of design, have a body of work that is impressive. However using design as an approach

to understand culture, education and social transformation have been stymied by the science mindset

and we are all in a dilemma. When will we think differently? Will the new NIDs be able? Unquote I have

added links to the designer stories in the text above, which is not in the Hindu comment site. Font and

type design is but a small subset of what design can and should do with language and we need to

explore all the dimensions in a country that is steeped with illiteracy and a lack of universal access to

education. Design if applied can address both these problems I am sure, many more as well.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at home

26 May 2013 at 9.45 am IST

021788 2013-05-22 23:59 Papers on Design Education and Design Thinking from India


Papers, Books and Conference Presentations on Academa.edu - Ranjan

Dear Friends

I have uploaded another set of my Papers, Books and Conference Keynote Presentations on my

Academia.edu page here to make it more accessible. Take a look.

<http://cept.academia.edu/RanjanMP> There s a huge backlog and I am now organising my other

papers on Design Thinking going back to the late 80's and these too will be uploaded shortly. Also under

processing are my papers on bamboo and design explorations in the field.


With warm regards


25 May 2013 at 9.40 am IST

021788 2013-05-22 23:59 Papers on Design Education and Design Thinking from India

MPR on PhD-Design_2013_05_22 Dear Friends

I have uploaded several papers on design education and design thinking from my work in India and

these can be seen and downloaded from these links below. 1. <

http://www.academia.edu/3573380/Design_in_the_Real_World_The_time_has_come_to_repositio

n_NID > 2. <

http://www.academia.edu/3573287/Institutional_frameworks_and_design_development > 3. <

http://www.academia.edu/3573264/Design_Support_in_India_Institutional_experiences_in_a_gro

wing_industrial_economy > 4. <

http://www.academia.edu/3573067/Creating_the_Unknowable_Designing_the_Future_in_Educati

on > 5. <

http://www.academia.edu/3573006/Cactus_Flowers_Bloom_in_the_Desert_Reflections_on_Desig

n_and_Innovation_in_India > 6.

<http://www.academia.edu/3571808/Styles_of_Design_Thought_and_Action> 7. <

http://www.academia.edu/2514454/The_Avalanche_Effect_Institutional_frameworks_and_design_

as_a_development_resource_in_India >

M P Ranjan

from my Mac at home

22 May 2013 at 11.55 pm IST

021551 2013-04-06 00:12 Re: Ideas and definitions of what is "a design" in a broad sense


Re: Ideas and definitions of what is "a design" in a broad sense

Dear Klaus

I included that part of nature that I believe are mediated by human actions and prolonged selective

practices of culture formation, sometimes over centuries of action and existence of social practices,

beliefs and preferences. The plants and vegetables that we cultivate are all products of such sustained

design action. According to Claude Levi Strauss many of our vegetables come from the Mayan

civilization and in our study of the bamboo crafts of the Northeast of India for our book Bamboo and

Cane Crafts of Northeast India (1986) we found evidence of selective cultivation of particular bamboo

species by local communities so that these could be used for extraordinary applications that could


support their preferred lifestyles and meet sustainable practices in their rural settings. I have reflected on

this particular aspect in my paper titled "Ecology and Design: Lessons from the Bamboo Culture" (1991

Oita, Japan) and you can download the text from this link here as a pdf file

<http://tinyurl.com/d32a5f7> In this paper (1991 Oita, Japan) I have a definition of design and I quote it

here for immediate reference I quote

Design: An Alternate definition when I use the term 'design', I do not wish to refer to design as an elitist

preoccupation but to design as a developmental activity, a powerful tool for economic and social

development. The development of this definition of design represents the current state of art in the area

of design as a discipline as we now see it in India and in our perception this interpretation can be used to

improve the quality of our lives. Design as a multi-dimensional process and design as a strategy are

quite different from the more commonly understood definition that covers the limited roles that designers

play in the service of organized industry. Design as a discipline necessarily draws on a vast body of

human knowledge that are appropriate to the task at hand to generate the scenarios that could be

subjected to rigorous evaluation. design activity focuses on the user's needs. Unquote

With warm regards


6 April 2013 at 12.10 am IST

021544 2013-04-05 13:10 Re: Ideas and definitions of what is "a design" in a broad sense


Re: Ideas and definitions of what is "a design" in a broad sense

Dear Kari-Hans

Interesting question and position. For me a "Design" is a response to an opportunity or challenge. A

product of some agency human or natural. (animal architecture) These could be deeply thoughtful and

skilful (think and do) responses or intuitive ones (do and think - if at all) or even accidental or emotional

responses, the incidental response (the great India *Jugaad*) or much worked through multiple iterations

and trials (professional design) or (plodding and boring 'design' and scientific research as in molecule

finding algorithms in the biotech space). "Design" as a result of human agency is visible all around us

including the trees and plants in our landscape through selective breeding and cultivation. The intangible

cultural norms and social practices too are "Design" manifestations in culture and society. Laws, policies

and business models as well as processes and events are "Designs". So, we have objects - parts and

wholes, communications - elements and messages, spaces and structures and systems, environments

and eco-systems all manifestations of design, cultures and social norms. Arjun Appadurai gives us the

concept of social imaginary, which could give us a rich description of design – ethnoscapes,

mediascapes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediascape>, technoscapes, financescapes, and


ideoscapes. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_Appadurai> all humans and other actors contribute

and it would be an interesting space for serious research.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at CEPT University

5 April 2013 at 1.00 pm IST

021220 2013-02-28 13:49 Re: design research and design practice


Dear Terry

For me the specifications come at the end of a design journey and not at the beginning when you may

start with a design intention but with zero specifications for a brand new application, if there ever is one. I

recall a model shown to us by Prof Bruce Archer when he visited NID in late 80's . He had two

intersecting cones going in opposite directions. The cone of intentions (left to right) gradually reduces

and focuses on possible solutions and it finally ends with one that is chosen. The other cone of

specifications constantly expands as the decisions and strategies are decided and that cone (right to

left) becomes almost infinite when the final synthesis has been achieved. Design is therefore about

creating the appropriate specifications to meet a particular intention and not about following them. In

mature product categories the prior art may have a strong influence on specifications that get included.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan Professor - Design Chair CEPT University, Ahmedabad

from my Mac at CEPT campus 28 February 2013 at 2.00 pm IST

021088 2013-02-12 08:06 Re: Collective design


Dear Chuck

Thanks for this link, the article is indeed very inspiring and shows a new way in which design is being

used by a technology led company as they become user focussed. Many new ways are emerging for

design use and approaches, which are growing in a number of directions, some new. <

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/24/3904134/google-redesign-how-larry-page-engineered-

beautiful-revolution > One of our design research colleagues, Uday Dandavate from California, has

posted a note on his visit to The Strelka, a new age design school in Moscow that is looking at using

design in unusual ways. You can see this link here as a pdf file. <*http://tinyurl.com/b3hkxh7*> I have

just come out of a very stimulating three day design festival at New Delhi, The UnBox Festival 2013 that

explored many dimensions of design thought and action in an unusual format.

<http://unboxfestival.com/> Yesterday, I had dinner with John Thackara of Doors of

Perception<http://www.doorsofperception.com/>and a group of senior Faculty from the new School of


Design at the Ambedkar University in New Delhi and they too are discussing ways in which design can

be integrated into their multidisciplinary university with many humanities disciplines, perhaps a first here

in India after all the focus on technology and science based investments here. This will be an interesting

space to watch and connect with in the years ahead I am sure.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at Hotel Vista in Sultanpur, New Delhi

12 February 2013 at 8.15 am IST

021046 2013-02-07 08:53 Re: The Bibliography Behind A Theory of Design Thinking

MPR on PhD-Design_2013_02_07 Dear Chuck

I had already posted the message directly to the PhD-Design list since I felt that this would be

appropriate and help develop a discussion on the various routes that each of us have used to arrive at a

fairly common set of knowledge resources as well as beliefs about a subject and this was in particular

reference to the area of Design Theory and Design Thinking. Your list is a wonderful effort to share your

personal route and it reveals the journey that you have made and sets many of your papers in

perspective while giving us a glimpse of your position along the way. I realised these differences in

approaches when I compared my own list of sources with that of Fritzjof Capra's bibliography offered at

the back of his books when he was dealing with the subject of systems thinking and sustainable models

for human futures, areas that I too have been writing about over the years. My own list varied quite a bit

but we had arrived at much the same conclusions and the difference was that he was using primarily

scientific sources while I was using sources from design and architecture and there were few overlaps.

This reminds me of the discussions on this list that spoke of two sides of a river in spate, the two banks

on which we stand are quite divided and there do not seem to be too many bridges that connect the two

it seems!! A chronological listing of sources is not adequate to figure out the manner in which the

concepts were assimilated by an author or even a community of scholars since we know that the papers

may have existed after they were penned but these may have been accessed only when the author

either made contact with the paper or when they were intellectually ready to access and understand the

content in the process of transforming their own belief system through engagement and study. History is

replete with such parallel routes and all of human knowledge flows in uneven ways from East to West

and North to South as well as from one discipline to another where the boundaries seem to be quite

watertight and the transmission takes a lot of time. The path to knowledge and to ignorance is quite

convoluted and meandering indeed especially at the leading edge. Yes, your call for other list members

to share their bibliographies is in order and we will all be the wiser from such a sharing. Bernhard Burdek

has pointed out another difficulty and that is that of language. I can access only resources in English and

must wait for advanced concepts from other languages to be translated and filtered down for us to make


access and use these in some meaningful way. Google translate, as it gets better may help bridge this

gap, but the resources must be made available in the first place for us to be able to access these. Today

design scholarship is moving to many local languages in Asia as well and we will need to look at many

new sources for insights to inform and sustain design thinking and design theory in the future.

With warm regards



021016 2013-02-06 13:03 Snehal Nagarsheth: Bibliography on Design Thinking from Charles Brunette - Ranjan

MPR on PhD-Design_2013_02_06 Dear Snehal

This is with reference to our conversation yesterday about Prof Charles Brunette's bibliography. I attach

here the Bibliography provided by Prof Charles Brunette on his Academia.edu web page. This is a fairly

comprehensive list of all his papers as well as those that he claims have influenced him personally as

well as widely helped in the shaping of Design Theory as well as Design Thinking and Design Methods

from early beginnings at the turn of the last century. I have a few other authors in my own list who have

influenced us at NID and in India since we have had access to these authors during our student days at

NID as well as during the period of our own explorations into design education since the early 70's. The

journals from the HfG Ulm were a potent force for us and all these volumes were available in the NID

library and now these are available online from my blog Design for India for download. The Ulm theorists

include Tomas Maldonado, Gui Bonsieppe and a whole host of other teachers there. I would include

here Bucky Fuller and Frei Otto who are not listed in Chuck's list. Further, Stafford Beer, Gregory

Bateson and Piere Teilhard de Chardin who influenced us to explore systems thinking are not on his list

too. There are others such as M K Gandhi and J Krishnamurthy who shaped our ideological

perspectives in design thought and action and some of these I have expanded on in my paper of 2009

for the Istanbul conference titled "Hand-Head-Heart: Ethics of Design" which also includes the

development of semiotics as an influence in design thinking through the work of Klaus Krippendorf and

Liz Sanders etc. Take a look at both and we can discuss these in the light of some that we both may

have missed from an architectural perspective. The most updated list should include The Design Way

(2nd edition) by Harold Nelson and Eric Stolterman from the MIT Press, The Semantic Turn by Klaus

Krippendorf and 101 Design Methods by Vijay Kumar. In the mid 70's and early 80's we had access to

several books from the Open University, UK that were authored by Nigel Cross and Robin Roy. NID

Library has a very good collection of books from the Design Council, UK as well. KD may kindly give

Kiritbhai a copy of both these papers.

with warm regards

M P Ranjan from my at CEPT University


6 February 2013 at 1.05 pm IST

020933 2013-01-20 23:10 Re: "Institute of National Importance" for the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad


Dear Don

In the din of all the responses that I got on my blog post, including yours which I responded to there in

the comments column, I missed replying this particular post on the PhD-Design list to you and the rest of

the list members, sorry. The post on my blog about the new status of "Institute of National Importance"

for NID has really raised quite a debate and many interesting angles about design education and the

role of design in a developing economy and in India in general have been raised and I have answered

each one of the comments that were made so far, quite unprecedented for my blog at least. I have also

made a long response to your post there and I do thank you for your effort. In India, this is particularly

significant since our national investments are skewed towards science and technology education and

research, while similar activities in design have suffered severely over fifty years of gross neglect which

may be changing now, I hope. China has suddenly woken up to the need for design education and has

made great strides from what we hear now and I wonder if other countries too are changing their attitude

and their national investments and strategies in design and I would like to learn about such moves if they

are indeed afoot. So many interesting issues have been raised that it seems that we will need many

more discussions here in India as well as elsewhere to explore all these dimensions and the significance

of design in the world going forward. In all we have 24 comments to date in response that have been

recorded and can be seen here at this link below. <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2013/01/recognising-roots-nid-accorded-status.html> The India Design Council

that is charged with the implementation of the National Design Policy in India has announced a major

conference on design education that will take place in Pune in March 2013, rather hurriedly it seems.

You can see their website at this link here. <http://www.ddei.in/> I have tried to register at the

conference through the Pre-Registration format but that did not seem to work and then I tried the

Contact button which did elicit a response by email and I hope this will go forward to a very stimulating

discussion of what needs to be done in India on the design education front in the days ahead. Those

interested can email this link for immediate response. <[email protected]> Thank you also for the personal

comment of appreciation and it means a lot coming from you. My response to your post is here at this

link below. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2013/01/recognising-roots-nid-accorded-

status.html?showComment=1358142775724#c1121129491064156654> or at this one through

TinyURL that some may prefer to use <*http://tinyurl.com/a8qso4f*>

With warm regards


20 January 2013 at 11.05 pm IST


020901 2013-01-13 10:57 "Institute of National Importance" for the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad


Dear Friends.

The New Year has opened with the exhilarating news that the Indian Union Cabinet has finally approved

the status of "Institute of National Importance" for the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. I have

written a post on this event and what could be the actions going forward and you can see it at this link

below. http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/2013/01/recognising-roots-nid-accorded-

stat\us.html<http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/2013/01/recognising-roots-nid-accorded-

status.html>

I invite all of you to share and comment on this significant event on my blog as well as discuss the

impact and forward-looking strategies here on this list as well. Ranjit Menon, from the Aalto University in

Helsinki has already commented on this post and he calls our collective attention here in India to the

formation and role of SITRA in promoting the use of design across all sectors of the economy in Finland

and this could be a model that India too could follow in the days ahead., There is much hope. Take a

look at SITRA here http://www.sitra.fi/en> The Helsinki Design Lab that was set up through the SITRA

initiatives has case studies of design use across the world and it is not a surprise that they have

discovered the "Daily Dump" in Bangalore as an excellent case study of design use for solving the

wicked problems facing our cities today where design has made a difference already. Take a look at

their case study here. Poonam Bir Kasturi who has built the Design Dump is an NID graduate and we

are proud of her initiative and results. http://www.helsinkidesignlab.org/casestudies/daily-dump>

Perhaps there are other significant policy initiatives around the world that the Government of India and

the Indian design community needs to learn from in the days ahead. I would be happy to get your

suggestions on these as well here on this list.

M P Ranjan

Professor - Design Chair, CEPT University, Ahmedabad

13 January 2013 at 10.55 am IST

020734 2012-12-13 09:15 Re: Design Thinking Readings -- going deeper


Dear Kama Mustaqim

It seems that this discussion is in a thesis by Altino Joao Magalhaes Rocha in a M.Sc thesis titled

"Architecture Theory 1960 - 1980: Emergence of Computational Perspective." Download from here. <

http://dcg.mit.edu/wp-

content/uploads/2011/09/rocha_emergenceOfComputationalPerspective.pdf >


I have placed all the HfG Ulm Journals as digital scanned files as part of our conference DVD for the

events that we conducted in Bangalore and Kolkatta in 2010. The ful DVD can be downloaded from my

blog "Design for India" at this link here and the download is available from the left hand side column on

the blog. The DVD is titled "Look Back Look Forward: Hfg Ulm...." it is a large download of about 2GB

size. It includes 20 issues of HfG Ulm journals. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/> More info about

the conference as well as other downloads are here at this lonk below. <http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2010/08/hfg-ulm-and-basic-design-conference-at.html>

With warm regards


13 December 2012 at 9.20 am IST

-------------------------------------------------------------

*Prof M P Ranjan* *Design Thinker and author of blog

More info about the conference as well as other downloads are here at this link below. < http://design-

for-india.blogspot.in/2010/08/hfg-ulm-and-basic-design-conference-at.html >

With warm regards



020704 2012-12-12 00:38 Re: Design Thinking Readings -- going deeper


Dear Eric

Great list and blog. The suggestions from the PhD-Design listers are excellent additions too. There are

many more that we could add since design draws from so many disciplines and these authors have

contributed to our understanding of design. I have a long list of papers and book that I called my design

bookshelf. My list of 55 books and 27 papers are listed in my 2009 paper for Istanbul titled "Hand-Head-

Heart: Ethics in Design" which you can see on my blog and download if you wish to from this link here. <

http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/2009/10/ethics-in-design-istanbul-conference.html > To this list I

would add some others and more recent books that I list here for immediate reference as they come to

my mind.

All my books are packed in boxes and not at hand just now unfortunately. 1. Understanding Design by

Kees Dorst <http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Design-revised-Kees-Dorst/dp/9063691491 >

2. Design Expertise by Bryan Lawson and Kees Dorst <http://www.amazon.com/Design-Expertise-

Bryan-Lawson/dp/1856176703> 3. 101 Design Methods by Vijay Kumar <

http://www.amazon.com/101-Design-Methods-Structured-Organization/dp/1118083466 > 4. In the


Bubble: Designing in a Complex World, by John Thackara, MIT Press, 2005 and there are more from the

management literature on design thinking and here Roger Martin, Tim Brown and Tom Kelly come to

mind. I would add books by Don Norman and many more..... With warm regards

M P Ranjan Professor - Design Chair CEPT University, Ahmedabad

from my Mac at home on the NID campus


020215 2012-10-24 09:23 Re: Papers/Books on refexivity in Design in international development context


Dear Anne Schiffer

The following links are recent entries on the PhD-DEsign list that include reflexivity. 10th August 2012

<*http://tinyurl.com/8vhvzjp*> 15th August 2012 <*http://tinyurl.com/8us4d8q*> 15th August 2012

<*http://tinyurl.com/8k6x6dw*> These are my posts in response to Klaus Krippendorff and Ken

Friedman. There are many more (51) references in total on the list dating back to 2000 from Klaus

Krippendorff and Ken Friedman;s reference and shared note from Phil Agre.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan Professor : Design Chair at CEPT University, Ahmedabad

from my Mac at home on the NID campus

24 October 2012 at 9.20 am

020161 2012-10-17 10:01 Re: Design principles from design research findings?

MPR on PhD-Design_2012_10_17 Dear Terry

A lot of work that is handled by designers may at some time be done by machines and software. These

would be routine tasks as well as multiple iterative testing routines that should ideally be left to machine

mediated processes if we have developed software to handle this adequately. However there would still

be tasks that would need human intervention and creative interpretation that should be the subject of our

current schools of design thought and action. Gunnar suggests that some of the automated tasks may

not be called design and I too think we would need alternate terminology to explain those kinds of tasks.

Design is a process that uses multiple types of skills, knowledge and abilities all applied in a complex

array of stages and contexts. So it is not a single task nor is it limited to one iteration since many design

offering go through numerous stages and some in the real world as test beds for scaling up at a later

stage. Yes, we do need theory to explain many of these and I am sure new challanges will come up as

we go forward.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at CEPT University


17 October 2012 at 10.10 am IST

019791 2012-08-24 06:41 Re: Design Education - Rethinking the role of Design History


Chuck

I continue... Sorry, the reply was posted without the links that I mentioned in my post < http://design-

for-india.blogspot.in/2012/07/evolution-of-dcc-course-at-nid.html > < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2012/07/design-thinking-design-journey-revisited.html > Yes, we do need a

theory for design action and learning from reflection to be build on the ground offered by Donald Schon

and here my model of the "Mind Body Map" may help in understanding the deep seated biases that we

all carry from our own life experiences and culture and the manner in which it can and does effect

"Design Percention" leading to resource maps that we create as well as "Design Opportunities" that we

are able to imagine and create design opportunity maps. Our biases determine what we can see as

resources for design action and what we can possibly imagine as a way forward. This is work in

progress. take a look at the links above.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at Delhi University campus on tour

24 August 2012 at 6.45 am IST

019788 2012-08-24 06:30 Re: Design Education - Rethinking the role of Design History


Dear Chuck

Your post brings some important insights to this conversation about design history and its role inside

design education. I do believe that it has a role in the modes of reflection that it can support and we do

need a theory that can help teachers and academic planners to grasp this need and apply the principles

to curriculum planning and assignment design. I believe that assignment design is at the very heart of

design education since it can frame the way in which learning uy doing can be steered and insights from

this practice can be harvested by the student and the teacher alike and I further think that it is best done

as a collective activity in teams rather than as individual journeys within design education. This has been

on my mind for many years now and through the courses that I have developed during my teaching at

the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. We stated experimenting with "Learning by Doing"

as an institutional policy way back in the 60's when the institute was led by the sibling team of Gautam

and Gira Sarabhai who took the Eames India Report and converted it into a programme of action along

with a highly motivated and committed faculty and student team. For this Gautam Sarabhai drafted and

shared a seminal document titled "NID - Internal Organisation, Structure and Culture: September 1972"

and you can download this from my Dropbox link here. <


https://www.dropbox.com/s/vq1gdykpudt3rej/NID%20-

%20Int%20Org%20Str%20%26%20Culture.pdf > Seen along with the Eames India Report that was

the vision document one can feel the power of design through a culture of reflection and action. My own

work in design education has been documented on my blog "Design for India" and several papers that

are available for download from here and two recent posts try to reflect of our design education

experiments particularly in the area of design thinking that I developed in a course called "Design

Concepts and Concerns" see these posts at these two links below.

<> <>

019754 2012-08-20 10:07 Re: Looking for a good (short) good overview of the history of design


Dear Ethel Leon

You have made a very important post on the PhD-Design list and the issues that you raise are as true

for India as they would be for most "peripheral countries" to borrow and use Gui Bonsiepe's terminology.

There is much work to be done and many that are available but not known to a wider audience. For

instance when we were working on the Handmade in India book, my wife - Aditi Ranjan - and I as

editors, we met up with Ram Guha, an eminent Indian historian, in Bangalore and he gifted us a book by

K T Acharya on the evolution and technology of the Ghani – traditional oil expellers – used in our

villages in India. The book published in 1993 is a gem and covers all kinds of oil expellers and their

historic development across several regions of India. K T Acharya on Wiki

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._T._Achaya> Ghani (out of print) on Amazon <

http://www.amazon.com/Ghani-The-Traditional-Oilmill-India/dp/0917526058> Our own book

"Handmade in India" has been designed to be an access book for design and architicture students and

covers India's hand crafts sector across 600 clusters and on each page we provide lists in the margin of

keywords that could be used to garner live information from the web based search and this covers all

geographic and cultural regions to one who is not aware of the terminology to begin with. I mention this

here in the context of history of design since I believe that such a format could make history very

accessible in a contextual manner if we were to assemble such a resource and have it available online.

You can download the full book as a searchable pdf file from my blog at the links below and read more

about it if you wish from my posts listed here. However, the paper edition is available commercially in

bookstores across the world as well as on Amazon but students (and others) can have it free from my

blog. :) Handmade in India download 337 MB <

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j3lnkd6bp0rw95b/Handmade%20in%20India_Book.pdf> more about

the book < http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2008/11/art-book-centre-launches-handmade-

in.html > < http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2008/07/handmade-in-india-team-and-

mission.html > < http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2008/07/handmade-in-india-book-


launch-in-new.html > Another very useful history resource that we have made available online

happened when we conducted two conferences in India in collaboration with the HfG Ulm Archive. titled

"Look Back-Look Forward - Hfg Ulm and Basic Design for India" (Kolkatta September 2010) and first one

in Bangalore (March 2010) titled "Look Back-Look Foward - Hfg Ulm and Design Education in India".

Read about these here below. However, we also made available the complete set of HfG Ulm Journals

for all the participants, design teachers at these conferences, a digital copy of the Ulm Journals since

only one copy of these Journals was available in India at the NID library. These were shared with

endorsement from its editors/authors Gui Bonsiepe and Tomas Maldonado. This set can be downloaded

as a zip file from my blog here as a 968 MB zip file that reproduces the full interactive DVD. This also

has archival material and books on NID and my own papers on design thinking. Take a look and share

with your students as well. Download Look Back ... DVD <

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ihrxs0840n6u2m/Look_Back_Look_Forward_DVD.zip> Read about

Kolkatta event < http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2010/08/hfg-ulm-and-basic-design-conference-at.html > Read about Bangalore event < http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2010/04/look-back-look-forward-bengaluru-event.html > There are other

resources here in India that would be available in local languages, but alas these are not accessible

even for me since we have as many as 14 major languages and over 800 dialects that make up the

complex matrix of India and to study history it is a major venture that may take a very long time.

However, there are new papers and publications coming out of India and as Bonsiepe had predicted the

evolution of design competence is accompanied by a increase in published material and India is

approaching a more advanced stage in this structure that was proposed by Gui Bonsiepe. Indian school

are now offering the PhD degree in Design and Design Studies and this too will make a lot more new

material available from here I am sure. I visited Milan in 2010 to attend the D4SB conference at IED,

Milan and used this opportunity to continue m=y ongoing research on HfG Ulm and its impact particularly

in India. In 2005 and In 2008 I had visited the Ulm Archive to further my research. But the Milan visit was

special since I got to meet Tomas Maldonado and spend quality time discussing his views on the past

and future of design education and I am still to develop these discussions into a published form. He is

amazing and his book Design Nature Revolution (English 1972) clearly tells me that design is a political

activity and we discussed some of these dimensions which I will write about sometime, hopefully soon.

These are unknown thoughts even to design authors and scholars it seems since I find no mention of

Maldonado in the new book and very good book "Adversarial Design" by Carl Disalvo from the MIT

Press in a series on Design Thinking and Design Theory edited by Ken Friedman and Eric Stolterman.

There is so much that is not known and there is much work to be done here.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan Professor - Design Chair, CEPT University, Ahmedabad

from my iMac at home on the NID campus


20 August 2912 at 9.55 pm

019739 2012-08-17 22:56 Re: Looking for a good (short) good overview of the history of design


Dear Eric

I use a one page model of "History of Design" that starts with the use of Fire about 2 million years ago

and through each major break through that humans designed as they journeyed through time and place

to arrive at today. This will continue into the future as well. We will design our future, however clumsily,

we will move forward through time. I also use a three legged stool that shows the three legs of human

knowledge generated through Design, Art and Science, in that order. You can download it from my

dropbox link here below as a 450 kb pdf file . <

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27333579/Stool%20%26%20History%20of%20Design%20Model_Comp.pd

f >

With warm regards


17 August 2012 at 10.50 pm IST

019730 2012-08-16 23:46 Re: Design education (was Activity Theory and ANT and computers are capable of

design?)

MPR on PhD-Design_2012_08_16 Dear Terry

There may be many ways to move forward to achieve our goals. First, we may need to see if the goals

that we set are valid in the first place. This will need debate, discourse and cooperation. I am not sure if

accreditation and regulation with norms and processes in place are a way forward. Here in India much of

higher education is accredited and regulated through Government and Public Statutory institutions but

the desired quality is not necessarily assured by these systems. It only leads to high levels of corruption

and we can easily see that this is not the only way forward. Ethical values and sensitivity in individuals

and in groups that can act in concert may be a way forward and design needs this just as much many

other professions would. There will be huge variety and not standardised outputs, but I believe that this

would also help in addressing the huge variety of tasks and areas that would need to be addressed here

in India. We will need culture to drive these changes rather than rules and regulation in my view. The

challenges are huge and we will need to deal with our proverbial elephant in the room as best we can.

Each in our own way, but with feeling and deep empathy for the context and situation.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my iMac at home on the NID campus

16 August 2012 at 11/40 pm IST


019721 2012-08-15 23:04 Re: Activity Theory and ANT and computers are capable of design?


Dear Ken

Your arguments are sound and well grounded in reason and scholarship. Designer, Design and the

Designed objects or offerings as in services and rules etc and the concept of "Agency" will all need to be

seen in the context of another concept that has been proposed by George Soros and that is "Reflexivity"

(as applied to financial and economic areas) and I tend to think that this is perhaps what makes design

such a powerful "political" force after all. Here "Agency" would be from sociology, philosophy and ethics

– as we can see from the wiki definitions below Sociology

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(sociology)> Philosophy

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)> Moral

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency> and Reflexivity a la Soros - from financial and economic

fields <

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Reflexivity.2C_financial_markets.2C_and_economic_t

heory > It is other humans in the prevailing context who act on the design and the designed thing and

make it valuable or a disaster – beyond the imagination and the intention of the designer – value bumps

far beyond the intrinsic value of the material and its various configurations – unpredictable but real.

Suddenly, there is a huge value bump that could soar far above expectations as in a fashion movement

or trend or in the runaway success of a bestseller product, at least for the time being. Design is a human

activity that begins with intentions and the results of design are shaped and acted upon by the prevailing

context and new and unintended but perhaps hoped for results may or may not ensue. Scarcity,

inflation, and value all follow from these relations. Now, what about computers? What about automated

trading algorithms that can make or break a market without any reference to the fundamentals of the

underlying asset? It is all getting very complicated at a very high speed and we will need to look closely

at some of these designed situations and services to fathom the consequences of our designed

offerings. Can we make the mission of creating responsible designer in education something that would

include the processing and anticipation of these outcomes as part of the design process? Perhaps this is

why I called my course at NID "Design Concepts and Concerns" - It is not just about design thinking –

but also about being sensitive to all forms of outcomes including climate change and human conflicts

that could ensue as a consequence of our expert actions. I called it the Avalanche Effect, but not may

takers for this concept it seems. see this post on my blog Design for India for more about this. <

http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2012/07/evolution-of-dcc-course-at-nid.html >

With warm regards




019715 2012-08-15 15:37 Re: Activity Theory and ANT and computers are capable of design?


Dear Susan

You have brought an important aspect for discussion on the list and I agree with you that the work of

Latour and that of Fry are deeply interesting if we are to understand the various dimensions of design.

Latour in my view exhibits a profound understanding of design and I was hugely impressed by his paper

"A Cautius Prometheus?" to the Design History congress in 2008 and I have since been following his

writings and I discover more insights of great value as it draws me deeper.. <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.in/search/label/Bruno%20Latour>

Design is complex and we need to look at it from many angles and perspectives as I have mentioned

earlier and there can be many positions, all of which could be true and valuable. There is not one correct

answer. Wicked indeed.

With warm regards



019695 2012-08-13 23:01 Re: Defining Design


Dear Ken and Gunnar

This is getting interesting. IMHO, Design is neither a "science" nor is it "art". It stands apart as a third leg

in my metaphorical stool of human knowledge and skill sets - both tacit as well as explicit ones. Design

Research is trying to make it a science and Design Practise is trying to perfect it as an Art, or so it

seems to me from all these arguments and ongoing discussion about the definitions of design both here

on this list as well as elsewhere. My first design teacher at NID, Prof Kumar Vyas, told us in the sixties

and seventies that design is easier explained than defined and the situation I believe has not changed

since then, although we have hundreds of new books on the subject and many of them in the design

theory and design research space. Ken, your horse will have to wait for several rounds of reincarnation

that the Hindu faith provides for if it is to have a chance to breast the tape, if at all. I tell my students the

parable of the blind men and the elephant when it comes to defining design. This old Buddhist and Jain

parable has many interpretations and there are several interesting versions of this online including one

on YouTube that is listed below. Wiki has this

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant> Jain world site has this <

http://www.jainworld.com/education/juniors/junles19.htm> and You Tube has this

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JseHDbrm6Lc> I must distinguish the term designer from the

term design. Terry is right. The tasks that (traditional) or (new-fangled) designers did or will do in the


future could be replaced by new processes (and teams) or automated by new tools including computer

based tools besides others including ideas, innovations and methods. However, wicked problems are

wicked just because they cannot be defined and these will need design and strategy to address them

adequately. However, "the designer" is an evolving form of human response and we will need to accept

that reality in both education and in practise. I do not see how science centric explanations and

definitions can or will resolve this dilemma. This is why Jonas's swamp appeals to me. Yes, we need to

explain the value of design to business and government decision makers as well as to the academic

world. Design has always had this problem in all periods of human evolution since it always leads from

the front and helps form culture in its wake. Design will perhaps live outside the frame of acceptable and

defined (peer reviewed) science since having solved one set of real world opportunities we will move on

to the next set of challenges that will raise a whole lot of new issues and questions. What do you think?

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at home on the nID campus


019688 2012-08-13 10:25 Re: Defining Design


Dear Gunnar.

Well said. There are so many definitions of design around that in my view we will need to look at a

matrix of levels from the Tactical to Strategic and on the other hand we have Three Orders of Design

from the Material to the Spiritual and in the third dimension we have 230 sectors of Need and

Application. These three have been described in some detail in my papers that can be downloaded or

reviewed from the links below Brazil (1998) <

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z6cr30k5zo3i3ia/Strategic_Design_Brazil.pdf<gunnar@gunnarswanson

.com> > Istanbul (2009) <

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0an2c5ovrrt8720/Ethics_in_Design_Paper.pdf> and my blog post 2007

– Design Policy India < http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2007/06/wish-list-for-indias-

national-design.html > and 230 Sectors of our Economy < http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2007/07/230-sectors-of-economy-for-design.html > Yesterday I spent much of the

day reviewing Bruno Latour and his take on Design, very insightful. <http://bruno-latour.fr/> Download

Spinoza lecture < http://bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/97-SPINOZA-GB.pdf> His Five Advantages

of Design are indeed insightful and I have a brief post on this as well with a model of a hand and five

fingers, each stands of one of these, the thumb for me is Ethics. Take a look if you wish. <

http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.in/2008/11/footprints-in-time-crafts-ecology-for.html > It is

not modern at all as Wolfgang Jonas tells us in his swampy tale. (A Scenario for Design - Design Issues,

Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. 64-80) and now in his lead paper "Exploring the Swampy Ground"


from his book in a seminal collection of papers titled "Mapping Design Research" Birkhauser 2012

<http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Design-Research-Simon-Grand/dp/3034607164> And finally,

my recent blog post on the DCC Course that I used to teach at NID, now unfortunately discontinued by

the school as too advanced for Foundation students. < http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2012/07/evolution-of-dcc-course-at-nid.html > Design is indeed not understood in

one single way, but in many many ways and there are conflicts galore in academia and in business and

we will need to learn to navigate all of this with our research and insights from practice or miss the point

altogether.

With warm regards



019654 2012-08-09 10:40 Re: Design and Politics


Dear Friends

The book by Tomas Maldonado is an example that comes to mid as one of the finest insights into

politics and design dating back to the 70's. Design, Nature, and Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology by

Tomás Maldonado (1972)

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at IICD Jaipur


019620 2012-07-23 09:38 Re: Design Thinking resources post


Dear Marcio Dupont Caballero de Carranza

Thank you for your posts on PhD-Design and these listings and links are indeed useful. I have six posts

on Design Thinking on my blog titled "Design for India" which are listed below here. < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2012/07/design-thinking-design-journey-revisited.html > < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2011/08/design-for-good-governance-call-for.html > < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2009/11/design-thinking-flavor-of-month.html > <http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/2008/01/systems-design-nid-way.html> < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2007/12/design-as-research-path-to-knowledge.html > < http://design-for-

india.blogspot.in/2007/10/design-thinking-what-is-it-and-how-do.html > Further this blog has many

of my papers on Design Thinking as well as interactive media as full DVD's and books that can be

downloaded directly from the left hand column. Take a look. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.in/>


Besides this I have a blog titled "Design Concepts and Concerns" where I have posts relating to my

teaching of design thinking at the National Institute of Design over the past 20 years or so. This blog

documents assignments done in my classes at the school over several years. <http://www.design-

concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.in/> There is a new book from Austin Texas that may be an

interesting addition to your list. It is Wicked Problems by Jon Kolko and I like the business model since it

provides access to pdf file at a discounted price that is affordable for students.

<https://www.wickedproblems.com/>

With warm regards

M P Ranjan

from my iMac at home on the NID campus

23 July 2012 at 9.30 am IST

019211 2012-03-29 08:57 New post on Lessons from NID History - Ranjan


Dear Friends

I have made a new post on my blog Design for India that is titled "Lessons from NID History" that

includes download link for the visual presentation. This was created for a lecture for senior corporate

managers of the Torrent Group from Ahmedabad and delivered at their executive conclave at Ranikhet,

Uttarakhand located in the cool and invigorating foothills of the Himalayas, earlier this week. Take a look

at the blog post and the visual presentation at the link below. The National Institute of Design was set up

in Ahmedabad based on The India Report by Charles and Ray Eames in 1961 and it is celebrating its

Golden Jubilee year and it is a time for reflection here in India.

<http://tinyurl.com/cx4ufqj>

I have chosen to divide the presentation into the following parts

1.1955- 1961 Inception & Early Years 2. 1961 - 1970 The Formative Years 3. 1970 - 1980 The Crisis

Years 4. 1980 - 1989 The Culture Building Years 5. 1989 - 2000 The Consolidation Years 6. 2000 - 2008

The Rapid Expansion Years 7. 2008 -2012 The Golden Jubilee Years 8. Lessons & Insights from NID

History

<http://tinyurl.com/cx4ufqj>

Take a look. This is not a full text paper as yet but it could be some time soon. It is work in progress.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac on tour at Flame campus in Pune

29 March 2012 at 9.00 pm IST


018651 2012-01-21 11:27 Innovation Clusters for India: Brainstorming in India


Dear Friends

India has proposed the setting up of innovation clusters to bring design thinking and design education to

many sectors of critical need which are not being addressed by our established education and research

infrastructures today. This is a crowd-sourcing request. There are groups of designers meeting across

many cities in India to brainstorm and try and articulate how and in what form these new clusters would

be developed. The Planning Commission team of the Government of India is led by Sam Pitroda has

initiated efforts to take these dialogues to Government and the designer groups are hopeful that India

would adopt design and innovation in a systematic manner in the days ahead. We would be happy to

hear your views on possible approaches and policies, infrastructure and resources that need to be

envisaged to make these clusters vibrant and sustainable. Activities and frameworks wil all need to be

placed before Government and Indian business to find political and administrative support as well as

much needed funding. Your thoughts and pointers are welcome. If there are models overseas that we

can look at do share these links as well. The designgroup is active under the banner of VisionFirst which

has set up a website to sensitise a wider audience here in India as well as to draw partners from

elsewhere. <http://www.visionfirst.in>

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at Korjan's meeting in Ahmedabad


018350 2011-11-25 22:55 Re: Philosophy and Design Thinking


Dear Chuck

It was a pleasure meeting you in Barcelona last week and it was indeed a very stimulating meeting

there. I would encourage you to continue to pursue your research and writings which stem from the

revisiting of "First Principles" and I am sure that this will give design and the design research a solid

ground on which the theory of the discipline could be built. The established methods of science enquiry

may not be the only way forward and design is indeed another way and it must discover its foundations

through reflections on practice as well as such search for "first principles" that you propose here. When I

joined NID as a young student in 1969 we had several meetings with the Institutes founders, Gautam

Sarabhai and his sister Gira Sarabhai. In these meetings they repeatedly asked us to return to first

principles when investigating a design need in our country and this kind of research enquiry has been

part of our working tradition at the NID over the years. In the early 90's I had started work on writing a

paper based on my experiences at NID and I had a working title for this in mind "Ideological


Perspectives in Design" and I did work on it for some time but I gave this up since I did not feel

adequately prepared to tackle all the complex dimensions of this enquiry at that time although I had

several insights on this matter. Much later in 2009 I prepared a lecture for the Istanbul Design

Conference titled "Ethics in Design" where I was able for the first time to crystalise and develop my

model of the "Three Orders of Design" and this is still work in progress as far as I am concerned. You

can see more about this paper and presentation from my blog at this link below and also download the

show and other related papers from here. < http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/10/ethics-in-

design-istanbul-conference.html > Good luck with your enquiry and we do look forward to some new

insights on this very complex area called design and design thinking.

With warm regards


24 November 2011 at 10.55 pm IST

018176 2011-11-03 08:22 Re: The History of 'Modern Flat'


Dear Esra and friends

What a wonderful thread which shows the power of cooperation over the web and what it can bring to

research efforts in a very short time. Reading the various contributions till date I was drawn into the

question myself since having "retired" from teaching at NID after about 40 years of living near or on the

campus the campus at Paldi in Ahmedabad my wife, Aditi Ranjan and I had never bought a car in our

life since we always walked to work while the city of Ahmedabad grew in size around us by magnitudes

that are unimaginable a few years ago. Now we have had to look for a new home and we could choose

any city in India and our criteria had many specific demands that were difficult to meet, particularly since

the price of flats has sky rocketed here in India that is growing while the West seems to be in recession.

So the last two years we spent looking around and exploring possibilities we selected a place in

Ahmedabad which has promise of good public transportation unlike any other city in India and we have

settled down for a flat in the North of Ahmedabad that is well connected to the Airport as well as the rest

of the city and with promise of marked development since the location lies on the axis between

Ahmedabad and the Capital city of Gujarat State, Gandhinagar. We now have a four bedroom flat for the

two of us and my mother and for all our books and few other possessions while my daughter, Aparna

Ranjan has moved to Bangalore to live and work as a Graphic designer, but she has a room too for her

use when she would be with us. Sitting in Jaipur this morning I was enthused to look up the question of

"Evolution of Housing in History" on Google and the following link came up that as always on the button

when you ask pointed questions to Google!! <http://www.moyak.com/papers/history-housing.html>

The second link was more interesting since it looks at evolution of life itself.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_life>


The "Evolution of Housing and Floor Plans Since the 1600s" by Moya K. Mason (link above) gives a

further link titled "Housing: Then, Now, and Future" by Moya K. Mason which too may be a useful one

for the questions posed by you at the beginning of this thread and it provides a reading list as well. Take

a look <http://www.moyak.com/papers/house-sizes.html> I must now get back to my preparation for

my lecture at the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design this morning and through the day with the Faculty

of the school where we are looking back at the core of design education and how it can be improved

through our efforts today and tomorrow at the conclave to discuss the design curriculum for the school

going forward. Here again the PhD -Design list would be a great place for collecting conversations and

with all its contradictions and misunderstandings about what design could be and what should and could

go into design education which keeps reminding me of the torrential river that divides us on the two

banks, art and design and the other the science of design banks, the reflections go on and the river

remains turbulent as ever. I did not want to get drawn into the conversations with Don Norman, always

provocative nor with Ken Friedman and Rosan, or with Terry or Gunnar and so many other regular and

interesting contributors on this list since although I am "retired" I am working and travelling perhaps more

than when I was "working" at NID.... and my blog too suffers since the frequency of my posts have

tapered down with each month since I "retired" last year in November, however I have posted my

keynote lectures at numerous conferences there at a special download section on the first page, which

reminds me that Esra should look at the work done at HfG Ulm on housing and you can find the material

in the HfG Ulm journals which can be downloaded from my blog under the conference resources for

"Look Back Look Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India" as an interactive DVD that contains

the digital versions of the journals. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>

The last time I visited Ulm for my research on the contributions by the great German school on Indian

design education I visited Stuttgart and had an occasion to see the work of Mies at the Weissenhof and

it was an education for me after visiting Frei Ottos lab that showed shapes of things still to come... Thank

you guys for all the stimulating conversations and do keep going and some of us will continue to lurk and

enjoy the exchanges in a very "retired" mode.. I will be in Lucerne (13 to 16th November) and Barcelona

(17th to 20th November) this month and hope to see some of you there.... On 5th and 6th I am on the

Jury of Design for Change at the Riverside School although I was also required to be at the convocation

of the IICD jaipur on the same day. However I have to be with Kiran Bir Sethi, my former student who

won this years INDEX Award for her work on Design for Change and this does show us that design is

indeed different in many parts fo the world and we are still discovering what it really is and whet it can

indeed do for all of us if we care to understand it deeply. <http://dfcworld.com/>

With warm wishes

M P Ranjan from my hotel at jaipur on tour to the IICD


3 November 2011 at 8.25 am IST

017806 2011-09-23 14:15 Re: Design in Education and the Idea of a University


Dear Jude Chua Soo Meng

Last year we conducted two workshops on design education in conjunction with a traveling exhibition on

the HfG Ulm at Bangalore and Kolkatta. These were titled Look Back Look Forward where we used the

design pedagogy that was developed at the HfG Ulm as a backdrop for discussing the state of design

education in India and to look forward to new and emerging concerns and strategies. For this conference

we had prepared an Interactive DVD that included the HfG Ulm journals as well as papers from The

National Institute of Design which may be of interest to you in your current effort. My colleagues and I

are working on a more detailed documentation of the proceedings which we will present in a published

as soon as these are completed, hopefully soon. These papers and presentations can be downloaded

from this link below as a 968MB interactive DVD that contains interlinked pdf fiiles through a common

interface. <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/1grn1o> The description of the events can be seen on my

blog Design for India at these links below: < http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2010/08/hfg-ulm-

and-basic-design-conference-at.html > < http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2010/04/look-back-

look-forward-bengaluru-event.html >

With warm regards


23 September 2011 at 2.20 pm

017804 2011-09-23 09:02 Re: Material Studies


Dear Ken and Michael Yap

To this very exciting list of high quality to which I would add one by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, better

known for his book Flow and Good Business etc. The particular book that I recommend is Mihaly

Csikszentmihalyi, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the

Self,<http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Things-Domestic-Symbols-

Self/dp/052128774X/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316747899&sr=1-14> Cambridge

University Press (October 30, 1981) This is great advise, I quote from Ken Quote ...One technique that I

suggest to research students is the value of spending an hour or two with a book that sheds light on the

topic even when they don't have time to read it completely. Careful work with the introduction, table of

contents, first chapter, bibliography, and index open the book to inquiry -- and lets you know whether

you ought to go further. This also gives you something to come back to when you find a later gap that

the author fills. UnQuote John Chris Jones in his book The Internet for


Everyone<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Internet-Everyone-Cyber-editions/dp/1899858202>talks about

different styles of reading to access his book such as the rabbit, goat and sheep..., yes knowing where

to find an insight is an important aspect of research strategy.

With warm regards


23 September 2011 at 9.00 pm

017399 2011-07-13 22:44 Re: projection before analysis


Dear Ken

Thanks. I am sure that you will be thorough in your response. Just one additional fact for your

consideration is that at NID we have had a policy of engaging students with real world situations from

way back in the late 80s. Over the years there is a huge body of student work that has reached market

but not all of them are on the policy level however this is different from most other schools that I know of.

Very little of this is unfortunately published and there is much history work that is pending on this front.

NID undergraduates have gone on to establish the design profession here in India and they have a

critical presence across many design sectors, some of which they have pioneered and they have worked

their way up the order to be at leadership levels in many verticals and i have been trying to capture

these contributions on my blog but much work remains to be done. More recently many students have

incubated their own companies and we have a design business incubator that has incubated thirty start

ups in the past four years. Many of these experiences inform design thought and action on campus and

the past forty years has been a period of much experience but little documentation unfortunately.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my imac at home on the NID campus

13 July 2011 at 10.45 pm IST 017391 2011-07-13 11:50 Re: projection before analysis


Dear Ken

I think that you misunderstand the statement "Action" before "Analysis". This represents a mindset

problem in my view of the present scientific management community that runs most of our governments

and our industrial and economic activities. This mindset comes from the other side of the "River". There

is a deep held belief that for any serious "policy" issue the immediate response must be to invest in more

research of the analysis kind and that happens all the time here in india and I am sure this is the case in

many parts of the world since the analytical science community draws out much of the available

resources towards such research that is grounded in a deep belief in analysis as a way out of the difficult


and complex problems that we face today, and here we do need more investment in design research

that is not of the analysis kind but that is projective and one that looks for and seeks out new and

imaginative scenarios that the managers can seriously look at as possible policy shifts. Design operates

at many levels and in my classification of these levels, the three orders of design apply to all design

problems and opportunities but the focus could shift from one level to the next depending on what the

designer or the design student is addressing at the time. We have been training our students to be

sensitive to all three levels even at the undergraduate level and in my course that I created for the NID's

Fundation programme this has been the fundaments assumption that informed the content and

treatment for the course. I started teaching this course as a traditional introduction to design methods in

1988, what you would call a typical course in an Art and Design school curriculum but ten year down the

line with many iterations and insights from our engagement with students as well as our professional

contacts in the complex issues from the field in India we had modified and changed the course from

being focused on individual brilliance to that of team work and visualisation of complex issues faced by

our society in India and these included poverty, malnutrition, hunger, water, education, health,

employment and many many other pressing issues where our policy makers have failed miserably to

address and we did believe (and still do) that the use of design could bring significant break through in

the quality and content of the policy offerings that could be made. The course is now called Design

Concepts and Concerns and deals with Design Thinking and Action that is laced with feeling and deep

empathy with the reality on the ground. The action that is proposed could start with projected concepts

as well as mapping of the context, however imperfect, since we act on the basis of our current

understanding and belief. However projected actions in the form of scenarios and models of the situation

as understood by the team gives them a visualisation and an external model from which they can bring

in additional stakeholders who may be able to add value to the understanding of that situation. Having

done this we also find that there is a need to bring a sense of openness and suspension of ego as the

team moves towards shared perspectives that becomes the foundation for the next round of scenario

visualisations that would follow. These are iterative and synthesis is followed by periods of analysis and

these processes are what I think are at the heart of design thought and action. In 2001-2002 I was

invited by a visiting scholar to write a paper on my course to be published as one of the contributions

from a collection from India on a special issue on India of Design Issues that was then proposed. I did

write and submit that paper and I titled it "The Avalanche Effect: Institutional frameworks and Design as

a development resource in India". I think that the claims that I made in that paper was unacceptable for

the peer group at the Design Issues editorial team and it was rejected and there fore not included in the

published version of the India focussed issue. I got the message about its rejection when I was working

in the field at Agartala at the new design school that we had set up to help bring design focus to the

bamboo sector in India. Since I was a member on the PhD-Design list at that time I posted the full paper

immediately on that day in 2003 on to the list and many interesting discussions followed from this list. It


is obvious to me that the claims that I was making on behalf of design action first was found lacking in

credibility in the peer review space of the esteemed Design Issues journal. Download paper here in pdf

55kb <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/00lybg> Link to the PhD-Design post on 1 December 2003 is

here below < https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind03&L=PHD-

DESIGN&P=R180559&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4 > I

quote from my post on PhD-Design from December 2003 "I am sharing a recent (unpublished) paper

that I have prepared for a design journal which may give the list an insight into the perspectives for

design in India (not generally available) and some of the processes that we have followed in our own

education programmes at NID as well as my own interpretation of systems thinking as it could be

applied to complex and non-traditional design tasks, that is other than the design of artefacts,

communications, software and spaces. In this case study reproduced below, the design tasks that were

assigned to Foundation students at NID dealt with the conception and articulation of new institutional

frameworks for design, each focussed on one selected sector of the Indian economy in critical need of

design action (in our opinion – there was no client). The intention is to show that application of design at

the strategic level can be a very powerful tool for the solving of very complex problems, involving many

disciplines and spheres of knowledge, that goes well beyond the usual scope of design tasks as

traditionally defined and taught in design curricula. Perhaps, speculatively attempting to articulate a kind

of design for future generations of designers in India." UnQuote

Three years later I wrote up another paper titled " Creating the Unknowable: Designing the Future in

Education" which was submitted for peer review to the EAD 06 conference at Bremen, Germany where it

was accepted and presented in March 2005. Here too the claims were the same and the design world

was willing to look at these new claims in a more acceptable light. I have since then started my blog

called "Design for India" and another blog that dealt with my course at the National Institute of Design

called "Design Concepts and Concerns. (DCC) Download the EAD 06 paper as a pdf file here <

https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/s9mr9c> Links to Design for India <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.com/> Link for DCC blog <http://www.design-concepts-and-

concerns.blogspot.com/> I offer these blog posts as my argument to support the claim that design can

address complex policy issue and that it can be taught in design schools with great effect. I have found

that the science and technology establishment in India is interested in specifications that can be used to

inform policy that can address the critical problems that are faced here in Indian. Many projects are

funded to support the creation of these specification and huge funds are expended to support the

analytical activities that lead to the drafting of these specifications. However very little is done on the

other hand to invest in design exploration to discover new and innovative directions even in the form of

visualisations that can help policy makers to take forward looking decisions and not looking at past

successes as the only way forward. Ken, I do agree with you that the traditional art and design school


curriculum cannot address the kind of policy issues that you are referring to. This is why a group of

designers from India made a concerted effort to influence national design education policy earlier this

year when the Government of India announced a scheme to bring in public private partnership to the

setting up of the four new NID's that were proposed as part of the design policy here in India. We set up

a social network and a group called "Vision First" and took our call to the Government and I must report

that we have had success in this initiative since the Governments hasty actions have been stayed and

we have been invited to the policy table and the proposal is to have a series of round table discussions

and visuialiastion sessions that could map out the outlines of a new drive forward which could be shown

to the policy makers just as out classroom assignments in visualising complex Indian design

opportunities showed us many insights for real action on the ground that was possible. We had meetings

with the Department of Industrial Policy and Projects (DIPP) which is in charge of the new design

schools and of design policy here in India as well as meetings with the National Planning Commission to

take our views into account in a democratic manner. Our statement was that the design community in

India must have a say in the matter of the future of Indian design schools that would be set up by the

use of public funds and we have been successful in getting the Government to listen to us. You can see

the developments of this initiative on our website here at this link: <http://visionfirst.in/> Coming back

to action vs analysis first, all I have to say is that the "River" does exist and we sit on opposite banks

with vastly different beliefs in the theory of design and in the traditions that we have been grounded in

over years of experience. However, both sides have much to offer and we will need to work together to

bridge the gap in the years ahead. We do believe in Vision First and action on the basis of convictions

based on these visions that are tested through the design processes of visualisation, modeling and test

prototyping etc. In May 2011 I delivered the opening keynote lecture at the conference in Amsterdam

titled "What Design Can Do." you can download my lecture and slide show from the link provide below.

In this lecture I had called for a major change in Government policy as well as the location of design

within the structure of government here in India which I believe must happen if design is to be used as a

effective tool for good governance here in India. Take a look at the models that I propose. Amsterdam

lecture (Zip pdf 2.3 MB) <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/rlmjp1>

With warm regards


13 July 2011 at 11.50 am IST

017371 2011-07-09 01:52 Re: projection before analysis


Dear friends

Long post: with many diversions and quotes: This thread intrigues me and it is quite clear that the

participants come to the field of design and design research from very different perspectives and in this I


include the irreverent manner in which design practitioners treat research methods and traditions that

have been established in the sciences. This also reminds me of a thread here on this list from way back

on 2nd October 2009 when I had made a post to the list in response to posts by Klaus Krippendorff and

Ben Jonson (see links and summary below)

< https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0910&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R1457&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&I=-3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4 >

I did a search for "River and Banks" on the PhD-Design archive and these three posts came up and I

quote the summaries below: Item #14234 (2 Oct 2009 21:35) - Re: On design - again?

<https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0910&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R1457&1=PHD-

DESIGN&9=A&I=-3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4>

PhD-Design and it has been most educative and stimulating. I must thank all the other contributors as

well and the "treacherous *river* full of currents" that Ben Johnson refers to is indeed such a place when

we try to navigate As a designer and a design teacher I have always kept my life jacket handy whenever

I have tried to cross this *river* and in many occasions I have had to look for access books that could

become my life inflatable dingy to carry those stakeholders who need to use it. Difficult, but we must

continue to try. The *river* must not run dry! With warm regards > theory and practice, as witnessed in re

debate, suggests to me solid > foundations on both *riverbanks*, so to speak. > ------------------------------

Item #14232 (2 Oct 2009 09:56) - Re: On design - again? <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-

bin/webadmin?A2=ind0910&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R1316&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&I=-

3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4>theory and practice, as witnessed in re debate,

suggests to me solid foundations on both *riverbanks*, so to speak. ------------------------------ Item #14229

(2 Oct 2009 09:19) - Re: On design - again? <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-

bin/webadmin?A2=ind0910&L=PHD-DESIGN&P=R1172&1=PHD-DESIGN&9=A&I=-

3&J=on&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4> In attempting to bridge the troubled waters of

design research, spanning theory and practice, as witnessed in re debate, suggests to me solid

foundations on both *riverbanks*, so to speak. UnQuote

The metaphor of the fast and treacherous river with two distinct banks, one populated by the scientific

researchers and the other one populated by the design practitioners and both are trying to cross over to

meet common ground to make design more understandable and more effective, if at all. For me,

Rosans' call for "Projection before Analysis" somehow rings true since it corresponds with much of my

experiences as a practicing designer and as a design teacher who has watched his students grapple

with extremely difficult and complex design challenges here in India over the past 40 years of my

experience. Dreams and impractical visions dealing with possible solutions for seemingly intractable

problems in India provide the initial motivations for them and their teacher to engage with a difficult

subject but as time progressed and after much effort new insights emerge and there is deeper conviction

in the direction but no proof. Further involvement results in a range of concepts and options that emerge


which can be subjected to testing and these are offered for deeper analysis through the process of

shared visualisation and serial prototyping that would never have begun in the first place if the cussed

designer (teacher or student) had not persisted with the most imponderable concept in the first place.

This is akin to design led entrepreneurship since the only persons to believe deeply, sometimes

foolishly, in the particular design possibility that is in their dream and then take the practical plunge to

make investments of time effort and then money and knowledge of others and to bring in partners to

make it work out right, a long and frustrating process indeed. The second aspect that I sympathise with

is Rosan's act of summarising her readings from the seminal texts of Rittel and Nelson and attributing

this to the spirit of the author and not the specific quotes by the author as an argument for or against an

idea as if it has been proposed by that author. Let me explain. I have read and re-read many texts from

Bucky Fuller in my student days and then again and again over the years and it will be difficult for me to

quote verbatim from any one of these since I do not know when and where I had read these particular

texts, since I came from that side of the river, that of design practice and not from scientific research.

However my reading of Bucky Fuller is deep and my take on the spirit of Fuller is also quite firm in my

mind and having met him personally twice in my career at NID, the spirit rings true and although his long

winding texts do not make sense for most people if these were quoted and used as a source of

argument to establish some facts. I have a kernel of an idea of what Bucky was telling us and this kernel

of insight and not fact is what informs me as I take his ideas forward even if he never said it in quite the

same way ever in any of his texts or speeches that I have witnessed. So, is this poor research? So be it,

but this is the way design has been as far as I know it, by using facts and knowledge and insights which

will perhaps continue to do so in the years ahead. Tell me If I am completely off base here and the river

is indeed wide and treacherous we do need to get across but not loose sight of the value of each bank,

one from the design tradition of practice first and theory later and the other from the scientific bank of

deep analysis and hard evidence before action. Looking back on the fifth anniversary of my starting to

monitor my blog "Design for India" and to see the blogs traffic using Google Analytics which started on a

long journey on 9th July 2007. The first blog post was in June 2007 but the record of traffic starts on 9

July 2007, five years ago today. Have we come far, yes and there is a long way to go before we

understand What Design Is, What Design Could Be and more importantly What Design Can Do. Links to

my first five posts in June 2007.... the search goes on and the river is wide, and pretty treacherous

indeed

< http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/06/science-and-design-reality-check-for.html >

< http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/06/wish-list-for-indias-national-design.html >

< http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/06/theme-lecture-at-usid2007-hyderabad.html >

< http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/06/reflections-on-indian-design-policy.html >

<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/06/mission-statement.html>

With warm regards




017358 2011-07-06 15:04 Re: chaos and design


Dear Uluufuk Ulusan

The person that you can talk to would be Prof Kirti Trivedi from the Industrial Design Centre in IIT

Bombay (now Mumbai) He has written several articles on fractal qualities of the design of Indian temple

architecture in numerous journals. One such link can be seen at this Springer link to the Visual

Computing Journal article < http://www.springerlink.com/content/j5k40p11577t8620/> Unfortunately

the full text is available only for subscribers. The other person that I can think of is Prof Haresh Lalvani of

Pratt, New York. He is an expert on morphology and design and he is in the Architecture department at

Pratt Institute. You can see his recent work at this link below and then chase up his publications and

references on the web if you wish. <http://www.core.form-ula.com/2009/09/29/coreprofile-haresh-

lalvani/>

With warm regards


6 July 2011 at 3.10 pm IST

017161 2011-06-18 18:49 Re: Research, writing and thinking


Dear Prof Kari Kutti

Wonderful, thank you for your stimulating input on thinking types and styles. I would like to add one

category that I do not see here which I seem to use all the time while in the midst of design and strategy

building actions which is (perhaps No. 7.) "Thinking with Visual Scenarios". A dream like state of still and

moving images floating through an imagined & animated series of possibiities without drawing or

articulation but that can be recalled as memory after an intense period of thought that would be

equivalent to seeing a motion picture inside the head of imagined settings, players and actions and

examining consequences all at the same time. This is used for constructions, process design as well as

scenario mapping for strategy check about the possible consequences of a statement at a meeting etc. I

seem to use these kinds of imagination to select and identify images for my lectures on design and

design thinking. I do use sketching to supplenemnt this free imagination kind of thought as well. My two

recent keynote lectures at Amsterdam and Bangkok can be downloaded from these links here below.

Amsterdam <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/rlmjp1> Bangkok

<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/v2tgxk> I am off on travel again to the USA in a couple of days to

Atlanta (22 to 24 June at UPA Congress - Designing for Social


Change<http://www.upassoc.org/conference/2011/index_alt.html>) and then Chicago (25 to 27

June) visiting ID IIT and the Millennium Park. I would love to catch up with list members (if possible)

while I am there.

With warm regards


18 June 2011 at 6.50 pm IST

016998 2011-06-06 11:06 Re: lego limits and freedoms


Dear Keith

Wonderful observations. I have always been fascinated while watching children play and Lego has been

an all time favorite for me. I did set an assignment for my class in furniture design many years ago

where the students analysed Lego from the systems prespective to appreciate the many levels at which

they work. I am sorry to see that Lego is loosing market share and have had to discontinue the large

quatro blocks. When Lego crossed their 50th year in January 2008 I had posted on my blog "Design for

India", a note on my thoughts and insights from Lego and the way we had used it for design education

assignments here in India. < http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/lego-toy-for-all-ages-can-

it-be.html >

The second part of your observation is on how human children seem to very quickly loose their ability to

experiment and learn to play by the rules, a poor setting for the sustained use of design thinking within

our education systems. Here too there are opportunities to look at the content and delivery of formal and

non-formal education in our society and design has a huge role to play here. In India we have been

facing a sort of crisis in design education which too has reached the 50 year landmark with the setting

up of the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad in 1961 which is celebrating its 50th year this year

based on a report by Charles and Ray Eames in 1958. The Government of India had announced a

National Design Policy in 2007 and this year they came forward with a proposal to set up four new NID's.

However the manner in which these were being proposed led to some of the NID's alumni to express

their concern and a form of democratic design activism has taken root here with the formation of a group

calling for "Vision First" as a way forward. Vision First is a movement and a volunteer action group that is

calling for a rethink of design education as well as a broader call to look at the manner in which design is

located and used with in government action across all its ministries. You can see more about this

initiative here on the Vision First blog that is mapping the unfolding thoughts and action here in India.

<http://visionfirst.in/> Last week I was in Amsterdam to deliver a keynote at the conference "What

Design Can Do" that I titled "Nature of Design: The Need for Nurture in India Today". The definition of

design is expanding and design education, research and use of design by government and industry all


need to be reviewed and taken to new levels of integration into our way of doing things here. My paper

and presentation can be downloaded from my blog from this link here as a 2.3 mb zip file in pdf.

<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/rlmjp1>

We are proposing a series of regional round table meetings here in India followed buy an International

conference that could bring many diverse stakeholders for design thought and action to the table so that

we could explore the new directions that design education can take in the days and years ahead. I am

hoping that this list too would join in these deliberations in the days ahead and that we can draw

considerable benefits of insights from members of this list as well. The problems taht we are facing here

in India may not be unique and other countries too may be facing similar challenges and I will be happy

to hear about initiatives and ideas from list members on the directions that design education would need

to take in the future. I and my colleagues on the Vision First group look forward to suggestions and

discussions from the list.

With warm regards


6 June 2011 at 11.05 am IST

016894 2011-05-13 09:12 Re: Why design education must change


Dear Tulia Moss, Don and the list

The quote is from Jeffrey Chan on Nov 24 2010 in response to Don Norman piece on Why Design

Education must change. I agree with Don that design education must change but not that we have to

throw away the baby with the bathwater since there is so much of good that design can bring to the

world that our university education system does not seem to provide us with in spite of all the high

standards of scholarship therein. Some of us here in India have been arguing with the Government of

India and the Design education establishment here that a deep review of design education is necessary

and long overdue. You can see more about this initiative on the Vision First blog here at this link below.

Do join the debate and we can benefit from your wisdom. The Government of India has proposed the

setting up of four new NID's exactly after 50 years of the original National Institute of Design at Paldi in

Ahmedabad based on the vision report prepared by Charles and Ray Eames called the India Report, a

seminal piece of text on design thought, action and sensibilities, if there was one. Vision First blog

<http://www.visionfirst.in/> Eames India Report Download 360 kb pdf

<https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/h6ztro >

I quote the piece (by Jeffrey Chan) here

Dear Don and List, I read the article, 'Why design education must change' with mixed feelings. But let

me first say thank you for making this available for me before it appears on Core77. There are more than


a handful of ideas that demand slow digestion. But I pick up two points for a start: two points that also

recurred repeatedly through the article. (1) on experimentations Don, beyond the reasons you cited for

more in depth and scientifically rigorous experimentations for design, I cannot help but think that there is

a further need to distinguish qualitatively between experimentations done in cognitive science and

experimentations (to be) done in design. The basic purpose of the former is to falsify (and hence clarify)

and to describe. But the overall purpose of the latter is to create and to prescribe. Insofar as the inquiry

process is concerned the structure is similar; but insofar as the teleology is concerned, they are

dissimilar. For these reasons, to subject subjects to failure for the 101th experiment in cognitive science

may be permissible by the teleology of science. But to subject subjects for the 101th experiment just to

see how our designs may fail on these subjects are less permissible by the teleology of design. Hence if

designers must perform rigorous experimentations approaching the level of rigor in cognitive psychology

and the social sciences, I imagine that a whole new way of experimental inquiry that commensurates

with design must also emerge alongside. To build on your suggestion that design needs experimental

designs that are "simple and quick", I suppose these new experimental inquiry must be humanistically

sensitive as well. (2) on ignorance It is hard to argue for ignorance. But I am going to try. On this, I think

there is a need to make another distinction: to distinguish between heroic ignorance and modest

ignorance. I suppose in your article, you were arguing for the former at the expense of the latter, which

has merit and also happens to be a significant goal of Socratic teaching. To practice heroic ignorance

the designer expresses 'I know best'; but to practice modest ignorance--or self-conscious ignorance of 'I

know not'--it is in fact quite compatible with the nature of design, especially participatory design within

complex systems. Unless we accept this human condition of ignorance, and strive to attain the virtues of

modest ignorance, we cannot learn. If we cannot learn, then we also cannot design as well--because it is

impractical to design without accepting that learning is highly probable and desirable within the design

process. I am an architect by training, and so while I dabble in some product design on the side and

think I understand the arguments for a science of design, I am not a trained industrial designer. Even so,

it seems that the existing curriculums for many design programs (as I observe) still have their merits

because they nonetheless avail students to the possibility of (1) and (2) above. Jeffrey UnQuote


13 May 2011 at 9.00 am IST

015770 2010-11-23 00:36 Re: Herbert Read on "teaching through art and teaching to art"


Dear Eduardo

Well said, and I do agree with you or the approach that you have taken in your argument here. Design is

about the particular and the context is all important while it does contribute to the understanding of the

general when one looks at many instances of these particular contexts. Design is a general human


capability but it is also a well established profession that can be subject of education processes and

institutions. However we are now expanding the role of design so that its reach goes well beyond the

creation and refinement of the material artefact to the creation and refinement of social businesses as

we discussed in Milan. I had an opportunity recently to expand on some of these thoughts at a keynote

at Nanjing, China at a conference on Usability. <http://www.upachina.org/> Sorry no formal paper as

yet, but my visual presentation for my hour long talk can be downloaded from here, but I will post a note

on my blog a bit later when I have the time to do so.. <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/go5qp8>

(downoad 10 mb pdf) Here I used our "research into Indian handicrafts" as a platform to argue that

social interfaces for public services in Asia would need to look at culture and local manifestations for

success and quality of service that would be expected in future offerings from digital tools and services

of the future. I expanded on this talk at my next conference in Hyderabad this week and I took this theme

forward with an Indian audience and delivered a modified talk to a group of IT UX professionals with the

huge opportunities that digital layering is offering us now that most public interfaces can be digitally

interfaced, for example out Indian stock market is almost fully dematerialised and now offers new

possibilities that never existed before. <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/vj1r3x> (download pdf file 6 mb

size) These proposed design strategies are based on insights gained from research here in India and

not on "proven facts" as in a science based research offering either from the field or from a lab. This kind

of research is perhaps different, and not easily accepted or even understood as valid research. I know

this since we find it very difficult to get funding or formal support in this kind of work. The base document

that I used as my resource is the book Handmade in India that we produced as a research effort here in

India with the intention of offering a platform for the building of a creative economy in the future with the

identified skills and local resources as a basis for national development policies. This book is now

available online here as a series of pages at the COHANDS website. <

http://www.cohands.in/handmadepages/book0.asp> However the full book is also available from my

website as a pdf file but a very big file from this link here. <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/f8p6p4>

(download pdf file 337 mb size) This research is an outcome of numerous designer forrays into the crafts

sector in India and the need for a comprehensive document to support future use of this very rich

resource that is a cultural and social resource along with the technical and material knowledge that is

part of the traditional wisdom held within these traditional crafts across our 500+ clusters all over India.

This is the first stage of a four stage strategy that we have proposed for India. Now is this design

research? Is this research through design? Is this research for design? One thing we do know is that is

done by designers in search of a way to solve a very complex situation of poverty and employment in a

rapidly changing world. We have more examples like this one in our previous work in the bamboo sector,

My 1986 book on the bamboo crafts was based on the same assumptions and we now have many

layers of iterations to take this knowledge to meaningful applications as part of our design strategy for

the region. <https://files.me.com/ranjanmp/7tc6w3> (download pdf file 35 mb size - book on Bamboo


and Cane Crafts of Northeast India - 1986 & 2004) Not all design efforts create such book type products

but we have done these as an intermediate step in our continuing effort to create useful knowledge and

strategies that could be used by many partners in the larger mission of develoment here in India. I am

not sure if these examples help in this particular argument but we do believe that this is design research

and we have been doing this for ages if you look at the 800 plus crafts study documents that are lying

unpublished in the NID library (now called the Knowledge Managemant Centre - KMC) Some of these

are listed in the book handmade in India as part of our annotated bibliography at the back of the book

but here the textile documents have been left out unfortunately. By the way I retire from NID at the end

of this month having crossed my 60th birthday earlier this month while traveling in the Far East.

With warm regards



015433 2010-08-10 09:28 Re: types of design research


Dear Klaus and friends

I agree with your statements Klaus, and thank you for this very clear and unambiguous exposition. To

put it simply, the future is essentially unpredictable as long as future human responses are at the heart

of the possible outcomes. This is why I like the two concepts proposed by Wolfgang Jonas on the one

hand and by George Soros on the other are so important for our understanding of design thought and

action. Jonas offers the concept of the Swamp, an unpredictable space in which design action enters

and he has outlined these in his papers and book "Mind the Gap". Soros offers the theory of Reflexivity

with reference ti the financial markets where every action and intention enters the public space only to

be responded to instantly or over time by other intelligent humans, all acting in their own self interest,

each shaping the possible outcome by virtue of their own response. Design is much like that in my view

and even design proposals and technology speculations have a way of affecting the possible outcomes

due to their collective actions. This is why preemptive marketing has such an immediate effect in the

new technology space and the new product space as we have seen in so many cases of competitive

behavior of companies locked in intense competition. Thank you for your comment. By the way your

Semantic Turn does give us a great platform from which to understand design within these terms of

reference. The last chapter on HfG Ulm gives us a rare insight into the early founding of these ideas at

the great school in Germany. I visited the Ulm Archive last May and stayed at the campus studio of Nick

Roerich in my research effort to find connections between HfG Ulm and NID in the early 60's and well

into the 70's and 80's through the contacts with Ulm alumni and faculty. We conducted a one day

conference on these conections in March this year at Bangalore in collabotration with the Ulm Archive

since we now have a major exhibtion on HfG Ulm traveling to three cities in India, Ahmedabad (February


2010), Bangalore (March 2010) and now Kolkata (September 2010). I mention this here since the work

at Ulm is amazing and forward looking and unfortnately not easily accessible when we look at the

influence of the Bauhaus traditions on design and design education. During the Bangalore event we

were able to prepare and release a digital multimedia DVD with 21 Ulm Journals prepared from the

single complete set that was available in the NID library. These were released with permission from Prof

Gui Bonsiepe who was the editor of the Journal in the 60's while he was teaching at Ulm. These files

and the conference proceedings (Look Back - Look Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in

India)<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2010/04/look-back-look-forward-bengaluru-

event.html>are now available for download at my blog, Design for India, <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.com/> here at this link. I am sure that these will be a valuable resource for any research

into design thought and action particularly since there is a growing interest in design today and some of

these early explorations are no easily accessible to the scientific community outside the design space. <

http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2010/04/look-back-look-forward-bengaluru-event.html > We

are planing the next National conference at Kolkata on the 28th September 2010 and I will share the

details as soon as we have the formal approvals from the sponsors, The Goethe Institute and the NID.

The theme for this conference is basic Design, More soon on this event.

With warm regards



014718 2010-02-06 17:55 Look Back - Look Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India


Dear Friends We have just announced a one day conference on design education titled "Look Back –

Look Forward: Hfg Ulm and Design Education" which is in conjunction with an exhibition called "Ulmer

Modell" that has been put together by the HfG Ulm Archive and brought to India by the IFA and the

Goethe Institute/Maxmuller Bhavan Bangalore. Conference will be held at Hotel Taj West End,

Bangalore on 6 March 2010. You can see the details at the blog post at this link here or at the NID or

Goethe Institute websites from Monday. I quote below the conference announcement for your immediate

reference. to download the detailed conference announcement and the registration form look up the blog

link here. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2010/02/look-back-look-forward-hfg-ulm-

and_06.html> With warm regards M P Ranjan from my iMac at home on the NID campus 6 February

2010 at 11.15 pm IST ------------------------------------------------------------ Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design

Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID) Chairman, GeoVisualisation Task Group (DST,

Govt. of India) (2006-2008) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79

26623692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email: [email protected] web site:

http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in blog:


<http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com> education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-

concerns.blogspot.com> education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com --------

---------------------------------------------------- Quote Conference Announcement: Conference Title: LOOK

Back – LOOK Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India Venue & Schedule: Hotel Taj West End,

Race Cource Road, Bangalore 560 001, India March 6, 2010 : Full-day Conference-cum-Workshop on

Design Education: 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Last date for registration: February 26, 2010 Organisers:

National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad and Bangalore in collaboration with Goethe-Institut/Max

Mueller Bhavan (GI/MMB) Bangalore, HfG-Archive Ulm & IfA (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations,

Germany) Stuttgart Background: The HfG Ulm, which started as a continuation of the Bauhaus

experiments in design education under one of its former students – Max Bill, soon veered from a

foundation in art to a science and society focus under the leadership of Tomas Maldonado. The HfG Ulm

faculty, all eminent teachers and thought leaders in their field, experimented with design education like

never before and documented the results of teaching in a series of 21 journals published between 1958

and 1968. These ten years of intense research and theory building and sharing has had a lasting impact

on the world of design education and the availability of these journals being one of the major factors for

this durable influence. Selected papers from these volumes located in the NID Library were reproduced

for a conference on design education in 1989 by Prof Kirti Trivedi at Industrial Design Centre, IIT, Powai

and these have been a further source of inspiration for Indian design teachers over the years. The

school impacted the world of design through its direct professional action with industry, memorably with

Braun and its successful range of products that hit the market in 1955 and continued with other product

successes that can be called the Ulm style of meticulous detailing and clean functional form. Hans

Gugelot was among the lead drivers along this track. Other teachers such as Otl Aicher influenced major

corporations such as Herman Miller and Lufthansa with significant contributions in graphic design. The

closing down of the HfG Ulm in 1968 saw the scattering of its faculty and students across the world,

each steeped in the Ulm ideology of public good with design theory and action, resulting in significant

action on the ground in the form of new design education in Latin America by Gui Bonsiepe, in India by

Sudhakar Nadkarni and H Kumar Vyas and in Japan by Kohei Suguira, besides the numerous other

influences in Europe and the USA that continue to this day. The Ulmer Museum/HfG-Archiv has brought

together the various threads of the Ulm school in a unique exhibition called ulm: method and design/ulm:

school of design 1953-1968 with archival objects, classroom assignments and multimedia exhibits never

before seen in India. The exhibition is presented in India by the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, in

collaboration with IfA (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Germany) Stuttgart and offers the

opportunity to both "LOOK Back - LOOK Forward: HfG Ulm and Design Education in India", a title that

aptly sums up the objective behind the intensive one-day conference/workshop on March 6, 2010 at

Hotel Taj West End in Bangalore, India, as well as to draw inspiration from the path-breaking work at

Ulm and reflect on the path forward here in India. An impressive catalogue published by Hatje Cantz


(ISBN 3-7757-9142-6) provides rich background research content on the school and the exhibition.

Participants: Design teachers and teachers from other institutes interested in design pedagogy, including

design research, design management and technology & design professionals interested in design

education. Limited places available for design student observers sponsored by each participating school.

Registration Fee: Individual designers and faculty : Rs. 2000/= Team of 5 faculty per school from India :

Rs 5000/= Design student observer : Rs. 500/= (limited seats) International Participant : USD 100 or Rs.

5000/= Exhibition Venue: Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore - opens March 5, 2010 Conference

Venue: Hotel Taj West End, Bangalore – March 6, 2010 Organising Institutions Goethe-Institut/ Max

Mueller Bhavan Bangalore Dr. Evelin Hust, Director National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad &

Bangalore Prof. Pradyumna Vyas, Director Keynote Speakers: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Jonas, Professor for

"system design" at the School of Art and Design, University of Kassel, Germany Ms. Marcela Quijano,

Curator, HfG-Archiv Ulm, Germany Prof Sudhakar Nadkarni, Dean, Business Design, Welingkar Institute

of Management Development and Research, Mumbai Prof H Kumar Vyas, Distinguished Professor,

CEPT University, Ahmedabad Conference Chair: Prof M P Ranjan, NID, Ahmedabad Co-Chair: Prof

Suchitra Sheth, CEPT University, Ahmedabad Registration: Registration fees are payable by Cash or

Demand Draft drawn in favour of "National Institute of Design" payable at Bangalore. Payment with

Registration Form duly filled to be delivered to NID R & D Campus, Bangalore or at the Goethe-

Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore. Last date for registration without late fees: February 26, 2010

Late fee payable after closing date: additional 50 % of registration fees above. (Limited participation so

please register early) Address for communication and registration 1st contact: National Institute of

Design, Bangalore Shashikala Satyamurthy, Conference Coordinator National Institute of Design, R & D

Campus, #12 HMT Link Road, Off Tumkur Road Bangalore 560 022 Tel: +91-080-23478939 (D) /

23373006 Fax: +91 80 23373086 conference email: [email protected] www.nid.edu 2nd contact:

Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore Maureen Gonsalves Programme Coordinator Goethe-

Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan 716 CMH Road, Indiranagar 1st Stage Bangalore 560 038 Ph: +91 80 2520

5305/06/07/08-203 Fax: +91 80 2520 5309 [email protected] www.goethe.de/bangalore End

Quote

014254 2009-10-06 10:40 Re: Revised Survey


Dear Gülden Malya

It was interesting to see your note and questions on sustainability on PhD-Design list and on your link

but the questions would take too long to answer just now. I am in Istanbul to attend and lecture at the 4th

National Design Congress at the invitation of ITU and will be happy to speak to you if you are there.

<Hand-Head-Heart: Ethics in Design<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/09/hand-head-heart-

ethics-in-design.html> > I have worked many years at NID Ahmedabad as a teacher and handled


many courses and projects that could be called "Sustainability focussed" over the past 30 year as a

teacher and designer at NID. You can see my papers on my blog and website and there is a lot of

material that you can use including the posters that we designed for an event of the World Economic

Forum in Davos this year, all available free from the links below. <http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/> <http://www.ranjanmp.in> We have been researching bamboo and its use as a

development resource in India using design strategies as a driver and this work too has been ongoing

over the past 30 years now and much of it is documented on the links above and some of it is available

in print since it is an expensive medium and we are always short of funds it seems. My book on bamboo

published in 1986 and reprinted in 2004 and it is now available for free download as a pdf from my

website above or from this link here. (37.8 mb pdf) <NEBC_Book_Mstr.pdf-

zip.zip<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/.cv/ranjanmp/Sites/.Public/NEBC_Book_Mstr.pdf-

zip.zip> > The posters on Sustainability, all five of them can be downloaded as pdf files from this blog

link here: <Sustainability & Design at Davos 2009: Posters in PDF<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/sustainability-design-at-davos-2009.html> > I will be happy to answer

your questions if we are able to meet in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Conference as I am there from

the 7th to 12th October 2009 at the ITU as a guest of the Industrial Design Department.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my office at NID


014234 2009-10-02 21:35 Re: On design - again?


Dear Klaus

Thank you for your sustained offerings over the past several weeks on PhD-Design and it has been

most educative and stimulating. I must thank all the other contributors as well and the "treacherous river

full of currents" that Ben Johnson refers to is indeed such a place when we try to navigate design action

across diverse knowledge fields each having been carefully guarded by the diverse gatekeepers, the

experts and qualified champions of those fields. As a designer and a design teacher I have always kept

my life jacket handy whenever I have tried to cross this river and in many occasions I have had to look

for access books that could become my life inflatable dingy to carry me over new intellectual territory

that I know intuitively that I need to know but I am unable to interact with the acknowledged experts in

the field since they cannot understand their language nor they my intentions and needs a s a designer.

So many such bridges will be needed and design research will hopefully be a place that will produce

these access books or access tools that will enable both sides to cross over if we are to see the creation

of the integrated design disciplines of the future. I have been invited to deliver a keynote lecture at the

National Design Convention at Istanbul on the 8th October 2009. My paper and presentation are ready


and in this paper I am addressing the very issues that have been discussed on the list over the past few

years now. My paper is titled "Hand-Head-Heart: Ethics in Design" and i can share this with members of

the list who may be interested. Send me a mail and I can forward both files as low res pdf's 4.7 mb size.

An abstract of the paper is on my blog at this link below and high resolution pdf files will be uploaded to

the blog after I get back on the 14th October: <http://tinyurl.com/ydclyyf> In this paper and visual

presentation with models and case studies I have tried to answer the six questions listed below: 1. What

is Design today? 2. How did Design evolve from being a core human activity to become a modern

discipline with a significant future? 3. What are the unfolding dimensions and orders of Design that we

can call the “Ethical Vortex of Design”? 4. Who are the thought leaders who have anticipated these

expanding dimensions of Design particularly from an ethical perspective? 5. Are there some critical

cases in this broader filed of Design that could provide clues for our journey forward at each of these

ethical nodes towards an “Integrated Design of the Future”? 6. How do we move towards a new Design

education that can “Create the Unknowable – the future for all of us”, in an ethical manner and still be in

tune with the needs of our times? Big questions and no simple answers but we must forge ahead and

help bring design the the table at many meetings about the future and sustainability from which it is

missing today since we have not been able to explain it to those stakeholders who need to use it.

Difficult, but we must continue to try. The river must not run dry! With warm regards M P Ranjan from my

office at NID 2 October 2009 at 9.20 pm IST Today is Gandhi Jayanthi, the 140th birthday of Mohandas

Karamchand Gandhi who was great with using design at the political and social level here in India with

his Khadi ideology of self help using hand spun and hand woven fabrics and yarns along with the swaraj

non-violent action principles, very effective indeed in achieving independence for India. See the Wiki link

below. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi>

M P Ranjan

02 October 2009

013660 2009-07-01 10:58 Re: Betraying the Planet


Dear Jan and Ken

Thank you for your thoughts and references, rather alarming indeed. It is not just the US Senators and

the tobacco industry that is in denial but so are so many other industry and business sectors which wish

to ignore the writing on the wall and bash on as if nothing has happened, in spite of the current deep

financial crisis. Designers have a role to play and I am not sure that we are equipped to play this role

going by what is taught in schools and how the profession itself is organised and the manner in which

these concerns are being expressed and the influence that we wield on the politics of climate change

and other such pressing issues that confront us on a daily basis. Look at the automobile industry, and its

advertising blitz, as if nothing else mattered. The WHO report on traffic safety tells us that 1.3 million


lives are lost from road accidents and more than 50 million serious injuries are caused and this is a

direct result of design action in my opinion, both industrial design as well as effective communication

design and i am sure you can add design research to this list if you so wish. (0 percent of these deaths

are in developing countries!! <http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/en/> The

same can apply to the mining industry with open cast mines and the business telling us that there is no

option to the ecological destruction of pristine forests in India and the hydro-electric business that tells us

the displacement of people are for the larger good and in the name of development and all this in the

face of great political opposition by a variety of activists. I find this politics of opposition and obstruction

is the only voice that is heard today and the politics of imagination (deep design as I now call it) that is

the design way, however is a very feeble voice indeed. As a community we are not placing the options in

front of our politicians in visible ways and for this we would need to be both visionary as well as

politically saavy, but our schools and institutions go on as if this is not their turf at all. We do not have a

theory of public good while the good old Adam Smith dictate of private good as a base for our capitalist

and market economy dictates the directions of our politics all over the world. Some are talking of

transformation while others talk of innovation as the ultimate mantra, can old fashioned design play a

role here? Any thoughts from the list?

With warm regards



013658 2009-06-30 23:16 Re: Mexican New Science and Technology Innpvation National Policy


Dear Mario Dupont

Thank you for bringing this significant event to our attention. Innovation seems to be the central thrust of

the policy document although design is not mentioned in any depth we can see that eventually this

policy will support the growth of design use if it is steered in that direction, and special effort will be

needed to sensitise the user groups to understand and use design as the implementation moves

forward. I am quoting below the full text of the policy document in English which has been translated

quickly using Google Language tools to make it readable (with some unclear areas however) Good luck

to Mexico and its designers in this important venture.

With warm regards

Prof M P Ranjan from my iMac at home on the NID campus

30 June 2009 at 10.45 pm IST

013346 2009-04-22 16:48 Re: Research Request: Co-Creation



Dear Ken

Significant work in this field of co-creation has been done by Liz Sanders and her papers can be

downloaded from her website here which is a rich repository of papers on participatory design and co-

creation: MakeTools: Generative tools for collective creativity <http://www.maketools.com/>

With warm regards



013155 2009-03-29 17:22 Beyond Grassroots: Reports, Books and CD ROM now online


Dear friends

I have posted a detailed note with several links to resources that we created as part of a development

project between 2000 and 2004 in India. This is documented in a CD ROM titled "Beyond Grassroots"

which is a CD ROM on Institution Building at BCDI. "Bamboo & Cane Development Institute, Agartala

(BCDI): CD ROM as a live documentation of intentions and actions of the design team from NID,

Ahmedabad in partnership with the team from BCDI, Agartala. – “Beyond Grassroots: Bamboo as

Seedlings of Wealth”. This CD ROM was produced in 2003 - 2004 using reports, movies and pictures

that were part of the very detailed visual documentation that was maintained by the NID and BCDI

teams using digital tools that were constantly available as a project policy. The intention was to build an

Institute that could address the very complex needs of the “Grassroots sector” in rural India through the

creation of human resources, knowledge resources as well as market linkages with the use of a potential

local material such as bamboo which could be used to support a whole spectrum of development

activities that could lead to positive change in the lives of the people. This CD ROM can be downloaded

as a 560 MB zip file that unpacks into hyper linked folders and files all connected through a series of

navigation screens shown on the blog. We believe that India and other nations may need many institutes

like this one if we are to use design to transform our rural economy with the use of local resources in a

sustainable manner and in a politically stable eco-system that can survive well into the future with the

use of design, democratic decentralized local governance and local entrepreneurship. <Beyond

Grassroots: CD ROM on Institution Building at BCDI><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/03/beyond-grassroots-cd-rom-on- institution.html>

With warm regards


29 March 2009 at 9.55 am IST

013144 2009-03-24 09:39 Beyond Grassroots: CD ROM now online: see links



Dear friends

Beyond Grassroots: CD ROM on Institution Building at BCDI Bamboo & Cane Development Institute,

Agartala (BCDI): CD ROM as a live documentation of intentions and actions of the design team from

NID, Ahmedabad in partnership with the team from BCDI, Agartala. – “Beyond Grassroots: Bamboo as

Seedlings of Wealth”. This CD ROM was produced in 2003 - 2004 using reports, movies and pictures

that were part of the very detailed visual documentation that was maintained by the NID and BCDI

teams using digital tools that were constantly available as a project policy. The intention was to build an

Institute that could address the very complex needs of the “Grassroots sector” in rural India through the

creation of human resources, knowledge resources as well as market linkages with the use of a potential

local material such as bamboo which could be used to support a whole spectrum of development

activities that could lead to positive change in the lives of the people. This CD ROM can be downloaded

as a 560 MB zip file that unpacks into hyper linked folders and files all connected through a series of

navigation screens shown on the blog. We believe that India and other nations may need many institutes

like this one if we are to use design to transform our rural economy with the use of local resources in a

sustainable manner and in a politically stable eco-system that can survive well into the future with the

use of design, democratic decentralized local governance and local entrepreneurship. <Beyond

Grassroots: CD ROM on Institution Building at BCDI><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/03/beyond-grassroots-cd-rom-on-institution.html>

With warm regards



013140 2009-03-17 00:07 Bamboo Boards & Beyond CD ROM now online


Dear Friends

We have been working on bamboo applications for sustainability and eco-friendly future applications for

some years now. In 1998 - 2001 we had carried out research and product design applications using

bamboo laminated boards with sponsorship from the UNDP and the APCTT and a multimedia CD ROM

was created to document and disseminate all the work done during the research phase as well as the

product design stages. This CD ROM is now available online for free download with a detailed

description on the "Design for India" blog at this link below. The CD ROM is available as a single zip file

of 550 MB which expands into folders and self contained multiple files for offline viewing for those

interested. Take a look at the link below for details, interface screens, sample pages and the link for full

download for those interested in our ongoing multi-facetted design research at the Centre for Bamboo

Initiatives at NID, India. <Bamboo Boards & Beyond: Multimedia CD ROM on design explorations for

India><http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/03/bamboo-boards-beyond-multimedia-cd-


rom.html> This is the first of two major CD ROM publications that was produced over the years and the

next one is due for release shortly. the second is "Beyond Grassroots: Bamboo as Seedlings of wealth"

that was published in 2003. We would love to get feedback on the contents in due course from the lists.

With warm regards



013026 2009-03-01 23:53 Digital Books and Papers on Bamboo and Design


Dear Friends

I have just posted an article on my blog "Design for India" with a fairly detailed illustrated note on our

work in the bamboo sector aimed at rural development in India. This post has links to a new digital book

on bamboo furniture and our macro-micro strategy called "Seedlings of Wealth". The book is called

"Katlamara Chalo" – meaning Come to Katlamara – and you can download it from links on this webpage

below: <Katlamara Chalo: Seedlings of Wealth in Action><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/02/katlamara-chalo-seedlings-of-wealth-in.html> At the foot of the post

are links to several papers, books and websites on the premises and intentions of the bamboo and

design project which have been written over the past twenty years, all done at NID, Ahmedabad with a

large number of collaborators including faculty colleagues and students. Do take a look and this is work

in progress and we would love to have your comments and observations as we go forward from here.

With warm regards



012994 2009-02-26 20:22 New Design Book from an NID Faculty on Saris of India


Dear friends

I have just posted a note on my blog about the soon to be launched new book from an NID Faculty

colleague, "Indian Saris: Traditions - Perspectives - Design" by Vijai Singh Katiyar. There will be a social

function and a panel discussion at London on 20th April 2009 for the book launch by the publisher and

the book can be pre-ordered from a number of sources online as well. Do take a look at the links below

for details: <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/indian-saris-woven-fabrics-of-

fantasy.html> <http://textiledesigninindia-indiansaris.blogspot.com/> The Slumdog Millionare's

sweep at the Oscar has brought a lot of attention to India and perhaps Indian fashion and its traditional

sari too will have its place in the sun... our several million handloom weavers and their children would

just love that.


With warm regards



012923 2009-02-09 21:08 Sustainability & Design at Davos 2009


Dear Friends

Sorry for cross posting. I have just uploaded a set of five posters on the theme of "Sustainability and

Design" that were used at Davos at the recently concluded World Economic Forum 2009 about which I

had made a recent post on this list. These posters are now available in A3 size as printable PDF files

which can be used as a resource for further work on the subjects. These have been linked to my blog at

"Design for India" so that is is accessible to a wider audience and we would love to have your feedback

in the days ahead. <Sustainability & Design at Davos 2009: Posters in PDF><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/02/sustainability-design-at-davos-2009.html> The Sustainability posters

and the themes covered are listed below: 1. Poster on the theme of Co-Creation for Sustaibnability: PDF

file 2.9 MB 2. Poster on the theme of Dematerialisation for Sustaibnability: PDF file 2.2 MB 3. Poster on

the theme of Essence Making for Sustaibnability: PDF file 3.1 MB 4. Poster on the theme of Innovating

the Value Chain for Sustaibnability: PDF file 2.7 MB 5. Poster on the theme of using Emerging

Technologies for Sustaibnability: PDF file 2.7 MB Previous posts about this project that started in

September 2008 can be seen at these links below: <World Economic Forum – Sustainability & Design at

Davos><http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-economic-forum-sustainability.html>

<Sustainability Charette: World Economic Forum in New Delhi><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2008/11/sustainability-charette-world-economic.html>

We look forward to your comments.

With warm regards



012910 2009-02-02 18:46 Sustainability and Design at Davos


Dear Friends

In my introductory post to this list I had mentioned that we were working on a series of posters on the

theme of sustainability which were intended for a meeting of CEO's at the World Economic Forum at

Davos last week. The event took place on the 29th January 2009 at the World Economic Forum and we

have a preliminary report on the event from the organisers which I have posted on my blog "Design for

India" along with images on the five posters that we had designed specifically for this event. Some fifty


CEO's of global corporations and officials of the World Economic Forum used these posters and the

case studies included to explore the wider implications of the themes and have developed strategies that

could be taken forward in each of their efforts in the days ahead. The posters can be seen at this link

below and I will report on the details of the event when I get more news from Davos when the organisers

complete their report on the outcomes from the event. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-economic-forum-sustainability.html> While the blog post

includes jpeg files that are readable on screen I have printable resolution pdf files in A3 size of all the

posters which I can share freely but I have to figure out how to upload these from our slow connection at

my school. Those interested can write to me offline or on this list and I will figure out a way to get these

out to those interested.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my room at Jor Bahg New Delhi on tour


012869 2009-01-21 23:40 Re: U.S. National Design Policy Initiative


Dear Anne

I have been following the developments, as well as encouraging from a distance, the movement towards

the setting up of a design policy in the USA, and the meetings organised in Washington is a significant

move forward towards this end. I met Dori in Austin Texas at the IDSA Summit in 2006 and we did get to

discussing the role of design policies at the National level. I was back in the USA in February 2007 for a

brief meeting at the Asia Society in New York that was set up by discussions and collaborations across

continents to bring design action to India as part of the "Design with India" initiatives that were being

promoted by a group of interested designers on the DesignIndia discussion list as well as part of the

influence on the CII-NID Design Summit that has been taking place in India since 2001 with one National

level meet taking place each year. CII is the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Government of

India has supported this initiative through its Department of Industrial Promotion and Projects as well as

the National Institute of Design which is the first design school in India which was set up by the

Government of India in 1961 based on a insightful report by Charles and Ray Eames in 1958. <Design

Policy for USA: Long Ripples from India><http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/11/design-

policy-for-usa-long-ripples-from.html> This is a long story, and although the Government had set the

ball rolling in India as far back as 1958 and we have also had a significant meeting at Ahmedabad in

1979 called the UNIDO-ICSID conference on "Design for Development" which resulted in a extremely

well drafted Ahmedabad Declaration of 1979, the Government of India failed to adopt the declaration or

make any forward movement on the National Design Policy all of which have been discussed in India

over and over in numerous situations with and without official participation. The National Design Policy


has been announced in India on the 8th February 2007 when I was in New York and we were happy for

this big step forward although we are not happy with the limited scope of the Policy Initiaitive since it is

highly restricted to improving prospects of Indian Industry through design, old hat, but fails to see design

as a driver of value in all spheres of our economy and society. Few authors have had the vision or the

conviction to argue about design at this level of reach and I do believe we must create the platform for

this through the work of design research to make visible the deep qualities of design to bring massive

change in many sectors of our economies. I have written about the National Design Policy in India on a

number of posts on my blog called Design for India and I have also reported about the initiatives in the

USA as well. Recently I was invited to London to debate the question of which would be the Design City

of the Future which was an event at the Design Museum in London in mid December 2009. I argued that

Bangalore could achieve this mark not because it would produce products of the future but for the way in

which the city could muster democratic processes and people participation in solving local opportunities

that could make life in the city a far better quality with the use of design at the City Governance level. My

arguments and my presentation got the support of the informed London audience and it was voted as

the Design City of the future in front of Sao Paolo, Beijing and Moscow which were the other

presentations that day. <Design Week on Bangalore: "Design City" of the Future><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/01/design-week-on-bangalore-design-city-of.html> <Design for Politics &

Good Governance: Electoral process and Design for India><http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2009/01/design-for-politics-good-governance.html> <Design Cities Debate:

Bengaluru at the Design Museum, London><http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/12/design-

cities-debate-bengaluru-at.html> Drafting a policy for a Nation is indeed a daunting task but we must

set the ball rolling and it will take a long time before politicians take on the process forward and bills do

get drafted that will help nations use design for development and social action agendas in the days

ahead. Designers alone cannot change the mindsets in government and industry about the use of

design and the role that it can play in shaping the future of our cities and our lives. Richard Farson in his

new book "The Power of Design: A Force for Transforming Everything" has broadened the scope and

reach of design thinking and action and this is also in line with the thinking articulated by Thomas

Maldonado in his 1970 book "Design, Nature, Revolution" and it also is in the spirit of the book "The

Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World" by Harold Nelson and Eric Stolterman.

<http://www.advanceddesign.org/book.html> <The Design Way: Dr Harold Nelson at NID,

Ahmedabad><http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/12/design-way-dr-harold-nelson-at-

nid.html> Richard Farson papers: <http://www.wbsi.org/farson/commentary.htm> Design at this

level is indeed politics, but I think of it as politics with a difference in the modes of action and influence.

Many of our democratic processes are resolved in the street so to speak. People who support and those

who oppose both take to the streets in India and there are heated debates about the pros and cons of

each situation. However there is rarely any well thought through and developed alternatives that are


included in these debar=tes and it then boils down to the raw numbers game. It is here that design

thinking and design visualisation can make a huge difference in making the various options visible to the

policy makers and stakeholders alike and in the process swing the investments and committments in

favour of the better alternative, at the local level, at the city level, at the regional level and at the national

level and if I may say at the global level as well. Last week we at NID were involved with the articulation

and creation of five posters that could inform and provoke discussion at the World Economic Forum at a

special session on Sustainability which would be attended by global CEO's and political leaders. I

believe this is a small beginning and I will report the developments on this particular initiative on my blog

after the Davos event unfolds and from this I do see that design is getting fresh attention from new

quarters and this is indeed an encouragement for the belief that some of us have been holding about the

power of design far beyond the measures of the monetised economy. I hope I am not leading too far

ahead of reality. Let us see in the days ahead. These posters will be available for download early next

month and I will post the links to these when we are ready to disseminate these widely next month. I

joined your new list (SUSDESIGNTEACH) particularly since I believe that Sustanability amnd Design will

be getting a growing share of attention from a variety of quarters and designers and design schools will

need to equip themselves to improve their own understanding of the subject as well as try and bring their

teaching materials and programmes to cope with the expanding role of design as we are beginning to

understand it today.

With warm regards


21 january 2009 at 11.05 pm IST

012317 2008-08-24 18:31 Re: Great Anthropological Diagrams (or Anthropology has always been visual)


Dear Dori

Yes, this flickr site is a wonderful resource but I was a bit disappointed since many images were very low

in resolution and I could not read some of the texts that appear on the images. I am indeed pleased to

hear that you are taking up a course together with Hugh Dubberly who is a master at these image

representations and on his website I did find a great resource that mapped all the major Design Methods

in the form of diagrams and supporting texts that would have otherwise taken a few thousand pages to

get across in an educational situation. I did share this fantastic resource and also wrote to Hugh

Dubberly congratulating him for this huge contribution. These can be found at this link below:

<http://www.dubberly.com/articles> The pdf file of the book "How do you Design" can be downloaded

from this page below: <http://www.dubberly.com/articles/how-do-you-design.html> or directly from

this link here: <http://www.dubberly.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/ddo_designprocess.pdf>

This offering by Hugh Dubberly can grow to include other offerings, particularly the thesis by Chris


Heape that deals with a new understanding of how to teach the fairly convoluted processes that we call

design as well as the higher order understanding that is represented by the book "The Design Way" by

Harold Nelson and Eric Stolterman and a simple visual representation of these newer offerings would go

a long way to get design teachers around the world better aligned to these new ways of understanding

design. I did share my own model of the Design Journey which is available for download from my

website at this link below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/FileSharing83.html> or directly as a

pdf file from this link here below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/Design_Journey_Think_Report.pdf.

pdf-

zip.zip?a=downloadFile&user=ranjanmp&path=/Public/Design%20Journey_Think_Report.pdf> or

here as a shorter URL a 275 kb pdf file. <http://tinyurl.com/3kanf7> I have got a great little book called

"Introducing Anthropology" by Merryl Wyn Davies and illustrated by Piero and published by Icon Books

as part of a series of illustrated books on various themes including Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology

which I find very useful as accessible material for design students. (ISBN 1 84046 663 4) However

talking about design in simple understandable terms is a fine art which mane resources still miss

altogether and here the book by Norman Potter, "What is a Designer: things, places, messages" stands

out from all the offerings that occupy this space over the past thirty years or so. published by Hyphen

Press, London revised and extended fourth edition is an improvement on the classic first edition offered

by Studio Vista in 1969, a great or should I say an alltime great introduction to the complex field of

design!! (ISBN 0-907259-16-2) I look forward to more such resources on the web about design and

anthropology which can be used by our students and many others who need to understand design in the

context of emerging needs and the huge opportunity that this would unfold in the days ahead.

With warm regards



012309 2008-08-16 21:54 Re: Design Methodologies Readings


Dear Tamara Christensen

I have been meaning to respond to your request but other committments kept me tied down for a while. I

have been teaching a course dealing with Design Methodologies for close to thirty years now at NID,

India and over the years we have moved a great deal to discover new approaches and have shifted our

emphasis from teaching set methods to providing the students with a sense of direction as well as the

possibility of building their own positions with reference to the world of design action. This led to the

normanclature of the course itself being changed a number of times over this period and the various


names included Design Methods (after John Chris Jones) Design Processes, Design methodologies and

now it is called "Design Concepts and Concerns". The course is rooted in current issues that are being

discussed in the media and is at the top of ones mind in each period in which the course is conducted

and the students are asked to connect with this reality directly from as much field exposure as possible

in our cities in India outside the school. We have found this very useful in bringing an awareness of the

real world nature of design thought and action and these developments have been documented in a

number of papers and visual presentations that are aviailable on my personal website at thsi link below:

Design Theory papers

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/FileSharing83.html> Further I have

started documenting these courses in almost real time blogging at my education blog called "Design

Concepts and Concerns" and this has been active for the past one year now and can be seen at this

website link below: "Design Concepts and Concerns" <http://www.design-concepts-and-

concerns.blogspot.com/> This course started with addressing the needs of Undergrad students at NID

and it continues to be offered each year at the end of the common Foundation Programme before

students branch out to all the disciplines offered. However over the past ten years this course has also

been offered to all our Post Graduate disciplines at a preparatory level and for the Foundation it is a five

week course and the the PG level it is a two week course, much truncated, since the time available is

much shorter. Both these courses are discussed on the blog and all the assignments are shown as the

courses progress. The background issues that form the major theme each year is discussed on another

blog that is an advocasy blog called "Design for India". This year the theme for all the batches at NID is

"Food, Inflation and the Economy" and the students are required to work in teams to address and

discover design opportunities across many disciplines that would help address the issues and concerns

that are identified during the early stages of investigation. You can see this at the blog links below:

Design for India <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/> Both these blogs have a list of

recommended websites that would inform the students about the emerging approaches to design

thinking across the world and these are discussed in our class in groups as well as when the particular

opportunity comes up in the course of our explorations. Some links from the blogs are listed below:

Jerome Diethelm <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~diethelm/> Design Council, UK

<http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/> Charles Brunette

<http://www.idesignthinking.com/main.html> NextD <http://www.nextd.org/> Dori: Design

Anthropology <http://dori3.typepad.com/my_weblog/> There are many more and the web is now quite

rich with design resources and this list is growing by the day and we intend to use these as we go

forward. However there are some books that would be a great resource for our design students. Harold

Nelson and Eric Stolternman, "The Design Way" is a great resource that we recommend as a must read.

John Thackara, "In the Bubble", is a wonderful and readable resource that can help set the agenda for

design action. I will be happy to expand on the list of books, websites, thought leadrers and approaches


that we introduce our students to if you so wish and my own course is documented in my papers on my

website. I had made a presentation of this course at the EAD06 conference in 2005 at Bremen,

Germany and the papers can be downloaded from their website and from my own website here below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/FileSharing83.html> The Paper is

called "Creating the Unknowable: Designing the Future in Education" take a look. Design for us is

changing and we may need to discover new ways of sharing these changes with our students going

forward. I would like to hear of other efforts in this direction in education and I am sure thtre are many

happening across the world today since design is in flux and we can use these discussions to map out

all the dimensions of the change that is being discovered out there.

With warm regards



012255 2008-07-19 07:04 Handmade in India: Book release in New Delhi


Dear Friends

We are happy to inform you that the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, Government of India

and COHANDS have decided to release the book "Handmade in India" edited by Aditi Ranjan and M P

Ranjan at a simple function on the 21 July 2008. The long awaited book release will take place at the

Rajiv Gandhi Handicrafts Bhavan on Baba Kharaksing Marg, New Delhi at 9.30 am on 21 July 2008 and

the Shri Shankarsinh Vanghela, Honorable Minister for Textiles has agreed to preside and release the

book. The book was researched and produced at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad by a large

team of faculty, students and researchers over the past five years. Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, will

make the books available at all their distribution channels immediately there after. I have just now posted

a note about the book on my blog, Design for India, and this can be accessed from this link here below:

We will have more posts when we have more details about the post release plans from the publishers.

<http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com> An earlier note about the book that appeared on the

blog has details of the contents and treatment of the information architecture at these links here:

<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/08/handmade-in-india-handbook-of-crafts-of.html>

<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/12/webinnovation2007-web-20-conference-at.html>

Handmade in India: Edited by Aditi Ranjan and M.P. Ranjan Book design by Ms. Zenobia Zamindar and

Girish Arora. 576 pages, 3500 colour photographs and 140 maps, 9.5 x 13.5" (240 x 340 mm) Core

content includes information, maps and images of the crafts of 530 clusters across India, Key words and

local names on each page is a wayfinding device to facilitate web research and a platform for a web

portal that is planned for the fourth phase of this project. End matter includes a Technical Glossary,

Annotated Bibliography, Craft Categories, an Index and also a detailed Acknowledgement and Credits.


Co-published in association with COHANDS and Development Commissioner of Handicrafts,

Government of India, the book is produced by Mapin.

With warm regards



012246 2008-07-14 15:44 Re: Food and AnthroDesign


Dear Terry

This is a wicked problem, if ever there is one. I do not have the answer yet, but we are addressing these

in our class at NID and I will come back with our findings and imaginations/insights of design

opportunities ahead. Food is also a local problem and can vary from location to location and from time to

time. We have more mouths to feed and the supply chain is getting longer by the day, perhaps that is

the problem. We intend to explore it and see where it leads us using our design sensibilities over the

next few weeks.

With warm regards



012241 2008-07-14 06:33 Food and AnthroDesign


Dear Friends

I have just made a post on "Food and AnthroDesign" that may be of interest to this list's members. Do

take a look. <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/07/food-and-anthrodesign-approaches-

and.html>

With warm regards



011913 2008-06-15 18:55 Indian Institute of Crafts and Design: IICD Jaipur: Faculty Recruitment call


Dear Friends

I am posting this call for Faculty Recruitment from the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur on

behalf of their Director, Prof. Sangita Shroff. You can get more information about this school of design

from their website or from my blog post on "Design for India" at the link provided below: <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/05/indian-institute-of-crafts-and-design.html> <http://design-for-


india.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-education-strategies-and.html> Quote Indian Institute of Crafts and

Design Jaipur Institute Website: <http://www.iicd.ac.in> The Indian Institute of Crafts and Design

(IICD) is an autonomous institute of excellence, set up by the Government of Rajasthan in 1995, to act

as a catalyst for the crafts sector. The Government entered into a unique ‘public private partnership’ with

Ambuja Educational Institute in October 2007 with the central idea that the Institute evolve a sustained

program of efficient growth and development of both, crafts persons and the craft sector in an integrated

manner. The Major Education programs at IICD are mandated to develop high quality, motivated human

resource and change agents – young craft designers and design managers – who would work in a

vibrant climate of experimentation and innovation. IICD is currently offering Under Graduate programs in

Soft Material Application (textiles, leather, paper) and Hard Material Application (wood, metal, stone). In

the Post Graduate program the specializations offered are Furniture Design and Interior Products and

Home Textiles (floor covering & furnishings). As a part of our Capacity Building initiative, the Institute is

looking for dynamic professionals, who want to be part of the ‘Craft Development Story’ of India. Design

professionals and Design academics with a strong emotive and cultural association with the Craft

wisdom of this country are invited to participate with missionary zeal on the task at hand – to train

students, do craft development work and research along with curriculum development – at the foremost

Institute focused on Craft Design in India. We invite design professionals and the positions on offer are:

1. DEAN, POST GRADUATE PROGRAM: Profile: Senior Academic, with prior experience in

professional design practice and design academics with skills in Course and Syllabus design,

pedagogies, ability to network with Industry, Govt. and Non - Govt. organizations. The person should

have scholastic / research capabilities. The position is of an Associate professor/ Professor (work

experience of minimum 15 years and more}. Commensurate package would be on offer. 2.

FURNITURE/PRODUCT/ACCESSORY DESIGNER: Profile: Dynamic young designer with a body of

professional work, preferably in Craft design and a keen interest in practice as well as academics. The

person should be strong on form as well as keenly interested in materials & technology. 3. TEXTILE

DESIGNER: Profile: A designer with a body of professional work in Print, Weave, Embroidery Design,

ability to work hands on, with a keen interest in color and traditional textile repertoire. S/he should be

willing to travel and work in rural craft clusters. 4. COMMUNICATIONS DESIGNER / ART HISTORIAN /

ANTHROPOLOGIST: Profile: A communications designer, keenly interested in Design, Craft and Art

theory, research and ability to do primary theoretical and visual research or an Art Historian /

Anthropologist interested in studies related to Material culture, techniques of making and production

processes. The above three positions are for Assistant professor (work experience of 3 to 7 years) /

Associate professors (work experience of 8 to 12 years). 5. ADJUNCT FACULTY; Profile: IICD invites

senior design practitioners and pedagogues to have a sustained association with the Institute. (This

could be in a part time format or full time). They would teach, help build academic vision and be involved

in faculty development initiatives. They could also work as resident designers, being involved with our


other craft development initiatives. Two positions of Adjunct association are possible immediately. IICD

would offer commensurate package. Applications may be sent to Director, IICD Email:

[email protected] before 10th July 2008. Or by post INDIAN INSTITUTE OF CRAFTS AND DESIGN J

8, Jhalana Institutional Area, Near RTO, JAIPUR: 302004 Tel: 0141 2703105 Fax: 0141 2700160

Website: http://www.iicd.ac.in UnQuote

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Imac at home on the NID campus


011743 2008-04-28 02:02 Re: Design for Sustainable Development with Bamboo


Dear Friends

I have posted several links on my blog "Design for India" from which you can download the following

books and reports in pdf format from this link below: <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2008/04/centre-for-bamboo-initiatives-at-nid.html>. <http://www.design-for-

india.blogspot.com> 1. M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer & Ghanshyam Pandya, "Traditional Wisdom: Bamboo

& Cane Crafts of Northeast India", Development Commisioner of Handicrafts, New Delhi, 2004 (34.7 MB

pdf) (Soft bound - reprint of hard bound version of 1986) 2. M P Ranjan, "Katlamara Chalo: Bamboo for

Rural Development", National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 2006. (three part pdf file of 46 MB) 3.

Links to several papers and reports on the setting up of the Bamboo & Cane Development Institute,

Agartala. (each in pdf format) Do take a look at the link above and download the files from the links

provided there.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac on tour at the IIT Mumbai campus


011721 2008-04-22 20:13 Re: Design as service


Dear Terry

For me, politics is the process by which groups take decisions. It is not about power equations which it is

often considered to be. Those in power will take decisions but these need not be correct nor do they

have to be sustainable. However in a true democracy, people have a role to play in moving their

politcians to act on their behalf and in an accountable manner. Designers must be equipped to be part of

this process and offer their sensibilities while being a part of this group process. When design is about

shaping the future by the creation of value it is most effective at the leading edge where decisions are

taken. Perhaps you would be more comfortable if I stated that I would like to see politicians adopt design


and the design language in their decision making processes and not just use rhetoric and economics as

their base. We need to put design into the hands of those who take decisions and in this way the design

sensibilities, which is not driven by knowledge and truth alone, but by sense and conviction based on a

variety of explorations (samplings, prototypes and trends), would inform and support a sustainable

decision for all of us. My use of the word politics is aligned to the HfG Ulm Foundation for Design, see

the competition announcement at this link here: <http://www.hfg-ulm.de/443.html?&L=1> Further,

Tomas Maldonado in his book "Design, Nature and Revolution: Toward a Critical Ecology" Harper &

Row, New York 1972, does give us a very perceptive view of the shaping of design at this level of action.

With warm regards



011714 2008-04-22 10:29 Re: well-structured and ill-structured activity in designing


Dear Klaus and Terry

You said: "i prefer designers to talk about visions of possible futures and to find compelling arguments

for enrolling stakeholders to realize that vision (see the semantic turn)." I tend to subscribe to this view of

design action and learning. To teach this approach we have innovated many assignments as part of our

courses at NID at both the undergraduate as well as postgraduate levels across many disciplines. One

particular assignment deals with "Scenario Visualisation" that is based on informed and well researched

subjects where the students first work in groups before they carry out individual explorations and

scenario expression in both word and image. I have posted 23 such examples on the course blog that is

an outcome of a recently concluded course at NID, Design Concepts and Concerns, each dealing with

the macro-subject of Design Opportunities for Water in five specific geographies in India which are both

climatically and culturally quite different. I invite you to take a look at these posts as well as the team

based research assignments that are designed to introduce design thinking and expression in the

Foundation students at NID. The blog link is here below: <http://www.design-concepts-and-

concerns.blogspot.com/> I must disagree with Terry's point of view that this kind of action represents

the act of playing "GOD", which the designers are asked to assume. Far from it. Today, on "The Earth

Day" we do need to reflect on the role that design can play in the whole area of Global Warming and

Climate Change, and I do believe we have a major role here and we must not abdicate this to politicians,

At this level design is politics and we must learn many new skill sets and attitudes to help us play this

role adequately and with confidence. I so invite other members of the PhD-Design list to review the

contents of this particular blog as well as the other one that I have set up specifically to try and influence

public policy in India for the wider use of Design across 230 sectors of our economy, and it is called

"Design for India". <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/> GK has a very good point about the


nature of design being so vastly different when we look at it from different perspectives. For these

massive and complex problems we will need new attitudes and skill sets that are perhaps not yet fully

embedded in traditional design schools today. I look forward to your views and comments going forward.

With warm regards



011280 2008-02-03 22:45 Re: Evidence of what?


Dear Friends

I agree with Michael. In design the "Evidence" of the kind that would be found embedded in the

"Artefact" would have many meanings, each one that corresponds to a particular point of view that is

held by the researcher. One position is influenced by the very nature of design and its layers of

influencing factors. Design influences can be felt and measured across many layers from the material

and aesthetic to the technical, economic and the social and the political levels and we will also need to

factor in the systems levels of ecology and spirituality before we complete our analysis of any given

situation or product completely. I have been using a model to explain this for my students and I call this

the "Iceberg Factor" in design, with a few visible and measurable attributes as seen in the "Artefact" and

a huge layer of intangible and invisible attributes that would represent the intentions and the value that

the particular event, product or service could or would provide. I have shared this model in the context of

the debate about to introduction of the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano, that was unveiled at the

Indian Auto fair in New Delhi last month by Ratan Tata. I have shown this model in my blog post at this

link below: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/tatas-one-lakh-car-systems-failure-

on.html> In another situation when we studied the bamboo crafts of the Northeastern States of India in

the late 70's and early 80's we collected as many as 400 baskets, all different, from the field work that

extended over a region that included seven states of the region and from as many as 50 different tribes

and communities who lived there. Our analysis of the these products was done in order to understand

the basket in the context of material properties of the bamboo used as well as the form and structure as

appreciated by the local mind, a sort of traditional wisdom study, that would give us a basis to use the

material for our intentions which were to bring development to the region socially and economically using

a local resource and by not imposing our own notion of aesthetics while doing our design work, very

complex agenda. Our book, The "Bamboo & Cane Crafts of Northeast India" by M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer

and Ghanshyam Pandya published in 1986 was based on our 1979-80 field work and has a very

detailed index that looks at many dimensions of the product universe that was studied. I now call it the

Traditional Wisdom guide since we were able to identify and list both visible and invisible attributes in the

two distinct indexes, the Subject Index that covered names and places while the Technical Index


covered the structural, material and geometric attributes as well as properties of materials, techniques

and local knowledge that we found in our discourse of these products and these included as many as

8000 attributes in all. These hidden and visible attributes have informed our further work in product

design with the local material, bamboo , as well as our formal and aesthetic decisions that we could

keep aligned to the expressions that we found and articulated through detailed drawings and textual

descriptions in the research process that led up to the book. If I were to extend this method to a range of

artefacts from our contemporary culture we can see that our electronic products as well as our

automobiles could be subjected to such an elaborate analysis that includes functional, social, aesthetis

as well as economic and ecological parameters and we would that be discussing the influence across all

these parameters in a design discourse. History of design misses such a deep analysis and most of the

descriptions that I am familiar with is stylistic analysis or technological advancement related studies and

much work needs to be done in this area. So the whole issue of "What Evidence" is both complex and

related to the point of view and the hypothesis that is held by the researcher. Each discourse of the

research would open up new layers of meaning and contexts that can be further explored. In a recent

post I have shared some preliminary systems analysis work that was done by one of my students in a

systems design class that was conducted in 1991 about the Lego Toy at the systems level. You can see

this at my blog post below: <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/lego-toy-for-all-ages-can-

it-be.html> The analysis of the product showed the multiple dimensions that needed to be examined in

order to both understand such a product as well as to apply these principles to a new system of similatr

complexity and effect. She found several dimensions: The Geometric Module: Form, Dimension,

Compatibility The Functional Module: Hinges, Pins, Tubes, Features The Marketing Module: Packaging,

Economic Groups, Age Groups, Interest Groups The Semantic Module: Form, Colour, Texture, Terminal

Elements, Context The Ergonomic Module: User Capability, Need, Age Matching, Complexity and finally

The Economic Module: Production Features, Finished Product Configuration, Set Configuration etc.,

See this post at the link below: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/lego-toy-for-all-

ages-can-it-be.html> Lego has just completed 50 years and going and some of our product systems in

India and elsewhere have a lineage of over 5000 years of tradition behind them which are very complex

to fathom, even if we were to look at all the possible angles, even if we could.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my mac at home on the NID campus

3 Ferbruary 2008 at 10.40 pm IST

011249 2008-01-30 10:31 Re: The Entailments of History -- [Was: language and fiction]


Dear Friends


I tend to agree with Terry on his post below. I have been a mute witness to this amazing debate and

have as a result learned a great deal for which I am most grateful to the numerous contributors. I have

written off-list to a number of members and we should figure out ways to keep the discourse going

without letting it slip into personality based controversies, if we can, but we are all human and this list

does not give room for the use of emoticons, which sometimes removes the stress from our exchanges.

Our recently concluded Cricket Test Series between India and Australia has had its share of

controversies and the closure is not at all satisfying with the money bags coming in the way of the

players sorting things out amongst themselves and that is not "Cricket" either. I have been quite silent on

this list for a long time not because I am not involved, far from it, the discussions are positively rivetting,

do go on. I have been pretty active on my blog these past six months and now have about fifty posts

online for anyone who may be interested in catching up on the design concerns that keep us alive and

kicking in the Indian sub-continent with its huge problems and equally huge opportunities for design

research and action. Do take a look in case you are interested. <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/>

With warm regards



011009 2007-12-10 11:15 Re: Criticality In Design / The Blind Spot


Dear Terry

Thank you for your list of questions to classify knowledge in design. I quote below from your post: Quote

What you know (e.g. day to day reality) What you don't know (e.g. knowledge held by others) What you

know you know (e.g. Science, good information, reflection) What you don't know you know (e.g. intuition,

tacit knowledge) What you know you don't know (e.g. emerging issues, scenarios, knowledge from

asking questions) What you don't know you don't know (outside your paradigms and ways of thinking)

UnQuote I would suggest that you need to add one more category and that is: What you want to know

but one cannot know by any science or method ( eg: Conditions of the Furure, which unfortunately is the

core offering of design) This means that we can never have certainity and therefore never be able to

state these as specifications however deeply we want to have the comfort of knowing in advance a

glimpse of the future. I have made a post last week on the design of a new hotel chain in India called

GINGER which in my view is an example of design which responds to local conditions and is sensitive to

shifts in the world through change in a number of parameters so the design group is in constant touch

with the managenment for each new hotel in the chain to respond to the local challanges and to the

emerging situation. Take a look at the case on my blog post at this link below: Friday, 7 December,

2007: GINGER: The Design of a “Smart” Hotel Chain in India <http://design-for-


india.blogspot.com/2007/12/ginger-design-of-smart-hotel-chain-in.html> There are other attempts

to make design a central tool for such flexible and responsive offerings and we are trying to get the

Government of India to recognise this unique role in design and thereby shift some of the huge

emphasis only on science which cannot answer those questions in any convincing way. Yes, the Future

is our blind spot, but design does have a way to deal with this, we have to live with this and refine our

ability to be rresponsive as we go forward.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac on tour in Bangalore at the NID R& D Campus


010981 2007-11-30 21:38 Re: The design process as the construction, exploration and expansion of a conceptual

space


Dear Dr Heape

Please accept my hearty congratulations for a huge task well done. I am downloading the document just

now and I will get back to you after I have read through the offering. Thank you. Thank you for the very

generous sharing of your thesis and I am sure that my students and colleagues at NID and designers in

India will benefit enormously from having access to it in almost real time.

With warm regards



010798 2007-09-24 21:45 Re: Changing role of the designer


Dear Lars

Thank you for sharing your research and thoughts on teamwork and group design shifts that you see

happening in the design space. Design is changing and in more ways than we can describe just now

since we are inside it and it is difficult to have a distant view as one would in history, but we can feel the

change and we are responding to it in practice and in education. However I do beileve that we will soon

have an accepted framework of theory since so many researchers are working on this across the world

and I see lists like this one making a huge contribution just as the many peer reviewed journals did in the

past. This is not to say thet the journals will not continue to play a major role in the future but the internet

has changed their role in more ways than we have appreciated as yet. I have just made a post to my

blog called "Design for India" in order to explore just such a change in our education and focus in India

and the post is called "Sustainability as a Principle for Design action in India" which can be seen at this

link below. <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/09/sustainability-as-principle-for-


design.html> We are not alone in this kind of thinking about design and I am pleased that the net

access is bringing together many like minded people (as on this list) to very quickly act in sharing to

collaborate and explore the boundaries of these changes as they happen in our own spaces, in action or

in theory, and in education as the case may be. We have been exploring the changed format in our

understanding of design thinking and action in some of the courses that we teach at NID and I must say

that many of these moves are inspired by the great pathbreaking work that was done at the HfG Ulm in

the 60's and shared with the world in their 21 Journals and of late many new books are being made

available from the meticulously indexed archives that I am learning from on a daily basis. The course

that I teach at NID is called "Design Concepts and Concerns" and the name was changed in 1997 from

Design Methods and Design Process, which was how it was addressed from way back in the early 70's

when it was offered to our students in Product Design as a major course in the curriculum. Today it is

offered to all the 17 disciplines offered at NID and it is a core course at the Foundation Programme for

the Undergraduate students who would then move on the all the disciplines offered at this level. It is

here that we are able to offer our new perspectives on design thinking and action which is a shift away

from looking at the product alone to looking at the product along with the context and beyond at many

tangible and intangible aspects that we can now see as critical to a designed offering. I have set up a

new blog to discuss thye course in a contemporaneous format and you can see this unfold as we teach

it at NID across all our campusses, at Paldi, Gandhinagar and Bangalore. Some of you on the list may

wish to comment on our explorations and this would help shape our movement forward with conviction

and resolve. You will see that most of the assignments are offered to the whole team of designers who

are assembled in an organic manner and the tasks are assigned to the group and there is a value that

we find in this format. <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com> I look forward to

other contributions from the list in the days ahead.

With warm regards


24 September 2007 at 9.40 pm IST

010690 2007-08-18 16:03 Re: Announcing an Award for a Design (Articulate Plan) to Tie Shoelaces


Dear Jerry and Ken

Describing the design process and worse, trying to define Design, does get everybody into a tizzy, all

knotted up, and now I believe it more than ever before. Jerry, your arguements quoted below reminds

me of a lecture by Prof Bruce Archer at NID when he showed us a diagram that explained the process of

design from the point of view of potential or goal setting (intentions) on the one side and specifications

and descriptions on the other, shown as a set of interpenetrating cones along a time-line of decision

making. According to him, when we set out to design we have an infinite or almost infinite set of


possibilities from our point of departure while the specifications would be close to zero. However as we

take a series of decisions along a time line towards the ultimate goal the possibilities offered by the

particular situation of intention start diminishing along the cone till it reaches the apex at the specific

solution or synthesis. At the same time the other cone, that which represents specifications, moves in

the opposite direction and from being almost zero at the tip it grows to be almost infinite when the final

solution is manifested and articulated. The early decisions are strategic in nature and the later ones are

more tactical in nature. I have made this diagram as a model which I use to explain this phenomenon to

my students since I could not find the original offered by Prof Archer anywhere (except in my memory of

that lecture), unless someone on this list can find it for me. A business leader in Ahmedabad explained

this phenomenon to me many years later in another way when he was describing the process of drug

discovery and approval process particularly for the US markets where he said that for a single drug to be

finally approved through the rigerous process of State regulatory approval system he would have to ship

out as many as seven truck-loads of information in the form of paper documents to achieve the closure

of the process. I wonder how many truck-loads of documents would be needed to meet the task set by

Ken, if we are to assume the same levels of critical definition that is required by the US drug

administration? Ken, you have not specified the kind of shoe that would be laced. Nor the number and

location of the holes, if any, that would need to be threaded to achieve the anchoring of the lace or laces

before we can actually tie the laces down in one "informed gesture" that is based on the description that

is to be produced by members of this list. The imposibility of the task gets more onerous when one looks

at the many kinds of laces that are now available (see online sources) all using numerous weave

techniques and with new hardware being invented each day to make non-threaded laces in the form of

drop-in-place or hook along kind of lace-stays, the task gets even more interesting. Where do we begin

and where does it all end? Jerry is right when he declares that at any stage we would have to set a

lower limit to what is accepted as known, otherwise we may have to define each and every word in the

description and the unstated set of words that would make the ones used make sense as a language.

What about the language of description, can it be in plain English? In India we have 14 official languages

accepted by the State!! I will let you ponder this one and I am not going to attempt the dinner date with

Ken but I would like to look through the window at those who finally make it, good luck.

With warm regards



010576 2007-08-09 20:05 Re: Design as design research and design culture


Dear Uma and the PhD-Design list


This is a long post and it has a long tail which I have not edited since Uma and I, both the Indians have

been self critical and have had an offline set of exchanges which we felt should be shared with the list

for those who may be interested in this particular thread while the others may delete the whole post

since it is long, very long. Your concerns about the crafts persons and the power equations as

disadvantaged persons is a real one which needs to be addressed in any form of research or

development action. The other threads on the social consequences of design I am sure will address

some of these concerns. Business too is changing their attitude towards the use of design from what I

hear. Yesterday we had a lecture in the NID auditorium from a senior member of the IDEO team in San

Francisco, Joanne Oliver, who spoke at length about the internal processes that addressed ethical

practices and the consequences of design at IDEO while she also shared examples of projects that

could illustrate this approach and the experiments that IDEO had conducted in the project dealing with

Recycling, Reuse etc. In the Q & A session some of us asked probing questions about the ethical

standards in business about the use of design as well as about IDEO's stand on such matters, which

was both candid as well as informative. I am sure that if practice has become sensitive to such matters

and not just about making the business go at any cost I am sure that the design research community too

would find ways to track and build on this practice that is being talked about in design circles a lot.

Europe has called for a multi-national programme for addressing climate change and this too is

becoming an agenda item across the world as are the social consequences of planning, design and

government action. I will not elaborate here but save it for another post since this one is already very

long. I do look forward to hearing more from the list about work done in other situations about social

audits of design action and how these are done and what have been the effects of such action. Yes, I do

agree with Victor that we need more of this kind of research but I also agree with Ken that some of this is

being done but outside the umbrella of what is seen today as design research.

With warm regards





Dear Professor Buchanan

I was hoping to hear from you about your analysis of my earlier statements. Have I not answered your

question, partly at least? On hearing your interpretation I can respond further. I am not sure if you

misssed my earlier reply.

With warm regards






Dear Uma

Thank you. It is indeed good to have the printed book in hand, very satisfying after so many years in the

making. The 800 crafts documentations and craft design project reports that I mention are both those

done by (undergraduate) students as well as those done by faculty teams with students and researchers

in response to specific development situations that they have been asked to address in India by clients

from both government , industry as well as non-government agencies involved in development

initiatives. All these documentations have been done through direct field work and live contact in the field

with living crafts communities since India is a rich living resource of crafts practices all over the country

and at NID we have found this kind of contact a very stimulating way of informing design students about

the cultural resources that could inform design values. The second question that you ask cannot be

answered without substantial research which has not yet been done, since these documents are not yet

published and they are not freely available for a wider discussion, although I do wish that they were.

However all of these are accessible to those who visit NID Library and after a procedure to ensure the

safety of the documents our students, faculty and visiting researchers have been using it as a resource

to inform design action in that particular craft or region. The quality of the documents vary quite a lot

based on many parameters but some are worthy of great respect since they have been done with

passion and with maticulous research which would put many qualified researchers to shame, even if

they have been handled at the under-graduate level. All these documents have been done with an

underlying intention of their being used as a design resource and to make the study a take off point for a

development initiative and very few have been done only for the sake of creating knowledge about the

craft, although these may be the most informative sources that you may find about the far flung places

about which very little may be available in the published space. Our new book is filling that huge void in

India and we hope that we can continue to expand this base by our strategies of using the web as a

platform which is the fourth stage of our ongoing project at NID. In the context of our discussion on this

list about design research, I do believe that all this work is valid design research and it has helped

support many design and strategy initiatives initiatives that we have undertaken over the years in the

field as well as those that use the resource as a back drop for contextual information where none is

available, particularly in the whole area of rural development, be it health, education, employment or

infrastructure, to name only a few areas of design action from our huge list of potential areas, 230

sectors in all. This does not mean that all the avenues for design research are covered nor does it mean

that we should not initiate higher studies and post doc projects in all these areas. I have proposed an

area of action for our Institute which I called Design Audits for Industry and Governments. As part of our

Design Policy initiatives I have suggested that India should set up a seven stage action plan to bring


design thought and action to the 230 sectors of our economy. I have posted this message on the blog

Design for India and you can review my proposal at this link below: <http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2007/06/wish-list-for-indias-national-design.html> or at this short link here

<http://www.tiny.cc/ep8qg> These seven stages are as listed below: 1. Design Opportunities Mapping:

Setting goals and defining objectives in close cooperation with the stakeholders. 2. Design Awareness

Building: Promoting and informing all stakeholders, the public, government, business and society about

the use and processes of design action and research are reproduced here. 3. Design Support Initiatives:

Enabling and empowering user groups and stakeholders to access and manage design to meet their

core needs through incubating, incentiviceing and hand-holding supports. 4. Design Advocacy Services:

Initiating and catalyzing action in high risk areas through planned investment and regulation of

infrastructure and policy initiatives for growth and sustainability. 5. Design Action Initiatives: Public

infrastructure and good practices in governance can be designed through a systematic programme of

government action through public private partnerships to ensure that what is built is an umbrella for

sustained and balanced development across all sectors of need. 6. Design Evaluation and Regulation:

Impact assessment and systems audit on an ongoing basis will inform future investments as well as help

regulate and instill good practices across the board in all development initiatives funded by government.

7. Design Planning and Vision: Support and direct investments in public interest research and design

development initiatives that are both visionary can ensure the future proofing of our economy in a

climate of cataclysmic change. My other posts too have been about such an informed action and these

are listed here for immediate review: • Design inside education: A strategy for India • Global Warming

and Design Concerns in India • 230 Sectors of Economy for Design Action in India • Fields of Design

and Opportunities for India • Science and Design: Reality check for India • Wish List for India’s National

Design Policy <http://www.tiny.cc/ep8qg> • Reflections on Indian Design Policy 2007 Take a look. In

the wish list the design audit is proposed as a procedure to generate accountability through critical

review of design offerings as well as the procedures and methods adopted to achieve these results. I will

get back later if there are further querries from the list or if you have any other suggestions and

questions.

With warm regards




MPR on PhD-Design_2007_08_07 Dear Friends

We have been discussing the lack of research into many aspects of design and design research and I

agree that this is quite true from many angles. However It is also true that many areas of research do


cover the intentions and the outcomes of design action although these may not be percieved as an area

of design research by many in the field as well as outside. At NID we have been doing sustained

research into the crafts traditions of India and these have so far been only available to NID schollars who

have access to the single unpublished copies in the NID Library, over 800 study documents if you do not

include the ones on textile crafts and the design projects. These have remained unpublished both due to

a lack of funds and also due to a lack of vision that thse are of great value to our design movement in

India and elsewhere. However, I am happy to inform you that we have just recieved an advance copy of

the book "Handmade in India" that was researched and created at the NID based on 40 years tradition

of crafts documentation and the last five years of intensive research by over 50 teams from NID and it is

published and produced by COHANDS and Mapin Publishing Pvt Limited with the support from

Development Commissioner Handicrafts Government of India. I am one of its editors and the first copy is

at hand and we are quite pleased with the results. I have posted a note about the book and its design

intensions on the Design for India blog at this link below: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/08/handmade-in-india-handbook-of-crafts-of.html> There is another post

about the information architecture used for the book at the Visible information India blog at this link

below: <http://visible-information-india.blogspot.com/2007/08/information-architecture-for-

handmade.html> We hope to have the books out in bookstores in India by early October 2007 and you

can see more about the book at the Mapin website at this link.

<http://www.mapinpub.com/Handmade_in_India> Mapin proposes top make the book available

globally when the second reprint is released later this year. RMIT produced a book titled 'Design

Research" by Peter Downton and the key premise here is that every design project is a platform for

research and I do agree with this point of view but we do need to find ways of publishing these design

research findings and perhaps the web based approaches to publishing that are being achieved by

portals on design may actually help us bridge the gaps that we are discussing today. What do you think?

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at Gandhinagar


010516 2007-08-05 23:51 Re: A question about movies


Dear Punya

You could think of using some of the short films made by Charles and Ray Eames in the 60's and 70's

which are both evocative and exqiisite in their expression of form and content. I would particularly

recommend 'Tops' and "Black Top" which are poetic expressions on film and there are a whole lot more,

all available easily from the very reasonably priced DVD set of six in a box now available from the

Eames Office website managed by Eames' grandson. <http://www.eamesoffice.com> I first saw these


films in the early 70's as a design student at NID and now I have a personal set which I use in class to

stimulate discussions on sensitivity and design thinking. Check out the website and get the set of six

DVD's since the entire collection is just great for students and can be watched year after year and still be

stimulating for the viewer, they never fail to amaze one, just fascinating.

With warm regards



010513 2007-08-05 09:09 Re: a question -- Outcomes and Results of Design Process

MPR on PhD-Design_2007_08_05-02 Dear Ken

Very interesting thread and a wonderful summary of ideas and concepts associated with design. I would

just add a couple of aspects from your note below which I have quoted here. Quote one: .......Science

examines the natural world including human beings > in their role as natural creatures. Science seeks

objective truth. > The humanities examine the world of human experience. The humanities > seek

subjective understanding. Design in this larger sense examines > and works with the artificial world.

Design works through practice > and examines the realm of the appropriate. UnQuote I would add the

ideal here which is informed by spirituality and religion as the fourth domain of action. Nelson and

Stalterman include this as the seeking of Truth (science), addressing Real (design), finding the Ideal

(religion) and your subjective category does take care of human subjective criteria for viewing the world

which is also critical for design action. The second quote: ......Design solves problems embedded in the

world of > human action, where limits on time, resources, and information > constrain every design

process as solution-oriented but imperfect. > Every solution must - in Herbert Simon's (1956) term -

satisfice by > selecting among constraints. Meeting one constraint more fully means > accepting lower

values on others. Understanding design as a general > human phenomenon therefore requires us to

understand the nature, > conditions, and consequence of successful design process. UnQuote What I

find missing in this rendering of Herbert Simon and perhaps in his text as well is that human intentions

and ideology may make all other constraints negotiable and therefore of no great consequence for the

determined design action by a community or a society in the long term perspective. For instance, with

the concern for "Global Warming", a truly wicked problem, we may have to set aside all other

considerations and focus on the innovations that can help us out of the mess that we are in today which

is a product of our conventional thinking and behaviour. Very little research has been addressed at this

aspect of design action. Ideology as a driver for design can set aside time, material and information

consequences by setting the agenda for science and research to find appropriate solutions in the long

term rather than in a time bound frame, and in many development situations the market forces are not


the prime drivers of design decision but this does bring much conflict intop the design process in a

political sense. Thank you for your thoughtful note.

With warm regards



010488 2007-07-31 20:30 Re: Out of step 2


Dear David

I understand your question partly perhaps and the huge implications that it has for the design journey. In

India, and at NID, we have been constantly in touch with hugely varied groups of people whom we would

consider users, particularly in a development setting and we have had numerous engagements in the

past with some very perplexing questions that have needed to be answered before we could justify any

solution that the design team would have to offer. The diversity is truly enormous since we have

linguistic variety, cultural variety, educational level variety, economic disparity as variety and belief

systems in religion, race and caste which may not be the case in many other parts of the world. In a

development communication situation dealing with information products the task is even more ominous

since we would have to try and discover many of these intangible attributes by actual field work and

numerous iterations before we can even claim that some degree of resolution has been achieved. I

recall many such projects that were done at NID dealing with economic, educational and health related

issues in particular regions of the country in the 70's and 80's that gave us an insight into the complexity

of the situation that we were dealing with but I cannot claim that we have an adequate body of research

that can be taken up and used elsewhere, unfortunately. One project that comes to mind is the book

which was finally produced at the end of a long design exercise, called "Learning from the Field" which

documented the work done by a team of faculty and students from the Graphic Design discipline at NID

when they had traveled to Rajasthan at the request of the Family Welfare department to look at

communication strategies for population management as well as women's health and reproductive

processes which is a very delicate subject in the tradition ridden society. The graphic innovations and

the processes of finding design approaches were a huge area of learning for those involved but other

than the book mentioned above there is very little discourse on the many many dimensions that were

studied and explored during the project which was quite a massive exercise. The book is still available

from the NID Publications and can be seen at this link below which is a amazing resource for anyone

who may be interested in these complex dimensions of health communication in India:

<http://nid.edu/research_pub_leningfield.htm> One of the authors, Laxmi Murthy, has done some

sustained work after this project and her work with the women of Southern Rajasthan can be seen at

these web links below: <http://www.vikalpdesign.com/> <http://www.vikalpdesign.com/home.html>


The other author of the book, Ashoke Chatterjee, was formerly the Executive Director of NID from 1975

to 1985 and he has been personally responsible for keeping NID and its graphic designers in particular

focussed on the social commmunication agenda for many years and through his sustained committment

brought in, UNIDO, UNESCO, the World Bank and many other international and national agencies to

NID, with design challanges to be handled in the area of social communication. Ashoke Chatterjee was

the recipient of the Sir Misha Black Award and he got it on behalf of NID for excellence in Design

Education and it was Prof Bruce Archer of RCA who came to India specifically with the task of conferring

the award on Ashoke Chatterjee who presently lives in Ahmedabad and is active in the field of crafts and

development as the President of the Crafts Council of India. There were literally hundreds of small and

large projects that were done in this space which have not been adequately documented or discoursed

about and this research work can still be done if someone is interested even today, albeit historically.

The role of crafts and economic development was another avenue that brought us (from industrial

design disciplines and textiles) into contact with very complex issues of both economic deprivation in our

villages as well as social and cultural continuity of local communities in the throes of massive change

while we were trying to use design as a means of creating change and this showed us that we needed to

build a sense of responsibility and accountability not only to the sponsoring agencies who were our

clients but also to the user groups who were the ultimate beneficiaries of the design action or I should

say who would be directly affected by the fallout of the design action and it taught us a whole lot about

humility in the field. This led me to look at the role of ideological positions in design education and in this

search we came to include value systems and attitudes as core offering as part of our very unique

educational culture at NID in the 70's and 80's when a lot of time and discussion centered around the

ideological foundations of design instruction and evaluation processes within education. While many

meetings and discussion sessions were conducted on this theme we have very little published material

to show for all this deliberation, unfortunately. Our student evaluation system that was innovated in those

days did not have a comparative grading system since the faculty and the founder administrators of the

school felt that students must be benchmarked against themselves and not against their colleague and

attitude and value system was always a part of the discussion which has changed in recent times in

order get the Institute more aligned with global and university systems of evaluation, and I believe that

we have lost something very precious through this shift. To get back to your question of how does one

know where one stands in the systems diagram of a complex situation, all I can say is that we will never

know for sure but if we are sensitised enough to be open to see feedback from the unstated traumas of

the user groups we will be able to correct our course (hopefully) just that little bit to make a real

difference. Sounds like magic, but design synthesis (when everything just falls in place) is a bit of magic

too, dont you think? This was about the time that we discovered the body of work in semiotics and

language and tried to bring it into design action particularly in the framework of social communications

and film making for development al documentaries at NID that was looking at many kinds of


communication problems in health, education and development issues. Systems thinking introduced our

teams to semiotics but I think that the issue that you are raising is one that deals with ideology as well

and this has not yet been resolved in any satisfactory manner since there have been many debates on

ethics as well as many postures and positions held by individuals that were not stated but acted upon in

very political ways, something which can be felt but not seen. We can recognise from this that design at

this level is a very political activity but to master it would need many new skills and frameworks for

understanding of its operation as a professional in the service of a client, many times the Government

itself, since these issues are not dealt by industry usually, but in recent times we see some from industry

leaning in this direction as well, as part of their corporate social responsibility, or may I say the guilt-

redresel funding routes or the carbon-credit buying route. Design is not value free.

With warm regards



010478 2007-07-29 23:05 Re: Out of step


Dear David

My two bits on the ecological and ethical approaches in design. About the time that Moholy-Nagy was

settling in the USA the field of systems thinking was taking root in Europe. Ludwig von Bertalanffy

defined General Systems Theory which had a great influence on anthropology, psychology and

linguistics besides its impact on systems dynamics and information theory and almost all other fields of

study. Ludwig von Bertalanffy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Bertalanffy> This is where

Margret Mead and Gregory Bateson come into the recent discussions on this list on the mythologies of

anthropology and design since their work had a great influence on design thinking in the 70's and 80's

when the ecological debate really surfaced. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory> While the

Bauhaus may be seen to be addressing the debates that came out of the Art & Crafts movement it was

the HfG Ulm that set the next level of discourse to include systems thinking at the heart of the design

thinking and action and much was published by the school and by its teachers when most other design

schools kept their focus on celebrating the object without engaging in any form of discourse in an sheer

absence of research and theory formation that seems very strange indeed. From ecological to

ideological was in my view a simple step when issues of responsibility and accountability were raised by

many thinkers within design and here I would particularly include Bucky Fuller and Victor Papanek, both

considered mavericks from within the profession in their day, but with a considerable degree of respect

particularly amongst the student community. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Papanek> In recent

times the work of John Chris Jones, Bruce Archer and Christopher Alexander, particularly his most

recent work on the Nature of Order, an amazing four volume offering, that proposes a new position for


design in providing intellectual and spiritual leadership for humanity in the days ahead, very far reaching

debate indeed. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Christopher_Jones> <http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk/> Wiki

is a great source for instant information in a nutshell.

With warm regards


28 July 2007 at 11.00 pm IST

010474 2007-07-29 18:01 Re: [Fwd: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] SV: Mythologies of anthropology and design]



I have misunderstood your question. Sorry. You ask "...is whether the ultimate test of the validity of a

design is acceptance by users?" My simple answer to that question is that there is no ultimate validity or

truth that any design can have since each may have to be seen in the context of the intentions of the

designer and the socio-cultural and temporal context that it is intended to serve. However my earlier

answer was not about validity in the logical sense but about the measure of success of a design and this

is measured by its acceptance in the market or by society, as the case may be, although it can be

measured by other criteria as well, by groups of experts, by peers, by potential for the future etc.. Design

cannot be viewed independent of the context and an evaluation of the impact of any particular design

offering should be viewed within that particular context and in the particular form in which it is offered.

Design without a context is an object without meaning although each of us could give it new meaning in

our own readings of that object but the meaning then comes from our reading and is not from the object

itself. So the term "validity" corresponds to truth and design is not about truth but about reality. Science

is about finding truths which design is not. "Success" corresponds to achieving set goals and objectives

and here it would cover the intentions of the designer as well as the client groups that we are out to

serve. There are many levels of design action, and I have defined four levels of design action in a paper

listed below for a conference in Brazil in 1998. Each of these levels uses varying types of knowledge

and skills and these actions can be categorised from the tactical to the strategic. Some make small

incremental changes while other offer radical transformations. In my presentation at the IDSA

conference last year I shared a model of the expanding vortex of design where I have used the stone in

the pond metaphor again to show the expanding concerns of design that are moving from material and

structure, form and aesthetic, to economy and society and environment, to politics, law and ethics....all

of which can show us another larger circle of concern and substantially change the whole question of

validity at each expanded level of concern. I hope that I have addressed your question adequately this

time and i do look forward to your critique and comments. I am concerned with ethics and the

interpretation of responsibility and would like to hear your views on the matter.


With warm regards






Your question needs some reflection and I do look forward to your comments as well. Design for me is a

long journey and in a recent lecture for my students I had devised a model which I did mention on this

list a few weeks ago. You can see this model on my website at this link below and it is accompanied with

a voice file of my full description of the journey in case you are interested.

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/FileSharing83.html> The "Design

Journey" downloads are at the bottom of that page. However, I will give you a summary here since I

could not define design but I can try and explain it in the model of the journey. I speak of design using a

metaphor of casting a stone in the pond. The design intentions are to achieve a goal and the first

thoughts are in the form of a perception that simultaneously triggers off an imagination(s) which can only

be seen or felt by the person doing the imagining. At this stage it is internal to the person and we could

call this person a 'designer'. I call this internal process 'inploration' since it continues for quite some time

internally through images and feelings as well as sensory knowledge that is informed by touch, etc.

before it manifests itself as explorative offerings as sketches, models and field contacts, all explorations

in a meandering form of journey, and in the process we gather insights along the way. It is these insights

that give us the conviction to act and make more tangible models both to test as well as to prove the

concept in search of support and approval from those who can partner with making the design a reality,

a manifestation in the world, and if successful with a wider acceptance by the intended users as well.

However, at the stage when the design is launched to market the designer also looses control and the

effects are no longer managed by the designer alone since the other players take charge and multiple

forces start to act on the creation in the form in which it is manifested. However, the designer has to still

contend with the responsibility for their creations and it here that the ethical dilemma would definitely

exist and I would be keen to hear your interpretation of this dilemma. At the early stages we could call

the models offered as design concepts, not fully formed and manifested as yet, but at later stages the

specifications become more and more decided and the offering (object, message, event , infrastructure

or service as the case may be) gets more and more differentiated from other similar offerings or

alternatives and it would take on a character of its own. When such an offering is fully accepted by

society it shapes culture especially when it is absorbed into the fabric of that society and this is perhaps

what I have meant by the term "market" and also what was intended by Gui Bonsieppe, in his table in

the book, "Interface". Yes, in this sense, design needs to be manifested in reality and find acceptance


otherwise it will remain a "design concept" or an "award winning design" that was never produced or

accepted by consumers and users in the field. This tells me that peer approval alone does not guarantee

the success of a design but its acceptance by society does, even if acceptance may take many years

after offering is made. I look forward to your interpretation and commentary on this view of design. In my

note to Thomas Rasmussen this morning I had described briefly our explorations in the field study when

we undertook our research on bamboo in the Northeast of India. Now, many years later we have some

concrete expressions to show for all these explorations in the form of a series of design offerings that we

do believe will help local communities change their own lives and employment potentials using our

offerings of both form and strategy that are embedded in our design offering, some tangible and most of

it intangible. take a look at some of these products on show in Germany this month and I have given

links to all our projects on bamboo done over the past ten years or so on the recent post on my blog at

this link below: Our field research was done more than twenty years ago. <http://design-for-

india.blogspot.com/2007/07/ifa-exhibitions-in-stuttgart-and-berlin> So what I mean by market is not

just the commercial market place that are driven by corporate industry but also live spaces that are

occupied by society in the process of shaping culture and I do beileve that design helps shape culture in

its many manifestations, both at the small and the significant change making moves that is determined

by society and not by the designer at all. I hope that I have been able to convey my intended meaning

here and I am curious to hear your views. Thank you for your question.

With warm regards





Dear Thomas

I am thrilled to hear about your success in bringing serious design research into a design school and this

is indeed something that we have been trying to do with little success at NID although much discussion

and policy statements have been made about the need for such an activity on a sustained basis. I am

also in complete agreement with your that design needs to draw in methodologies and people from other

disciplines and trying to locate design studies in a non-design setting may not be as effective, but you

seem to have figured out the way to do this even if it is slow and painful at times. However, when we

started our discussion on this thread, the question was whether design needed to be seen as a separate

genre from science and the arts (and humanities, math and language). I still feel that there is this

difference that we may need to be taking into account, not to retain a discrete position for design but in

order to understand when the activity starts moving away from what Nigel Cross would call the

"Designerly Way" of doing research and if this could be different from the similar work being done by


scholars rooted in traditions that stem from other disciplines. My own experience in doing field work on

bamboo culture in India was that although we borrowed heavily from anthropology and ethnography for

methods and procedures we were doing something different and in the field we did meet many

anthropologists from the formal streams and they seemed to be driven by other concerns and the results

too were quite different. My note books and those of my two other designer colleagues on my team were

full of diagrams and sketches and these were punctuated with notes and recordings in words and

jottings in the field and I simply assumed this was a result of our training and the ease with which we

could use sketching and drawing with a degree of skill that came naturally to all three of us in the field.

We spent a year in the field and came back to NID with over 400 baskets which we analysed for

structure and form again using drawing as a primary means of analysis and this analysis revealed to us

a wealth of new information and insights about the material, about the people who made the products

and about the culture in which the activity was located, and for me this was design research, since we

were doing all this work not to generate new knowledge,. although it did give us a whole new angle on

the local culture but our intention was to understand hoiw this material could be used for future

development initiatives that could bring social and economic prosperity through the use of design and

local entrepreneurship using bamboo and the local skill sets as the basis for going forward where

financial capital was hard to come by easily. This resulted in our book, the "Bamboo and Cane Crafts of

Northeast India" and many people saw this as a mere documentation of the local traditions and could not

see the intentions and the embedded strategies till much later when the prototypes and demonstration

training programmes had commenced in the field. It is very difficult to communicate design intent and it

may be easier to just describe it as a creation of knowledge exercise if we are looking for funding

support, at least in India today. My comments were therefore based on these assumptions and

experiences. Design is very complex and it may need a whole new way to promote although deep down

we may all recognise it, our acceptance of its importance still falls far short of what is needed. How to do

this is the big question for me.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan

from my office at NID




Dear Francois-Xavier Nsenga

I have not quoted Gui Bonsiepe in my note but I had given an interpretation of what he had to say in the

table on comparision between technology, science and design innovation as I understood it. I did not

look at his book while making this statement since it was done from my memory of the past reading


since the book "Interface" (impressive and exciting) which (is tucked away in many piles of books and

papers in my quite chaotic office where I use pile management rather than the key word organising that I

can do for all my digital files, my digital desktop is caotic too but lends itself to boolean search...) is not

easily accessible each time I want to respond to a post on the list. However what I take away from

Bonsieppe is that he would distinguish between a design concept and a "design in the field" that is found

acceptance in a "market place" or in the hands of numerous users (market success), which is the

ultimate test of the validity of a design, acceptance by users. Here the distinction works for me since all

innovation of technical specifications and procedures can be tested repeatedly in a laboratory if the

stated procedure is followed explicitly but in the case of a "design" it can fail if any one condition in the

environment or context were to change and further since we are dealing with people they too can

change their mind in a fickle manner, which explains the shift of fashion, and it also makes that activity of

design reflexive since competition and other thinking persons in the environment can intervene, oppose

or otherwise hamper the smooth acceptance of the design which makes the activity very political indeed.

(sorry for the long scentance, just flowed from your provocation). Therefore patents work for technical

innovations but not for design, which has to depend on copyright and the design act. Science on the

other hand claims that it is in pursuit of truth, which it is but shall never find, since there is no such thing

as an absolute truth. Therefore the peerr review system is great since a theory can stand as long as it is

approved by informed and distinguished peers or by an authority, whichever may be the case, till it is

challenged and disproved by a new theory and a paradigm shift in the discipline, as Kuhn would have us

believe. That design is wicked is then explained by this classification that we can never know at anytime

if a particular design will work or not and only the unfolding future can show us the rsults, however I must

qualify this by saying that the risks can be reduced by rsearch and expert insight as well as power to

manage markets as it may be in the case of monopolies and in some other specific situations of control

and coercion.

With warm regards



010454 2007-07-27 00:01 Re: Mythologies of anthropology and design


Dear David

Well said. I do think that design needs some pretty bold moves, even poetic ones, good or bad, mature

or immature. In a recent message on my blog I made the following statement about two significant

moments of the human design journey. http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/07/ifa-exhibitions-

in-stuttgart-and-berlin.html Quote That these aspects of design are not tangible in the exhibits is both

a problem and a challenge for the design initiative and it would be appropriate for us to remember here


that Germany is the home of both the Bauhaus (1919 – 1936) and the Hfg Ulm (1950 – 1968), both

great design schools, nay great design movements, that showed the world the power and subtlety of

design, from shaping form to structure, and from the creation of meaning and beyond, at one level a play

of aesthetics and technology, at another economy and style and at yet another, politics and philosophy

and about the shaping and manifestations of a vision or intention, the shaping of culture itself. UnQuote

What you see in design exhibits and images is not the whole story and similarly what you read in poetry

is not the whole story either, the difference may lie in the intentions and not in the expresion. Your call to

the poets on the list could be extended to the designers as well, do you agree?

With warm regards


26 July 2007 at 11.55 pm IST

010452 2007-07-26 23:34 Fwd: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] SV: Mythologies of anthropology and design]


Dear Thomas

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. My suggestion that anthropology may be considered a New

Discipline of Design was really tounge-in-cheek, and stated as a provocation for Dori so I do not

disagree with you that design is a general discipline that is mighty hard to define, if not impossible. Yes,

design is a natural human activity and the politics of separate disciplines comes from the

professionalising of the discipline, its tools sets and knowledge resources and the need to differentiate

the services offered by different groups of profesionals and by university departments in need of

segregated funding as well as from industry interested to meet their vested interst for a particular kinds

of professionals for their immediate and near term needs. However we will still need "to bring design

into" all kinds of human activities and all of us will be asked to help explain, if not define, what we mean

by – bringing design into – all these human activities and suggest ways in which this can be achieved. In

India we have been struggling to get attention to design as a profession while most science and

technology activities are supported by a very substantial and serious system of supports and the same

kind of support is not yet forthcoming for the design sector, although this is changing slowly. Design is

easily equated to fashion and style due to greater media coverage to these aspects and the other

aspects tend to be overlooked or glossed over as we have experienced in the fairly low interest in

development related uses of design. Gui Bonsiepe has a table in his book "Interface" where he makes a

comparative positioning of technology innovation, science innovation and design innovation, all of which

need imagination and all the qualities that suggest the presence of vision and experimentation. However

the location where these are typically tested take place are the company workshop, the university

laboratory and market place respectively and the significant aspect is that while tech innovation can be

tested repeatedly by set procedures and science innovation needs to be peer approved to find


acceptance, in the case of design innovation its validity can only be tested by its acceptance in the

market place since it is context dependent and cannot be standardised. For me this is a good

representation of differences that can be grasped by most people who have little understanding of the

design way. I would like to hear more views on this issue before exploring it further with the list since we

are entering a space where it would be very difficult to make any definitive statement and I am sure that

there are many aspects that I have not considered in my earlier messages.

With warm regards


26 July 2007 at 11.15 pm IST



Dear Lily I stand corrected. I did leave out the humanities and language from my categorisation of

human knowledge under science and the arts. Klaus will not forgive me for not including language in

particular. ..(and math and philosophy as well...) Yes, design uses all of these and still stands apart,

which is why we are having such discussions about the nature of design since we are trying to explain it

in terms of all the other disciplines perhaps. Yesterday I was speaking to a group of young

communication design students from video and animation at NID and I shared with them the wonder of

dealing with intangibles in design and communication. many product designers that I know are puzzled

at the methods and ways of the communications designers and perhaps they do not factor in the

possibility that they are not dealing with material but with ideas using language and image and some in

time and motion and this may require a whole new set of skills which may not be offered in the basic

materials or composition courses of the traditional foundation programmes in design. I have watched

sopme of our communications design students mature in the field of television broadcast and advertising

and learn to use cultural cues and local metaphors to great effect in their work just as our product

designers learn engineering and marketing to realise exciting products for the marketplace. With warm

regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 26 July 2007 at 11.50 am IST Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of

Design Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID) Chairman, GeoVisualisation Task Group

(DST, Govt. of India) (2006-2008) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off)

91 79 26623692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email: [email protected]

web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp web domain:



Dear Dori


Thank you for this wonderful and informative post with your reflections and thoughts on the field of

anthropology. Most stimuilating, thank you. I have been arguing that design is a class apart from both

science and art, although it uses both these in full measure at its best, and at many times falls between

these two stools in our interpretation and description of the field. Today it is being appropriated by

business and management under the strategy banner that the business magazines are harping about.

Soon economists will be substituting the word planning with design and the word will take on new hues

as we go forward and find that Apple is succeeding in the marketplace, they have returned stunning

financial numbers this quarter, by the way. While Anthropology is an exciting and vibrant field with many

facets, I still see it as a science that helps explain human relationships and the human condition in many

contexts. You say that anthropology helps in early stage design directions and I am in full agreement

with that notion and I do believe that design must use more of anthropology tools, techniques and

knowledge base in this and other stages of decision making and exploration as part of the design

process. However design is about the creation of the future – its artefacts, procedures, events and

infrastructure and policies – with the use of imagination and insights about the human condition and I do

not think that design is actually concerned about creating the frameworks for our undrstanding of the

human condition as a science would do, although I must hasten to add that most design activities do

throw up many such frameworks of understanding as well as new knowledge, but that is not its primary

objective. Here anthropology seems to be that science that can provide us with such knowledge

frameworks and explain to us the context and the relationships that operate as well as provide the

design teams (not just designers) the means to make the decisions that must be an act of faith if it is to

do with the future, which as Wolfgang Jonas says is essentially unknowable, and I agree with his

position. Design is speculative and opportunistic but it can be validated only in the field or the

marketplace and never in a laboratory since it is not just a concept but a situated object or event or

activity that has infinite connections and therefore complex and unknowable. If I treat anthropology as a

science then it is not design, since design is not science nor is it art, although it is confused with both. So

we will need to invent a NEW DESIGN DISCIPLINE and give it a name and start some new programmes

to teacgh it and that discipline would use anthroploogy as its core knowledge resource and it will then no

longer be anthropology (as a science) but become a field of design. tee hee. Wonderful. Lets discuss.

With warm regards


26 July 2007 at 10.35 am IST

010426 2007-07-25 15:32 Re: Origins of 'The Ecology of the Artificial'?


Dear Klaus


I would tend to agree with you on the Science of the Artificial. However one title that I would include to

the list of books dealing with objects and ecologies of objects is the following: Csikszentmihalyi, M., &

Rochberg-Halton, E. (1981). The meaning of things: Domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. Further, other sources that touched on the concept for me include:

Bateson's "Steps" was the first source for me that introduced the concept of "ecology" in human systems

although we had been discussing (as students at NID) Bucky Fullers works with John McHale,

particularly in the Design Science Decade volumes where World Resources and systems implications

are discussed in great detail. Stafford Beer' "Platform for Change" is another holistic perspective that

helped clarify concepts of systems and ecologies of relationships in the early 80's and late 70's. Eric

Jantsch, The self organizing universe, Scientific and Human Implication: of the Emerging Paradigm of

Evolution, New York: Pergamon. 1980 was another source of inspiration. I mention these sources since

we at NID were looking at product design in our local context and some of these sources helped greatly

in setting our own goals and directions in the early days. The discussions in the Hfg Ulm Journals was

definitely another influencial resource that comes to my mind. By the way some of our bamboo product

designs are on display at the IFA Gallery in Stuttgart, Germany for this month and in Berlin till October.

You can see more about these products in these links below and it may be significant in the context of

this discussion since we were looking at both biological aspects of systems and local ecology as well as

the material ecologies on the kind of objects that we would design in order to help local communities

help themselves as a development initiative in India. <http://cms.ifa.de/en/exhibitions/dt/past-

exhibitions/2007/in-site/bambus-initiative/> <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/07/ifa-

exhibitions-in-stuttgart-and-berlin.html>

With warm regards



010397 2007-07-17 21:38 Re: Design as Margaret Mead


Dear Dori (warning – a long reply)

Design and Anthropology: Strange Bedfellows? You have raised some very interesting issues about

design and anthropology, but I must both agree and disagree with you on some of the aspects of your

discourse. Firstly both anthropology and design can be seen at many levels of thought and action.

Margret Mead and Gregory Bateson represent the higher reaches of anthropology action and in Design

we could place Charles Eames and Christopher Alexander at an equivalent level of both thought and

action. These names are only intended as place holders for my statements and not a complete list in any

case, there are a great number of others that I would include on both sides, if I can take sides. I am from

the design side, having been trained as a designer in the CRAFT tradition and over the years I have


grown to respect and admire the various contributions to the numerous fields of design research and in

understanding people, particularly from anthropology, that I have perhaps transgressed into the

discipline, both by adopting the field techniques as well as using concepts and approaches established

by good research that originated in anthropology and ethnography. However my argument is that there

is a marked difference in the intentions of both fields, correct me if I am wrong. Anthropology, as a

science is about understanding people and culture and in the process revealing facets of the past and

the present by the conceptual construction of frameworks that can support this understanding. Design

on the other hand is about understanding people and contexts with the express intention of shaping the

future, both use tools and techniques from a number of fields and anthropology has a much longer

tradition of scholarship in the recording of these tools and processes while design has been more about

action and less about reflection and capture of knowledge which seems to be a recent area of interest

and a relatively new field of scholarship, design research. I have personally trespassed into the domain

of anthropology, with the intention of using my studies for future design applocation, when I traveled my

team in the villages of Northeast India from 1979 and in this we used many insights that were drawn

from the fields of ethnography and anthropology. Our work on bamboo crafts was not just intended to

document the people and their artifacts, which we did, collected over 400 unique baskets and analysed

them for our book, but the real and stated intention was to understand how this knowledge could be

used to bring development and change to the local communities and to bring prosperity with cultural

continuity and many other such intangible objectives. These experiences have given me the conviction

that we need to use these tools and concepts from a number of disciplines but we were not able to get

any of the specialists to work directly with us, unfortunately, perhaps it was our failure to adapt to the

rigor of the specialists since the nature of the design quest may have been different or for some other as

yet unexplained reason. Design is about synthesis and in this it is now evident that it would require that

use of many disciplines and knowledge pools and it also must use many sensibilities, some drawn from

the erafts and others for intellectual traditions, and the knowledge base at the strategic level of action is

an all inclusive frame in which every field of knowledge would be included, all providing opportunities in

as many as 230 sectors of our economy. I have more extensive arguements for this approach in papers

written over the years which are available on my website for download if anyone is interested. However I

have recently set up a blog to discuss some these very same issues in the Indian context, particularly

since design is so poorly understood here and we need to be able to convince both governments and

industry to use this discipline at the high level of policy at which it is truly effective and not just at the

level of craft or at the aesthetic level, although it is also an effective action at these levels for mature

industries to differentiate their brands and products alike. I have a visual model of the 230 sectors and

another for the Design Opportunities on my blog at this link below so do take a look at these to see my

point of view more clearly than I can posibly explain even in the longish post that I have made here. A

picture is worth a thou...... <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com> 230 Sectors model:


<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/07/230-sectors-of-economy-for-design.html> Fields of

Design Opportunity model: <http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2007/07/fields-of-design-and-

opportunities.html> I look forward to your thoughtful comments and some thoughts on anthrodesign as

other members of this forum see the emerging discipline called "AnthroDesign" that is in the cusp of both

Design and anthropology as it is taking shape in the days ahead. We may need to carry this discussion

to the AnthroDesign list as well, but that can be done at another time.

With warm regards



010367 2007-07-01 20:08 Re: looking for references on "problem solving" as aperspective on design


Dear Fil and Lars

Three books that I have obtained recently deal with these ideas at a very high level of clarity and

understanding. Brian Lawson (2004). What Designers Know, Elsevier Architectural Press, Oxford Peter

Downton (2003). Design Research, RMIT University Press, Melbourne Nigel Cross (2006). Designerly

Ways of Knowing, Springer- Verlag, London The second, unfortunately does not have an index but the

chapterisation and sub-headings are fairly good pointers for finding the core offerings in the book. All

three have an excellent bibliography with further pointers that would be of value for your research.

With warm regards



010080 2007-05-02 09:46 Re: Euclid, Homo Habilis, and the former Governor of Texas


Dear Jerry

Very well said indeed. I had been pondering about the question of the origin of design as a human

activity for many years now and recently when I was suddenly landed with the task of teaching a course

in the history of design to a group of Product Design students, I used the "human use of fire" as a

significant "design moment" in human evolution, when intentions for safety and security led to the use of

fire in front of camp sites across South Africa almost two million years ago, a date suggested by Richard

Dawkings. This is a uniquely human activity when fire is delibrately used, not for cooking or warmth, but

for security from predators and I am not aware of any animal that uses fire for any purpose. It would be

useful to follow this thread and locate the other significant turning points in the "human use of design"

since most of our history is about the growth of science and not writen from a design perspective, which


I believe will be a different one, from that of discovering facts and not of creating futures with intentional

thought and action, which is what I believe design is.

With warm regards



010079 2007-05-02 09:21 Re: needs, desires and problems


Dear Jerry

Very well said indeed. I had been pondering about the question of the origin of design as a human

activity for many years now and recently when I was suddenly landed with the task of teaching a course

in the history of design to a group of Product Design students, I used the "human use of fire" as a

significant "design moment" in human evolution, when intentions for safety and security led to the use of

fire in front of camp sites across South Africa almost two million years ago, a date suggested by Richard

Dawkings. This is a uniquely human activity when fire is delibrately used, not for cooking or warmth, but

for security from predators and I am not aware of any animal that uses fire for any purpose. It would be

useful to follow this thread and locate the other significant turning points in the "human use of design"

since most of our history is about the growth of science and not writen from a design perspective, which

I believe will be a different one, from that of discovering facts and not of creating futures with intentional

thought and action, which is what I believe design is.

With warm regards



010069 2007-05-01 10:16 [Fwd: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Problem vs opportunity: DESIGN]


Dear Jerry

Thank you for pointing out the problem with my voice file. The technology problem is still to be solved

and I am awaiting the formal diagnosis from the local expert, perhaps some compression used in

quicktime or in the original WMA file from the Olympus recorder may be the cause. However I can send

the original WMA file directly to anyone who may wish to have a copy for which I need to get a request

by email. Sorry for the hasstle.

With warm regards


1 May 2007 at 10.10 pm IST


010052 2007-04-28 21:51 Re: Problem vs opportunity: DESIGN


Dear Jerry

We do have much in common by way of thinking about design. I downloaded your powerpoint

presentation about design intentions (designing.pps) and it is a very stimulating and expressive

presentation about how you see designing being located in a "rich soup' of human intentions,

explorations, expressions, offerings and evaluations, all happening in a fairly "rich" space, some call it

"wicked",..... and there is much debate going on on this list just now and it will I am sure continue for

many many years till we all get to understand and appreciate better what design really is after all. There

are so manty facets.... My own version about the convoluted process that we all have been discuissing

has been offered as a new model to my students this semester and I have placed this pdf file (tentatively

for discussion) and the associated voice file which describes this model in about 15 minutes in my

recorded lecture (using my new toy, a digi voice recorder - Olympus-WS320M) at my website at this link

below. I call it the "Design Journey 2007" and the file can be downloaded from my site if you wish to

hear my version of the Journey while looking at the sketch model in the associated pdf file also placed

on the site below. <http://tinyurl.com/f9sgs> Your paper that describes the intentional space and the

value propositions that are involved in the design process will need to be discussed and expanded,

perhaps into a whole chapter with many examples from experience and I am sure that many students

will look at design in a new light after understanding these insights that you share in your presentation

and your papers at your website. Thank you for the rich material. Your Designer PiE is already a hot

favorite amongst my students, particularly the ones who have purchased new Apple Mac laptops and we

can see many of these across the campus at NID since the wireless facility brings them all out into the

open.

Thank you and with warm regards



010023 2007-04-25 09:07 Re: Problem vs opportunity: DESIGN


Dear Ken

Many years ago I gave up describing design as a "Problem solving activity" within my design teaching

activities at NID and started calling it an "opportunity seeking and resolving" activity since I sensed that

this approach was more in line with what we actually did and these insights perhaps came from the large

number of professional and self initiated design projects that we had handled during those years at NID.

Insights from practice if you like, I did not have a firm theory to support this stand but a deep conviction

that seemed to grow by the day. Further I found that it brought out different attitudes towards the activity


of design itself and the "designers attitude" is an integral part of the whole activity of design from

understanding the issues and situations in which they are located with a sense of empathy and other

ideological undepinnings as well, particularly in the face of several critical developmnet perspectives that

came up in the kind of projects that we were asked to handle or those that our students chose to take on

from their reading of the need environment. I wonder if there is a body of published work dealing with

"ideological perspectives in design" which is by the way the title of a paper that I started working on in

early 90's but never completed, but it is still on my mind as a valid area of research. Further, design is a

reflexive activity where the action takes place (always) in a field of other thinking and acting individuals

and groups, a social space, which reacts, responds and acts on the situation as well as the designers

themselves, thereby changing the conditions and conterxts far beyond the control of any individual or

group, however resolute their intentions. Perhaps this is what makes design an activity that takes place

in a "wicked space", if I can appropriate Rittels words, in this manner. I would like to hear more from

Klaus, Chuck and Jerry (and others) about this interpretation in the days ahead. The model for

understanding the designer that I used with my students first started with a three pronged diagram

(influenced by Gregory Bateson's model in his "Steps to an Ecology of Mind") which had Knowledge,

Cognition and Skills: Knowing, Thinking and Doing. However someting was missing and some years

later (in 1991 at a conference on design education at the IDC, Mumbai), i presented a revised model

which included "Values" at the centre of the triad, Values, or Feeling and Attitude seemed to complete

the picture and for me the activity of design was no longer a systematic method that Archer had

described but had elements of intentions that went far outside the frame of science reserach and

information management. Your collective comments will be valued. These models can be seen at my

website links below: <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Menu79.html> <

http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal78.html>

With warm regards



009956 2007-04-19 17:39 Re: Users


Dear Jerry

I too am in complete agreement with your views and experiences about the group processes that

influence design thought and action. Many a times official funding or the lack of it determines the scope

and directions of design action and rersearch even if groups of designers wish to act in a certain

direction, it may or may not be possible if support is not forthcoming from a variety of sources. We have

experienced this in our own work and as designers working with communities in areas of development

initiatives we see this even more starkly than in industry funded design research since the stakeholders


are many and the forces that act on the design process to enable and empower design are manifold and

complex. At times . as designers we have a clear conception of new and exciting opportunities but

without official financial support it is difficult and time consuming to take it forward to the next level of

action and the gestation time required for social and financial sanction is pretty long drawn and fraught

with many political discussions and 'flying under the radar" types of action where the design intent is not

visible for a long period of time. As design activists and development advocates, yes there is such a

space, in the areas of environmental, social & political change, we will need to foster many new kinds of

communication activities to sensitise the stakeholders before any meaningful action can take place and

this can be a long and frustrating journey indeed if the objectives are significantly large and the mission

is to achieve massive change which may indeed be needed. The "Flying under the Radar" is the title for

my new paper which has my reflections and critique on the new Indian National Design Policy and you

can see it at the "Design with India" website at this link below which was posted today. In case anyone is

interested in obtaining pdf files of the 1979 "Ahmedabad Declaration" from the UNIDO-ICSID conference

at NID as well as the "Major Recommendations" that I have mentioned in the paper, do write to me

directly so that I can forward it off list to your address directly.

<http://web.mac.com/udaydandavate/iWeb/Site/Ranjan_Paper.html> My comments will show how

difficult it has been to get the Government of India to accept design as a critical discipline for

development action in India although much work has been done here in India but these are yet to come

into the frame of acceptance by the political bosses as much as science and technology and

management disciplines have found such acceptance and drawn in the tax dollar for Govenmnent

funded action in India today. Our National Design Policy which can be seen at this website link below is

a beginning (much delayed) that we hope will bring in a better understanding of what design can do in a

complex social and economic landscape such as India, in the years ahead.

<http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=24647> I hope that members from this list will be able to

give some direction to the debates that are taking place in India, particularly about how we can muster

the support of diverse stakeholders in the country and through these we can hope to find a foothold at

the policy level for serious design use in the developing world as a whole.

With warm regards



009893 2007-04-12 19:59 Re: MP Ranjan: Re[PHD-Design]role of information


Dear Dr. Michal Popowsky

Thank you. I have pulled out my copy of Lacan's "The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis"

and am browsing through it just now. I look forward to seeing your notes.


With warm regards



009892 2007-04-12 19:53 Re: Role of information in design activity (Was Defining Design (Re: Evidence and ethics))


Dear Friends

In addition to my post made yesterday I would recommend this amazing paper on Design and Design

Education by Prof. Bruce Archer, which was a Keynote address by Prof. Bruce Archer in 1991 titled "The

Nature of Research into Design and Design Education" which can be downloaded as a pdf file from this

link below: <http://idater.lboro.ac.uk/upload/AR_LP2_Bruce_Archer.pdf> or through this link below:

<http://idater.lboro.ac.uk/conferences/view_uploads.php? area=396&type=lp#>

With warm regards



009887 2007-04-12 11:42 Michal Popowsky: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] role of information in design activity-Ranjan


Dear Dr Michal Popowsky

Thank you for your comment. If you have any digital file of Jacqus Lacan's ideas that you have

mentioned below I would be very happy to obtain them. I have a couple of books by Lacan which I had

acquired many years ago when I was trying to get my grip on the whole field of semiotics as it would

apply to design but I cannot say that I have understood fully the thoughts and ideas and perhaps I need

to access some discussions about Lacan's concepts which would help me fathom these concepts more

deeply than I have at present. In case you have any of your papers dealing with this aspect you may

kindly send them to me or point me in the direction where I can obtain it for myself.

With warm regards



009880 2007-04-11 22:43 Re: Role of information in design activity (Was Defining Design (Re: Evidence and ethics))


Dear Klaus, Terry and Jerry This conversation about design and information is positively rivetting and I

just could not stay away for too long. Reflecting on my experience in designing industrial and crafts

products in India over the past thirty years, design management experiences across hundreds of

projects at NID and teaching design processes to graduate and post-graduate students I find that I am


agreeing to much that has been said by Klaus and Jerry about the nature of design and the role of

information. Terry, Graphic Design can indeed be very complex, particularly when you try

communicating matters of sex to orthodox communities in the context of HIV AIDS and its management

in a multi-cultural setting that we have in India, to give just one example that is far more complex than

any engineering problem that I know of. Klaus, firstly I would love to have a copy of your first draft of and

encyclopedia entry on information theory. Please do send it to me directly. I am half-way through your

book, and it is very stimulating indeed. But I just cannot rush through it, as I did the last chapter when I

first got it on hand from Amazon. My offering on the role of information is as follows. Information in

design is not as important as another variant of it which is in my view, "Insight". This is perhaps the

outcome of an information process but from my experience it seems that it is very different from the

information that is referred to in research literature. It is the product of both intellectual as well as

sensory explorations and the "insight" gained is not usually available in any form in the sources that

have been addressed but it is a product of the source and the sensing that the designer brings to the

situation. This insight is quite similar to the concept of "Design Opportunity" that i have explained some

time back on this forum. For me design opportunity is not visible to anyone but the designer since it is a

product of a "Perception" and an "Imagination" which is internal to the designer and therefor not visible

to any other partner until it is experssed in some external model or expression, verbal, visual or

dimensional. In some cases at an early stage it is not even visible to the designer since it is a tacit

concept if I can call it that and only after some number of iterations does it get recognised as a valid

concept and be moved to a more explicit level. This could sometimes take a few years to be recognised,

if at all. I have been talking to my students about this particular conversation on the PhD-Design list and

in my discourse which I called the design journey I had tried to explian the role of information and

insight, and called on them to be sensitive to insights that really neeeded to be harvested as in

agriculture, with care and nurture, which is at the very heart of design action. In December 2005, during

a lecture on design research to a group of new faculty at the NIFT Gandhinagar I had coined a term,

"Inploration" to describe the internal journey that the designer makes when he is armed with information

and insights, feelings and touch sensations etc., and these further modify the concepts that emerge in

the form of models and expressions and each are also strongly associated with feelings and convictions

that ususly grow as the proposals emerge in the designers mind and in the guts at the same time.

Explorations and Inplorations are used to process information into insights which are then harvested into

convictions and expressed as design opportunities and offerings which move gradually from the abstract

expressions to very concrete and particular variants that can meet the variety of expectations that the

situation seems to demand. This description of both 'Design Opportunity" as well as "Design Inploration "

are explained briefly on my website in case anyone is interested at the link below: Design Theory:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Menu79.html> Design Opportunity:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal76.html> Design Inploration:


<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal85.html> The design journey

is therefore a convoluted one in which numerous forays into situations and information sources lead to

the harvesting of "Insights" which are then processed into models and prototypes that are offered for

evaluation and market acceptance. I ha ve a diagram of the "Design Journey" which I had prepared for

my students in ball pen on white paper which I scanned and made into a pdf file which I circulated to my

class alomng with a voice file describing the model. However the voice file is too big to be sent by email

but I propose to make a transcript which I would share with the list at a later date (when it is done). I the

meantime

I look forward to a stimulating discussion on this matter and sign off with warm regards for now.



009595 2007-01-11 07:51 Re: An important research challenge


Dear Juris Mileston

Your note strikes a cord and it resonates with some thoughts that I have had over the years about

design education and who would be the ideal faculty group to deliver great design education. I am a

trained designer but have strayed intellectually and in my readings and writings well beyond what one

would normally recognise as a good design read. As a creative trespasser, to use the term suggested by

Arthur Koestler when he described himself in one of his books, I have wandered into many fields outside

the formal boundary of design as defined by traditional design schools and this was found very puzzling

for many design school administrators and this condition is thankfully changing across the world and not

a day too late, if I may say so. When I set about doing my research into bamboo in the late 70's and

early 80's I was steeped in Anthropology litrature dealing with concepts that then blew my mind and

these new ideas of structuralism, field-work methods and ethics of human interaction to name only a few

aspects gave me and my team of two colleagues a sense of mission and drive that we spent almost one

full year in the field in the Northeast of India in sleeping bags and in amazing days of new insights about

traditional ethnic communities and their fascinating discoveries and living material culrure that for us was

the encyclopedia for a bamboo culture qhich was at that time quite unknown to the design community

which recognised plastics, steel and wood and glass, ceramics and textiles etc as the primary materials

for industrial design and not the bamboos and grasses and leaves and mud which are the living

materials of everyday use in the regions that we set out to study. We collected over 400 unique baskets

and recorded thousands of examples of local products, houses and amazing structures in the field note

books using designer skills of fine drawings, photographs and notes, all of which formed the basis for

our years of analysis leading to the publication of my first book called the "Bamboo & Cane Crafts of

Northeast India" by M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer and Ghanshyam Pandya, that was released in 1986.


However in 1984 when my instutite got a massive grant from the UNDP and I was identified to take up

training in China under that programme my work was locally evaluated and unfortunately labelled as not

"Design" but some form of "Anthropology" and I was quite stubourn about my position and did not relent

leading to my travel plans being cancelled at tha time. However after my book was published and we as

a team were able to demonstrate the value of our depp look into the local culture in the products that

emerged we could see a slow but definite shift in perception about all such non-design activities at NID.

As luck would have it the UNDP sent me to China as their expert to study bamboo industries in 1999

and later in 2000 the Chinese Government invited me to advise them about sympodial bamboos in 2000

bringing the story to a full circle closure, very interesting indeed!! I have been an advocate for giving

non-design exprets from a number of fields including technology an increased influence in planning and

delivering educational content to design students but most of my designer colleagues would not easily

subscribe to this position and we still suffer form a serious lack of publications about our massive

experiences at NID as a result of the object oriented and product centric art based pedagogy of design

which is still prevalent in many schools around the world including at our schools in India. However this

is going through a major change. On seeing your plea for a greater involvement of research and science

disciplines into design education I cannot but agree fully with your position. I looked up some very fine

references on my computer that are reports and papers that I have been downloading over the past few

months as well as my own papers and presentations I have found one pdf file that is a remarkable report

prepared by the DEMOS website in the UK <http://www.demos.co.uk> a report titled "The Journey to

the Interface: How public service design can connect users to reform" which is an amazing study and

promotion of design as a tool for reforming service economy and not objects and communications as

has been the focus of much of design education from the Bauhaus and Ulm traditions that dominate

most schools of design today. This shift to business models and service design promises to open new

doors and positions for many experts from outside the material and communication dominated mindset

and we can use this focus to try and change design education and its very narrow interpretation by

design education administrators especially in universities and stand alone design schools across the

world. I am copying this note to two of my colleagues who are handling non-design portfolios at the NID

where I teach as well as the Srishti, Bangalore, both handle the respective programmes in science and

liberal arts which is still seen as a necessary but peripheral input to design students. Shilpa Das from

NID is coordinating our SLA programmes and she may be drawn in to discuss this matter with you and

the other colleague at a distance is Uma Chandru of Srishti who is a trained Anthropologist working

inside a design school full time. I do not know if they are members of the PhD-Design list but I do hope

that this note will draw them into this grpou and that they will find time to reflect on their experiences

here on this list so that we can collectively bring change to design education and research as it is

handled in the days and years ahead. I would love to get a pdf copy of your thesis and my papers and

reports cajn be downloaded from my website <http://homepage,mac.com/ranjanmp> and I will be


happy to send you my bamboo book which has now been reprinted in a paperback format in 2004,

almost 25 years after it was first written in the mid 80's. It took us all these years to add a claim to the

title of the book and the new version is now called "Traditional Wisdom: Bamboo and Cane Crafts of

Northeast India" suggesting that the study is not just a documentation but a deeper analysis of insights

from research in the field using anthro tools and processes. We have not changed anything in that book

except add the qualifier to the title and it makes sense in my opinion since we had originally included two

indexes at the back of our book, one a "Technical Index" and the second a "Subject Index". the technical

index includes insights about structure, form, material and process related insights that could not be

articulated in one book but they can be used by the reader to look into the math, technique, material

property, cultural expression etc, almost rearranging the content into ten different orientations which we

felt was necessary if the new material bamboo was to be understood and used by fellow designers

across the world in our search for sustainable approaches to material culture of the future. Do send me

your postal address offline and I will be happy to send you my books and CD ROMS about our work in

the field of bamboo and design. I hope that this thread develops fully to give us insights of many many

diverse experts on this list and just this outpouring may be strong enough to graft a massive change in

the way design is being introduced to schools across the world. Do not underestimate the power of such

sharing since last month the Time Magazine selected "You" as the "Person of the Year" on their cover

story which I believe is truly happening. For instance in India we have been able to strongly influence

National policy of late by active exchanges online on the DesignIndia forum on yahoogroups which

brought together as many as 990 designers and design researchers who are interested in Design in

India and we were able to launch a global initiative called 'Design with India" which is now moving on to

its second leg of influence through a strategic meet that is planned to be held in New York on the 5th

February 2007, next month and I am hoping to be there as a stakeholder representing the Design India

forum and my Institute, the National Institute of Design. What you have raised as an issue is central to

many stakeholders and planners and policy makers realising that design is changing and that the doors

and windows must be thrown open to invite and hole many many non-design experts within the design

education and design research fold if we are to make design the next big thing after science, technology

and management in the global scheme of things in the days ahead. For me now design today represents

a core human ability and thinking style that started 2 million years ago when the first pre-humans used

fire for just one function that of keeping predators away from their campsites. this definition of design

that I draw fro Harrold Nelson and Eric Stolterman, Human intentions that lead to value creation through

thought and action, is at heart of making design in the future a discipline that should be inclusive and not

the sole preserve of so called trained designers alone. Design is changing and we must recognise and

develop approaches that can fit this new understanding. The politics education and of of design

education in particular must now recognise these far reaching changes in our perception of design as a


world changing discipline that is yet to find its place in the sun. Sorry for the very long post but as I said

your note did touch a chord, thank you.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan fromm my Mac at home on the NID campus


Copies to Shilpa Das, Coordinator SLA at NID and Uma Chandru, Srishti, Bangalore with a request that

they join the list and contribute to this thread and stay connected in the days ahead.

009558 2007-01-04 10:55 Re: SV: Design Position and job requirements


Dear Chuck and Thomas

I tend to agree with Chuck here. We need to get research capability and expertise from a very large

number of disciplines to bear down on the whole area of design action in order to help refine both

methodologies as well as intentions itself. Design is a very powerful discipline that needs critical inputs

from all other spheres of human knowledge and the answer perhaps lies in getting those other

disciplines interested in dersign as a sphere of attention rather than making young designers capable in

all those areas individually. This does not mean that our design education must not change to include

some of the broader perspectives of research methods and ethics drawn from all these areas. This is an

urgent need and must go forward with a new vigour and a deep understanding of the roles of all these

disciplnes to the practice of design in the future. Wishing you all a very happy new year ahead.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my off ice at NID


009314 2006-11-16 13:00 Re: Wonderground Reflections


Dear Gordon Rowland

I would be interested. We are organising many conferences in India on design and this may be of use to

keep it focussed and interesting. This year a local list called [email protected] is co-

sponsoring the 'Design with India" conference. I am leaving for Pune today to attend the Pune Design

Festival on 17th & 18th November and on 4th and 5th December we have the CII NID Design Summit

with the Theme "Design with India", all of which may need redesign and can be made interesting and

effective. <<http://www.ciionline.org/designwithindia/>> We are hoping to see many people from the

world design community at these meets, and we hope that some from this list too would join us, with

ideas for new formats and activities.

With warm regards




009313 2006-11-16 12:36 Re: Research request


Dear Ken

You can download it from this link below. I have a pdf file and can send it if needed. Gedenryd, H. (1998)

"How Designers Work - making sense of authentic cognitive activities" PhD thesis, Lund University,

Sweden <http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/Henrik.Gedenryd/HowDesignersWork/ index.html>

With warm regards



009147 2006-09-28 15:35 Comments on the IDSA day 4 Panel-Ranjan


Dear Friends

I met Elizabeth (Dori) Turnstall at the IDSA conference. She is a Design Anthropologist teaching at the

UIC, Chicago. She is an Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at University of Illinois at Chicago

as well as an Associate Director of the City Design Center. She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from

Stanford University and did her undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in Anthropology as well.

See link: <http://dori3.typepad.com/about.html> She has commented on the Panel that was

moderated by Uday Dandavate and in which I spoke and her comments are very flattering indeed.

However our feelings are mutual since I too was very impressed by her work on categorising world

design education schools and colleges using a three dimensional matrix across the following axis of x, y,

and z: This can be applied to departments within design schools since I can see that our school too has

many approaches within the 14 disciplines that we teach at NID. And things are changing fast and many

strengths of the past are being dramatically changed without necessarily taking stock of where we are

and where we need to go from here. This is good model to help schools and departments take a deep

look at themselves in order to build diagnostic frameworks for curricullum development and framing

teaching content.. X axis: Product & Artifact orientation to Design Process Orientation Y axis: Hands on

Skilled orientation to Hi-Tech & IT centered orientation Z axis: Applied Arts orientation to Business

Process orientation. According top her research all schools can be placed somewhere along these three

axis and we can then compare them for what they are and what they are offering. Very interesting, must

get her full report. You can see her comments of Day 4 of the IDSA Austin conference at the link below

on her Blog link below: <http://dori3.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/idsa_2006_final.html>

With warm regards




009142 2006-09-21 01:25 Friends in India and the list: IDSA Presentation panel Discussion "The Design Element":

Ranjan


Dear Friends We had a fairly significant presentation at the IDSA National conference in Austin Texas

earlier today which ended two hours ago before lunch at the Hilton Austin Hotel in downtown Austin.

Usay Dandavate was the moderator of the morning plenary session "Changing Design: The Design

Element" and the invited panelists were Klaus Krippendorf, Bruce Nusbaum, Loraine Justice, Doris

Wells Papanek and myself. Each of us were given ten minutes to speak with our presentations and then

the panel was thrown open to questions from the floor and from the moderator. Uday kicked off the

session with his interpretation of design andf his call was for co-creation with designers working as

facilitators and this was his new definition of design. I followed with my presentation which was titled

"Giving Design back to society: Towards a Post-mining Economy" and my presentation included my

definition of design and I proposed a series of frames of references that could be used to explain where

design needs to be taken if we are to be effective in the future. My presentation is now uploaded top my

website under the design theory sub-section and it can be downloaded from the site at this link below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/FileSharing83.html> go to the bottom

of the page and click download. My lecture was followed by Doris Wells Papanek who stressed on

learning and cognitive perspectives that came from her work in anthropology and was of the opinion that

design needed to heed to the field and draw on the tools and processes of anthropology going forward.

Loraine Justice followed by her insights on the changing perceptions in China and in the USA about

cross cultural opportunities for designers. Klaus Krippendorf was at his articulate best and he talked

about design being a language that was concerned with the productiion of meaning. Meaning is not

created by the designer but by the user and design was a means of facilitation of this process. Bruce

Nusbaum talked about his journey in trying to change perceptions in the business press and the industry

groups on the economic and business roles for design and called for more promotion and dissemination

which is a call from Krippendorf as well but with a focus on the need for published texts that captured the

processes and principles of design thinking. I am quoting below my note to Uday about my talk that I

had sent him as a preparation towards the conference presentation. The interest in India and China in

the USA is enormous and many people have said that they would be interested in attending the CII-NID

Cesign Summit in December 4th and 5th in New Delhi later this year. Uday has prepared a post-card

that was stacked up at all tables in the corridor and many people could be seen discussing the event

and asking about travel to India, great effort Uday, and Design India is listed as a partner and we may

see many requests for membership to the list going forward. The session and the event was very lively


and many new friends and potential teachers for the developing India design education story. With

warm regards M P Ranjan from my hotel room at Hilton Austin 20 September 2006 at 3.15 Texas local

time (Thu 1.35 am IST) I quote my mail to Uday about my presentation below: "Giving Design back to

Society: Towards a Post-mining Economy" M P Ranjan Faculty of Design National institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, India Outline of Panel discussion remarks to support the visual presentation at the IDSA

2006 Conference in Austin, Texas, USA. Session is moderated by Uday Dandavate, Principal Sonic

Rim, USA. Dear Uday I am working on the visual presentation for the IDSA Conference and as the

dates for travel grow near I must respond to your questions that have been on my mind all these days,

very puzzling and very stimulating at the same time. My presentation summary: My 10 minute

presentation is now called "Giving Design back to Society: Towards a Post-mining Economy". Sounds

pompous and unrealistic, but look at it this way. A few years ago the Supreme Court of India banned all

harvesting of timber from the forests of the Eastern Himalayas and instantly 400 odd local timber and

plywood based factories in Assam and the Northeast of India had to down shutters. Germany and many

Western nations introduced stringent laws banning the import of textiles with Azo dyes and the Indian

handloom industry was in a tizzy and had to seek Government help to re-train hundreds of thousands of

weavers and dyers involved in the age old craft in India, big change in a hurry. More recently the state

Government of Delhi had to ban all public transport busses, taxis and scooters using petrol and diesel

due to environmental action by local NGO's and soon with Court intervention and community action,

CNG or Compressed natural Gas was introduced as an alternate fuel for all public transport, the switch

was not painless, but it was done with positive effect. I sense these and other transformations as fore-

runners for a massive transformation when material interests will give way to social interests and

technology and science will respond to community needs and in this process bring design in as a

central capability that is used at many levels, far beyond the aesthetic and performance levels that we

are used to today. My own work in bamboo was influenced by both environmental as well as social

concerns. The need to find alternatives for cultivated resources to sustain a huge need for material

artefacts and an alternate industry as well as the social need to solve the immense problems of poverty

in rural India and other parts of the world. Working with and using bamboo one realises how amazing is

the the concept of fertile soil to make materials that are both strong and abundant. Another realisation is

that while Bucky Fuller talked about 'Space Ship Earth" , the Earth as a finite resource for all of us, we

realise that the soil layer on the Space Ship is a mere 10 to 20 feet deep. Imagine the Earth, an 8000

mile diameter planet with a 10 feet thick layer of fertile soil created by many layers of decayed plants

and bacterial matter we come to an image of the "Soap Bubble Earth", a fragile and vulnerable eco-

system, that can be easily undone just as a soap bubble can in its brief flight in the air. This places the

soil as one of the most significant resources that would need to be conserved along with air and water

and these will need to form the core knowledge of the future designers. The history of design for me did

not begin with the industrial revolution but it is perhaps the oldest ability of humans and it pre-dates both


science and art, in my definition. Design is human intentions and actions that create new value. With this

definition we can link the earliest human use of design, perhaps, to the very first use of fire to keep other

animals away, for security, as Richard Dawkins tells us in his "Ergasts tale", used some two million years

ago. The science of fire was still far away in the future, but humans used fire long before they knew how

to make fire or even understand its dynamics. Tool making, settled agriculture, mobility and technology

followed in ever increasing rapid evolution of thought and action. In rural India the crafts traditions are a

reminder of these integrated times when design was inseparable from many forms of human expression.

Human history and design history are intertwined inextricably till we discovered formal education and

then the whole story crumbles into specialisation and analysis over generalist and synthesis, design is

sacrificed at the alter of science. Formal education today, at least in India as we see it is devoid of any

emphasis on the abilities of converting materials with skills and dexterous abilities that were common

place in all our villages across India. While these still exist in numerous places where "development and

modern education" are still to arrive, we tend to look down at these places and people as uneducated

and illiterate. In this we fail to see their deep understanding of the local materials and the ability of their

culture to develop a deep grasp of traditional wisdom of the ages that had been passed on through the

generations. I was fortunate to experience this knowledge during our year long field study of the bamboo

culture of Northeast India conducted in the late seventies towards my book on bamboo crafts and

traditions of the region. Teaching design to undergraduate students from some of our best schools in

India helped me realise how restrictive is our education in transmitting abilities of making things, cooking

and in acquiring knowledge about the local wisdom. Something that every village child seemed to have

without going to school. We have distanced ourselves from the integrated use of design as an everyday

activity and made it a specialised task for a class of people called designers. We are increasingly

seeing the collapse of the single discipline task groups and we are learning to work with people in co-

creating solutions, a sort of return to the roots of making design an everyday task once again. The key

seems to lie in education, and we need to redesign education to bring the design agenda closer to

society. Give design back to society and it will be an ability sought after in the soon to be realised post-

mining economy with numerous regulations that will make the everyday task complex and challanging.

From material to dematerial is a direction that design will increasingly focus on as business models and

regulatory principles will determine what we may be permitted to do rather than what we can do with

technology at hand. Design is about what you can and would do with technology and materials as well

as about the spirit that drives such use. People matter and designing with people and for people is the

way forward which we will need to once again integrate into our everyday lives. We need to rediscover

our tools and abilities to use these skillfully. The sensory and motor homunculus shows us that the

hands and our craft abilities use huge brain resources and this should inform the education processes of

the future and bring skills back into our schooling and sensitivity back into our society at all levels. Now

the questions from my perspective in academia and in India: Will design education inform general


education in the early years of schooling in India? How can crafts and design be integrated into the

process of schooling to make society both skillful and thoughtful? From technology being the prime

driver of change will we learn to place human abilities and needs at the heart of national action? Will we

learn to place design before technology and let integrated design thought determine priorities and what

needs to be developed? Significant moments in my life: Could be the base for your questions? Being

born in a toy factory that was set up by my father and studying in some of the finest schools in Madras

gave me an insight into two distinct worlds, one of organised western education and the other of the

unorganised small industry sector in India. I joined NID as an experienced cabinetmaker and worked as

a design student to learn the language of design in the classical form, based on the Bauhaus and Ulm

traditions. However teaching design in India in the seventies changed my perception of what design

was, something far more than aesthetics that was the order of the day. This was a search for relevance

and it still continues today. Doing a year long field work in the anthropological tradition in the bamboo

culture of Northeast of India and in the many crafts sectors across India brought home the realities of the

Indian culture and its knowledge base for future directions in design. Experiencing the Internet at a

friends home for the first time on a T1 line in Sunnyvale, California during my visit to Apple in the mid-

nineties changed my perception of what Information Technology could do for many human activities. I

close now an wait for your response. I am here for another two days and then go to Mumbai for my US

Visa interview on the 14th September and will be leaving Ahmedabad on 16th morning very early for

Chicago and Austin. I am yet to hear from Leslie about my accommodation in Austin. I will follow up

tomorrow morning. See if you can call her and give her a gentle reminder. I look forward to hearing from

you and it will influence my final visual presentation that is being prepared over the next two days. With

warm regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 12 September 2006 at 12.05 midnight IST Prof M P

Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID) Chairman,

GeoVisualisation Task Group (DST, Govt. of India) (2006-2008) Faculty Member on Governing Council

(2003 - 2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79 26623692 ext

1090 (changed in January 2006) Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email:

[email protected] web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ web domain:

http://www.ranjanmp.in Unquote

009133 2006-09-11 21:49 Re: Identify unknown sketches of design issues


Dear Terry

I had the book in hand when I wrote to you. It was a mere descriction of what was in front of me.

However, when I downloaded the first image I recognised it immediately for what they were since we

had met Victor Papanek at NID in 1979 January when he had visited the Institute to attend the UNIDO-

ICSID Conference on Design for Development that was held back-to-back at NID, Ahmedabad and IDC,


IIT Mumbai. Papanek was already a celebrity at NID and we were highly the influenced young faculty

and students after reading the book and the images were immitated for all forms of expression and

system models and the other….

Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, Centre for Bamboo Initiatives at NID (CFBI-NID) Chairman,

GeoVisualisation Task Group (DST, Govt. of India) (2006-2008) Faculty Member on Governing Council

(2003 - 2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79 26623692 ext

1090 (changed in January 2006)

009131 2006-09-11 17:37 Visit to USA: IDSA Conference-Ranjan


Dear Friends

There are now long spells of inactivity on the list, and everyone seems to be busy elsewhere. I am

traveling to Austin, Texas from 17th to 20th September 2006 and would be happy to meet any of the

PhD-Design list members who may be there for the IDSA National Conference.

<http://new.idsa.org/webmodules/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=2369&z=138> On my return journey I

propose to spend a day on 22 September at the Institute of Design, IIT Chicago. I am free on 23rd

morning and could meet up with anyone interested in the Chicago area, before I leave for India by the

evening flight back home to many classes of my "Design Concepts and Concerns" course. This time the

theme is "Creative Industries of the Future". We could set up a meeting in Chicago for a mid day coffee

break, if you drop me a line. I did write to Terry about the diagrams that he posted, but offline and not to

the list.

With warm regards



008838 2006-03-19 23:52 Fwd: [PHD-DESIGN] Designer's Culture


I am reposting this message since it did not go through the first time.

Ranjan

Begin forwarded message:

> From: [email protected] > Date: 10 March 2006 1:53:32 PM GMT+05:30 > To: "Dag Holmgren"

<[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected], [email protected] > Subject: Re:

[PHD-DESIGN] Designer's Culture > > Dear Dag Holmgren > > Interesting question. "Will the world be a

better place if everything > is designed?" > > My short answer to this is that perhaps it would depend on

what your > definition of design is. > > In the Design Way, Harrold Nelson and Eric Stolterman have

articualted > an approach to design that is quite capable of delivering sustainable > results that are both


sensitive to nature and the human condition. My > own definition includes macro and micro conditions

using systems > thinking aand strategic design and this is a very broad based > definition of design that

includes many disciplines and capabilities > to be focussed on the design task and each design

intervention has far > reaching consequences and these would need to be managed with empathy, >

sensitivity and nurtured with care to realise the value that intention > brings to the task in the first place.

> > With warm regards

> > M P Ranjan

> from our NID Delhi Cell while on tour

> 10 March 2006 at 2.05 pm IST

008782 2006-03-01 10:31 Re: PHD-DESIGN Digest - 27 Feb 2006 to 28 Feb 2006 (#2006-54)


Dear Victor

You could include these technologies to your list. Bar Code systems RFID Tag systems Smart Cards

with embedded chip and all the above with their related data base. Although these are largely

associated with monitoring goods and services they are used for surveillance and monitoring of the

people who are involved in these transactions. You have not included the obvious, surveillance

cameras, web cams and digital imaging and archieving systems in your list below. Machine readable

Passports and Visa endorsements too may be included as well in a broader study. One fruitful area of

study may be to include a deep look at National and International Laws dealing with identity and its use

for monitoring populations for travel, taxation etc. These laws and policies have gone through their own

process evolution as a result of globalisation and increased awareness and use of terror by dissenting

groups. I believe that the laws and policies have a far greater influence on the hardware, software and

administrative systems of most product systems than they are generally credited by the design

community (I know such generalisations are dangerous) But I have not seen many papers that include

Supreme Court Judges and Law Makers as "Designers" and if you know of any I would be pleased to

get some references since I am currently looking at macro level influences on design thinking and action

in a variety of design disciplines particularly since there is a glaring gap in policy in India when it comes

to use of design for development. My institute is involved currently in a massive exercise of designing

the proposed National Identity Card for Indians but much of this work is confidential except what has

already appeared in the national print and TV media. In India we have had a history of attempts

(successful and botched) to bring about a National Identity system, several associated with the work of

the Election Commission of India (voter identity cards), The Income Tax Department (taxpayer

identification number - PIN) but we do not have a Social Security System, which is perhaps the intention

of the proposed National Identity Card activity. India has moved to a dematerialised stock and bonds

trading system in all its investments and trading systems and this is a massive surveillance system with


a regulatory framework which is already in place. We (my institute and faculty colleagues) were involved

in 1989 to design the Indian Electronic Voting Machine which was used after much political debate in

10% of the seats in 1999 and ijn the last election in 2004 it was used in 100& of the seats at the national

and local polls. The key design input and contribution that we made (i believe) was the semiotic analysis

that was conducted in 1988 by a graphic design faculty colleague, Neeta Verma, who took cardboard

models into the field to assess the positions of the symbols and buttons and our product design team (J

A Panchal & V M Parmar) worked on the industrial design, form and structure of the voter unit and the

control unit while the electronics was developed by the producing companies ECIL and BEL for the

Election Commission of India. A parallel team from the IDC in Mumbai was involved by the BEL in this

project. I was personally associated as an administrator since I headed the NID consulting division

between 1981 and 1991 and therefore had a ringside view of this project and many others like it in those

days. Unfortunately not many of these are properly documented so far. An opportunity for some design

researcher??

With warm regards



008741 2006-02-22 20:17 Re: A Spanner in the works


Dear Rosan

Our perceptions about design are undergoing a massive change and this has been touched upon by

many design thinkers and I do agree that the word design has as many meanings as there are people in

a room or even on this list. Yes there is a need for discourse to explicate some of these meanings and to

then take positions from a position of clarity that whether we are indeed talking about the same thing or

about different things, as different as apples and oranges, not too distant, but far apart to confuse the

discourse. I am not too sure that it is a West and East issue any more. Both China and India have

changed so much in recent times that their ancient histories (or wisdom) do not seem to inform current

practices any more. While on the other hand we have had Western thinkers sharing design wisdom that

rings true and I am sure will find application in the East as well as in the West. What are these issues

and perspectives? Do we have a master list of concepts (or even a working list of must do tasks for

design education and research), methods and concerns that design will need to resolve over the next

few years of sustained research? Can we do this together and set an agenda for our aspiring young

researchers to take forward, if the wish? Some of these questions have been on my mind for many

years now as a teacher of design who has been working in the midst of massive problems (in India) of

poverty, illiteracy and the urban rural divide, the have and have not divide, the religious fundamentalist

divide of all hues, economic, social and philosophical.......many questions that need to be dealt with


when we try to cope with the wicked problems in design from the real;world, pun intended. Design for

industry and economy versus design for society and community. There are no simple answers but I am

quite convinced (personally) that design as defined at the strategic and vision level could help find ways

of dealing with many of these in the days ahead if we use it and apply ourselves to these challenges.

This brings in an ideological layer to design, but this may have its own problems. My search for meaning

in design continues, and in this search I have written several papers dealing with the insights gained and

our attempts to deal with it at the professional and research levels in India. Some of these are on my

website but more needs to be said than and more discoveries are waiting in the wings as we engage

with this very complex subject of "what is the meaning of design and how do we mobilise it to create real

value?" See the links below for some of my papers (thoughts) on what is design. About Design

<http://tinyurl.com/ok4rl> Download papers <http://tinyurl.com/f9sgs>

With warm regards



008730 2006-02-21 20:20 Re: A Spanner in the works


Dear Rosan

I am sure that China will figure in any attempt to describe the evolution of human cultures, both ancient

and in the future. I have with me a two volume study by Joseph Needham as the "The Shorter Science

and Civilization in China" which is an amazing study by any standard. I have not had access to the

unabridged version. Design too can be traced back to many of these flash points that produced the

amazing discoveries in science and technology only to be lost again through the processes of history

and the flow of culture that is never in one uniform direction, unlike biological evolution, as Levi Strauss

would tell us in his reflections on history of race and culture in Structural Anthropology 2. I have missed

naming many great cultures under point 4 (and others) and these should not be overlooked if this project

is to go forward in all seriouisness, perhaps as another collaborative venture (online?) and under point 9

I do hope that design does gain some foothold in the general scheme of the progress of humankind and

that this is all over the world in a form that unifies all of us in a peaceful and sustainable manner.

With warm regards



008707 2006-02-21 01:25 A Spanner in the works


Dear Jonas ( and Ken, Rosan et all....)


Thank you for sharing the full text of the 10 questions from JCJ. The current debate on the scientific

nature of design is stimulating, to say the least. I am enthused to throw a "spanner in the works" and

here it is quoted below from my notes at a meeting at the IDC, Mumbai which I attended over the

weekend. I quote.... ....The favorite rant thing is true, and in fact I believe Rs 60,000 crores is spent on

science and technology in India each year (my figures) and only about 30 to 50 crores is spent on

design and we can see that it is getting us much progress with all the pollution and other fallouts that

seem possible to solve if we spend more on "better" science as one eminent scientist told me recently.

Any takers. However, my major submission at the IDC interaction was that the history of humankind may

need to be rewritten from the design perspective as oposed to the scientific perspective, and I proposed

the following ages of man (women included here) or better still, humankind, in the form of the revolutions

of design that have shaped us through the ages from pre-history to the present. These are indeed

"Design Revolutions", if we use the definition of "Design" to be "an intentional thought and action that

produces value". To be brief I am listing below my thumbnail notes from the meeting that I used to speak

(extempore) from (the master video or audio may have all the details and the ahems and the haws that I

used to pass from one point to the next). I would like a copy of the tapes if you can convert them to

digital form......and share...Ravi are you listening? Quote from my handwritten notes.... "Design

Revolutions of Humankind" or "Human Revolutions of Design" ( a possible title for a future book on the

history of design © 2006 M P Ranjan) (possible chapterization below). Pre-History 1. Hunter / Gatherer /

Caveman The Axe & Fire Revolution 2. Nomadic Culture to Settled Agriculture The Wheel Revolution -

Social Revolution 3. Stone Age to Bronze Age The Craft Tech Revolution (see) Levi Strauss (for the

trigger) (Structural Anthropology 2 - Race and History - last chapter in the book) Ancient to Recorded

History 4. Exploring the Intellect From the Greeks to (modern) Europe Egypt, India, Americas {Maya}

The Science Revolution (from the mystic to the rational thought and formal logic) 5. Technology &

Industry & Application of Science The Industrial and Technological Revolution Contermporary to the

Future (History) 6. Hi-Tech & Information Tech - Age of Computing The Information (age) / Revolution

(from Bits to Bytes) 7. Content and Databases - Search and Communication The Knowledge Revolution

8. Innovation Integration and Creativity The Creative Revolution (The Design Revolution ?) New

Economics - The Value of One (Future of History ??) 9. ?? One!!! ...... end of notes and end of quote

Perhaps humankind will rediscover Design in the near future and we will place it in the place of the "Red

dot" that Doxiodes had spoken about when I heard him in Bombay in the early Seventies at a lecture in

the Tata Auditorium when I accompanied Sudha Nadkarni and his students. The "Red Dots" (the

crazies) on his slides were surrounded by many "Blue Dots" (the normals) in his lectutre on social forms

of cities and when these grew many "Red Dots" from the villages combine to become cities many "Red

Dots" get together and start to change the "Blues" to shades of "Purple"....read about "Constantinos

Alexander Doxiadis's 'Ekistics' and search Google, I would love to rediscover the lecture....This

happened when I was a student trainee at Godrej and I used to escape to the IDC in the pretext of


making plaster models (of Cupboard Handles) that Godrej did not have handy (plaster of paris) at that

time.... Design is at the heart of innovation and human progress and it needs to be better funded in India

(and elsewhere?) !! What do you think?

With warm regards (sorry no abstracts included here)


(with reading from my notes by Aratrik Devvarman who was discussing Levi Strauss and Conrans new

book "Designers on Design" which I got from Mumbai Airport the day before, however it is a treatise on

"Design as Style" and no Indians are included there, thank heavens for that)


008587 2006-02-10 10:00 Re: Let's try again: Chris' call for research approach(Re: It's still a research question)


MSC Nelson (and Rosan)

Well said indeed. I believe that in India and at NID where I teach we have a lot of experience with the B

and C kinds of design, simply because our industry and government just did not use design through any

form of commission even when the ability was built up at our Institutions over the past forty five years or

so. The demand for design is however changing with more type A tasks appearing on the marketplace

for our students and the local design community. Many opportunities also now exist for foreign design

consultancies and many are setting up shop in India with the ongoing programme of liberalisation and

the pressures of globalisation as a powerful trend. However design research and investments in design

explorations, or should I say "design inplorations", are far too small IMHO when compared to

investments in science and technology as far as India is concerned. Today our National Ministry of

Human Resources has declared an investment plan of INR 800 crores (Rupees 8000 million

approximately USD 175 million) for new science education in the country and this does not include the

approximately Rs. 60,000 crores (one crore is 10 million) that is spent on science and technology

establishments in the public sector in India. Compare this with the (very shabby) Rs 100 crores (approx

USD 22 million) that would be spent over a five year period on design research and education in the

country if we look at the level of current spend on design in India. The perception that design can bring

fundamental benefits to society and nations is as yet not understood and I do believe that we are still far

from changing these perceptions in industry and government alike without some breakthrough

demonstrations coming from the use of type B and C design research that Rosan is talking about. The

approach and methods will vary in these as in my experience with company funded projects the design

teans are usually dealing with a small part of the total task while in self initiated design tasks ot the meta

level of system the design team is compelled to include issues and develop solutions for many levels of

the system from material, process and policy all at the same time. Serious research into these

approaches will bring home the real power of design when such integrated efforts show great results


and some of us in India have been teaching design with the assumption that many of the opportunities

for design use are in society and not only in industry as it is defined now. Some of these efforts are

shared on my website throegh the documentation of my course titled "Design Concepts and Concerns"

and my ongoing work on Bamboo as a sustainable material for the Post-mining economy that we

anticipate in India in the years ahead. See <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp> and follow the links

for documents, papers and presentations on the above. The research question is then "is there a new or

different genre of design for society" that requires new methodologies and new attitudes and new

knowledge etc. You may wish to see a recent paper on Indian design on Core77.com by Niti Bhan.

<http://www.core77.com/reactor/02.06_desi.asp>

With warm regards


10 February 2006 at 9,50 am IST

008310 2005-12-23 21:07 Re: Capturing design information - coined a new word-Ranjan


Dear Tiiu Poldma (Long Post) and Fil and the list

Your note and discussion on "capturing design information" quoted below set off a line of thought that I

felt would be worth sharing at the closing stages of this very eventful year. I was invited to speak (this

week) to a large contingent of faculty recruits to the National Institute of Fashion Technology which has

seven campuses across India and is expanding rapidly their design presence in the textile and fashion

domains in India over the past three years or so. I was invited to speak on the topic of Design

Philosophy and about issues and perspectives in Design Research in an academic setting for 86 young

(new) faculty at NIFT. NIFT is soon to be deemed an Institute of National Excellence in India by an act of

Parliament, the Bill is being tabled in New Delhi in the current session. In preparing for my lectures I

reviewed a lot of material on this list and many of the active participants are listed in my pdf slide show,

snippets of which I am quoting below for immediate reference. Unfortunately the two and half hour

lecture was not recorded but I do hope to write it up in full when time permits. Your comments on maps

and models have been on the top of my mind for many years now as being at the core of design thinking

and action. While reflecting on these roles of cognitive processes and external visualisations, particularly

in the early stages of defining the design directions, it dawned on me that design opportunity is an

insight that is very different from many forms of insights and perceptions that other disciplines may use

in the process of innovation or discovery. I have quoted below my description of what is a design

opportunity. In this process I think I have coined a new word that captures the process and helps us

describe the act of imagination and exploration that is at the heart of design thinking and action. I call

this word "INPLORATION". For me it is the antonym of exploration. My definition of the word is quoted

below: Quote “Inploration” *is the act of introspection or inward journey for the purpose of


design,Definition: Inploration: “A design act of intentional thoughts, feelings & actions with the use of

images, words, materials and ideas (concepts), through mental operations such as juxtaposition,

blending, modification, etc., all impacted by memory and sense experiences that interplay with the

purpose of creating a new synthesis. The outcome, if captured externally, results in interesting

configurations or useful compositions in the process of design” *© 2005 M P Ranjan Antonym:

“Exploration” is the act of searching or traveling for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown regions,

including space (space exploration), or oil, gas, coal, ores, water (also known as prospecting), or

information. (Wikipedia) UnQuote I am quoting a few snippets from my slides on Design Philosophy

below and the full pdf file can be downloaded from my website at this link below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/ FileSharing83.html> file names

"NIFT_Design Philosophy.pdf" (589 KB) and "NIFT_Research_Insights2005.pdf" (4.9 MB) located at the

bottom of the page. Quote again: from my slides and talking points... Dominant Ideologies Aesthetics &

Style: .......looks can kill, it does Form & Structure: ....the inseparable twins ........(the tangible & the

intangible) Substance & Message: ....content is king Language & Semiotics: ....meanings in context

Feeling & Emotion: ....motivation & engagement Need & Greed: ...functionalists & consumerism

Emerging Ideologies Ethics & Spirit: ....taking the high road Economics & Power: .....trade, exchange &

diplomacy Politics & Law: ......art of the possible & the desirable The Design Process (The Design Way)

Intentions Explorations Compositions Judgements Innovation Promotion Implementation Nurturing

Design Opportunity * When human vision interacts with the context, it produces imaginations that can be

termed as “design opportunity”, or insight. This leads to further design “inploration” which brings

conviction and then design action that follows is driven by deep conviction. So the term opportunity is not

about something that you can find by chance, but it is a product of intentionality and imagination, which

explains why it is so difficult to explain an emerging design opportunity till some concrete expression is

achieved in the form of abstract models or at a later stage more concrete representations (maps, models

and feasibility statements). The Systems Thinkers Bucky Fuller (1895 - 1983) USA Raymond Loewy

(1893 - 1986) USA, M K Gandhi, (1869 - 1948), India Stafford Beer, (1926 - 2002), UK, Charles & Ray

Eames, (1907/1912-1978/1988), USA Frei Otto, (1925 -), Germany, Some Software Providers

(Thinkers) Teilhard de Chardin, Gregory Bateson, Claude Levi Straus, Jean Piaget, Ivan Illich, Arthur

Koestler ..... Design Visionaries: Sensing & Research Bruce Archer, John Chris Jones, Charles & Ray

Eames, Christopher Alexander, Marshall McLuhan, Victor Papanek, Nigel Whitely, Herbert Simon

Contemporary Design Thinkers (1) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - ethical foundations of happiness Klaus

Krippendorff - Semantics, semiotics and meaning in culture and language Victor Margolin - Social role of

design: Politics of the Artificial Richard Buchanan - Meaning production with design Ken Friedman -

Scientific and systematic rigor in design research Wolfgang Jonas - Systems Thinking and the design

marshland ..the unknowable Contemporary Design Thinkers (2) Charles Burnette - psychology of

excellence through design (iDesignthinking.com) Carma Gorman - History of Industrial Design and


significant landmarks John Thackara - new approaches to design for society, the service economy

(Dott07.com) G K VanPatter - design as leadership (NextD.org) Uffe Elbaek - management education as

design (Kaospilot.dk) Harrold Nelson & Eric Stolterman - The Design Way The Ulm School, Germany

Gui Bonsiepe, Tomas Maldonado, Abraham Moles....... The Emerging Heros George Soros, Amartya

Sen .......... UnQuote I wish you all a merry holiday season and very happy and productive new year

ahead. Greetings and good tidings from NID Ahmedabad.

With warm regards


23 December 2005 at 9.05 pm IST

008259 2005-12-07 20:42 Cut Here: New Journal on Design and Media from India


Dear Friends

Film making is serious business in India and I believe that more films are made in India than in any other

country in the world today. NID has an active film and video department and a NID Film Club which has

produced a journal called "Cut Here", and issue no.4 is available for download from our website at this

link below: (pdf file format 2.94 mb in size) <http://www.nid.edu/download/cuthere4nov05.pdf > I

have contributed a speculative paper (pp 19 -21) exploring the emerging opportunities and

convergences with the media turning digital and broadband. I have quoted below some details about the

journal from a note by its editor. This is a rare product from a design school in India and I feel that such

efforts need to be encouraged. I would invite you to download the free copy from the website and look

forward to your comments and suggestions directly to my mail ID <[email protected]>. If some of you

wish to contribute to the future volumes on research issues pertaining to media and design, the editorial

team would be happy to hear from you. You may write directly to my colleague Arun Gupta

<[email protected]>, editor of the journal, if you wish. I hope that this will help make this journal a

sustainable and valuable offering from an Indian design school in the days ahead.

With warm regards



Quote ................................................ the fourth (November 2005) issue of the NID Film Club print

magazine CUT HERE (on cinema and related matters) is now put up (as a downloadable PDF file / 2.94

MB) on the NID website http://www.nid.edu The link is -

http://www.nid.edu/download/cuthere4nov05.pdf This 'Cut Here' is, to my mind, one of the best we

have attempted so far. From remembering the horrors and lessons of Hiroshima, to paying a richly

deserved tribute to one of the stalwarts of new Indian Cinema - Adoor Gopalakrishnan, this issue


traverses stimulating territory. The importance of sound and its careful design, especially in the indolent

camcorder times that we live in, is brought in through thought provoking pieces by well-known industry

experts. The captivating story of a musical rediscovery in the Caribbean adds to this aural celebration.

Portrayal of women in films is an issue which concerns a set of contributions, while the ill effects of

globalisation and outsourcing on national cinemas concerns another. Yet another contributor talks about

the salubrious consequences of international exposure. A group of articles celebrate the spread and

spirit of Indian mass-market cinema and claim its legitimate space in the sun, while some others look

humorously at its conspicuous inadequacies. The brave new frontiers of Moving Image, in the hi-tech

convergent world of today, is the subject matter of few well-informed reflections. Happy reading! Do

revert back with your feedback. Arun Gupta Faculty, Film & Video, Chairman, NID Film Club and Editor,

Cut Here National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext

1090

008245 2005-12-06 07:58 Re: Philosophy of Design - theories, Klaus, and Chuck


Dear Chuck

This exchange brings a whole lot of clarity to the what is design debate.

Klaus's statement sets design apart from the core mission of science of going fromthe particular

observations to the general and even the universal, in a grand statement of truth.

Chuck calls the approach taken by the designer to "particularise", which captures the core ethic that

drives design, to resolve all variables at the particular location and in context. I agree that this makes a

great deal of sense. Many years ago one of my students coined the phrase "tangibalise" to explain the

work of a product designer. There may be other interesting "designerly" terms lurking in our lexicon.

Anotherterm that is fondly mentioned by designer colleagues from NID is "cornature", which stands for,

the application of a radius to a corner of a cuboid as opposed to its edges in a radii manipulation

exercise in basic design. Klaus may hav! e a comment or two on such linguistic innovations in design.

I have described the term design opportunity earlier and my model that explains this is on my website at

this link below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal76.html>

The gradual process of transforming a vague insight into a concrete manifestation in the real world is the

essence of design effort (with many twists and turns) and this is not easy to be appreciated from a purely

scientific standpoint. Many times it looks like bad science but is indeed very good and effective design. I

wonder if others on the list have come across this dilema and can share specific examples or cases that

reveal this dicotomy. This would be useful in building bridges with the strongly entrenched science

community who tend to view "the design way" with a degree of suspicion although there is always


admiration for the results of design when it is ! well done. The methods are however suspect and there is

a clamour for validation by using "scientific methods".

With warm regards

M P Ranjan

from a cybercafe in Mumbai Airport

6 Decdember 2005 at 8.05

008217 2005-12-01 21:06 Re: Philosophy of Design -- Spotlight or Tool


Dear Erik

This is a very good way to put it. In the first position, the theory is like a "Spotlight" that illuminates to

contours and features of design as an activity that may be located in a particular context. In the second,

it is like a "Tool" that enables or supports design action in any context being a facilitating explanation or

procedure. So a theory has two faces at least, Janus like, as Arthur Koestler would have us believe

(Ghost in the Machine - Mind), and this is a property of a system as well, so are all theory a form of

system that can be seen from what is within and from what is without?? Any comments.



008178 2005-11-29 09:41 [Fwd: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Philosophy of Design -- [Was: Re: The Design Way ... ]

Response to Rosan]


Dear Erik

Thank you for your post and the call for "high level abstract ideas" about design, towards a philosophy of

design. It gives me courage to continue on my reflections on design practice and education in search for

meaning and direction in the very complex arena of design thinking. I happened coordinate Prof Bruce

Archers visit to India in the 80's and asa result stayed close to him during his stay at NID and on his visit

to IDC, Mumbai. His call to practicing designers and design teachers still rings in my ear and he

repeated his statements and conviction about the need for design research and he was not restricting

this to some field or laboratory studies nor was it to do with abstract speculations about the nature of

knowledge. As I understood his call it was for a "deep reflection about design practice" to be done by

both designers and other scholars leading to a better understanding of the nature of design itself. He

said "..experience alone does not create knowledge, but it is the reflection about experience that does

so". This is perhaps the foundation of philosophical thought, a search for connections and "patterns that


connect" (Bateson) and a production of knowledge from the descriptive level (documentary level) to the

highly rarified and abstract philosophical level of codified knowledge.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at home on NID campus


008085 2005-11-22 17:24 Fwd: [PHD-DESIGN] Design research circles


Dear List I find that several of my intended posts have not reached the list, as Ken has just pointed it out

to me, there seems to be some problem with my reply-to settings. I am therefore forwarding those (few)

from the past few days to keep our discussions coherent. Sorry for the confusion, this is a mail that was

sent to Rosan (on 19 November 2005 at 10.10 pm IST) (and the list) but Rosan replied but my mail did

not get on the list, very confusing, sorry. Therefore I am forwarding it to set the record straight. With

warm regards M P Ranjan 22 November 2005 at 5.20 pm IST Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head,

NID Centre for Bamboo Applications Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005) National

Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79

26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email: [email protected] web site:

http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ Begin forwarded message: > From: M P Ranjan

<[email protected]> > Date: 19 November 2005 10:15:35 PM GMT+05:30 > To: Rosan Chow

<[email protected]> > Cc: M P Ranjan <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN]

Design research circles > > Dear Rosan > > I tend to agree with you on this matter that there is a field of

> knowledge particular to Design and Art (or Art and Design studies) > that can be a sub-set of a much

larger area of knowledge, and it is in > this region that designers, artists and design researchers would >

generally apply their critical reviews and study efforts. However, > designers, and artsits, (unlike design

researchers or art & design > critics) are not usually interested in these theoretical pursuits, > since they

seem to be caught up in their own efforts of making a > complex or complicated thing work for

themselves by using intuition > and whatever knowledge that they can get their hand on at the moment

> of need. This is however not a systematic way forward and many > researchers have tried to bring

order to this seemingly chaotic > method, but have all but failed to make a real mark, as yet?. I am >

sure this discussion will bring us closer to an understanding of > design (in all its complexity) and show

us what it is and how it > works, or it may not? ...and what it could be in the future? > > I have put up

three new pages (and one more as yet incomplete) on my > website based on this discussion, since my

models can be easily seen > there and not just the verbal descriptions of it. > > Do take a look at these

pages at the links provided below: > What is Design? >

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal75.html> > > What is a

Design Opportunity? >


<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal76.html> > > What is Design

Knowledge? > <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal77.html> > >

What is the Designer Profile? >

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/About_Design_Theory/Personal78.html> > > I look forward

to comments and critique of the models and the > arguements that I have offered here on the list. > >

With warm regards > > M P Ranjan > from my office at NID > 19 November 2005 at 10.10 pm IST > >

Prof M P Ranjan > Faculty of Design > Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications > Faculty Member on

Governing Council (2003 - 2005) > National Institute of Design > Paldi > Ahmedabad 380 007 India > >

Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090 > Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 > Fax: 91 79 26605242 > > email:

[email protected] > web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ > > On 19-Nov-05, at 9:27 PM,

Rosan Chow wrote: > >> Dear Ken and others >> >> My circle is very small but big enough for me. I am

mostly >> interested in issues >> related to Art and Design. >> >> I would like to see research grows in

Art and Design and one of the >> problems that >> I have detected is what I said in the last post,

namely, Design >> Researchers refer >> much more often to works from outside of Art and Design

(Ranjan just >> gave an >> explanation...and i could understand why...because formal Design >>

Research is >> relatively new, and we have less to refer to)...but now there are >> much more, might >>

I say, scholarship coming from the Art and Design circle, I would >> like to see that >> we engage (not

exclusively but more often) in examining our own >> works...without >> this step, it is very difficult to

grow. >> >> Now, (sorry to drag Harold and Erik into this), do Harold and Erik >> identify >> themselves

as researchers from the Art and Design tradition, that I >> am not sure. >> But in "The Design Way",

they speak of a 'design tradition' being >> different from >> the science and art traditions. For that and

for that alone, I feel >> that they are >> refering to the tradition that I come from...which is Art and >>

Design/Architecture. >> (Perhaps I am wrong, and Harold and Erik can tell me right here). I >> am sure

Harold >> and Erik are active in other circles, but the fact that they are on >> this list and >> attend

conferences and give lectures and presentations in Art and >> Design >> environment, I have (in my

heart) counted them as people in, if not >> from, Art and >> Design. To me they belong to the circle of

researchers whose works I >> am familiar >> with and ought to be familiar with... and saying that doesn't

imply >> that they >> don't research/write for a wider circle of researchers....but that's >> not my >>

concern. >> >> Ken, if you see Aristotle as a design thinker, I think you are >> imposing/projecting your

own ideas of design on this Greek >> Philosopher. Like many >> others who draw upon resources

outside of Art and Design to >> find/establish the >> meanings of design, this search is nothing but a

reflection of their >> own >> fundamental assumption of design which they would like to fashion >> with

new words. >> >> I appreciate Clive Dilnot's insistence on calling Herbert Simon as >> someone outside

>> of design. I think Clive is right and sets a good example for us to >> follow. >> >> Rosan >> >> >> >>

>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Ken Friedman wrote: >> >>> Dear All, >>> >>> In my view, it makes little

sense to separate a "design research" >>> circle from other >>> circles of inquiry. >>> >>> When we


speak of design research, Terry notes -- as I do -- that >>> design research >>> embraces something

on the order of 640 fields and subfields, >>> disciplines and sub- >>> disciplines involving the process of

design or studying the process >>> of design. (Design is a verb in this sense. Some special subfields

>>> also study different aspects >>> of designed artifacts.) >>> >>> One of the challenges of the notion

of a "design research circle" is >>> that we here on >>> PhD-Design constitute a relatively small sub-set

of design research, >>> mostly >>> clustered around art and design schools. In contrast, Harold comes

>>> out of systems >>> thinking as well as architecture and Erik works in informatics and >>> HCI. (For

that matter, I also design organizations and information >>> services of different kinds.) >>> >>> Harold

and Erik write their book with a rich grasp of many areas -- >>> philosophy, >>> engineering, systems,

interaction. I can't speak for them, but I can >>> say that their >>> book does not limit the view of design

thinking or the design way to >>> any specific >>> circles. They are open to a rich range processes

crossing many >>> fields. >>> >>> We often argue that design is a key issue for the twenty-first >>>

century because the >>> design process offers important ways to conceptualize, develop, shape >>>

and manage >>> the key issues that affect us as human beings in a large planetary >>> environment.

>>> >>> If this is so -- and I believe it is -- it is so because design >>> covers many areas of >>> inquiry

and professional practice. These are not limited to "design" >>> circles or >>> "design research circles."

This is not the same thing as saying >>> "everything is >>> design," and it is not the argument that

everything follows from >>> design. Rather, >>> it is because design process encompasses a wide

range of many >>> different but >>> related forms of professional process and professional practice --

>>> at least 640 >>> of them in the growing count that Terry and I are developing. >>> >>> In speaking

of design process ("designing"), therefore, we speak of >>> many more >>> fields of professional design

activity, design thinking, and design >>> process than >>> we see represented on this list. In saying this,

therefore, I have no >>> problem with >>> the idea that we may discuss design thinking from fields that

we do >>> not typically >>> identify as design research. >>> >>> Aristotle was a design thinker in at

least some of his work, and so, >>> for that matter, >>> was Peter Drucker. W. Edwards Deming worked

on nearly nothing else. >>> Bucky >>> Fuller, often overlooked here, and dozens more qualify. >>> >>>

I see no reason to limit ourselves to some predetermined group of >>> thinkers, >>> certainly not to a

list of 1200 or so subscribers who fields >>> encompass only a >>> fraction of the 640. >>> >>> I can't

see that Terry or anyone else here is asking us to draw on >>> "other" resources. >>> These are OUR

resources from the perspective of different approaches >>> to our >>> field. >>> >>> Yours, >>> >>>

Ken >>> >>> On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:23:32 +0100, Rosan Chow <[email protected]> >>>

wrote: >>> >>>> Dear Terry >>>> >>>> I agree with you with a qualification. How about reading critically

>>>> works coming out from the Design Research circle, first and outmost? >>>> I suspect some might

feel that I am again trying to build a cozy >>>> bubble. But I find it too disproportional that Design

Researchers >>>> refer so much more often to other rescources than to engage >>>> ourselves in

reading/examining one another's works. Others have >>>> mentioned this problem before. >>>> >>>>


Ranjan mentioned "The Design Way". I have read the book and mixed >>>> reviews on the book,

including yours. How about you taking us into a >>>> discussion session? ...especially since Harold and

Erik are right >>>> here and a good number of people have read the book too, i am sure. >>>> >>>>

Rosan >>>> >>> >>> Terence Love wrote: >>> >>> "The idea of 'situation' then presents much the

same epistemological >>> characteristics as 'system' (a concept, has bounds, has properties in >>>

different arenas - physical, mental, conceptual, emotional etc, has >>> relationships with concepts that

represent sub-situations within it >>> and situations in which it is subsumed ). There are well established

>>> philosophical and theory literatures on this topic in the area of >>> systems theory. Floods work,

Mingers', Sterman - many others. Similar >>> well established discussions are in the AI literature. Its

something >>> we don't have to reinvent the theory - simply read more widely about >>> work that

others have already done and dusted.." >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Ken Friedman >>> Professor of Leadership

and Strategic Design >>> Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language >>> Norwegian School of

Management >>> >>> Design Research Center >>> Denmark's Design School >>> >>> email:

[email protected] >> >

008087 2005-11-22 17:05 Fwd: [PHD-DESIGN] Black Hats, White Hats, Taxonomy


Resending my mail to Jeffrey to the list (thanks Ken for pointing it out) M P Ranjan 22 November 2005 at

5.05 pm Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications Faculty Member

on Governing Council (2003 - 2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel:

(off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email:

[email protected] web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ Begin forwarded message: >

From: M P Ranjan <[email protected]> > Date: 22 November 2005 4:13:56 PM GMT+05:30 > To:

"khchanjeffrey (sent by Nabble.com)" <[email protected]> > Cc: M P Ranjan <[email protected]>,

Ken Friedman <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Black Hats, White Hats,

Taxonomy > > Dear Jeffrey > > I had sent my list of sectors for design action in India to Ken > Friedman,

off list, since he had requested me for a copy of the same. > > We had developed this list (with my

students) as part of my > undergraduate foundation class at NID in a course called "Design > Concepts

and Concerns" in 1999 and 2000. Since then we have been > revisiting this assignment in many

different forms since it gives our > students a fairly deep understanding of the emerging fields of design

> opportunity in India and this does help them in making career choices > as the go forward with their

education in design. > > To share with you and with the list, the full background and rationale > for this

effort, I am reproducing below my mail message to Ken where I > have detailed out the context in which

this design sectors list was > prepared in 2000 and I had also attached a paper that I had prepared > in

2002 about the outcomes of that particular course experience. My > attachments included images of

maps and models made by my students > which I have now placed on my web archive in a folder titled >


"230_India Design Sectors" and all the enclosures are contained > therein: 1. paper titled "Avalanche

Effect...", 2. list of sectors > .xls file, 3. five jpeg images of models made by students of the > design

sectors in the Indian economy, in all about 2 mb in total size. > These can be downloaded from my web

archive at > <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp> click on "MPR's Archives" link > and then look

inside the folder "230_India Design Sectors" and > download. > > The rest is explained in my mail to

Ken quoted below. I trust that > this will give you a handle on what we have been talking about on the >

list. > > With warm regards > > M P Ranjan > from my office at NID > 22 November 2005 at 4.10 pm IST

> > Quote, my mail to Ken.. > > "Dear Ken >> >> I do not have a full paper as yet on the 230 sectors of

design for >> the Indian economy that is published. However, I do have a list that >> was put together

some time ago for use at NID and with my students. >> This is a mixed bag of industry types and service

sectors where >> design is being used in India and these fall under several ministries >> of the

Government of India. >> >> I have been giving an assignment to my students in the "Design >>

Concepts and Concerns" course since 1999 at NID that requires them to >> brainstorm and build a

model of the Indian economy from the point of >> view of design opportunities that are embedded in our

economy. The >> very fact that they address these broad perspectives in their >> foundation

programme we feel that it would influence their career >> choices as the go forward in their education at

NID and in their >> professional lives. >> >> I am attaching the list that is longer than 230 in number but

the >> figure is not an absolute one. However when we had built models of >> the sector in the

classroom, one of the groups had a logic for 230 by >> virtue of their categorisation effort and this figure

has stuck in >> all my references so far. I am attaching diagrams in low resolution >> for you to

appreciate how we did this exercise and arrived at the >> list of categories of the Indian economy. I had

included this in an >> invited paper that I had prepared for publication in Design Issues >> (the special

issue of India that has just been released) but it was >> turned down for lack of space in 2002. My paper

was titled "Avalanche >> Effect.." (October 2002) based on my course at NID and I had >> immediately

released it on the PhD list and you will find it there. >> The illustrations that I used included the Sectors

of the Economy >> models by my students and I enclose these for your reference as well. >> I think the

logic was as follows: two kinds of outputs - Products and >> Services: multiplied by five types -

hardware, software, >> infrastructure, organisation and policy, business models: across 23 >> broad

sectors or ministries gives us 230 classes of sectors that >> could use design for development. >> >> I

do intent to take this further and make a full paper (when time >> permits) with a projection of the kinds

of institutions that we will >> need to build in order to service this enormous task in India (and >>

elsewhere) in the years ahead. I have already been involved in the >> design and establishment of three

schools of "design" that address >> different sectors of the economy and this way we can find funding

>> from different ministries to make this happen as we go forward. We >> still need to find the core of

design capabilities that need to be at >> the centre of these plans. I have reports on these initiatives that

>> were prepared with my involvement over the past ten years or more and >> I will be happy to share


these with you. >> >> Please see the list and the models and give your reactions. We could >> discuss

this further as design still needs to be understood in the >> context of all this complexity in that days to

come. As you will see >> , it is not a fully developed theory as yet but something that we can >> work

with towards a better understanding of design at this level to >> see its impact at the macro-economic

level. >> >> With warm regards >> >> M P Ranjan >> from my office at NID >> 21 November 2005 at

12.40 am IST >> >> <Avalanche Effect01.doc> >> <DCC_230Sector_List_Mstr.xls> >> >>

<DCC_Min_of_Des_BW_DSC03903.JPG> >> <DCC_SectorWheel_BW_DSC04017.JPG> >>

<mid_Sector Study Gr2_DSC04017.JPG> >> <mid_Sector Study Gr4_DSC04014.JPG> >>

<mid_Sector Study Gr5_DSC04016.JPG> > > Unquote. > > Prof M P Ranjan > Faculty of Design >

Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications > Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005) >

National Institute of Design > Paldi > Ahmedabad 380 007 India > > Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090

> Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 > Fax: 91 79 26605242 > > email: [email protected] > web site:

http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ > > On 22-Nov-05, at 7:56 AM, khchanjeffrey (sent by

Nabble.com) wrote: > >> Dear Ken, Terry, Ranjan and list, >> >> I have heard about the mapping task

from previous posts. Would it be >> possible to initiate a newcomer on what this project entails a little >>

more? Is it possible to catch a glimpse of it? >> >> I am interested, >> >> Jeffrey >> Sent from the PhD

Design forum at Nabble.com.

008062 2005-11-21 19:23 Re: DESIGN


Dear Rosan and list

Yes, indeed, design is changing fast and and it is being reinvented as we speak here to be something

other that what we have held it to be so far. So it is a discipline and a filed of the future. We are also

contributing to this change as we debate this issue here on the list as we develop a different

understanding of what it can be in the future, as a meta-discipline with numerous sub-disciplines, greatly

varied from one another as are the trees and plants in a particular forest eco-system, if I may use a non-

agricultural metaphor, an ecological and symbiotic perspective if you like (thank you Bateson). An

interesting article in the RSA e-journal of August 2005 discusses just such a change and speculates and

informs us of the steps being taken in the design world to cope with these changed perceptions. See the

link "Better by Design" <http://www.thersa.org/journal/article.asp?articleID=575> which tells us of

emerging scenarios and attempts by designers to amalgamate design with a wide range of fields to bring

substantial improvements to the areas being addressed, and many of these are not conventionally seen

as being within the ambit of traditional design, or for that matter art & design. They include design for

public institutions, design for health, for the judicial system, the political democracy, design for taxation

and the like. The references quoted at the end of the article are: — In the Bubble: Designing in a

Complex World (John Thackara) 2005 — Designing for Humans (Jan Noyes) 2001 — Design for Society


(Nigel Whiteley) 1993 My references, Bateson Gregory Bateson [1973]. Steps to an Ecology of Mind.

Paladin Books. Gregory Bateson [1980]. Mind and Nature - A Necessary Unity. Bantam Books.

With warm regards



Prof M P Ranjan

Faculty of Design Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications

Faculty Member on Governing Council (2003 - 2005)

National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India

Tel: (off) 91 79 26639692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242

email: [email protected]

web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ On 21-Nov-05, at 6:20 PM,

Rosan Chow wrote: > Dear All > > It is a habit of some to suggest that Art and Design is a > sub-

(field,discipline,tradition-you pick the word/concept you like) of > DESIGN. This overarching

(field,discipline, tradition) DESIGN, I > believe, has never existed, but is under >

construction...retrospectively...from our present point of view. > > am i right or am i wrong? > > Rosan >

008037 2005-11-20 22:30 Re: Distinguishing [design] from [art-and-design] (Was: Design research circles)


Dear Clive

I agree with your statement (quoted below) about the fields of art and design avoiding any substantive

issues through "an extra-ordinary capacity to avoid major issues". Further your speak of a second

tradition that tries to be more rigorous but which fails on another count as well, through "..slipping into

mere operational-ism". Design is changing and our definitions of what it is has also changed

substantially over the past forty years or so. From a focus on the industrial production of objects and

communications and from one off models of hi-fashion and boutique objects for small volume serial

production, we have now included software, a variety of systems, infrastructure, organisational and

business models in our definition of what is included in the ambit of legitimate design action. Design

schools too have over the years redefined their roles as the market has evolved and included many

layers of knowledge and skill sets from other disciplines into the curriculum for design education at both

the undergraduate and at the post-graduate levels. My own definition of the arena for design action now

includes as many as 230 different sectors of the India economy that can and are in one way or the other

using design to survive intense competition, convergence of IT and media, globalisation pressures and a

host of other trends that are sweeping our economies today. The arena for design action has become

exciting and complex, perhaps as a result of designers themselves redefining their roles and in learning

new skill sets and abilities to cope with the massive changes in their marketplace. New disciplines have


emerged in the cusp of old and established ones, each with new skills, knowledge and attitudes as well.

This reminds me of the exquisite model proposed by Charles Eames' "design diagram of 1969" , as

Eames Demitrios writes in his book "An Eames Primer", Thames & Hudson, London, 2001 (pp. 175,

166-67 and 177), .."..the diagram shows the overlap of concerns among three different entities: the area

of interest of the designer, the area of interest of the client, and the area of interest to society as a whole.

Charles and Ray's point was that, in the area where all three overlap, the designer can work with

enthusiasm and conviction." Do we need top re-vist the Eames diagram today and redefine what society

wants of design and the designer, what clients want of them and what designers too want of themselves,

I would believe so, in a greatly changed world and in an evolving view of what is included in design. This

is also an outcome of the failure of science and technology and current management systems in

avoiding major problems in almost every solution that is offered through massive investments being

made on the promise of a better future, but pollution, negative fall-outs and systemic failure all point

towards a reexamination of the way we build and implement solutions for complex needs of our society.

Perhaps design can find a way forward, and many are looking at this as a real possibility today. So what

will be the profile of the designer tomorrow? What will society, clients and we ourselves, expect from the

use of design at this complex level? Can we reexamine society's expectation from the design profession

and from new approaches to design using teams rather than a single individual as the "imagineer" and

visualiser or modeller? What are the issues in design education and practice that need to be resolved in

the light of these changed expectations? If this is so, we may need to look at more than just two threads

of design action and research but a much more complex set of attributes that will overlap in some areas

of knowledge and skills used and be differentiated in other areas. ( we perhaps need a new Eames

diagram to show this new understanding) What then is the common core (if any) that we can

categorically call the heart of design thinking and action? Is there a core or is design destined to be a

diffuse entity that can never be reconciled as a discipline and will be always dictated by the particular

circumstance or situation that is being addressed? What then will the profile of emerging designer of the

future be and what will design researchers study in the days to come?

With warm regards



Prof M P Ranjan Faculty of Design Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Applications Faculty Member on

Governing Council (2003 - 2005) National Institute of Design Paldi Ahmedabad 380 007 India Tel: (off)

91 79 26639692 ext 1090 Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054 Fax: 91 79 26605242 email: [email protected]

web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/ On 20-Nov-05, at 8:25 PM, Clive Dilnot wrote: > Art-

and-design continues to be problematic for design thinking. It is > the field I work in, and like many who


work in this area, I am > continually intrigued by its potentiality, meaning its critical > potential. Against

this, it must be said that 'art-and-design' is an > intellectually vacuous field. The disciplines within art-

and-design > have > an extra-ordinary capacity to avoid major issues. > SNIP SNIP > If art-and-design

suffers from > intellectual emptiness, design in the second sense suffers from a > continual danger of

slipping into mere operational-ism. It is > interesting, always, how although this second tradition likes to

> present itself as more rigorous than the former in fact (as the > design-research conferences show) a

similar evasion of core issues also > happens. In no other field would major conferences so continually >

organize themselves around excluding serious intellectual debate. > > By implication, there is a major

publishing and intellectual project > contained in these last posts, I wonder if the field can rise to the >

challenge? SNIP SNIP

008015 2005-11-18 09:51 Re: context and design


Dear Jerry and Chuck

The questions about design, design opportunity, design context and design situation in this ongoing

discussion about the design situation is something that I have been grappling with for some time now.

Recently, during this month, I have had the opportunity to speak at two very different conferences about

the role of design in each of these different situations. The first was at the conference in Shillong on 12th

& 13th November "CII-NID Design Conclave" which focussed on development issues and the role of

design in the Northeastern Region of India. The second conference was at NID, Ahmedabad on 15th &

16th November on "GeoVisualisation and Design for development". In both these presentations I tried to

describe wat is a "Design Opportunity" and "What is Design" for a largely administrative audience in

Shillong and a scientific and technical team of experets in Geographical modelling and IT applications at

the NID, Ahmedabad meet. I used the term "Design Opportunity" to describe the manner in which our

perceptions of any potential design situation immediately creates some cognitive or emotional sense or

intention which gets informed by exploration and interaction leading to design action. I have modelled

this phenomenon in a diagram which looks like a ying-yang symbol with the swirls separated by a circle

on the middle. Each of the swirls is labelled "problem perception" and "solution insight" respectively,

while the inner circle is called design opportunity. This "eye like set of symbols is bounded by a larger

circle in dotted line containing the words "Vision" (at the top) and "Context" at the bottom. Human vision

interacts with the context, with imagination, to create a "design opportunity" leading to design thought

(based on growing conviction) and then design action that is driven by conviction as well. So the term

opportunity is not about something that you can find by chance, but it is a product of intentionality and

imagination, which explains why it is so difficult to explain an emerging design opportunity till some

concrete expression is achieved in the form of abstract models or at a later stage more concrete

erpresentations. This verbal description of my visual models may not be the best way to describe what I


have to say here. However both these presentations can be downloaded from my web archive at my

web site link below <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp> The file names are The Shillong

presentation file: CII-NID Shillong_Show2005.pdf (6.3 MB) The NID GeoVisualisation presentation file

<GeoVisualisation_2005_Lres.pdf> (3.4 MB) I like the emphasis on the terms design situation and

transformation situation but I continue to use the term context since, although we work in a specific

situation the actions are informed by a much larger context (global concerns) and it is indeed influenced

by history and by future possibility as imagined by the designer. Further there is competition in any

design situation and politics of community or official decisions that adds complexity to the whole activity.

You will see in my presentations that I have also been using the terminology offered by Nelson and

Stolterman in their book "The Design Way" since it is a very accesible text that brings great clarity in a

space that is still underpopulated by good books on the subject. The terminology used is a sequence to

describe the design way from – Intentions, Explorations, Compositions, Judgements, Action, Promotion

and Nurture, as the key stages of design thought and action. I look forward to your reactions and

comments.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at home on the NID Campus


007752 2005-09-18 08:24 Re: Language or pictures in design thinking? Physical evidence -From Chuck


Dear Terry

You said.. Quote I'm also aware that some of us don't use visual representations in design thinking,

particualrly when designing things that don't have form or where the form is secondary. This suggests

that understanding and meaning issues aren't that central to understanding design thinking. Thoughts?

Best wishes, Terry UnQuote I do not understand how you can think of anything without "FORM". Every

word evokes some form (however vague) and an associated network of semantic structure. For me

structure, form and meaning are inseparable, perhaps only in language, but not in understanding, as in

knowing and feeling. Even abstract structures have form and so do fuzzy structures they have fuzzy

form and incomplete meaning or a vague sense of meaning. Could you explain your position? For me

"Geometry" is at the very root of thinking and here Form, Structure, Meaning (composition) and

Performance (behaviour) are strongly interconnected.


18 September 2005 at 8.20 am IST

007749 2005-09-17 13:29 Re: Information Request -- Recent Books and Articles on Museums and Galleries



Dear Ken (long post and some reminiscing)

At NID we have been teaching Exhibition and Museum design for as far back as I can remember, even

before I joined in 1969 as a student. NID has also been an active player in the creation of Museums and

Exhibitions for a variety of clients. Your note is very crisp and the call for resources will be of great use to

us as well and I am therefore forwarding your note to my faculty colleagues off list to see if they can

contribute to your effort directly. I will get back to the list and to you if some substantial resources are

recommended by them. Besides those on our faculty at present I can think of some former colleagues

(who have retired or moved on to consulting) who are considered experts in the subject and I particularly

refer to the husband and wife team of Vikas and Suranjana Satwalekar, now design consultants in the

field, who have been responsible for the shaping of the NID's exhibition design and museum design

activities over the past twenty years or more. They will respond to you directly. NID's major Exhibit

design experience started with the great "Nehru Exhibition" that was designed at NID Ahmedabad for

the Government of India by Charles and Ray Eames from September to December 1964 and it was first

exhibited at the 10,000 square feet space in the Union Carbide Building, on Park Avenue on 49th Street

in New York. It then travelled to Washington, Los Angeles, London and Paris. Thereafter another copy

was prepared and fabricated for Japan and Australia. It was this copy that came to Chile in 1973 and the

NID team headed by Prof Dashrath Patel, which included me as a young designer and faculty colleague,

to help set up and hand over the exhibit to the Ambassador of India in Chile in January 1973. It was here

that I met the President of Chile, Salvadore Allende, on the 26th of January 1973, and later connected

with the great work done by him as reported in the book by Stafford Beer, "Platform for Change", and it

changed my perception of design for ever. After this "Magnum Opus" the NID faculty were involved in no

less than 100 (or more) major exhibition projects, temporary and permanant, and in recent years in

some very high tech offerings are still in the making. Recently inaugurated Museum for Numismatics, by

the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai had security features and display standards that are globally

acknowledged. Two ongoing projects include the re-design of the Victoria Memorial Museum in Kolkatta

and the enormous "Khalsa Heritage Museum, in Punjab for the Government of Punjab to be located in a

major architectural complex that has been designed by the Isreali architect Moshe Safdie. I am reflecting

on this enormous body of work and sharing this note with my faculty colleagues since very little of this

vast experience is still available in print and the experience resides in the many individuals who have

worked on these several hundred projects of very high quality. I hope that this will excite some design

researchers to take NID as a topic of study and collate all the documentations into a format that can

reveal the lessons from these experiences. I wrote a paper on exhibition and museum design as a

reflection on the lessons from the NID experience for a Conference on Crafts Museums in 1986 and we

have come a long way since then. Recently (last year) NID teams designed and executed "The Great

Arc Exhibition" for the Surveyor General of India, an office that was celebrating the two hundredth year

of the mapping of India and the Great Arc Survey, the first in the world, and the exhibit opened in the UK


and is now back and ready to travel across India. I hope that my call to my faculty colleagues will give us

more insights from real experience of design and execution of all the projects that we have collectively

experienced in the unique NID pattern of the co-existance of education and design practice across many

disciplines under one roof. The story is yet to be told. Any takers? I am quoting below my paper on

exhibit and museum design from 1986 and those not interested can skip the last bit.

With warm regards



007705 2005-08-19 19:59 Re: Problem, solution, opportunity and design


Dear Chuck,

Yes, the task of "perceptual categorisation" as you say seems to be central to design thinking and

ofcourse "reflection" on experience followed by atriculation (visual & verbal), and here I must stress that

models and proximity and affinity maps or diagrams are a great help in making "visible" many of the

contributing elements and the "relationships", even in a fuzzy manner at first through brainstorming, and

it is this kind of inquiery and expression that permits the other partners and stake holders to "see" the

critical components and therefore identify the seeds of some design opportunity that can be addressed

in depth as the task progresses. Usually there are many opportunities, located at many levels in the

systems model that emerges, several of these may be details, while others may deal with the meta

themes that need to be addressed, but the macro - micro switch is facilitated by such a flexible visual

representation, a doodle at an early stage and a well developed scenario at an advanced stage. The

early task would be to discover the structure of the situation and the components of the system and in

the process the critical parameters are defined (tentatively at first) and with deeper conviction as the

model evolves and is concretised as the work progresses ("tangibalised" as our product designers call it

at NID). Here understanding the models and tools to deal with each class of opportunity is of great value

and in many cases new tools need to be experimentally tried out for garnering insights from the field,

from a very particular location and context, sometimes these cannot be generalised, nor are there any

general approaches available in any classified manner, since the context may be far too specific or

localised to find prior work that answers the questions that come up in the designers or design teams

mind/s. I have recently (March 2005) described our method of teaching this approach to students in our

foundation programme in some detail in my paper for the EAD06 conference in Bremen titled "Creating

the Unknowable: Designing the Future in Education" and this paper can be downloaded from the

conference web site link below: <http://www.verhaag.net/ead06/05_pub_read_full.php?id=103> The

visual presentation that I used is placed as an online slide show at the web link at my site shown below:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/Learn_Design_Think/PhotoAlbum37.html> and a pdf file of


the same at full resolution is available for download at my web archive (4 mb size) (file name :

EAD06_2005_Show_MPRs.pdf) < http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/12/wo/

0STBa4oCaFnrpCtB.1/3.2.1.2.26.29.2.1.1.2.3? user=ranjanmp&fpath=&templatefn=FileSharing1.html>

or from this Tny Url Link given below: <http://tinyurl.com/d5a4a>

With warm regards



007694 2005-08-19 01:20 Problem, solution, opportunity and design

MPR on PhD-Design_2005_08_19_02

> From: M P Ranjan <[email protected]> >

Date: 19 August 2005 1:18:16 AM GMT+05:30 >

To: Jerome Diethelm <[email protected]> > Cc: M P Ranjan

<[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] I|d like a copy -- Re: a specific proposal > that fits?

> > Dear Jerry > > Your description of the Bucky experience is no exaggeration, at least > from what I

remember of my own experience from his visit to NID in the > late seventies (? - need to check my

dates), he conserved his strength > through the day, looking sharply with his eyes (and mind) at the >

Institute and the city, did not utter a word in casual conversation, > but in the evening lecture in

Ahmedabad went on and on for many hours > non stop, taking the audience of Ahmedabad on a mind

blowing journey > through the exciting perspectives that he brought to design thinking > and philosophy.

Some of us at NID, faculty and student got together > and built domes for many months after his visit,

with much discussion > and reading, late into the night..... > > About the "problem - solution" debate, I

have the following thoughts > to offer, may be theoretically unsound but here it is anyway. > > I have

given up, many years ago trying to define design in terms of > "problem solving", many other professions

do that too, and it is not > necessarily very beneficial in describing and in communicating exactly > what

designers do, either to design students or the industry and > government clients who know very little

about design at all its levels > of manifestation, especially at the systems level. I have found it far > more

effective and fruitful to talk about locating opportunities and > in mapping and modeling the contours of

these situations without > really using the word "problem" in the discourse, identify the gaps > and

possibilities. The word "problem", somehow has a very negative > connotation especially to young

students who are literally sent out of > the Institute campus in search of new assignments to handle in

their > classroom and/or diploma projects, and invariably they used to come > back with a clutch of very

morbid perceptions from the field, (we have > plenty of problems in India if anyone wants to know about

these) and > the enormity of some of these sometimes discourages the student s (and > faculty) from

even attempting to enter that discourse, very > disheartening, for a novice and even for the hardened

professional. > However if you ask them to list opportunities for improving what they > see around them


in the city roads, hospitals, schools, shops, malls > and hotels, and homes, to name a few typical places

that they fan out > to at the beginning of an assignment in design, they come back from > field

observation and brainstorming and discussions, with each other > and with faculty, with a very long list

of possible directions, a germ > of an idea which they believe is do-able, which in my view is a great >

way to start building "intentions' and then "convictions' to make some > of these "opportunities" a part of

their own career goals, very deep > commitments indeed, some life-long. > > While yes the 'Problems'

are there to be 'Solved', we may need to look > at these from the corner of our sights rather than head-

on and then > feel dejected by the enormity of the perceived task, and not take it > on at all as a result.

Many of our 'problems" are in this category, > but all these desperately need design, (230 sectors in

India in my > count - Ken and Terry have a longer list) not just the science and > technology and even

marketing spends that are today being funneled > towards these "problems" in India, particularly when

compared to very > meager design spends which in my view needs to be hugely enhanced > soon. But

that is a long story, for another day. > > With warm regards > > M P Ranjan > from my office at NID > 19

August 2005 at 01.05 am IST > > PS: I checked the dates of Bucky's visit to Ahmedabad > > Quote from

<http://www.amaindia.org/act_popular.html> > Series on Human in Universe by Dr. R. Buckminster

Fuller, the > well-known geometer, architect, philosopher, and inventor (December > 15-16, 1978) >

UnQuote > > ___________________________________________________________________

> > Prof M P Ranjan > Faculty of Design > Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives > Faculty Member

on NID Governing Council (2003 -2005) > National Institute of Design > Paldi > Ahmedabad 380 007

INDIA > > Tel: 91+79+26610054 (Res) > Tel: 91+79+26639692 ext 1090 (Off) > Tel: 91+79+26639692

ext 4095 (Off) > Fax: 91+79+26605242 > > email: <[email protected] > web archive:

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/> >

007655 2005-08-16 14:06 Re: a specific proposal that fits?


Dear Jerry

I agree with this line of thinking entirely. This is why I changed the

name of my course from "Design Methods (Theory and Practice) to "Design Concepts and Concerns",

the intention of the designer and (their client and stake holders) the belief system that informs them and

their openness to feedback is central to effective design. Design itself is a meandering process,

impossible to predict (unknowable - thank you Jonas) and satisfying when it succeeds, in each particular

instance. Design is also a "reflexive process" since it is effected in a populated space that affects others

(other humans, competition, other beliefs or dogma of truths held by history etc.) who will in turn respond

to any offering with their own response in both time and space, which makes it all the more complex and

at times controversial, especially in projects of public good and macro-economic ventures that include

social change, like using public transport instead of private cars. Design advocacy may include systems


offerings that are not products but suggested behavior change in the users, which make it political as

well. Making new laws is a great design act by this line of thinking, and our Supreme Court has been

very effective in this area where our democratic legislative processes seem to have failed, for example

ban on felling forests to stop the destruction of bio-diversity in the Himalayan region of India. My own

work on bamboo as an economic driver for development in India touches on some of these economic

and socio-political aspects and they are an integral part of our frame of reference. Thank you for the link

to your website and your tool (see link below) "Designer PiE2K: Ways of Thinking About Design" which

is quite fascinating and deep. I have downloaded the application to my Mac at home and office, but do

you have a windows version (or a pdf file that I can recommend), most of my students use windows at

our school..... <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~diethelm/next3.html>

With warm regards



007632 2005-08-13 14:41 Fwd: Problem with Long URLs


Begin forwarded message: > From: M P Ranjan <[email protected]> > Date: 13 August 2005 2:40:35

PM GMT+05:30 > To: David Sless <[email protected]> > Cc: M P Ranjan

<[email protected]> > Subject: Problem with Long URLs > > Dear Professor Sless and list > > The

problem with long URLs can now be solved another way. Use this > link below to create a "tiny URL",

however long the original one is, > some url's can run into several lines of text. > <http://tinyurl.com/> >

> for instance your link to your paper reads as below >

<http://www.communication.org.au/cria_publications/ > publication_id_95_1338098140.html> > and

it is represented as the link below by TinyUrl.com > <http://tinyurl.com/ch9mm> > > It is easy to use if

you have two windows open on your web browser, > one with the desired address visible in the address

line, from which > you can copy the URL (drag across and copy the full URL or use "select > all" and

then copy to be sure that you have not missed any character > in the URL) and paste into the data box

at the tinyurl.com site, and > click "the make URL" button, you instantly get a small url that you > can

copy and paste into your mail. > > Thank you for the link, I have your paper(s), and it is my intention > to

read it fully and try to comprehend its contents. By the way I am > repeating a new course that we

created last year for a new programme > in "Information and Digital Design" at NID( started two years

ago). > The course is called "Data Visualisation: Meaningful Images", and you > can see a brief

description of the assignments and the part of results > at this link below: > <http://tinyurl.com/cx8b3>

> This course is being offered again this year and we are planning to > focus on dynamic visualisations

for "financial markets" and "medical > imaging" and your site is a very useful reference resource or our >

students (and ourselves). Thank you. > > This particular course comes under another hat that used to I


wear > more often in the past, my "IT applications design" hat and it has > been an area of interest for

many years, ever since I headed our > computer activities from the late eighties till about four years ago,

> through which we opened up many new areas of design exploration in the > domain of digital

applications and aspects of usability of web and > softwares and electronic products. > > We would be

happy to hear from the list, of any other such valuable > resource that can be referred by our students in

the context of this > new course at NID. > > With warm regards > > M P Ranjan > from my office at NID

> 13 August 2005 at 2.40 pm IST > >

007625 2005-08-12 23:56 Re: Design : Intention v/s specifications

MPR on PhD-Design_2005_08_12 Dear Chuck (and Klaus , Harold, the List and Jasti) Short post with a very long tale... I like the idea of a

"Dynamic reasoning agent" in the context that has been used to justify the term "intention" as a point of

origin for the design process, I find myself nodding in agreement. I would like to qualify this as being a

process of "informed and reasoned intention", eventually leading to "deep conviction" and not just a

"flash of inspiration kind" although it could well start from here as well. Just as Harold has told us about

his use of the term to signify a sort of "taking aim" it is indeed a direction setting and goal seeking

exercise, a goal that is not yet clear but will be increasingly clear as the "designerly efforts progress"

through a number of iterations, sometimes meandering and seemingly pointless, at times intuitive, and

at other times well documented and argued with stats and facts to support the current direction, subject

to change of direction, if new facts warrant such a change. This is why we think the a designer or

someone using design as a process needs to be flexible in their attitude and to be able to cope with the

ambiguity of the process as it unfolds. If at this stage the "specifications are too stringent the innovative

solution is impossible or untenable, since it is outlawed by the very "proposal" that is to be met in the first

place. Corporate designers usually get a well structured brief from management, where the task begins,

but some of us who are working outside this domain (for a large part but not entirely) in the field and in

development contexts, where the rules of engagement for a designer are far from clear, have to struggle

for many years to get a handle on what needs to be done and then we can set about doing what indeed

needs to be done or can be done within the stringent constraints of the particular complex situation at

hand. As a result of my lecture on "Appreciating Design: Intentions, Values & Judgment" to the batch of

Strategic Design Management students that I spoke about in my previous post, one of my students has

submitted an email summary, in her own words of what she took away from my lecture, as part of her

assignment, and I am quoting her submission and my response to her for the list below. Design intention

starts with an insight or sense of a gap or an opportunity, and in my mind like a drop of a pebble in a

pond, (intentional or accidental) but as the design process unfolds it tends to encompass the growing

rings of the ripples and the resonating interactions giving the designers (teams) a sense of direction and

a deeper understanding of the contours of the task at hand, usually of great complexity, (otherwise it is


not design). My response to her (Jasti Pooja Cornelius) assignment submission and her description of

the discussion are quoted below as a further elaboration of our position of "Intention" as a goal setting

design action in the early stages and as the task progresses, a more "conviction filled pursuit" of both

the elusive understanding of the whole context, as well as an "apprehension of the possible scenarios"

that can provide a comfortable fit in the "real" gaps that are discovered or realised through this process

of search and articulation, usually using models in the widest usage of this term, as suggested by Klaus

in his recent post, takes place. The result is a "composition" that is up for discussion debate and

decision. With warm regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 12 August 2005 at 11.45 pm IST PS: the

long...tale......... is quoted below. SNIP SNIP On 12-Aug-05, at 10:09 PM, Charles Burnette wrote: > I

view intention as a "dynamic reasoning agent" (to use your > language). > Plans, proposals

specifications, artifacts, etc are "content" or > "formal > states" that express an intention at some point in

time when one seeks > to > apprehend, express or communicate it. I think your use of "intention" >

confounds "operation" and "state". You need other terms for the state > that > you use to capture and

objectify an otherwise unresolved process. > > Best regards, > > Chuck > > Quote Dear Jasti Pooja

Your paper is among one of the finest that I have recieved for some time now as a design teacher,

wonderful. Thank you for the insightful sharing of your "tsunami experience" in Pondicherry and for

connecting it to the pond and pebble metaphor that I used to introduce design concepts from the "Design

Way" and the "NID Way" to your class. Design at the "strategic level" can in my view be compared to an

earthquake driven tsunami, and not just a ripple in a smallpond, which is perhaps more suitable as a

metaphor for the "tactical level of design", or "page 3 design" as I now call it, or in other words, design

that is seen all over in our society pages, it drives busines and industry no doubt, but this not my area of

emphasis, I believe design is far bigger that what industry can do for making profits, although this is an

important application as well, and an area of vast employment for many of our students. But design at

the strategic level is a whole new ballgame waiting to be discovered by.....humanity? Values is at the

heart of our definition of design. A few years ago I was invited by an editor of "Design Issues" to

contribute a paper to a proposed special issue on "Indian Design" and my contribution was called "The

Avalanchhe Effect". After a two year wait, I got a message rejecting my paper since there was an

overwhelming response to the call for papers and my paper was not to be one amongst the chosen

ones. Perhaps the claim that I made sounded too incredulous in those days and lacked credibility to be

carried in the highly respected Journal which I respect greatly for its quality and substance. I promptly

"published" the same paper on the discussion list, PhD-Design and got several wonderful responses and

comments from the numerous participamnts on the list. This gave me the confidence to follow my

conviction and more recently, in March 2005 (earlier this year), submitted two papers at two back-to-

back conferences, one at NID, Ahmedabad and the other at Bremen, Germany. The NID conference

was on Design Education and my paper looked at the Foundation programmes of Bauhaus, Ulm and

NID as a line of development of design education. My Bremen paper for the EAD06, a conference on


Design Theory, and it was the first time (after the Avalanche Effect) that I prepared a detailed paper on

the "Design Concepts and Concerns" course that I have developed at NID over the past twenty years,

which is the basis of my claim to the unique "NID Way" which I shared with you in class. Do check out

these papers at my web archives from this link <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my Mac at Home


007613 2005-08-11 10:36 Fwd: [PHD-DESIGN] Design ... design process + design sensibility


Dear List and Klaus, Charles and Harold,

It was my "Intention" to post to the list my message quoted below but it seems that my reply to Tracee

Wolf was only to her address through an oversight in my mail settings. So here is my post as a

forwarded message with additions, a copy of what I had sent Tracee Wolf last night. It seems that I failed

to understand the send "Specifications" in my Mail software on my Mac or in the auto-reply settings, or

some such thing. I now have the benefit of having read the posts from Harrold Nelson, Klaus

Krippendorff and Charles Burnette on the topic of "Intention vs Specification" and now we have the term

"Proposal" to deal with as well. My take on this is as follows. We came from different spheres of learning

having followed different reading and learning routes and therefore exhibit a particular preference for

terminology for which each of us has a slightly different meaning and it may not be possible to reduce

the gap entirely in this matter. I remember having posted on this matter some time ago when I

commented on the missing names in Fritjof Capra's bibliography in his book "The Hidden Connections"

where Bucky Fuller, Christopher Alexander, Stafford Beer and Teilhard de Chardin (to name only a few

_ I would include Claude Levi Strauss and others to this long list of missing thinkers who have helped

shape my thoughts on science and design) are missing amongst his thought leaders while I would not

think of excluding them from any such venture that his book deals with. Obviously we come from very

different knowledge spheres, science and design, and we therefore hold a different vocabulary for the

very same areas of concern and concept, perhaps processed through different secondary and tertiary

routes of delivery. I access economics from popular writing and cannot access the originals since they

sound "Greek" or even "Gobble de Gook" to me, my shortcomings, not the sources. Today a news item

in our local Times of India tells us that the Oxford English Dictionary has included a few nasty India

words and some horrible American words to their lexicon, the citadel is tumbling, therefore I suggest that

we can accommodate different meanings and still get along very well together if we have tolerence for

each others definition and take care as all three of our members have done to explain their position in

crisp and clear articulation, still not necessarily agreeing to each other, wise, we agree to disagree. But


can we let it rest there? The show must go on, one asks for "certainty" the other for "possibility", science

and design will coexist, can we collaborate?

With warm regards

Prof M P Ranjan from my office at NID


Begin forwarded message:

From: M P Ranjan

Date: 10 August 2005 11:59:35 PM GMT+05:30

To: Tracee Wolf

Cc: M P Ranjan

Subject: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Design ... design process + design sensibility

Dear Tracee Wolf

I missed the coffee break, but thank you for a very sensible and stimulating post. My experience in

designing and in design education corresponds with what you have shared here but I missed the picture

that you shared with the list since this list does not permit these it seems. Could you send me the paper

cutting image off-list as an attachment. Thanks Design assignments (basic design ones in particular are

non-prescriptive) and they have a quality of their own. The other day I was walking through our wood

studio and saw a group of foundation students cutting identical pieces of wood in into identical

configurations provided by the instructors in order to inset another piece to obtain a perfect fit, to learn

precision, I was told. I spoke to the instructors (by drawing them aside) and tried to understand their

logic. The answer was – learning to understand specifications and quality, how "un-designerly".

I spoke to them about another way to instill a sense quality, that elusive ability, that designers have to

learn in the foundation programmes at the undergraduate level and I recalled the masterful theses on

workmanship, design and quality from David Pye in his books "The Nature of Design", Studio Vista,

1964; "The Nature and Art of Workmanship", Studio Vista, 1968; and "The Nature and Aesthetics of

Design", The Herbert Press, 1978, all of which deal with this elusive art of understanding with our

senses rather than our intellect alone, a "designerly way" I think. I suggested another assignment that

could be non-prescriptive but challenging, take a predetermined piece of wood for all students and one

simple instruction, carefully and soulfully remove 50 percent of the material using a set of tools provided,

and when the 50 percent reduction is arrived the result must be "interesting", "pleasing", "satisfying" or

any such qualifying state. The learning is enormous and life-long in depth and understanding. Try it it

works wonders to the spirit, and this is "The Design Way". The word specification to me evokes the cold

logic of our test-based science-driven approaches followed by the 500 year (or older) scientific traditions

which I am not very sure works for design thinking, which is why so few seem to understand what we are

talking about and it somehow misses the aesthetic experience, almost spiritual (irrational?) sense that


that you get when the "Composition" is right, it is balanced and tranquil, and "un-measurable" quality in

my view.

Today I spoke, (delivered a rambling sort of lecture, 10 am to 1 pm) to our new batch of students in the

"Strategic Design Management" course (a new PG programme started this year) and I chose to use

"The Design Way" (Nelson and Stalterman, 2003) as a peg to build my talk to the students, a sort of

book review and it was followed by sharing my presentation at the EAD06 conference at Bremen in

March 2005, which is about my course in "Design Concepts and Concerns" as it has developed at NID

over the past twenty years or so. The terminology in my lecture, which I called "Appreciating Design:

Intentions, Values & Judgment", was a review lecture that introduced the book and our own approaches

at NID, which have striking similarities, and now this discussion thread has once again touched a chord

on the whole and elusive question of "What is Design?" I spoke from notes and jottings on one page,

and used a pdf file with a few "word maps" to support my talk.

This file is posted to my web archive today and is called "The Design Way_Review Lecture.pdf" in case

anyone is interested to download the same. <http://tinyurl.com/78247> This is not a paper but a "visual

prop" that I used to support my lecture and discussion today. "Intention, Composition, Judgment, Action

and Caring" are key terms used by Harold Nelson and Erik Stolterman to explain the flow of design

thought and action in one of the finest pieces of design writing that I have come across in recent times.

The difference between science, religion and design are also articulated, as "True, Ideal and Real", very

appropriate, science deals with finding "Truths" and as far as I know, and it is corroborated by "The

Design Way" that designers and (others using design as a way – pun intended) are not so concerned

with "truth' as much as they are with "the fit with the real world", nor are they concerned with the "ideal"

since it must work in the real world......wonderful. Do read the book. most of my students are, we now

have 5 copies in or Library, nay the KMC ( the new-fangled name coined by our present administration

which stands for Knowledge Management Centre), and I understand it is in great demand.

With warm regards


10 August 2005 at 11.50 pm (looks like I've missed dinner as well!!)

007548 2005-08-02 22:50 Re: Types of design


Dear Fil and Gunnar,

This is a very interesting question about design. It is difficult to find an activity or discipline with so many

dimensions across all the verticals. It is so because it is so many things to all of us, but not at the same

time. Let me try to explain. It is an attitude that one brings to both analysis and synthesis. It is an ability,

or a collections of abilities that one brings to shaping, giving form and structure to our environment and

our future. It is a language that we use to bridge disciplines. It is all of these and more. It is about feeling


and empathy. It is about analysis as in science and math and about synthesis in one whole conception

and manifestation, a particular expression from a vast array of possibilities, but this one fits like a glove

and it is about expression as in art and language and it makes meaning....with feeling and all this

creates value for the time being, at least. I hope this adds some value to the thread. The other discipline

that cuts through all others is perhaps Philosophy. Design is however a discipline that can be transmitted

through education and I believe that we are getting better at it with practice.

With warm regards



007498 2005-07-27 19:00 Re: PhD-Design Subscriber Statistics


Dear Ken and David

I am curious to know the status of India on this list. 1125 are accounted for in the first 15 countries listed

by you. The 99 remaining subscribers come from 32 countries (if we ignore the concealed countries and

subscribers.) I just assumed that there were many more from India. Could you send me the full list.

With warm regards



007208 2005-05-21 22:04 Re: theory as a car: theory and theorist and their contexts


Dear friends

The list has been very stimulating on the issue of theory formation and meaning for quite some time now

and this particular thread has been very rich as well.

I want to share a source that I still consider very valuable although I had read it way back in the

seventies and again in the eighties. Aurther Koestler in his book "The Sleepwalkers" gives a vivid

description of the process of theory formation in cosmology and in particular the twists and turns that the

mind has to cope with in formulating a new mental model and the difficulty that older baggage of existing

belief systems have on the conceptual breakthroughs that the scientist is trying to effect. His description

of the journey by Kepler is particularly fascinating and informative in the Watershed chapter.

By the way we are in the middle of our very hot summer vacation here in Ahmedabad, 45 degrees

centigrade today so dont envy us, but it gives me time to update my website and add many pages to my

bamboo pages and I have also posted the EAD06 paper and visual presentation in case anyone is

interested. The heat by the way is easier to bear than the cold biting winds of Bremen, but the whole


experience was very intellectually stimulating. See <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp> and follow the

site map links which is my new homepage structure.

with warm regards

M P Ranjan

from my home computer at NID

21 may 2005 at 10.00 pm

007133 2005-05-07 22:04 Re: Printed Project Issue 4


I do not. and perhaps never will. but should I continue?

M P Ranjan from my home comp at NID

7 May 2005 at 11.15 am IST

007132 2005-05-07 11:29 Re: Quiet Crisis / Slow to Rise -- question and comments


Message resent due to failure due to wrong setting on my home comp. sorry.

Dear GK, Hari-Hans, Rosan, Ken and others on this thread

I must agree with Hari-Hans that the facts stated in the article are perhaps correct but the judgement is

flawed as stated by Hari-Hans in his post below. We have just about surfaced from a massive Dot-Com

Bust when most investors "lost their shirts" in believing that the internet would change forever the rules

of business exchange. They were correct in their interpretation of the facts on the ground but their timing

and their choice of companies was mostly wrong and then the rest pannicked as is bound to happen in

the speculative investment space of the stock markets of the world where the rules of exchange are not

driven by facts alone but on sentiments of the market since it is an inherently reflexive activity for all its

players. The flat world metaphor is indedeed correct since we already have a working example of it on

this very list with 1200 "design emthusiasts" or should I say "Design theory enthusiasts" beat both time

and distance in sharing ideas and thoughts across time zones and across continents and in the process

are building new equations and offering new competition to traditional means of publishing that is

effectively quite closed and controled by the establishment in most cases. I have noticed this lack of

synchronisation with known facts amongst disciplines and each of them draw their resources from

different sources when dealing with the same issues. Economists quote their sources which are mutualy

exclusive while scientists use their own sources and so do designers and now interestingly many are

begining to use the common sources due to an openinhg up of the suply chain of information or a

flattening up of the information space itself. The same facts are recycled through so many sources and

the real origins of these ideas are lost to the disciplines that use them and history cannot catch up since


we are indeed moving too fast in the production of these info nuggets and insights, and it will get more

complex and not less as we go foreward from here.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan touching base after some long journeys to Bremen, South Africa and now Shillong in NE

India.

from home at NID 7 May 2005 at 11.00 am IST

006900 2005-03-09 18:52 Re: New website


Dear Chuck

Your new website is an absolute treat for all of us in the design education business and I speak from the

India perspective where design is yet to take deep roots in the domain of formal education and national

policy. In India we spend billions of dollars on science and technology education and promotion and a

very small and quite insignificant fraction on design education. I used your site yesterday and today as

my lead screen for the class that started on Monday week with the current batch of Foundation students

at NID and we explored your site together on the big screen with sixty students and four teachers

discussing your site. The average age of our undergraduate student is about twenty years and the site is

structured and in a language that suits their needs eminently. I took them back to my lengthy reaction on

PhD-Design to your crisp paragraph stating the seven stages or modes of design action which way back

in September 2003 and now we have your more detailed and expressive representation that has been

so generously shared for all to see and use. The theme for this years DCC (Design Concepts and

Concerns) course is the National Design Policy: New Schools and Contexts in India. I will share the

outcomes as usual on my website after this five week course is completed and we are able to reflect and

garner the outcomes in pictures and models that my students generate in our class. These macro-

economic perspectives gives them a birds' eye view of the Indian economy and opens up in my view

many new possibilities for career orientation in design which are well outside the traditional disciplines

that are currently offered by our design schools including at NID. Your website and others like this are

going to be quite significant for design in India as it will be for viewers in other countries. I am looking at

India in particular since we are in the midst of a massive phase of investments into design and there is

much confusion about what is design and what should be included in design curricula across the new

schools that would be set up across the country at the undergraduate and the post graduate levels and it

seems at break-neck speed. The Secretary of the National Planning Commission, Government of India,

in his Keynote speech at NID during the just concluded DETM Conference told us that they (Govt of

India) were considering the setting up of five new NID's across India as well as many initiatives within

Universities and IIT's and technological and engineering colleges across India. NID was set up in 1961

and to suddenly have it multiplied by five is significant news. The National Design Policy too is being


debated in the country and it will be adopted soon and the wave of investments that follow its wake will

need to be guided by structured understanding of design expressed in simple language that can be

understood by and adopted by non-design professionals, which this website can and will provide

direction to. Thank you. Many new initiatives are on across the world and design education and action is

reaching and opening up new avenues. I was refferred to the new d.school at Stanford

<http://www.stanford.edu/group/dschool/index.html> and we also have the

<http://www.nextd.org/> and <http://www.kaospilot.dk/> and others that are all showing new and

interesting directions for design in the current space of education and design action. I do look forward to

the additions and to your book in the near future.

With warm regards



006895 2005-03-08 22:55 Re: Embodied mind


Dear Ken The discussion about the "Hand and Mind in design education" is something that has been

raging for many decades with echoes as far back as in the Bauhaus, the Ulm and now on the PhD-

Design forum as well. Last week at the DETM conference at NID I presented a paper and an

impassioned plea that Post Graduate education in design must pay heed to the Masters of Design

Education from the almost continuous tradition of Basic Design or Foundation education that stems from

the teachings of Johanas Itten in the Bauhaus and on through Ulm to the NID as it is offered today.

Teachers following this tradition do believe that hand skills and sensitisation of the mental faculties

through touch and feel are as important as in knowing through theory about a phenomena. Design

knowing is different from science knowing since the designer is eager and interested in applying this

knowledge almost immediately top very specific applications and contexts quite unlike his science

counterpart who sees the finding as an end in itself, a discovery of a truth, so to speak. I am quoting

below the full paper that I presented at the DETM conference at Ahmedabad (2nd to 4th March 2005)

and we did have a good deal of debate about the issues of hands and minds in Design education at the

Post Graduate level and the debate continues unabated. Those interested in the formatted paper in MS

word and the PDF presentation may check out my website archive for the paper and the presentation.

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp> The conference was very well attended by delegates from 27

countries and some 99 papers were presented between 2nd and 4th March 2005, all very exciting. See

the NID website for information about the forthcoming publication on the proceedings and to top it all the

conference ended with a draft Ahmedabad Declaration on Design Education, more later. With warm

regards M P Ranjan from my office at NID 8 March 2005 at 10.45 pm IST


Quote: paper from DETM 2005 Lessons from Bauhaus, Ulm and NID: Role of Basic Design in PG

Education

M P Ranjan Faculty of Design National Institute of Design

Paper submitted for the DETM Conference at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in March

2005.

Abstract: Basic Design within Design Education has come a long way since its origins at Bauhaus and

its evolution at Ulm. At NID it has found a place in the Foundation programme offered to the

Undergraduate programme students but is not yet seen as either critical in the Post Graduate streams.

The assumptions seem to be that the mature students who enter these disciplines can pick up the

concepts of design due to their qualifications or backgrounds. The other concern that surfaces with the

widespread use of computers is the notion the traditional skills need not be offered since design too has

become a knowledge driven discipline thereby obviating the need for basic skill training. The author

argues that basic design as it is offered in the Foundation Programme has evolved from a need that was

originally perceived and dealt with at Bauhaus and Ulm as a critical orientation to design thinking and

action and this need has not changed in the information age. We therefore need to revisit the traditions

of design learning and try to understand the role played by basic design and see how it should be woven

into the process of inducting new entrants into the realm of design thinking and action. Design is also

taking on new meaning and it is increasingly being separated from the skillful base that it was originally

married to due to the tools and traditional processes that are a fallback of various historical stages of

evolution in a large number of disciplines. Design is being recognized finally as being distinct from both

art and science and the search for educational processes that are distinctly designerly may not be a

misplaced pursuit. Key words: Basic Design, Foundation Programme, Design Fundamentals, Design

Education, Design History Background Modern design education had its roots in the Industrial revolution

when changing modes of production displaced existing crafts traditions and apprenticeship processes

through which design used to be transmitted to new incumbents within guilds, work spaces and

educational settings which echoed the situations that existed in the realms of practice. The Bauhaus in

Germany was the first school to formally create a series of assignments within a curriculum to prepare

new students to enter a journey of design learning. Set up in 1919 after the end of the First World War,

the Bauhaus was a center of creative expression that housed some of the greatest design thinkers of

our times. The educational experiments of the school still find an echo in all design education across the

globe. What the founders of the Bauhaus tradition formulated is of value since they were looking at

those qualities that needed to be nurtured in the art and design student, both in the form of skills and

sensibilities as well in their conceptual abilities and attitudes when dealing with materials and the real

world of design action. Thankfully for us the Bauhaus pedagogic experiments were published by the


teachers as 14 remarkable monographs that were edited by the founders Walter Gropius and Laszlo

Moholy-Nagy. The work that was started in the Bauhaus continued unabated after the teachers were

dispersed to new locations by the upheavals in Europe that led to its closure. The Bauhaus Way The

foundation programme was however credited to Johannes Itten was a master at the Bauhaus from 1919

to 1923 when he left due to disagreements with Walter Gropius. His book “Design & Form: The Basic

Design Course at the Bauhaus” was published much later in 1963 but the seeds sown at the Bauhaus

were durable and it spread to most design schools across the globe. The focus of the Bauhaus

Foundation was spelt out quite clearly by Itten and the core objectives and the teaching strategies

employed are listed below. Objectives: Liberate creative forces Open artistic talents Train own

experiences and perceptions Create “genuine work” Remove deadwood of convictions Develop courage

to create own convictions Help make career choices Expose to variety of materials and media types

Help discover comfort levels in materials and media Understand creative composition principles Explore

laws of colour and form Develop ability to handle subjective and objective problems of colour and form

Explore permutations of the interplay, build a vocabulary Teaching Strategy Evoke individual responses

from students Encourage variety of talents and temperaments Create an atmosphere conducive for

original work Encourage the “Genuine” Help student acquire natural self-confidence Help students

discover the self and their talents Explore student strengths in the elements of design Categorise and

diagnose student leanings and qualities Help students open these discovered talents or leanings

Develop individual potential by directing teaching of media explorations Basic Premises: Imagination and

creative abilities to be liberated Strengthen Imagination and expression Build on these capabilities and

set technical and practical goals later In the early years when it was implemented at the Bauhaus the

various workshops were yet to be fully established. Several other masters, all painters and sculptors,

from the Weimer days were involved in the instruction of theory and method, were called ‘masters of

form’, while the craftsmen heading the workshops were ‘workshop masters’ were involved in technical

instruction. The preliminary course called ‘Vorkurs’ was initiated by Itten and made compulsory a year

later. Other masters contributed to its strengthening and in developing the core meaning that it held for

the curriculum as a whole. What is significant about the Bauhaus Foundation course is the close

interplay of theory and skill. The sensitive hand and the experience of doing structured assignments are

used to raise awareness and to raise critical issues that lead to the development of convictions and

conceptual understanding. The production and understanding of theory is therefore a direct outcome of

numerous practical engagements within well-defined constraints of structured assignments that are

mediated by the masters who use their diagnostic skills to advise and direct the learners to help discover

creative potentials in themselves. The sequence of learning therefore went through the following stages:

experience, perception, practical ability, intellectual explanation, comprehension and finally realization.

The assignments for the foundation courses explored three basic directions: 1. Experience with the

senses: Sensory stimulation and training the senses 2. Objectivising these at an Intellectual level:


Development of logic and understanding concepts 3. Realising these through synthetic means: Ability to

produce or execute with quality This three stage process is iterated numerous times with various design

parameters such as contrasts, form, colour, texture etc till the learner develops his critical faculties and

is able to make his or her own judgments. The arguments that came up within the masters veered

between theory and practice. Masters of form focused on theory and its application while the masters of

workshops dealt with the practical. But in the early stages of the Bauhaus a lot of theory was perforce

discussed in great detail at the Bauhaus perhaps since the workshops were still to be formally set up as

the school was extremely short of funds. This set an unusual trend for design schools where theory

played a lesser role with most teachers were practitioners who wrote very little. The masters of form at

the Bauhaus were an exception to this rule. After the departure of Itten the foundation programme at

Bauhaus was influenced by Albers, Klee, Moholy-Nagy, and Kandinsky. Further development of the

foundation programme took place in the United States by the masters, each at their chosen centers of

learning. The Ulm Experiment One of the Bauhaus students, Max Bill went back to Germany to become

the first Director of the new design school at Ulm, the Hoschule fur Gestaltung, that was to continue the

work begun at the Bauhaus on the basic design courses under his active guidance. Max Bill managed to

bring back some of the Bauhaus masters and their teachings to Ulm and he set up a course similar to

the foundation course at the Bauhaus incorporating the advances made by Albers at Yale and

Peterhans at the Institute of Technology in USA. The Ulm school design pedagogy went through many

critical stages of transformation under successive leaders who came after Max Bill. Otl Aicher, Thomas

Maldonado, Hans Gugelot, Herbert Ohl, Herbert Lindinger and Gui Bonsiepe made major contributions

to the design pedagogy and in particular to the evolution of the foundation programme at Ulm. The Ulm

too shared the results of teaching systematically with the world at large through the publication of the

Ulm Journals, which represents one of the greatest contributions that was made to design education in

the fifties and sixties. While Max Bill stood for an aesthetic tradition it was Thomas Maldonado who drew

attention to the need for scientific temper in design education and its associated set of theory inputs.

Maldonado understood that design needed to draw fro many other disciplines and the sciences and he

talked about an almost feverish and insatiable curiosity towards some disciplines that appeared on the

time horizon in the late fifties. Cybernetics, theory of information, systems theory, semiotics, ergonomics

and disciplines such as philosophical theory of science and mathematical logic were explored to bring a

solid methodological foundation to design thinking and action for the first time. The focus on science and

methodology was a Pandora’s box that literally swallowed design thinking and sensibilities at Ulm for

quite some time and it took great effort from the inner group of designers Maldonado, Aicher and

Gugelot to reassert the supremacy of design at Ulm. The third and final phase of the Ulm pedagogy

experiments brought in the use of the social sciences with Abraham A. Moles playing a critical role. The

foundation course or “Grundlehre” focused on non-object-oriented design and the training of the hand

and the eye and a number of assignments were innovated b y the teachers. While Albers came back to


teach colour at Ulm with a hand on approach, Itten who came later intellectually opposed Albers. Further

the teaching of colour theory by Helene Nonne-Schmidt upset Albers who withdrew from teaching at

Ulm. Maldonado took over the foundation programme and brought in simplicity and precision to the core

of the assignments. Drawing too was modified to focus on reflective visualisation. In a way Maldonado

carried out a purification of the Bauhaus way in the teaching of the foundation programme, he made it

interdisciplinary and brought in theory of symmetry, topology and Gestalt. None of the Ulm foundation

assignments had a practical basis and they were all abstract and non-object oriented in nature. The

focus then could be on the understanding of principles and not on immediate application of the concepts.

It was here that the basic design course got elaborated and evolved further to have a discipline focus,

the assignments were developed to meet the needs of different disciplines such as graphic design and

that of product design, industrialized building and information design. Maldonado stressed on the need

for continued non-objective studies even in the senior years when students were dealing with real life

design problems however with gradually reduced time allocated for such studies in the curriculum. The

non-objective assignments provided the students with critical abilities in the judgment of form when

applied to real design situations. In the search for new capabilities a number of three-dimensional

assignments were innovated to suit the needs of product design students and nature studies and bionics

got integrated into the search for science principles that permitted new explorations. This took the Ulm

contributions well beyond the areas of explorations conducted at the Bauhaus since these were

restricted to the application in small objects of low complexity and the Ulm designers were venturing out

into the world of complex products and looking for means to deal with this complexity at the structural

and formal levels. The Ulm teachers raised the understanding of design to a new level through their

practical demonstrations in the fields of household products, electrical and electronic products,

automobile and transportation systems and in industrialized building while establishing unchallenged

leadership in the field of Graphic Design. Taken together, the live demonstrations of design success

across disciplines and a systematic documentation of their design pedagogy helped create the Ulm

influence across the globe and spread it to many centers of design education Otl Aichers' models for

design education explorations at Ulm does throw some light on the difference in lecture based

conventional education and the hands on experiential education seen in the basic design courses

developed at Ulm and now in many design schools. I also see that while "Design Research" may be

about the creation of "design knowledge" the use of this knowledge in "Design Action" would be in the

form of an exercise of contextual judgment in design synthesis when numerous threads of factors from

multiple knowledge streams get embedded into a particular solution. Design education needs such

critical-ability forming processes and not just knowledge gathering skills and processes. Transfer of

pedagogy to NID At NID too we have been keenly interested in the design pedagogy of Ulm right

through the seventies and later. We were fortunate to have had faculty members who spent a good deal

of time at Ulm in the sixties and therefore our programmes too got a strong dose of the Ulm flavor in the


early years. Prof Sudha Nadkarni was a student at Ulm and Prof H Kumar Vyas was deputed to spend

10 months at Ulm before commencing our first Product Design programme in 1966. Our library also had

the full set of Ulm Journals and these were a great source of inspiration. We have since been active in

following the Ulm people having had contact with several of them over the years. Gui Bonsiepe and

Kohei Suguira being the most prominent of these. Herbert Lindinger was a consultant to NID for the

Product Design programme as well and his book is also in the library. The Ulm story never fails to

inspire, since the achievements have been so stupendous. The Ulm will have great significance for the

international design community for many decades to come since so much was done by way of path

breaking thinking and much of it was documented in real time and now we have such a fantastic

resource created by Rene Spitz that it opens up the material for further contemplation by a wider

audience. My brief account (above) of the influence of Ulm on NID is far from complete and much new

information will emerge if design historians subject it to serious research in the years ahead. Hans

Gugelot from hfg Ulm was responsible for drafting the curriculum and then commencing the Product

Design programme at NID. He visited NID in the early stage and he passed away soon after his return

from India. He was followed by E. Reichl (Director, Institut fur Produktuntwicklung, Neu Ulm) who was

recommended by Gugelot and later Herbert Lindinger came from Frankfurt ( Institut fur

Umweltgestaltung ) to evaluate the Product Design course and to help formulate the proposed

undergraduate programme that commenced in 1970 which included the NID foundation programme

across all disciplines for the first time. The other prominent teacher to visit NID was Prof Herbert Ohl. In

the Visual Communications stream we had Christian Staub, Hfg Ulm, who set up our Photography

Department and commenced the education programmes in Photography. We also had a strong German

presence ( from outside Ulm) in Ceramic Design ((Zettler Lutz), Furniture Design ( Arno Vottler,

Braunschweig and his students Rolf Misol 69-70 and Max Janisch 70-72) and in Exhibition Design (Frei

Otto). There were perhaps others who are not mentioned in the available texts since the NID’s

documentation and publication record is indeed very poor. Prof. Sudha Nadkarni’s name is not

mentioned in the list of faculty of Product Design in our 1969 documentation titled "National Institute of

Design: Documentation 1964-69", NID Ahmedabad. I am surprised at this omission since I was

personally interviewed by him and Prof H Kumar Vyas along with the consultant and teacher Rolf Misol

when I first joined NID as a student in 1969 April-May. He left NID soon thereafter and set up the

Industrial Design Centre (IDC) at the IIT in Bombay in 1969. He retired a few years ago and was then

given the task of setting up yet another school, this time in the IIT Guwahati which is now the first

undergraduate programme in design under the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) fold. So three schools

in India were directly influenced by the Ulm doctrine and many friends of Ulm have connected with these

schools in the years that followed which has not been documented as yet properly. The NID library had

the only set of Ulm journals in India and I made a xerox copy of the full set (piracy admitted) for the IDC

library at the request of Prof Kirti Trivedi faculty IDC and a few years later he re-published some of the


papers in a collected volume called "Readings from Ulm" which was used at a seminar on the influence

of Ulm on Indian and world design. The NID experiment: NID’s own foundation The NID Foundation

Programme started with the first batch of undergraduate students joining NID in June 1970. The

teachers were drawn from the various existing disciplines at the Post Graduate level and at first the

programme was an amalgamation of inputs from primarily Product Design and Graphic Design

programmes. Freehand Drawing, Composition and Colour came from the Graphic Design stable and

drew heavily on the Swiss graphic traditions implanted at NID by Armin Hofmann from Basel. The other

courses of Geometry, Elements of Form and Space, and Basic Materials drew on the Bauhaus and Ulm

models for assignments and pedagogy. Basic materials too faced pressure from downstream disciplines

and the Textile faculty introduced linear materials as an input in addition to the traditional wood and

metal workshop assignments. Colour quickly moved to the Textile design teachers but a Product Design

faculty always offered colour theory. The foundation programme was of three semester duration across

one and a half years. The third semester was used for basic courses offered by the disciplines and these

included Typography, Photography, Film Appreciation and Music Appreciation to provide media skills to

all students and technical drawing and inputs in science, mathematics and liberal arts were offered as

lecture modules. Design Methods was the final course at the end of the programme. The teachers freely

experimented with basic design assignments and there was much discussion on the effectiveness of

particular courses as feedback from the disciplines to the foundation teachers. Individual teachers had

access to a very rich library from the Bauhaus, Ulm and several other schools which had linkages with

NID. Mohan Bhandari was deputed to Germany to work with Herbert Lindinger for a year and on his

return he was asked to coordinate the foundation programme. In 1975 he was given the task of

reviewing the foundation programme with the teachers and the management consultant advising on

Inter-personal relations, Professor Pulin K Garg from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Through numerous meetings all the foundation inputs were reviewed and discussed with a view to

integrate these into a cohesive unit rather than as a collection of disparate inputs from the specialised

disciplines. This process continued well into the late seventies beginning with a revised programme that

was created and offered to the batch of 1976. This was the first time that the NID foundation had a new

look and an environmental focus that transcended the traditional inputs from the Bauhaus, Ulm and the

Swiss and French schools of design. The Design Methods course was then called Design Process as

the problem solving process in design and inputs in sociology, psychology and field exposure were

offered as a preparatory set of inputs. The approach in Space Form and Structure too had an

environmental bias and this had extended to Geometry as well. I recall that both G Upadhyaya and I had

severely critisised the geometry course with excessive environmental bias during the first faculty forum

meeting in 1976 and thereafter we were asked to develop the course and conduct the same, which we

did for many years thereafter. By the end of the decade Mohan Bhandari set out to capture the revised

NID foundation programme as a manuscript for publication. However he left the Institute in 1982 and


unfortunately the book was never printed. It was a great loss for the spread of design knowledge. At NID

there was a discussion on teaching maths to designers at design schools. In 1976 I created a new

course aimed at teaching math concepts to design students at NID. The course was called "Geometrical

construction" at that time and in later years "Geometry and Morphology" where we introduced design

students to many exciting practical drawing and model building assignments including recreational

maths puzzles. While I cannot claim that it is a complete substitute for formal instruction in mathematics,

however it provides students from non-math backgrounds sufficient conceptual tools to deal with

complex structural and formal math and logic problems. We discovered that the domain of visuality is

under valued in most areas of formal education at the school level while the emphasis is greatly on

textuality and numeracy and we set out to correct this imbalance. The Space Form and Structure

modules exposed the students to concepts of semiotics and Gestalt theory of figure and ground

relationships. A number of exploratory assignments are given and the results are discussed to help build

an attitude of exploration and experimentation with visual language. The Environmental Perception and

Environmental Exposure modules got the students out of their studios in an attempt to connect with

society at large both to bring the real world concerns into the classroom as well as to help prepare

students in the early stages of the Design Process. The design process course went through a number

of cycles of development under different teachers. In the first cycle the problems had a distinctly

scientific basis, and all introductory assignments had low technical complexity, usually very simple

products were chosen and these were redesigned using ergonomic and functional explorations. In the

second cycle more complex problems from the environment were identified and these required more

elaborate processes of information collection and analysis. The third cycle that began in the mid eighties

took on a more systems focus and design tasks were treated as a process of understanding complex

situations through which many potential solutions were explored. Today this course is called “Design

Concepts and Concerns” and it is offered to students from all post graduate disciplines at NID in addition

to the module offered at the undergraduate level. This systems model of design that some of teachers

adopted for building courses and to conduct research and client interventions had over the years given

us the conviction that design in India is quite different from that which is practiced in the West.

Notwithstanding the difficulty of defining a subject as complex as design, we were convinced of the need

to use the power of this discipline to further the real needs of a huge population desperately seeking

solutions to many vexing problems in a very constrained economic climate. It is our belief that design at

the strategic level can be used as a catalytic tool to mobilise innovations and policies that can indeed

transform the country in more ways than one. This ideological bearing has informed many initiatives of

design action at NID and it was reinforced at several critical stages by confirmation of our methods and

goals by the work of other visionaries. The UNIDO-ICSID conference on “Design for Development” that

was held at NID in 1979 and the work of Victor Papanek, Nigel Whitely and Gui Bonsiepe, all of whom

came to NID for brief or longer periods, left a mark on the thinking of the design teachers at NID. Design


in India was being discovered as a whole new genre of action through the application of design

principles through research and development to new areas such as the development of crafts, health

communications, strategies for small industry, and in areas of social and economic development while

working at the community level. Today we have an even broader definition of design, that is design as a

vehicle for leadership as articulated in the “Design Way: Intentional Change in an Unpredictable World”

by Harold G. Nelson and Eric Stolterman, who approach design as a form of leadership from two

assertions quoted below. To this new dimension and goal for design education we can add the impact of

new tools that take us into the digital realm of performance in many disciplines. This raises many

questions and many assumptions are made about the nature of design education in today’s world. It is

widely assumed by many that Post Graduate students need less intensive inputs and resources to make

them into “designers” and “design thinkers” when compared to the under-graduate group. The second

category of “design thinkers” are seen as a real need today and as an alternative to “designers” in a

knowledge driven world. It is particularly worrisome that it is assumed that design thinkers can be trained

without the burden of learning skills through the adoption of digital tools and abilities. My reading of the

basic design pedagogy of Bauhaus and Ulm show that analog capabilities of “learning by doing” has

been the historic vehicle for design education so far. We know that design thinking and design

sensibilities are earned through hard practice and through a process of systematic induction training and

these are distinctly different from the development of science based knowledge and attitudes offered

through the university system of education. The methods of teaching adopted at the Bauhaus, Ulm and

now in the NID experience have all generated huge success stories in the creation of the thinking and

sensitive designer who is able to make critical judgments on complex issues and perspectives and then

they are also able to act in ways that help solve these problems using creative scenarios and

alternatives which reflect their deep understanding and empathy with the milieu in which the opportunity

is located. This capability of effective design action is unique to designers who by virtue of their training

are able to act on the real world and create future scenarios that can be embedded in the real world as

analog solutions even if these were mediated by digital means. This brings me to a series of linked

statements by the founder of Ulm, Otl Aicher, in his book “analogous and digital” where he says ”…. the

culture of thinking requires the culture of the hand as a subtle, sensitive organ.” He goes on to say “…we

are rediscovering the domain of making as a prerequisite of thought.” Many modern innovations have

been produced outside the domains of large and organized industry, in garages and shacks outside

industry with small teams of motivated individuals. “… human ability to make anything, his ability to

design anything is atrophying…we have become children of a thought culture that has disconnected

thinking from making…..the more we know the less we can do” and this is not the design way. There is

much wisdom in the search for processes by which basic design evolved at Bauhaus, then Ulm and later

at NID and these lessons must not be lost because we throw away the baby with the bath-water when

we replace wholesale the analog processes of design education with digital tools sets that we see all


around us. I am concerned that many of the new disciplines at NID that attempt to teach design as a

narrow specialization at the post graduate level are not equipped to handle analog design processes,

that is to use the hand as a sensitive route to the inner recesses of the mind. We now know that in order

to create the deep understanding that is the hallmark of basic design education the masters had

invented assignments that has been proven and tested by time. Let us pay heed to the masters of

design thinking who have created an alternative to science education and learn those lessons which we

will need to take forward with new experimentation and testing based on new frameworks of theory that

would inform the design educational processes in our changing times. ~

References:

1. Royal College of Art, The Anatomy of Design: A series of Inaugural Lectures by Professors of the

Royal College of Art, the Royal College of Art, London, 1951

2. Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1953, 1962

3. Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report, Government of India, New Delhi, 1958, reprint, National

Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1958, 1997

4. Jurg Spiller (Ed.), Paul Klee: the thinking eye: The notebooks of Paul Klee, Lund Humphires, London,

1961

5. David Pye, The Nature of Design, Studio-Vista, London, 1964

6. Armin Hofmann, Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company,

New York, 1965

7. David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship, Studio-Vista, London 1968 1971

8. National Institute of Design, National Institute of Design: Documentation 1964-69, National Institute of

Design, Ahmedabad, 1970

9. Johannes Itten, Design and Form: The Basic Course at the Bauhaus, Thames & Hudson, London,

1963, 1975

10. Thomas Maldonado, Gui Bonsiepe, Renate Kietzmann et al., eds, “Ulm (1 to 21): Journal of the

Hoschule fur Gestaltung”, Hoschule fur Gestaltung, Ulm, 1958 to 1968

11. Maurice de Sausmarez, Basic Design: the dynamics of visual form, Studio Vista, London, 1964 1968

12. Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimer, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, The MIT Press, Cambridge,

Mass., 1969

13. Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 1972

14. Stafford Beer, Platform for Change, John Wiley & Sons, London, 1975

15. Mohan Bhandari, Course abstract papers and handouts: Environmental Exposure, Elements of Form

and Design Process (collected), National Institute of Design, 1977

16. M P Ranjan & G. Upadhayaya, Geometrical Construction, National Institute of Design, 1977 (course

abstract paper handout)


17. M P Ranjan (Editor), Syllabus and Information Bulletin: National Institute of Design, NID Ahmedabad

1981

18. Mohan Bhandari, Foundation Programme at NID: An Approach, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, 1982 (unpublished manuscript)

19. Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, Thames & Hudson, London, 1984

20. Gui Bonsiepe, Estrutura e Estetica do Produto, Centro de Aperfeicoamento de Docentes de

Desenho Industrial, Brasilia, 1986

21. Herbert Lindinger, Hoschule fur Gestaltung - Ulm, Die Moral der Gegenstande, Berlin, 1987

22. Kirti Trivedi ed., Readings from Ulm, Industrial Design Centre, Bombay, 1989

23. M P Ranjan, Jatin Bhatt et al, Accessory Design Curriculum, National Institute of Fashion

Technology, New Delhi 1991 (unpublished report)

24. John Chris Jones, Designing Designing, Architecture Design and Technology Press, London, 1991

25. Otl Aicher, the world as design, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1991

26. Nigel Whiteley, Design for Society, Reaktion Books Ltd, London, 1993

27. S Balaram, M P Ranjan, Suranjana Satwalekar & Dhimant Panchal, Curriculum Review and

Development: Volume I, National Institute of Design, 1993 (unpublished report)

28. Ellen lupton and J. Abbot Miller (Eds.), the abc’s of the Bauhaus and design theory, Thames &

Hudson, New York, 1993 2001

29. J A Panchal and M P Ranjan, “Institute of Crafts: Feasibility Report and Proposal for the Rajasthan

Small Industries Corporation”, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad 1994

30. M P Ranjan, “Design Education at the Turn of the Century: Its Futures and Options”, a paper

presented at ‘Design Odyssey 2010’ design symposium, Industrial Design Centre, Bombay 1994

31. Otl Aicher, analogous and digital, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1994

32. M P Ranjan, Jatin Bhatt et al, Curriculum, Indian Institute of Crafts & Design, Jaipur 1995

(unpublished report)

33. M P Ranjan, “The Levels of Design Intervention in a Complex Global Scenario”, Paper prepared for

presentation at the Graphica 98 - II International Congress of Graphics Engineering in Arts and Design

and the 13th National Symposium on Descriptive Geometry and Technical Design, Feira de Santana,

Bahia, Brazil, September 1998.

34. S Balaram, Thinking Design, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1998

35. Gui Bonsiepe, Interface: An approach to Design, Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, 1999

36. M P Ranjan, “Design Before Technology: The Emerging Imperative”, Paper presented at the Asia

Pacific Design Conference ‘99 in Osaka, Japan Design Foundation and Japan External Trade

Organisation, Osaka, 1999

37. Ashoke Chatterjee, R K Banerjee & Neera Sethi, 40 Years of NID, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, 1999 (unpublished manuscript)


38. Martin Downie, Barry Hepton, Matthew Hopper & Sabine Kazich, Thinking About Me & Design: A

design primer for ‘A’ level school education, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, 1999

39. M P Ranjan, “Cactus Flowers Bloom in the Desert”, paper presented at the National Design Summit,

Bangalore, 2001

40. Martin Krampen & Gunther Hormann, The Ulm School of Design – Beginnings of a Project of

Unyielding Modernity, Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 2003

41. Uffe Elbaek, “Kaospilot A-Z: International School of New Business Design and Social Innovation”,

KaosCommunication, Aarhus, 2003

42. Harold G. Nelson & Erik Stolterman, The Design Way: Foundations and Fundamentals of Design

Competence, Educational Technology Publications, New Jersey, 2003

43. M P Ranjan, “The Avalanche Effect: Institutional frameworks and design as a development resource

in India”, paper written in 2002 for the proposed India issue of Design Issues Journal but subsequently

posted on PhD-Design discussion list in 2004, National Institute of Design, 2004 44. Wolfgang Jonas

and Jan Meyer-Veden, “Mind the gap! on knowing and not-knowing in design”, H.M Hauschild GmbH,

Bremen, 2004

45. Richard J. Boland Jr., and Fred Collopy, Managing as Designing, Stanford Business Books, Stanford

University Press, Stanford, 2004

46. Ashoke Chatterjee, The DNA of Design for Development, Convocation Address, Indus Valley School

of Art & Design, Karachi, 2005

47. M P Ranjan, “Prof. M P Ranjan: Archive of Papers”, Web archive of papers, presentations and

pictures, http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/, M P Ranjan, Ahmedabad 2005 ~

About the Author: Professor M P Ranjan has been involved as a faculty at India’s National Institute of

Design (NID), Ahmedabad for over thirty years and as a design professional advising government and

industry on strategies for the use of design services in a number of sectors of the economy. He was

responsible for visualising the feasibility reports for the setting up of two new institutes of design, the

Indian Institute of Crafts and Design (IICD), Jaipur and the Bamboo and Cane Development Institute

(BCDI), Agartala, each focused on the needs of the crafts sector and the bamboo sector respectively.

The work done by the author for the new curricula in the national design institutions NID and NIFT and

the institution building experiences gleaned through setting up of the IICD and the BCDI provide a

backdrop for this paper in the context of the need for fresh thinking in new design institutions and

disciplines with particular reference to India at the turn of the century.

Contact Address: Email: [email protected] Telephone (Residence): 91+79+6610054 Telephone

(Office): 91+79+6639692 ext 1090 Fax: 91+79+6605242 Web:

http://www.homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/


Affiliation and Address: Prof. M P Ranjan Designer and Member of Faculty of Design and Head, NID

Centre for Bamboo Initiatives Faculty Member on the NID Governing Council (2003 to 2004) continuing

to date National Institute of Design Paldi, Ahmedabad 380007 INDIA. ~ UnQuote (M P Ranjan)

006540 2005-01-11 12:29 Re: specification Re: Design and intention


Dear Klaus

Thank you for the clarification. I have been using a broader term to describe the outcome of a design

action since we have started looking at design as a comllex activity with many outcomes (usually an

object plus instructions or rules of exchange plus unintended consequences...etc) and design as a

process that is larger than the limited tasks traditionally done by a designer alone. The analogy that I

used earlier of water and ripples needs to be taken into account in my model of design action. It includes

intention and the results of the action as well as many unintended consequences. Today these

unintended consequences are being taken more seriously when design appropriateness is being

evaluated particularly with reference to ecological and social consequences of that particular design

action, thus making design decisions even political at one level. New regulatory mechanisms and laws

are being put in place to manage these unintended consequences. While the designer may offer a

framework with details for implementation the seeds of the consequences are part and parcel of the

proposal as you call it and we could use another term here to describe these consequences, the "effect"

of design action or even design thought which can be visualised as scenarios which anticipate the short

and long term consequences of that particular course of action. I have been using the metaphor of "Fire"

to describe the systems nature of design. In this model material is transformed (technology) in a hearth

(context) and the and the process of combustion draws in air and oxygen (environment) all working

together as a complex system to produce (an outcome) light, heat or smoke from the resulting flame.

The "effect" is considered the outcome of the design action, which in this metaphor cannot be easily

separated into discrete components since it is a process and not an object. It is with this model in mind

that I have chosen the words, "outcome", "effect" and "affordances" in addition to "specifications", all of

which help describe design as a system rather than an object.

With warm regards


11 January 2005 at 12.25 pm IST

006535 2005-01-11 09:57 Re: specification Re: Design and intention


Dear Rosan


I have been reading this thread with interest but with little time to add my comments. Your take on

specifications limits the results of design to the confines of a product or the boundary of the system that

was taken up for designing in the first place. However design does much more since it places a lot more

that what was intended in the first place since it could add pollution and a number of unintend residue

and further it can and always does leave much room for interpretation bt the user and any observer who

could draw their inferences from their own perceptions and these could be unanticipated in the

specifications of the origional design. The word "specification" therefore fails to adequately describe the

outcome of a design task and we need to look for another term that can be used in conjunction with or in

addition to the term specification. "Affordances" is one such term, there may be others since design

outcomes tend to be open ended like the ripples that move back and forth when a pebble strikes a pond.

This term says more about the design with not just "what it is" but as to "what you can do with it", which

is usually what matters to most users of the design. If I cannot use it, it is not of much use anyway. Five

years ago when I was setting up our Web Usabiliy & Research Lab (W-URL^(TM)) (pun intended) at NID

I wrote a series of papers to help our students understand design in the context of the emerging

opportunities on the web for new structures and services. These papers can be accessed from my web

archive from a folder titled "MPR Papers on InfoTech". The papers pertaining to the above arguement

are "Affordances&Design_WURL02.doc" and "What is Usability_WURL01.doc". My web archive is at

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/>

With warm regards and wishing all on PhD-Design a very happy new year.



006323 2004-12-20 18:39 Re: a brief reflection on Malaysian Design Industry


Dear Christopher Kueh

I presented a paper last May at a workshop on Design Support that was organised by the Design

Council Wales at Cardiff (May 2004). The paper examines the nature of the design industry in India and

offers a status check. You can download the file from my web archive at

<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/FileSharing1.htm> The filename for the paper in MS Word

format is "Design Infrastructure_India.doc" and the related presentation, a PDF file also online, is

"Design Support_2004_pics.pdf" which is located inside the "MPR Papers on Design" folder.

With warm regards



006173 2004-11-25 22:09 PHD-DESIGN: Web Archives of Papers & Pictures by M P Ranjan



Dear Friends on PhD-Design

I have been busy this Diwali ( the Indian Festival of Lights) vacation putting together a web archive of my

papers and pictures on the various topics of my interest: Design Theory and Education, Bamboo

Utilisation, Crafts and Development and current teaching at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad

India. The pages are being added as time permits and an FTP site for downloading full papers is found

at this link: <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/FileSharing1.html> The home site and

introduction is at <http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/> There is not much material available on

Design in India by way of publications and I hope that this is only a beginning and we will see many of

my colleagues from NID and other Indian design schools sharing their thoughts and work although I

know many of them are lurking on this list. I look forward to sharing more of my papers and design

education initiatives in the days ahead. Today we completed our two day Faculty Council Meeting at

NID and we start our next semester on Monday morning with 27 elective classes being offered to our

students and it will be a busy time at NID with many visiting faculty on campus, many from overseas,

and do keep in mind that every year we invite visiting designers and experts to offer electives to our

students for a two week period each year. The weather is great and the campus is charged with new

purpose, a great time to be here. I do hope to see some of you on our campus in the years ahead. Do

keep in touch.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my office at NID 25 November 2004 at 9.30 pm IST

006114 2004-10-25 22:45 Re: Reflexive design


Dear Rosan, Ken, Cindy and Jason Foster

Rosans note is beautiful and full of compassion. Ken (and Cindy) with the disclosure have opened

themselves to critisism that could have been dodged but this demonstrates courage and who are we to

judge the rights and wrongs of such acts. Jason has leveraged the opportunity to raise some very

important reseach questionswhich may not have come up in the normal course of interactions. To be

very brief. Character design is a core subject in many design fields including animation, exhibition,

advertising and digital game play etc., where we build many personas and many worlds and scenarios of

action. In other fields we decide complex issues based on our intuition, imagination and sense of

rightness on behalf of numerous others, many unknown and unknowable. We take the liberty to decide

without knowing their full implications. Jason raises these in his questions quoted below: Quote Can a

designer remove all (or the vast majority) of "themselves" from their designs?

Should this be a goals of design (and designers)? If the first answer is "no", then are designed objects

therefore imbued with a morality and an ethic that is independent of their use? Am I "evll" for seeing


Cindy (or any person) as a design artifact? Just some thoughts from an engineer who has been taught

that engineering designers should be as interchangeable as their designs. UnQuote His comment

about the education of engineering designers assumes a value free operation of decision making if such

a thing is ever possible, that is being totally objective in ones decisions. In my "Design Concepts and

Concerns" class (at NID for the Foundation class in UG and PG programmes) the first assignment is a

disclosure of the self in an image of the self in the form of a composite image or map that can tell and

reveal an individuals life experiences and their inner belief systems which have been gathered through

their life and upbringing. The assignment was designed to help introspection before a journey into

design learning. Thereafter they are put into groups to explore and build models on their way to

understanding design, design thinking and design action as we see it now at NID. Our world view and

belief systems influences all our decisions and we need to be aware of this influence when we advocate

roles for design as a vehicle for change and it may be worth exploring the role of ideology in design

action as a subject for serious research. I wonder if such studies have been conducted? I would love to

have access to references on these studies. When we look at these student images we see many

loaded personas, some created by parents, by religion, by college education, by (stiffling school

education- full of words and numbers and an absence of skills), by life experiences and by their own

sense of what they are at that moment of time and rarely do we see full disclosures....the nakedness

that Rosan refers to in her note below, ....we all live many lives and who is the real me???

With warm regards


25 October 2004 at 10.10 pm IST

PS: BTW I just discovered two interesting coincidences about my birthday. (Disclosure self-image) I was

born on the 9th November 1950. According to Rene Spitz, Hfg Ulm, page 81, I quote "...and as of 9

November 1950 the baby was given a new name: Hoschule fur Gestaltung (School of Design)"

UnQuote. If you inverse the month day sequence you get the ominous date of 9/11, that is the 9th of

September, the day of the WTC in 2001 and in 1973 the very same day of President Salvador Alende's

assanitation in Santiago in Chile. I happened to meet President Alende in person on the 26th of January

1973 since he inaugurated the Charles Eames designed exhibition on Nehru that was created at NID

and travelled the world and I was a member of the NID team in Chile that day. President Alende was

responsible for Stafford Beer being in Chile and his subsequent book, "Platform for Change" as well as

for bringing Prof Gui Bonsiepe of Ulm to Chile (perhaps indirectly). The plot thickens and design is the

connection here. Question: Am I the same person after making these connections or have I changed for

ever. Do I need to keep this in mind when I design? What knowledge and what belief system does

design need? What self image does a designer carry? Wolfgang Jonas gives us two recent attempts to

define design, one his own and the other by Gui Bonsiepe, in his paper "A Scenario for Design" in


Design Issues (Vol 17 No. 2, Spring 2001). To this I add my own line in the context of our discussion of

self and our persona. "Design is a reflexive activity which changes the world and it changes ourselves

having acted on the world." (We have to live with the consequences of our actions). Cheers. Rosan,

Ken, Cindy and Jason. M P Ranjan signing off on a philosophical note at 10.45 pm IST

006015 2004-10-12 22:33 Re: How to get constructive critique (was Re: Specificity and ...)


Dear Rosan

I have been far too busy with my classes and projects for the past several weeks to respond to any of

the interesting posts that started pouring in since you happened to trigger the flood after a long silence of

the summer vacations. But hearing your cry for co-travellers on your imaginative train of lifelong

learning I am making a limited entry and will get back with more substantial contributions at a later date.

Your description of education reminds me of Otl Aichers' models for design education explorations at

Ulm that are beautifully modelledand represented in Rene Spitz,s book "hfg Ulm: The view behind the

Foreground", page 86 where he compares conventional education model of the situated lecture (model

1) with the teacher in a dominent position holding the students in an array in front and holding forth with

his lecture from a position of authority as compared to an alternate model where the student group is

divided into sub-groups in a networked structure (model 2) with the teacher playing a facilitating role and

the text caption accompanying both these image representations is quoted below for your reference.

Since I cannot show the image you will need to refer the book or imagine the two diagrams from the

caption below. Quote Model 1: Pedagogical principles Organisation Lecture Authority of teacher and of

the material Mass processing Examinations Supervisions Certificates of class attendance Rigid syllabus

and scheduling From theory to practiced Knowledge Model 2: Pedagogical principles Free community

Free form of instruction Discussion Teachers only in auxilary capacity From practice to theory Working

independently Personal interest Incentive Enjoying the work Going deeper Unfolding of personal talents

Experimental learning instead of dead facts Teaching framework in lieu of syllabus Independent critical

judgement Unquote So this does throw some light on the difference in lecture based conventional

education and the hands on experential education seen in the basic design courses at Ulm and now in

many design schools. I also see that while "Design Research" may be about the creation of "design

knowledge" the use of this knowledge in "Design Action" would be in the form of an exercise of

contextual judgement in the design synthesis when numerous threads of factors from multiple

knowledge streams get embedded into a particular solution. On some other thread a while ago there

was a discussion on teaching maths to designers at design schools. Here too there is a difference in

both content and style of delivery for design students. In 1976 I was involved in the creation of a new

course aimed at teaching maths to design students at NID in our foundation programme. The course

was called "Geometrical construction" at that time and in later years "Geometry and Morphology" where


we introduced design students to a vast array of math concepts through many exciting practical drawing

and model building assignments including recreational maths puzzles while relating these tasks to the

body of numerical expressions and algebric expressions using visual analogies. While I cannot claim

that it is a complete substitute for formal instruction in mathematics, however it provides students from

non-math backgrounds sufficient conceptual tools to deal with complex structural and formal math and

logic problems. I helped teach this course for many years before handing it over to my younger

colleagues who happened to be my students in the early days. The domain of visuality is under valued in

most areas of formal education while the emphasis is greatly on textuality and numeracy. But this is a

long story and I will get back to it at a later date.

With warm regards

Prof. M P Ranjan from my office at NID


005559 2004-07-08 11:03 DETM 2005: Call for papers: Design Education; Tradition and Modernity


Dear List

The National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India is organising a conference on Design Education on

02 to 04 March 2005 titled “Design Education; Tradition and Modernity, (DETM)”. The call for papers

was posted recently at our website <http://nid.edu> and the pdf version can be downloaded from this

link < http://nid.edu/download/CALL_FOR_PAPERS-_DETM_Workshop.pdf>. The full text of the

announcement is quoted below in plain text for your immediate review. The organisers are two of our

faculty and their contact details are provided below: Mr. Vijai Singh Katiyar, Tel: 0091 79 2663 9692

(Extn.2016) or Mr. Shashank Mehta, Tel: 0091 79 2663 9692 (Extn.3012) National Institute of design

Paldi, Ahmedabad – 380 007 Gujarat, INDIA Fax: 0091 79 2662 1167 Email: <[email protected]> I

do look forward to an active participation from list members and to be able to see some of you face to

face in India next year at the event on our lovely campus in Ahmedabad, India. I was in Cardiff, Wales

this May for a Conference on Design Support and was able to meet five list members including the

indefatigable Ken Friedman, it was wonderful to connect.

With warm wishes



005507 2004-06-08 21:39 Re: basic level aesthetics - language - experiments


Dear Daniela,


I am not an expert of cognitive psychology nor of the field of aesthetic perceptions (although I have read

much in both fields from my interest in their value for design and design education) but I shall dare to

give you a reply to your question below. I do believe that any set of parameters can be tested if these

can be isolated through the design of experiment or by the use of appropriate filters, software hardware

conceptual etc., however the key question is whether you have a hypothesis which is to be tested and if

such an isolation will deliver new insights which can be put to test your hypothesis. In the area of visual

perception, it is indeed difficult to isolate parameters, but it has been done in the past through some

wonderful and brilliant experiments in cognitive psychology, although in order to build a valid experiment

you are "scientifically" required to be able to replicate the situation and the finding through independent

action. The use of tachistoscopes to time the exposure of images, using paired images on cards to

compare sets of images etc., are some examples that have delivered remarkable insights into cognition

and perception. Cognitive ergonomists do delelop experiments and methods of analysis, quite regularly,

that can give reasonable and reliable data on a variety of visual cognition issues in the fields of digital

interfaces and in product usability situations. All these are focussed on finding out performance of

particular subjects for particular applications and if it works the concept is incorporated into the particular

design, and it is a great design since it works. However this may not explain why it works. So, what is

your hypothesis or the meta-mission in your research? Do you want to find general laws and guidelines

or are you asking particular questions? I am reading (a new book which I recieved a few days ago from

the author, thank you) "Mind the Gap: On knowing and not knowing in Design" by Wolfgang Jonas and

Jan Meyer-Veden, Hochschule fur Kunste Bremen, Bremen 2004. Much the same issues of what is

possible or not possible is explored in the application of research and knowledge and in the pursuit of

what is knowable in design. I quote Wolfgang Jonas in his appendix: Expose for the "Basic Paradox"..

Quote .... The sciences construct the universal, the global, the de-contextualised, and the eternal.

Design creates the exemplary, the local, the contextual, and the temporal. UnQuote. So the question

that comes to my mind is is your research "science" or "design" driven? What do you hope to establish,

what are the boundaries of your research question, the answer to your question seems to me that it is

do-able, within limits. Where issues get enmessed across many fields of knowledge you will be required

to create filters that are appropriate to handle the varied concepts (and test if they do work), for instance

visual perception could be determined by many conditions, physical, medical-biological, cultural,

linguistic, prior knowledge etc, each of which is covered by a whole different field of study such as

physics, medicine, sociology or anthropology, linguistics, aesthetics, philosophy etc.....so approprite

filters must take each of these fields into account, if isolation of a particular effects is to be made

possible at all, that too within limits, but limits can be pushed by innovation and invention, creative

experiment design, which you will follow through on based on your conviction and faith developed by

your research so far. Do let us know what you find and I am sure that it will help all of us understand this

very complex phenomenon a little better.


With warm regards



005487 2004-06-07 15:41 Re: basic level aesthetics - language


Dear Cheryl, Chuck, Klaus and Eduardo

The way that we have had a smooth transition from Rosan's "Design Cognition" to Cheryl's "Basic Level

Aesthetics" is very interesting. Both involve emotive and cognitive processes that are significant to the

understanding of design decision making and problem solving. I tend to agree with Klaus that we may

need to look well beyond biological responses alone to include progressive learning through experience

and also on cultural and generational factors that govern both these issues in a major way. If we look at

basic level senses and feelings they already include a number of pre-linguistic sensations _ tactual,

auditory, visual, bodily, including emotions, fear, moods, sensual feelings, to name a few. From here we

may move up to language and math mediated experiences and expressions that lead to the "Ah-Ha"

effect of discovery, both through language and poetry as well as through pure image appreciation and

their judgement which may form the very basis of our aesthetic experience. I agree with Chuck that it is

not only linguistic although the linguistic medium dominates our explorations. Prof John Chris Jones has

reiterated in his recent "Daffodil 31" a link to his website that suggests that thinking does not need

words, by quoting a mail from his friend, Cedric Wisbey

<http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk/2.2/digital_diary_04.05.14.html> and I tend to agree with this

view from my own experience. Cheryl seems to be suggesting the existence of a universal basic level

of aesthetic which I am not sure if we can isolate these, and even if we do as to how useful these would

be for design appreciation and design research. Eduardo's suggestion of Math induced aesthetic

experience supported by his example of bridges does show that intellectual appreciation need not be

linguistic alone but it could be aided by geometric appreciation (visual mathematical) as well and as

designers we have believed this to be true for a very long time. Further the validity and performance of

structures can be felt in the GUT by a coming together of prior knowledge of physics, materials and

configuration and an appreciation of the particular example at hand. Many forms of aesthetic

appreciations have been modelled after the specifically selected math proportioning systems, particularly

the Golden Section in the appreciation of Western Art and Architecture. However in my view our

cognitive abilities and aesthetic sensibilities are dictated by our past experiences, learning, and our

cultural upbringing and our maturation within a given culture through education in etiquette and in

reflection and practise. While this goes well beyond the "Basic Level Aesthetic" that is being suggested

by Cheryl, I think that we may have to look at this level very critically when we are in search of the

universal in aesthetic sensibilities. Taste buds are governed by culture, my pickles, my food, my likes


and dislikes...... leading to the common expression taken literally..... "one man's food is another's

poison".....in music we have so many classes, the classical, genteel, hi-brow, to the common everyday

lullaby which is conventional to each culture and the popular and experimental, each of which evokes

different responses from the initiated and the novice. Chinese classical, Indian classical and Western

classical can perhaps be in one class of music that is institutionalised by each respective culture but are

very different from each other in terms of the aesthetic sensibilities that are needed for its true

appreciation. Similarly stylised, individualised and personalised forms exist in art and in music and in

other cultural manifestations of cultural expression such as drawing, dance, thought, language and form.

So where does the basic level (purely biological?) end and the cultural and tutored levels (semantic and

semiotic culturally mediated?) begin?

With warm regards



005436 2004-05-29 14:41 Re: definitions ? Re: design cognition


Dear Don and Rosan

Firstly it is good to have the Don Norman on board the PhD-Design list and disscussing cognition and

design. I have commented on design cognition earlier on the list and I have a hunch that design

processes do use a particular style or class of cognitive capabilities that are not normally used in

"everyday lives" (I remember fondly the "design of everyday things"). Many of our thoughts and actions

are almost automatic when we act in the real world but in design there seems to be a deliberate effort to

explore the unexplored and in doing so perhaps it calls for a new classification. This is a layman users

view, perhaps I am wrong, but it does correspond to a view that I have held for a number of years and I

will be happy to hear an alternate view that makes new sense, like the metaphors for the human lungs

that I wrote about earlier. Welcome on board Don and I do look forward to your expert comments on

"design cognition", although you claim not to have heard about it.... I am in the Interaction Design

department at the Royal College of Art in London with a few students discussing these very same

comments, and the debate is raging here and they too will be looking out for new insights that could take

us all forward from here. Anab Jain who was part of the Apple Design Project from NID in 1996 is here

as a student, just to put these comments in perspective.

With warm regards

Prof M P Ranjan travelling out of NID, Ahmedabad and writing from from the RCA in London

29 May 2004 at 2.35 pm GMT

005369 2004-05-19 21:34 Re: generic design cognition Re: some questions on design cognition



Dear Rosan

I am groping for a direction to place some of your questions in my context and I will try to reflect on some

observations that come to my mind, nothing definitive as yet, but I can sense a direction. Yes, there can

be a general field of design and one which can be discerned at this general level without any real conflict

with activities that may vary when applied to some specific domains and very particular kinds of

opportunities. For instance design deals with manipulating materials to create new and interesting

configurations using techniques, tools and procedures, some considered traditional and others

considered to be novel. At a general level we can have a theory of material manipulation and articulate

these without getting into particular descriptions. The nature of materials can vary in their states, their

form, their degree of refinement or pre-process, the nature of tools could range from historically primitive

to modern and sophisticated and so on. A domain specific expert would perhaps approach the material

manipulation task from the vantage of his knowledge and experience while a novice may go about the

task in a very different manner, due to his ignorance. From a design perspective the expert is not really

carrying an advantage or handicap (as in golf) since the design task may be better served by an

unconventional approach, even by an informed and motivated novice. So it is design that can not be put

into a bottle. Design, by its very definition breaks out of pre-set boundaries in the early stages of

divergence before the solutions tend to converge on the particular. This journey from the particular to the

general and back to the particular is a hallmark of the design journey. This leads me to your question

number two. You seem to assume that the more knowledgeable a person, he will deliver a more

effective solution, I wish it were true. In design it seems it is not as important what pre-existing

knowledge you hold in your repertoire but on how effectively you are able to combine what you do know

and how you manage find what you dont know, sometimes by asking the right question of the person

who does know, an expert of sorts, at the moment at least. Information is important, but the combination

of that information and the unique combinations in which these are explored and validated seems to be

even more important. Such exploratory play (the is no better explanation for this combinatory game) is

central to the area of design cognition which is goal seeking and goal driven at the same time. There are

however many tasks where domain knowledge and skills can cut design time and deliver superior

results. But these may be more routine tasks that are performed by remote control rather than by active

imagination and innovation. The interplay of tacit and explicit knowledge in design situations would be an

area of research study that could pay rich dividends. Cognition is part of so many stages of the process

of design, almost all stages and at each one a different mode of exploration and expression are being

effected, we are uncrital and totally flexible at some stages of exploration and equally judgemental at

another stage of evaluation. Perhaps we will need to define some of the key stages when cognition

plays a significant role in the outcome of the design effort. For example when I look at the sketches

prepared by architect Louis I Kahn of the Indian Institute of Management campus project (that were in


the archives at NID, Ahmedabad) since we were the local partners on that project, the back of the

envelope sketches of the early visualisations capture the features and proportions of the buildings and

many of its attributes although they seem to be very fuzzy representations that are indeed extremely

deliberate ad effective in communicating intention, first to himself and then to the others with whom he

interfaced, with a definite element of exploration and decision cycles captured as mute witness of a mind

in action. One of his sketches shows that he had rotated the whole campus "inside his head" and the

sign on the piece of paper is a revision of the North marker for the site. It is quite clear from these

drawings and on examining the progressive drawings that came after these early visualisations, that his

mental model had a great deal more information than what we can possibly see in the sketch, and the

subsequent drawings. Long before the buildings were built he was wandering through the corridors and

experiencing the light and wind through the massive circular openings built in brick, he had a birds eye

view of the whole campus and a detailed view that of a worm for all the nooks and crevices in the

brickwork, all held to a plan that he had devised inside his head, with the aid of these external

manifestations and the sample brick arches that still stand s prototypes at the campus today. BY giving

the example of drawing I do mean to exclude other forms of visualisation or external modelling that

would be used by a designer to inform and refine his mental models of what is being designed. It is safe

to assume that the specifications of both the both the mental model and that of the external model keep

increasing as the design task progresses while the variety of possibilities continue to get reduced, finally

to one particular manifestation, the particular solution (as described by Prof Bruce Archers model of

intersecting cones of specifications and possible outcomes). Interestingly the specifications become

infinite when the possibility is reduced to unity and the opposite holds true when specifications are near

zero the possibilities are infinite. This works at a general level. Design cognition would then be a subset

of general cognition, and just as in all forms of classification it is only good if it is of use to someone. I

have groped more than I intended to, but that is the power of an interesting question.. The dialogue rolls

on, but where have we arrived? I have worked in a multi-material and multi-disciplinary design

environment and observed at close quarters how material manipulation explorations take place in many

discilines at NID, by watching my students and colleagues in action over the years. The initial stages of

learning have much in common and so do the later stages of elaborations and fluency that is exhibited

at an advanced stage of skill and ability development. While the materials and tasks are al different,

there seems to be a pattern in the learning curve, and the ability to then confidently apply this learning to

a specific task, at a very high level of quality. So does this answer the general to particular question that

you raised...? Perhaps this would be one area for "research through design" watching designers work

and discerning patterns that can be replicated and in the process discover the inner workings of thought,

emotions (Terry I agree) motivations, ideology, memory, perceptions, feelings, the endrocrinal, electrical,

muscular and all the other bodily fluids that get used up when the break through is achieved or when a


"wicked problem" frustrates all efforts at finding a solution. Understanding some of these processes and

building god and effective processes could be a valid agenda for design research.

with warm regards


19 May 2004 at 9.35 pm IST

005331 2004-05-14 23:55 Re: some questions on design cognition


Dear Terry

The name is Ranjan. MP is my family name, short for Mundon Pandan, which is on my Passport, but

rarely used , if at all, although I do have some students who do fondly call me MP, so the choice is

yours. I would love to see your paper explaining the biological and physiological aspects of cognition.

Our understanding of the phenomenon is being driven by work in at least two major fields. The first in

the area of experimental Cognitive Psychology and the second by new insights and break-through in the

field of Neuro Sciences and brain research. Steps to an Ecology of Mind (thank you Bateson) or a

journey to The Universe Within (thank you Morton Hunt) are but facets of a search that has brought us

so far, and the journey has just begun. While we all know that our bodies are made up of more than 90

percent water and a number of trace elements including a large dose of Carbon we are still interested in

that elusive quality called the fluff of "Life" which cannot be explained fully by any amount of research

on water or chemical compositions, although this would give us useful data to shift our paradigms of

what we believe, or try to unlearn what we thought was the gospel truth, since it had worked for us all

our lives. As children we were told that the human lung is like a baloon and it expands when you inhale

and shrinks when you exhale, it works for us and we believe it to be true. Many teachers and doctors still

believe this to be true, since it works for them with that pesky little kid who asks difficult questions.

(Rosan are you listening). Many of these teachers and doctors have not yet heard of the concept of

fractals made popular by Mendelbrot using computer based models to make fantastic images of

recursive structures. Now with a fractal description of the lung we could use the metaphor of an upside-

down tree to model the lung, with multiple branchings leading to a maze of very minute tubes at the the

tips of its branches. Now if you visualise both these models, the first accomodates any gross violation

like smoking very easily since there seems to be pleanty of space for smoke and impurities as long as

we do not puncture the baloon it seems all right, however with the second model it becomes very clear

that there is very little space for the exchange of oxygen to the blood if smoke particles and tar clog up

the lower branches, shocking new insights become very clear. The long and short of the story is that all

of us live with our incomplete models of the real worlds and it works for us till we are shocked into new

paradigms, by new concepts. Human cognition and in particular Design Cognition is one such space that

now needs new paradigms and this may not just come from the bilogical and physiological space of


research but also from the little kids asking pesky questions when they are trying to understand the

phenomenon called Design, which is not scientific by any streatch of imagination, and this fact does

confuse and delight, due to its complexity and difficulty in understanding the phenomenon, but also the

ease with it is practised.

With warm regards


14 May 2004 at 11.45 pm IST

005322 2004-05-14 17:34 Re: some questions on design cognition

MPR on PhD-Design_2004_05_14-02 Dear Rosan

Some immediate responses to Q1 to Q3. Design could be seen as an activity that is conducted quite

independent of the person formally called designer (professional). It can therefore be universally applied

whenever that activity is engaged in towards achieving a design task or goal and it could be performed

by individuals or by groups, working collectively or serially, and this group need not include a person

called designer. Therefore design cognition need not be about how a community of designers think but

about the cognitive proceses that are involved in designing, whether done individualy or as a group.

Cognition is a complex process that involves imagination and visualisation. Imagination includes the

internal constructs in "cognitive space" such as maps, diagrams, forms, models etc., held in the mind,

that can combine with memory and existing knowledge and it is aided and reinforced by the external

manifestation in the form of external models, visualisations and numerous forms of external

representations that are created during the process of design development, as iterations that inform the

growing and transforming progressive internal model. At each iteration some decisions are tested and

the resulting synthesis is examined as a whole and in its details in a process of "Informed Synthesis".

Groups can participate in this process due to the effectiveness of the external models that help bring

coherence and congruence to the various cognitive models held by the individuals in the group.

Cognition can be influenced by culture and thinking styles as well. So we will perhaps need to look at

both these levels to understand Design Cognition.

With warm regards


14 May 2004 at 5.30 pm IST

005301 2004-05-12 22:19 Re: design cognition Re: Design Research (Victor's proposal)


Sorry a small correction t my previous post see link for full copy of How Designers Think at

<http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/Henrik.Gedenryd/HowDesignersWork/index.html> It should read


see link for full copy of How Designers Work at

<http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/Henrik.Gedenryd/HowDesignersWork/index.html>


12 May 2004 at 10.20 pm IST

005300 2004-05-12 22:05 Re: design cognition Re: Design Research (Victor's proposal)


Dear Rosan

I will not be able to answer all your questions just now because I do not have the time since I am

working on a presentation that I have to deliver in Cardiff on 25th May 2004 and secondly that I do not

have all the answers to your questions which are very good indeed. I do however have a hunch that

there is much to be discovered that will make sense as we go along this path. Let me explain briefly now

and come back later with a fuller account. I have done a few sorties at reading the Peter Gardenfor's

book "Conceptual Spaces" using the Rabbit style (as Prof John Chris Jones says in his introduction to

his book "Internet and Everyone", that is, hopping from one chapter to the next and back unlike the

sheep or goat with its own style of reading...) and the same with his other book "how Homo became

sapiens". From what I gather the new theory that he offers differs from the two dominant threads in

cognitive psychology, namely the symbolic and connectionist modes of representation, while his theory

proposes a geometric mode of representation that he calls Conceptual Spaces. This is exciting. The

symbolic (numerical) mode and logic of computation, the connectionist mode of associative networks of

neurones, and the third and new theory of conceptual spaces that uses geometric representations

(images and visual structures in a topological manner) seems to be a very designerly mode which calls

for further investigation. Looking back at Prof Gui Bonsiepe' division of knowledge into three modes of

Numeracy, Literacy and Visuality - the third one that has been largely ignored by formal theory

production systems - perhaps will get a new leg to stand on - and with this many of the questions that we

are unable to answer using the traditional tools may lend themselves to a new kind of understanding. I

hope this makes sense. On reading further ( in much the same hurried way) the book by Henrik

Gedenryd, "How Designers Work" the author writes about the possibility of using the external world

"directly" instead of its surrogate representation, which he calls interactive cognition....reminds me of the

arguments that my colleague at NID, Krishnesh Mehta has been making, about the benefits of the

situated project mode (even if hypothetical) followed in deign education over the case methods followed

in many management schools, as a source of deep learning of problem solving and design cognition...I

am jumping many steps....but all these threads seem to come together with Bucky Fuller's claim that his

Synergetics is the Geometry of Thought. see link for full copy of How Designers Think at

<http://www.lucs.lu.se/People/Henrik.Gedenryd/HowDesignersWork/index.html> I have, for some

time now, been defining Design as a continuing act of "Informed Synthesis" where the rapid iterations of


action in the real world and the growing and changing models of our cognitive representations lead to

the resolution of a huge number of variables that make up a complex design task using a variety of tools

and procedures including scenarios, multi-disciplinary group processes and deep individual

investigations and rigorous research. I will elaborate some of these ideas and in the meantime I do look

forward to suggestions and critique from the list to take this line of thought forward...to its logical

conclusion, I hope.

With warm regards


12 May 2004 at 9.50 pm IST

005254 2004-05-07 22:55 Re: Design Research (Victor's proposal)


Dear Rosan

You asked > should phd students be thinking about these things? or am i the silly one? > You are

indeed on to defining a very significant area of future research which would in all probability be called

"research through design" and be found perfectly legitimate as a field of "scientific" inquiry. (my hunch as

well) Design is an area of human activity that is not yet understood in all its manifestations and

implications in spite of the heroic efforts of design theorists that dates back to the design methods

movement of the sixties or we could look even further into its origins as a profession. Today I got the

monthly mail from John Chris Jones in the form of his public writing experiments "Daffodil 30" where he

reflects on his recent meeting with Prof. Bruce Archer. We have come a long way in our understanding

of design but we have much ground to cover. Victor Margolin has opened up a wonderful thread of

discussions that have given us many new insights and I am sure that this line of reasoning will get us to

some concrete (or should I say) philosophical directions for future research. I will get back to the list with

my own thoughts on the subject of Design Research. My current preoccupation includes "research" as a

dessign teacher into cognition and visualisation processes and their role in design action. Thanks to a

pointer from the list recently (Chris Rust - thanks) I found the work of Henrik Gedenryd "How Designers

work", Lund University Cognitive Studies, 1998 which represents a rare study into human cognitive

processes and visualisation as applied to the design process. On searching the Lund University website

I came across the published works of Prof Peter Gardenfors and thanks to Amazon.com I have these

books at hand, each with a wealth of information and insights that are pertinent to the area under

discussion. Peter Gardenfors, in his book Conceptual Spaces (MIT Press, 2004) offers a new theory of

Cognition that explains design thinking (to me) like never before. But this is still like ‘information thrown

over the wall’ and in design research we will look forward to focussed research into perhaps the differing

styles of cognition and representation that perhaps exists in design thinking and action which we are still

to understand fully. This would also perhaps give us the key differentiators between design innovation


and other forms of innovation in science, technology and management. Would someone on the list care

to offer a complete reading list on design cognition and representation, modelling and visualisation ?

Cindy Jackson has done an admirable job on design philosophy....and design philosophers? but her list

still does not include Bucky Fuller, Stafford Beer and .... we get into fuzzy areas...the task is enormous.

With warm regards



References: Peter Gardenfors, "How Homo became sapiens: on the evolution of thinking", Oxford

University Press, New York, 2003 Peter Gardenfors, "Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought",

The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004 Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikujiro Nonaka, "Hitotubashi on Knowledge

management", John Wiley & Sons (Asia), Singapore, 2004 Henrik Gedenryd "How Designers work",

Lund University Cognitive Studies, 1998

005146 2004-04-26 18:39 Re: Fwd: Re: List subject header?


Dear list members I agree with Ken and Kari-Hans below. I too have set up filters for all mail containing

[PHD-DESIGN] in my mailbox and similar filters for my class/educational interactions with students and

for other projects. Most email clients and services permit the setting up of such filters and this may be

the most convenient way forward for all of us.

Warm regards



005120 2004-04-25 20:51 Re: Freire, oppression and design (was: real social structure and design)


(Very long post, laced with ideology and advocacy, not for the light-hearted, politics and design and

other issues - Ranjan)

Dear Kari-Hans Kommonen, Alan, Rosan et al

Design action has its political dimension. Many of us have been involved in making decisions and in

decision processes that included "What and Why" and not just "How and Why", and I am referring to

decisions at the macro level of a systems approach to design that determines several political

dimensions of a design situation and having taken a bearing at that level and having been informed by

appropriate research and the resulting insights formed by this macro discourse, we would continue to

address the many micro parameters of making that particular design work. Many of these decisions

involved the discovery and articulation of parameters that form oppressive conditions for the players in

that development situation, usually craftsmen and local village entrepreneurs who needed design and


design diversification strategy to ensure sustainable development and the creation of new or increased

employment opportunities without falling into an exploitative frame that is all too easy in places where

there is inequity that is induced by power equations stemming from a host of influencing factors. Let me

explain. We (designers, teachers and students at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India)

have been working in many development situations in India dealing with employment generation

strategies at the village and micro and small enterprise level using design a a powerful tool for mobilising

positive social and economic action at the ground level. Our experiences date back to the early

seventies when we started consciously using arguments for determining "what" should be introduced to

village communities as part of our design intervention that would ensure the sustainable development of

the local players without developing an undesirable dependence on the intervening design teams. Many

methodologies have been tested and applied in numerous (hundreds) of such interventions that cover

the creation of crafts products and small industry responses to issues of sustainable development all

over the country. The results have been astonishing, and this work continues with new examples coming

up every day. I will relate a couple of specific examples and try to state the general through these so

that list members can share their insights to the body of theory that will be of interest to this group, one

that relates to oppression and the issues of politics of design in general. In the mid seventies NID got

involved in a major development initiative with the IIMA (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad)

led by the former Director of the IIMA, Prof Ravi J Matthai, dealing with a group of villages in the State of

Rajasthan. The villages in the Jawaja block were selected due to their perennial state of poverty and the

support then available from the State administration. While looking at the various possible options

available at the macro level design intervention through the creation of new products to use local

traditional skills was considered and NID designers were invited to participate. This became a long

duration project and to cut a long story short, the teams of managers and designers proposed strategies

for product innovation keeping in mind local exploitation of money lenders and the oppressive supply

chain that kept the local incumbents in a state of perennial poverty, barely able to pay back debts for

materials and other inputs including scarce finances, and the illiterate weavers and leather workers

could not get out of what we could call a "debt trap" which could be compared to the "selling of ones soul

to the company store" in the early period of industrialisation in the west. Design was used to create

alternate scenarios and to discover product categories and strategies and at the micro level of product

detailing that could bring a larger degree of independence from the existing exploitative linkages by the

creation of alternate linkages that could be managed by the community of the oppressed. This kind of

design strategy building is part of our education programme particularly at the systems design level that

is handled by senior students across many disciplines at NID. Many of these deal with traditional crafts

being faced with extinction due to the forces of globalization and change in materials and even local

pressures from changed perceptions and aspirations of local markets to the traditional ware that is on

offer. Design when applied to such situations has very strong political overtones and needs a good


understanding of macroeconomics parameters as they would apply to the local situation, which the

craftsmen or local entrepreneur may not be able to fathom without knowledge and assistance from

trained designers who are able to empathise wit the local condition as well as bring new market

knowledge to the situation in the form of product or process changes that are central to the new

directions being proposed by the design team who need to work closely, in many cases, as trainers and

mentors to the local crafts persons who are being addressed by the particular intervention. In the

Jawaja case of leather workers, they were moved from making water lifting bags and animal harnesses

which were being rapidly replaced by plastic products to the production of bags and accessories that

could be marketed to nearby towns and cities. The details employed in these bags in the early days

avoided the use of any alien material that they had to procure from the local supply chain and all details

were developed in leather with the use of appropriate construction that used only leather that the

craftsmen had direct control off since they belonged to a community of leather workers. This

disassociation of the community from a traditional supply chain created some local social pressure

points, but in the longer run the community was able to renew their trade and forty years on it is still a

thriving business that keeps them active in their villages at a considerably higher level of income than

they were used to in the past. This kind of design intervention creates new hope for the oppressed

communities and an ability in them to cope with massive change that is taking place in their environment

while enabling then to help themselves to a very great extent. Some rules for avoiding local exploitation

in the face of global competition seems to be emerging from all this experience which is ripe for the

development of a theory of sorts that could place design action in such situations at a new level in the

chain of governance of local economies. Innovation changes the equation in economics that is not

predicted by any other parameter that is usually considered in economic modelling and projection.

Design is one such innovation provider although there are other disciplines that can create a positive

discontinuity in the flow of economic growth and change. One such rule that I can think of, based on our

experiences, is that in order to encourage start-up entrepreneur ship we would need to find product

solutions that are less oppressive for the entrepreneur in which he has a greater degree of control in the

supply chain and in which he can initiate and operate in a low capital, low tech complexity and low

market complexity environment so that he can cope with his almost impossible situation and grow out of

this with his own effort aid and official doles in the form of poverty grants that are soul and spirit sapping

measures that are usually employed by self-serving politics and bureaucracy in many developing

countries. In many craft situations that decision of "what to make" needs to be seriously examined to

ensure that the individual or community that is being assisted is able to cope with the category and I use

a categorisation assignment as part of my "Systems Thinking and Design" class for senior students of

Industrial Design at NID. This is called the "Universe of Products" assignment when the students are

required to arrange all possible products, that can be made in a particular technology or material that is

being studied, on a comparative visual matrix from simple to complex across various selected attributes,


and these attributes can vary from group to group, but a meaningful set is taken up bringing home the

fact that in most situations there are multiple options each of which has numerous trade-offs which need

to be examined at the stage of design that determines what rather than how which always comes later.

My current work on bamboo too uses these arguments to convince our government at the State and

National level as well as local functionaries in remote regions of India that a locally grown raw material

that is perennial in nature combined with design strategies for local action as well as export markets can

create a massive economic change without the need for the mobilisation of impossible amount of

finances that a capital starved economy can ill afford. Further these measures can reverse the flow of

human capital away from our villages to the nearby towns and cities that are becoming cess-pools of

poverty rather than help realising the dreams of great achievements that seem to hold the minds of the

young in our villages. Prof Christopher Alexander studied the typical Indian village as a model for his

thesis on urban design and the evolution of human habitat in the early sixties (Notes on Synthesis of

Form) and very little has changed in these villages over several thousand years, but now, change is

every where, and the models for alternative futures are few and far between. There is a role for a new

kind of design in these situations and we need to understand the lessons from Pulo Freire's "Pedagogy

of the Oppressed" and craft design strategies that can be used in numerous development situations

across the world.

With warm regards



005091 2004-04-23 21:58 GK VanPatter: Conflict resolution and team dynamics-Ranjan


Dear Dr GK VanPatter

You have asked the list if anyone is interested in the dynamics of exchange and ideas for intervention.

Yes, I am very interested and I think you have something usefull to offer in this connection. (I have

included a lengthy quote from your post below) I tried to defuse an emerging situation by posting a

mechanical translation of Rosan's German text but we certainly need to go much further than that. The

football anecdotes certainly did help, and the encouraging comments from other list members but I am

sure that there are many ways that we all will need to learn about the dynamics of exchanges and adult

behaviour if we are to do this competently all the time at a very high level of creative exchange. I looked

back at the archieves and came up with what follows: (Very interesting and I would certainly like to know

more about the current level of understanding about team dynamics and potential skills and tools etc

and I agree that it is and will be important in the future of innovation and design.) QUOTE "I often find

the forum's dynamics unfriendly and even intimidating." SNIP SNIP Matthew Soar, PhD, Mon, 11 Aug

2003 13:02:11 -0400 UNQUOTE QUOTE SNIP "Do such notes make list dynamics unfriendly and


intimidating? Do subscribers want me to stop posting the kinds of notes that Matt labels erudite but

unwieldy?" SNIP Ken Friedman Tue, 12 Aug 2003 15:48:44 -0700 UNQUOTE QUOTE SNIP I was

interested to see the comments that were posted earlier regarding what was referred to as the style and

dynamics of the list as well as the later suggestion prescribing courage. For those who might be

interested, below are a few observations that are based in practice. It is no secret that dynamics of

conversation can, over time, and through repetition, impact participation, ideation and ultimately entire

cultures. We see this often in our innovation and understanding work with large organizations. The

reality is that this terrain is of huge importance to many companies today, especially those who find

themselves in the position of having few ideas in their pipelines. I will quickly point out that this is just

one example of how the issues on the list are not always isolated to that community but are often

representational of issues found in the business world where clients exist. It is not likely possible to over

state the importance of this realization as in our problems can be found many opportunities for design to

serve and help others. Surfacing issues around dialogue dynamics in the real world of business is

tricky. In our practice we are sometimes asked to work this terrain. We do this by decoding and mapping

such dynamics as visual architectures. Consciously or unconsciously the list (community) has a

dynamic, the origins of which, despite the technology, could likely be traced back to the time of Socrates.

It is a dynamic that is deeply embedded in the academic community and also appears in western

business culture. At the heart of the dynamic is the idea of adding value through criticism and judgment.

Unfortunately they knew little about innovation dynamics in Ancient Greece. I do encourage graduate

design students on this list to think, think, think about what this means if you haven't already. Think

about how you are learning to add value to conversations yourself. Think about how others are learning

to do so. Some of the others may become your clients soon. Think about what this means in terms of

problems and opportunities for the future of design. There are many avenues worthy of design research

there. I propose today that we be adventuresome. Why not invite a brave graduate student or group of

students to take on the challenge of mapping the architecture of the conversations on this list, or at least

a representative sample. Suspended in time, they can conveniently be found in the archives. Such

research would likely surface substantial insights. Based on our experiments and experience in practice

I am guessing that what you will likely find is a considerable disconnect between the stated or implied

intentions of the list and the actual conversation dynamics that spring from deeply embedded behaviors.

I am guessing that this list likely has a judgments to ideas ratio in the 100 to 1 range. It would be very

interesting to see what the numbers actually are. In our consulting practice we have undertaken this

kind of exploration by filming the interaction occurring between client employees in sample problem

solving meetings and then deconstructing the dialogue. To do this we use, what we call a Dialogue

Architecture Framework that we have had in development for some time. When the visual

deconstruction and analysis is presented, the participants are often very surprised by what they see.

Most people have the best of intentions in what they do, but conversation dynamics spring from the level


of learned behaviors rather than intents. When doing this kind of work it becomes important to

understand the close interconnections between purpose and process. If the purpose is to create a

debating society then the default Socrates-like model might be perfect. If the purpose is to create a

sustainable innovative capability or culture where ideas must be grown from seeds, then an organization

may have to substantially rethink much of what it is doing conversationally. It therefore becomes

important not to mix the purpose from one model with the process from another. Changing such

dynamics in organizations typically involves a significant unlearning curve as those default behaviors are

deeply rooted in many adults who consider themselves to be among the best and the brightest. There in

lies very difficult news for some organizations but also huge opportunity for design as the future unfolds,

if we can better understand our own behaviors. In traditional design practice you will not find the tools

and models to address such challenges but we believe this to be rich terrain for future design leaders.

Hope this helps. Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:24:36 -0400 From: GK VanPatter

<[email protected]> Subject: Re: list meta-discourse UNQUOTE This is

fascinating stuff. Has anyone on the list done this kind of study into conversations or have references to

such studies and come up with enabling processes and tools, procedures, understanding of the

underlying dynamics etc.? I agree with Dr GK VanPatter that this will be a critcal area for design

research, particularly if design (and I believe it is) is headed into the domain of "team centered

performance" and away from the classical "individual centric models" of super hero performancees that

seems to be championed by our "Star Designer Syndrome" that we follow for much of design promotion

and design awards across the world. I would like to hear more about this and to learn from list members

on this matter. If NextD has some new insights to share it would be wonderful.

With warm regards



005038 2004-04-21 17:29 Re: Apology to Fil and others


Dear Rosan

I entered your German text on Ontology into the Google translation site and got the following result in

English. <http://translate.google.com/> How good is the translation quality? English Translation:

Ontologie (of griech.on, being ', and logos, teachings) in like-test senses the science of its and/or

Seiendem as such. The name "O" emerges only in 17 Jh., but after the thing one finds ontologische

considerations since beginning of philosophy history. Already Parmenides speaks of the one, eternal

and constant its and places thereby its into the center of the philosophical interest.... Epistemologie

(griech. science teachings) - theory of knowledge German text: Ontologie (vom griech.on, seiend', und

logos, Lehre) im wietesten Sinne die Lehre vom Sein bzw. Seiendem als solchen. Der Name "O" taucht


zwar erst im 17 Jh. auf, doch der Sache nach findet man ontologische Überlegungen seit Anbeginn der

Philosophiegeschichte. Schon Parmenides spricht von dem einen, ewigen und unveränderlichen Sein

und stellt damit das Sein in den Mittelpunkt des philosophischen Interesses. .... Epistemologie (griech.

Wissenschaftslehre) - Erkenntnistheorie

With warm regards



004984 2004-04-19 17:24 Re: Pre Research , Research and post research (Postponed Research !)

MPR on PhD-Design_2004_04_19 Dear Pradeep

Tomorrow we go to the polls in India, in all, 650 million of us will be involved in redefining the worlds

largest democracy. A few hours after the last polling station closes down, and the electronic voting

machines will be carried, ferried or donkeyed down from remote locations and from cities to the nearest

counting station that is connected to the rest of networked India, all of us will know who won and who

lost, who our next government will be. We would have saved in this process approximately 10,000

tonnes of paper that would otherwise have been used for such a large electorate, established the

reliability of a near one hundred percent which is unheard of in any other part of the world, developed or

otherwise, and reiterated our firm belief that the system is fair and free and transparent, besides many

other positive values that have been realised in the past sixteen years since the electronic voting

machine was designed and first tested in 1988 on semi-literate and illliterate people in experiments

conducted in parts of Western India and then in tentative steps across the length and breadth of India.

Is this great Science? is this great Technology? is this great Management? is this great Design? What

does this innovation, that has enabled us to achieve so much, so effectively, owe its success to? We

need to ponder his question for some length of time, deeply if we are to discover the relative roles of all

the contributions that have gone into the making of this success story. There are many lessons here and

we would benefit from drawing these out for the benefit of all of us interested in design and research,

and disciplines and professions. It is my view and I am sure of many of us that it is all of the above.

Science has provided us with the tools and concepts that has permitted us to move from the technology

of paper counting to counting bits embedded in micro circuits, the technology innovation has helped

standardise the delivery of reliable hardware and sofware, the logistics of managing a massive election

owes its success to our learning and adhereing to laws and processes established from knowledge

garnered from previous mistakes and to Design that has helped build a great useable interface and user

protocol that brings total reliability and provides and effective synthesis of all the parameters that go into

making of the product that now symbolises fairness and equity of access to such a diverse population

that is represented by the Indian electorate. At present count, about one million such voting machnes


are to be used across India and the fact is that these are accepted and covered by a strong belief

amongst all the participants, political parties and voters alike, that it is trustworthy and reliable. I have

used the question of "percieved reliability" of objects and systems in many of my classes by asking my

students to rate a number of similar products in a category, such as electronic goods, consumer goods,

packaged food etc, and the visual rating exercise has always resulted in lively discussions on where

does the "percieved reliability" of a particular object lie. s it in the brand, in the colour, in some minor

feature or line or mark, or does it lie in the mind of the observer, in their own background or preference

etc? This is the stuff of design discourse and of marketing and I am sure a valid subject for a scientific

investigation if we wish to measure the effect with a fine-tooth comb in an objectve manner and at what

cost or effort the is considered reasonable etc. Having said that, I wish to return to the question of the

differences between science, technology, management and design innovations. The best arguement

that I have seen on this matter is the one raised and explained by Gui Bonsiepe in his book "Interface:

......." where he places science, technology and design innovations in their respective contexts and

outlines the expected outcomes of each in clear and convincing terms that I agree with quite whole-

heartedly, and therefore my comments can be seen as an outcome of that acceptance. I will "cast my

vote" tomorrow, or should I say "punch my vote" because I will be depressing a button large enough for

an adult thumb, (was it designed so that the thumb could also be used although most will use their index

finger) however our population of illiterates are used to using their thumb impressions to identify

themselves just as the rest of us are used to using a distinctive signature to gain access to bank

accounts and for transfer of our property, and then we will hear a distinct beep as the required feedback

that our vote has indeed been cast and this will coincide with the glow of a lamp located at the top of the

voting unit.........some of these features seem irrational if one were to include the form of the mouldings

the size of theradius, the draft angle of the moulded side and surface texture of the voting unit etc....but

they work and work well under that most severe conditions.......and there are hundreds of such micro

details that have all fallen in place, some how, in some grand synthesis....and it works.....and I hope that

it gives us good governance...we can only hope!!!! Is this good science? Is this good technology? Is this

good management? Is it art!!! or is it good design?? Or is it just good luck that we can all ascribe to the

correct placement of the planets in the cosmos that is based on the blessings of some benevelant Hindu

deity, or is there more that lies beyond what the eyes can see, our ears can hear, our hands can touch,

and our minds can fathom......I offer this to the list to ponder and respond? A bit of western rationality

and eastern mysticism, all in the press of a button. What indeed is Design and what is Research, what

then is Design Research???

With warm regards




004949 2004-04-15 18:02 Re: Beer drinking and pre-research?

MPR on PhD-Design_2004_04_15 Dear Ken and Rosan

This is very entertaining and educating. Let me add a note from our city of Ahmedabad where we

manage to do a lot of research and design without the benefit of beer!! Ahmedabad being located in the

Western State of Gujarat is perhaps the only State in India that is still under the State Prohibition Act,

therefore no BEER!! However our International guests need not worry since a small quota is provided to

them if they wish to apply for such a quota. We have a local joke about a dealer in a nearby town who

won the award for the highest distribution of beer in the country, that year, and yes that town is also

under the State Prohibition Act, so much for prohibition....and beer. They must have had a great number

of International guests to account for their massive success, however noone is counting or doing deep

research!! I agree with Ken that design, now and in the future will need to depend on robust resarch

from a whole host of disciplines that contribute to and helps sustain good practice and offer great theory

that all of us can use to make sense of our world and the behaviour of the people in it. But I also like the

way Rosan provokes us, flipantly or otherwise, and it brings out the best in Ken. Very educating in the

end. About pre and post design some comments. Design is on one hand a responsible and exacting

profession now differentiated into hundreds of disciplines and capabilities that have been documented

and listed earlier. So we can not speak about design as if it is one kind of activity at all. In fact it is a very

large variety of activities, each of which could have many forms and therefore research needs. And on

the other hand Design is a very human activity that could be engaged in by all human beings and there

is a value in drawing the attention of policy makers to this larger role for design in the making of a

creative and sensitive society of the future. The comments on research are to do with the former role,

that of the professional. Here too we need to look at the various circumstances and roles that a designer

can or is permitted to play within Industry, government and in society, all of whom need design services

at the highest level of quality, but many of them may still not know it as yet. Legitimising design is a task

that all of us have been asked to play in a science and management dominated world and the language

of science and the discipline of good management are instantly recognised. Designers have used

research for the purpose of justifying their choises and decisions as well as for obtaining approval for

their work which is usually divided into quite distinct phases for the sake of good management.

Designers have also been using a variety of research to define a goal or direction for design action. This

is defintely pre-design , in the professional sense of what designers are supposed to be doing. Many

years ago I was steeped in Anthropology and Ethnography research methods and readings when my

friends and the not so friendly ones thought that I was wandering far from design, the then accepted

path, of good form and good profit. This was when we had embarked on our research on bamboo by

studying the traditional uses of that material in the remote Northeastern region of India, to document and

extract what we now call traditional wisdom, from the first hand observations and recordings of a design


survey team. Now we are able to return with new knowledge that informs our design directions that

would not have been possible without that experience and work. Post design research on the other

hand is once again an issue of establishing accountability for the design action and in many

development oriented situations such research sheds light on the succes or failure of particular

strategies and helps in formulating corrective actions or guides further inputs going forward. Research

within design is needed as well and much learning is needed here about how individual and groups of

designers carry out their work in various industries and in design situations. We have many interesting

opportunities and case (studies) in India, many which are not documented, and many more that need to

be done but are still not recognised and adequately funded. The preoccupation seems to be on funding

the setting of standards while little effort is made to promote innovation through design. I wonder how

can we shift the emphasis from being focussed on analytic research to a form of synthesis research that

could be called designerly research in the true sense of the word design.

With warm regards



004904 2004-04-09 17:45 Re: Design Methodologies

MPR on PhD-Design_2004_04_09-01 Some more reflections on emerging design methodologies - M P Ranjan

In February 2004 Eunkyong Baek had asked the list for information on methods relating to naratives of

meetings and design sessions in industry and I had responded to this off-list with a couple of personal

examples that may be useful in the context of the current discussion on design methodologies. I am

therefore quoting part of that message below for views and reactions from the list. quote: You ask for

examples of narratives used by designers for presentations and design review meetings and it is an

interesting question. The discussion thread has however covered much ground to include processes for

observation and recording of all meetings (on design) and their analysis and extraction of appropriate

findings which are also interesting from the point of design research. I would share with you a couple of

personal examples that cover both the above questions. I use the term "scenarios" for the visual

depiction of a complex image based representation (in many styles) that captures the essence and the

flow of a design proposal which could be pretty abstract at an early stage of development and far more

detailed and explicit at a more advanced stage of evolution of that representation. These images are

supported by texts that forms the narrative part of the discourse and I find it particularly effective and

useful when dealing with design tasks at a strategic level. To cut a long story short I will quote one

particular example. In 1998 I was invited by the UNDP in Delhi to conduct a survey and propose a

course of action for the development of the Bamboo sector in India. This invitation was based on my

previous published work on the bamboo crafts of the Northeastern region of India done in the 80's. My


report to the UNDP submitted in February 1999 formed the basis of the three year National development

project that has just been concluded. My report titled "From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a

Sustainable Human Development Resource for India" uses six "scenarios" to outline the framework for a

multi-tiered multi-sectoral project of integrated development. Each "scenario" captures the key concepts

and directions needed in a particular sector and these diagrams were used repeatedly to brief partners

and officials and these are easy to grasp and accept for further action. I will be happy to send a pdf

copy of the report if requested off the list. Two versions are available a 72 dpi version is 500kb and a

300dpi version is 1.4MB in size. I teach scenario thinking (which I used above) in two courses at NID,

one at the Foundation Level course titled "Design Concepts and Concerns" and the other at the senior

level titled "Systems Thinking & Design". Here I conduct the courses in camera and document all the

assignments and presentations made by all the students using a digital still camera to record the work

and the typical moods and interactions amongst groups of students working in teams to develop a

deeper understanding of some complex subject that has been assigned to them for study and

subsequent representation in visually rich presentations to the plenary session of all groups. This form of

"contemporaneous documentation" provides us with a rich visual resource that can be revisited later to

refresh ones understanding of the presentations as an aid to deep learning in an academic setting. I

have been using this medium for four years for all my classes and as a result have a massive collection

of digital images which I use in numerous ways to effect education and to conduct research. The idea of

using such contemporaneous documentation was suggested by Prof. Bruce Archer of RCA during his

visit to NID in early 80's but we could only fully implement the concept once the digital means was

practically available. It is a very powerful medium and I am able to give my students one CD-ROM with

reduced versions (800 x 600 pixel at 150 dpi) of all the images from each course, which is an aide

memoir and a new pedagogic tool for design education since we are constantly dealing in visual

discourses that tend to get lost due to shortage of storage space. I use an Apple Mac and very simple

sharewares to catalogue and retrieve over 250,000 images that are part of my archive today. I would be

eager to see the progress of your research into the use of narratives and I do believe that this will be

increasingly used by designers and "industry" who are using design at a strategic level. unquote I

would be eager to know about other visually rich methodologies that are being used by list members and

others in industry for design or design research tasks which could put in context the opportunities

represented by new digital tools that are now available in IT enabled design processs and in people

related observation and research at an affordable cost.

With warm regards



004903 2004-04-09 17:03 Re: Design Methodologies



I find Prof John Broadbent's taxonomy of design methodologies interesting and useful in mapping the

directions that new research can take in this area. (in his post dated 9th April 2004). I have some

reflections and comments on this subject below. I have found one remarkable difference between

(practicing and student) designers using particular methodologies and in design researchers discussing

these methodologies and that is : - designers do not seem to be too concerned about the exact form or

structure that is prescribed for any method as long as some usefull result is obtained on the way to

finding a fit in their search for a solution to their problem or opportunity. As soon as a suitable fit is

discovered the method is all but abandoned and the task of refining the solution begins in real earnest.

From the point of view of a design researcher it could be seen as a great missed opportunity to define a

direction or add a new case to a body of knowledge surrounding that particular method, almost negligent

disregard for the potential knowledge that is at hand in every instance of design effort. I do not know if I

said that clearly enough. But designers usually are more concrned about getting the job done rather than

on defining the proper method and articulating the same, which is rarely done. Designers use many

methods at different stages of their work and these have evolved as design research has helped

articulate new and more complex (or nested) methodologies as the fields have become more

sophisticated in their use of these systematic procedures. Design being an action field dealing with the

synthesis of many threads of influences, many of which are unknown (some even unknowable as

Wolfgang Jonas would suggest as I gather from his recent conference announcement, and I agree with

him) we would need methodologies that are holistic in nature although we can use a break-down of

tasks into numerous protocols and try and aggregate them together after some insights or defining rules

are generated on individual or sets of influencing parameters. The solution however will only emerge in

the act of synthesis which is quite independent of the numerous and tortuous range of explorations and

analysis that may have preceeded the bringing together of the articulation or visualisation of a particular

solution. Evaluation of these solutions may use methodologies of a different class from those used to

generate them in the first place, and this may not be done by designers at all. The group processes that

are gaining ground in successful design consultancies such as IDEO and the people centered design

research reresented by SONICRIM as well as the understanding lab proceses mentioned by NextD, all

seem to fall into this new class that is placing informed synthesis at the centre of the design process. In

this connection I recall an old book, "How Designers Think" by Brian Lawson (sorry I do not have the full

reference handy just now, but will post it if anyone is interested) where there is a reference to different

thinking styles in problem solving between a group of enginers and another group of architects, as

applied to solving a puzzle. While the engineers searched for rules to make the pieces fit the architects

played to fit the patterns first and looked for the rules later. I wonder if more work of this nature has been

done in the area of cognitive psychology in recent years and I would be very happy to have these

references for my own education. Design thinking is constantly in flux between the general and the


particular and this understanding places in context the interest that we have had on the list about

"wholes and parts" in recent weeks ( I was unfortunately too busy in the aftermath of our Bamboo

Initiatives and the World Bamboo Congress at New Delhi to get involved in that very interesting

discussion). When we are grappling with our search for a design solution the mental (imaginative -

internal cogntive) and visualisation (external modelling) processes always swing between the general to

the particular and back at a higher level of understanding and expression, to continue to oscilate

between these extremes, almost a simultaneous use of the birds eye- view and the worms eye-view,

distant and close up, in a cyclic manner. Particular details are sketched or built and these are evaluated

against numerous externalities (as in economics) to test for a fit and this insight is brought back to

refining the detail in particular or in finding an alternate route to a solution. The methodologies therefore

need to be integrated into this part-whole swing that is a natural mode for design thinking and this is

perhaps one of the key differences between those methodologies that are described as reductionist

methods. I wonder if the concepts are clear, as I am still trying to set out my understanding in plain

language (without my diagrams or models or doodles which is my habit when thinking through any idea)

which is sometimes very limiting, particularly when talking about design. I would be happy to hear more

views from the list and for suggestions on further reading that could shed light on these ideas.

With warm regards



004887 2004-04-02 17:50 Re: Images of Chinese Culture, Design and manufacturing


Dear Rob

I travelled to China as part of my research on bamboo in 1998 and 2000. I had also been to Hong Kong

on both occasions as well and I have recorded many pictures of modern China as represented by views

of Beijing and Shanghai, parts of Hangzhou and the western city of Kunming. On the Industrial design

front I have a few pictures of the Kong Kong Poly School of Design. I also have some pictures of the

remarkable new infrastructure, high-rise buildings, the highways and the airports, all new, representing

an enormous investment from the west. In addition I have a large number of bamboo pictures and views

of rural China from Anji county, the southern state and the western state where I had visited in 2000 as

part of a Chinese-GTZ team of bamboo experts. I will need a weekend to sort out some of these and I

will be happy to put together a thumbnail gallery of selected pics for your review and eventual selection.

All of these are digital images, the 1998 set is 1.8 megapixel and the 2000 ones are 3 megapixel

resolution.

With warm regards




004615 2004-02-12 21:09 Re: How Strategic Designers work?


Dear Sukanta Biswas

Several years ago I had tried to differentiate the various level of design interventions based on our own

experiences at NID, India. I developed a four pronged model (diagram not included) to define these as

Tactical level, Elaborative level, Creative level and Strategic level. Without taking to much time to

respond to all your questions, all of which are important to the changing role of design that we are

seeing for ourselves I shall share a paper that I prepared in 1998 for a Conference in Brazil and was

published in the proceedings. The issues raised and discussed are of interest to the list as well so I am

quoting the text below for your reference and use.

With warm regards



Quote:

The Levels of Design Intervention in a Complex Global Scenario

M P Ranjan Faculty of Industrial Design National Institute of Design Paldi, Ahmedabad 380 007 INDIA

Paper prepared for presentation at the Graphica 98 - II International Congress of Graphics Engineering

in Arts and Design and the 13th National Symposium on Descriptive Geometry and Technical Design,

Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil from 13 to 18 September 1998.

Abstract

Design is a complex activity that is influenced by a large number of factors that may be financial,

technological, socio-cultural and historical and most of all by the changing perceptions and needs of

human user groups and their social actions. This complexity is modelled by the systems metaphor of

design analogous to the process of fire in a symbolic hearth. The design activity is further being

redefined to articulate the four specific levels at which this discipline can be used by industry and

society, namely, the Strategic level, the Creative level, the Elaborative level and the Tactical level. The

author believes that all these levels are inherent in each and every design task but are not normally

perceived as such and in many cases there is a misconception that these levels can be isolated and

managed effectively. It is proposed that the Profile of the Emerging Designer therefore needs to change

to include a Value base at the core of a set that encompass the Knowledge base , the Skill base and the

Cognitive base that define the capabilities of this new genre of designers. The central contribution of

design is limited here to providing tangible scenarios for decision making and evaluation of solutions in

the context of the inherent complexity of the design situation although some tasks may involve the

designer in the further stages of implementation as well. For this it is important to understand the


Processes of Visualisation and the emerging tools for team-based participation of experts from different

domains and for the involvement of user groups in the design process. Design is therefore being

transformed by change in perceptions and needs emerging from the competitive forces of an

interconnected world. Developments in Global Economic Liberalisation, Information Technology,

Environmental Consciousness and Consumer Rights are key factors that are driving this change. ~

We will begin by defining three premises that are central to the main thesis of this paper. The three

models that precede the main topic have been discussed elsewhere and are summarised below to

provide a backdrop for the topic under discussion. The first is about the nature of the activity of design

that is modelled by the metaphor of fire. The second is about the nature and capabilities of the designer

that is modelled by the profile of the emerging designer. The third premise is the central role played by

the process of design visualisation in the creation and evaluation of tangible scenarios that facilitate

design decision making by teams of experts and user groups working in tandem. These premises lead

us to the main focus of this paper that is to discuss the four levels of design intervention proposed here

and the submission that the three preceding propositions are a necessary condition for realising this

complex understanding of design that must be practised in the next millennium for design to remain a

relevant and responsible profession. Fig 1: Systems Metaphor for Design Let us start with our new

definition of design since the word has acquired so many meanings over the years. I have used the

metaphor of fire to define design using a model that was developed with my students. When we look at

fire we see that it has various components — Fire (Agni) is a process of transformation—a material is

transformed by organic exchanges with the environment and an effect is the product of this exchange.

The process is always situated in a particular context and this context is represented by the ground. The

process of burning and the products of light, heat and smoke are all in close interplay with the

environment and design too is an activity that can happen only with reference to its own context. This

fire therefore represents the kind of complex transaction that I consider an adequate expression for the

systems metaphor for design. This means that we see design as a complex activity. There is not a

single product that we can call a simple product. Take for example the simplest of products that you can

think of and explore its possible effects. If you look at it only as a product of technology, that is, as some

material transformed into a functional shape, then it would seem to be simple. Take for example a wire

safety pin. You will say that it is a very simple manipulation of material in a clever way to provide some

functional features. But look at the ways in which a pin is used and when you bring the user domain into

your examination and also the potential hazards that the pin represents into your purview, the complexity

becomes visible. This little pin in the hands of an unsupervised infant child can have disastrous

consequences. So there are a whole lot of other issues that are connected with even the simplest of

products and these issues also have to be kept in the mind of the designer while he is working on that

very product. So it is becoming increasingly evident that design has to look beyond the object itself as a

mere artifact, as produced by technology, to the effects that these objects have on a complex set of


user-related parameters and finally the effects of these objects on the environment at various stages of

their life cycle. This leads us to re-evaluate the role of design and to anticipate the shape of the design

activity in the years to come. This is particularly important because this is not the way that design has

been necessarily thought of in the past. We are beginning to understand the complex nature of design

which means that you also need a fairly complex method of dealing with it. Design methodologies need

to be reevaluated and innovated to cope with this complexity. We usually tend to simplify everything to

basic steps in order to administratively cope with them with a degree of ease, but we are beginning to

discover that this method of management is not the answer to the problems at hand. A lot of

technological development in recent years has created negative results, some with catastrophic

consequences. We are certain that the exploitation of technology without the use of design processes

that take cognizance of the long term needs of users and environments will lead to disaster. However

our governments are yet to understand this lacuna in the manner in which they manage and fund

science and technology initiatives in a fragmented manner. Hence, in the model fire as a metaphor for

design, there are a set of ideas that are being stated as desirable states when you look at the

environment. Some of these ideas have been derived not from the models of the hard systems analysts;

rather it has been derived from the principles of ecology. When you are talking of ecosystems they are

actually soft systems. There are no hard boundaries for these systems which can be modelled and

reduced to very simple and straightforward network diagrams. They have very fuzzy boundaries and

they are extremely complex in their structure. The inter-relationships are very deep. Hence I think that

this kind of understanding is required when you look into any phenomenon or event. If you are designing

a house, there are so many layers of meaning associated with the house. Eventually the synthesis of a

form and the appropriateness of that form is followed by the acceptance of that form by the community

with which you are working, only if you are able to understand all those layers and map them adequately

into the solution. Now, in order to do this you need to develop some kind of holistic model that can

manage this complexity. It cannot be fragmented. Eventually for the purpose of analysis you will have to

break things down into components and subsystems but you will have to develop a method of synthesis

to be able to put it all together as a coherent whole. The understanding of a technology or an object

resides at the interface of the various layers of the system and this understanding should ideally be

available to the user at each level of that interface. When you see a chair you should be able to know

that it is a chair. So how is this kind of information built into that object? How is it embedded in the

language that the user understands? Similarly, when you normally see a traditional house, you know

which is the front of the house, there are some markings on it and in some particular way it identifies the

entrance and these are the elements that architects know very well with which to compose spaces so

that you feel at ease in some areas and you create tension in other areas deliberately because that is

the information that is fed by the very nature of the configuration that is presented. Technology as all of

us know is also important because you need to know the techniques, the materials and processes that


go into building and making products and systems. Similarly there are certain properties which are

always present. One of those properties of a system is complexity as opposed to being complicated.

Being complicated is not a desirable property; it is not what we want. Complexity, however, is desirable

because complexity means that it resolves many interactions and smoothly permits the transmission of

information within and outside the system. Like a living tree, it is an extremely complex system, but it is

not complicated to comprehend. Now let us turn to the designer. In the past we had great designers and

great artists, all held in awe by the general population. They used to be labelled the “Great Designer”

and we put them on a pedestal and our Design and Art museums are full of such examples. We have

had this phenomenon in architecture as well, we have it in industrial design, we have it in the realm of

fashion design. A lot of this hero cult or the star designer cult has been an accepted way of life for

designers. I do not believe that this will be the direction of the future. The future will be determined by

collaborative work of many disciplines because design is a multi-disciplinary activity and in design action

teamwork can and will be a necessary condition for designing the simplest of products effectively and

responsibly. Unless we are able to work in teams with the designer providing certain critical

competencies and the other disciplines from sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics and

technology providing the rest of the inputs, we will not be able to meet the complex needs of our society

in the years to come. We will need to identify all the disciplines that are required depending on the scope

and nature of each task and we must find ways to bring in those sets of capabilities together to carry out

that design task. Fig.2 Profile of the Emerging Designer The designer will therefore need to be

equipped to learn new skills and areas of knowledge to be able to work with a diverse set of other

professionals and also be directed by his acquired value base that is rooted in good practices and on

empathy for the user who is the eventual client. Design education will need to equip the designer with

knowledge, skill and cognitive capabilities as well as a degree of motivation to make choices that satisfy

the self and the task. Giving meaning to the design effort will be one of the guiding principles that will

then temper design action. The tools of the designer are also undergoing a dramatic change with the

mediation of digital tools at all stages of the design process. While subject competence and knowledge

of particular industry practices and norms will be desirable for working with that industry we will

increasingly be called upon to address new and complex design tasks that are being perceived or

enabled in an era of global awareness and information access. The climate for design action will also

need to take into account social responsibilities and emerging issues that will hold the designer

accountable as never before. Some of these can be expected to be codified into the legal framework just

as we have seen in the impact that the consumer acts and the environmental acts have had in recent

years on various forms of economic and industrial activities. The dominant ideology for design would be

increasingly user-centred and the forces of global competition will add their own levels of complexity that

the designer must learn to cope with. Fig 3: Visualisation in Design This brings us to the key

capabilities that a designer will be expected to bring to the efforts of the team. This is the visualisation of


tangible scenarios, progressing from the abstract to the concrete, enabling decision making by those

who may have commissioned or caused the design task to be executed. The designer is expected to be

sensitive and creative in the process of synthesis that which lies at the heart of the design process.

Perception of challenges and opportunities and the subsequent translation into viable concepts and

solutions are shrouded in myth that needs to be de-mystified. Understanding this process of visualisation

will need the efforts of serious design research groups and this will help mobilise the extensive use of

design by government and industry to address real life problems and business opportunities alike.

Designers too will need to contribute to this understanding by the sharing of case studies far more than

has been the practice in the past. The focus in these case studies will need to be on the process rather

than on the end results alone as is the familiar practice in most design journals. That we are able to

develop tools for visualisation that will enable the designer to share the process and the products of the

intermediate stages of the design process are critical to the realisation of the larger objectives of

effective design practices in the face of mounting complexity. We can now focus on the core theme of

this presentation: the spectrum of design interventions in a complex global scenario. I propose four

levels at which the design profession can work, each dealing with its own sets of tools, capabilities and

influencing factors. However, I believe that these levels are inherent in each and every design task, but

these may be addressed either sequentially or simultaneously, that is, by different individuals within an

extended design team or that these may be the key areas of focus at different stages of the design

process. Therefore, these levels could occur either in a sequential manner with the design task

progressing from one level to another in time or they could be parts of a distributed set of tasks being

simultaneously handled by different groups on a large design team. Clients do not necessarily see value

in all these levels of potential contribution and could consequently treat the design interventions in a

fragmented manner due to varying perceptions of the design activity. This reduces the effectiveness of

the design contribution and restricts the designer to a very limited frame of reference in many such

instances. Particular design projects may be largely dealing with only one of the levels proposed in the

model and some specific industries may have a greater emphasis on a particular level due to the

perceptions of the role of design in their particular circumstance. Design is being increasingly perceived

as a key capability that can be used by industry and governments to create solutions to complex

problems and communication needs of a highly information mediated society. Design is recognised as

an effective tool, in Europe, America and in parts of Asia, for introducing new products into our lives and

to give companies an edge over their competitors. This is not the case in India and in several other

developing economies. Here there is a great deal of emphasis on the role of science and technology and

on the use of management as a means of generating innovation and strategy, and these efforts are

bound to fail if the integrating nature of the design discipline is ignored by industry and the government.

It seems that industry recognises the role of advertising, at least in the use of advertising, going by the

investments made in this sector. The use of industrial design has languished due to a lack of


understanding of the various dimensions of the design process and from an inability to place the young

profession within the flow of development tasks that are critically needed. In some cases there is a lack

of self-confidence that an indigenous team can create world class products and services and this

prevents investments being made in this capability unless the competitive forces compel the industry in

question to taste the fruits of such innovations. When I complain that design is not used adequately I

mean that in the context of our experience of the past thirty-five years at NID of trying to introduce this

discipline into the country and to extend its use into all sectors of our economy. The role of design is

largely perceived as a tactical one dealing with the improvement in the quality and the performance of

products and services through the process when the easily recognised skills of the designer are

employed to improve looks, finishes or other aesthetic characteristics of the product or system. But this

recognition fails to address the three other levels at which the design discipline can be effectively

employed and this realisation leads us to the fourth model, the topic of this paper. One of the reasons

for the low spread of design use in the Indian economy in the years after Independence was its highly

regulated nature that gave no incentives for innovation and competition. It was rarely in the marketplace

but focused on the collection of government licences and permits that regulated the economy. All this

has thankfully changed to a great extent in the past few years and design is being aggressively pursued

by a few leading industries that have felt the heat of international competition impact their sector of the

economy. The garment export trade and the jewellery trade in India which are major export oriented

sectors of the economy have made major investments in design that are paying rich dividends to those

who have made them. In the intervening years, the use of Industrial design, in particular had lagged far

behind that of other design disciplines such as graphic design and textile design by the bulk of the Indian

industry and by the government sponsored investments for development oriented tasks. This was

because of a lack of understanding of the design discipline and misconception that design deals largely

with cosmetic details that are not that critical to a developing economy. This perception must change

and the use of design must spread to all sectors of our economy if the real benefits of this discipline are

to be enjoyed by our peoples. Design is a critical capability in the generation of the wealth of nations and

in the creation of usable products, technologies and services that are accepted and used by its

population. The tactical level is generally recognised by industry and is therefore used more widely but it

is only one of the effective ways to use design and the other levels of intervention address higher

degrees of risk reduction but the returns too are proportionately greater. We will examine each of these

levels of design intervention with the help of a few illustrative examples. Fig 4: Spectrum of Design

Interventions In the ten years, between 1981 and 1991, that I headed the NID’s consultancy division

called the Design Office I had the opportunity to meet some of the countrys’ leading industrialists and to

administratively supervise several hundred design projects that were commissioned by Indian industry

and the government development sector. These projects were carried out by the Institute’s faculty and

these projects set standards of excellence and explored several unexplored facets of design service that


only a teaching Institution that was research oriented could possibly have undertaken in those days.

These project experiences gave me a ring-side view of the design processes and strategies employed

by my colleagues on the faculty at NID due to the design management function that I had to play on their

behalf. My own teaching and professional design commitments helped develop deep convictions on the

various levels of design interventions that were possible. A large number of these projects dealt with the

tactical level of design intervention that designers contributed to by virtue of their special skills and

sensitivities in form, colour, detail, and ornamentation, to name only a few. These dealt with a wide

range of industries and subject areas such as symbol design, trophies, the organisation of visual

elements in electronic and machine tool products, print media products, woven and printed textiles and

on packaging and branded consumer products. These projects were seen as the ‘bread and butter’ of

design tasks. Several alternatives were generated by the designers at the concept presentation stage,

each based on an approach that gave some specific advantages over the others that were explored.

The client and their representatives participated in the process of deciding the particular concept that

would be carried forward to the next stages of development. In some cases the designers choice was

not considered for some reason or the other, sometimes because it was considered too far ahead in

time or that the market was not ready for it. While such practical know-how was being transmitted to the

captains of Indian industry our classrooms were teeming with experimental projects that students and

faculty defined based on their perceptions of the design opportunities in a vast and complex country like

India which supports such a great variety of people and geographic terrains and climates. Some of these

had the support of industry or government funding and in recent years it has become a routine feature to

get project sponsorship from industry, which was not the case in the early years. Many of these

exploratory projects dealt with the generation of design collections. Several of these were in the craft

sector or the small-scale industry sector where there was a greater degree of flexibility in making

investments in new product collections since the level of investment need for tooling was minimal or

affordable even in small batches. Several collections of furniture, toys and textiles were developed for

varying client groups, many self-financed by the Institute as part of its awareness building efforts. Such

collections were directed by perceptions of markets and of the need in some industry categories to

provide variety and product differentiation and for market segmentation. One such prominent example

has been the variety offered by the branded moulded and soft luggage industry in India. Several of our

design graduates were employed by the leading manufacturers and this sector has of late started

challenging leading world producers for market share in highly competitive export markets. Similarly, the

leading Indian watch and jewellery maker launched a veritable barrage of design variations and market

presentation and image building strategies to subdue, in the local market, competition from a very

established player in the public sector that had dominated the Indian scene for many years. The

company has extended their presence into the European market, particularly in Switzerland, only to

attract protectionist pressures sponsored by the local industry. Both these companies used designers


trained at the Institute to carry out their design objectives with a fair degree of success. These are

examples of market led design in action. Variety and style, product differentiation and market

segmentation are the guiding principles for the generation of the requisite variety. This is supported at

many points in the marketing chain by the design of products, point of sale displays and the shops

themselves to name only a few of the elements that are to be co-ordinated for good effect, the heat, the

light and the cosiness of the symbolic fire mentioned above. The Indian textile industry is another

example for the extensive use of the elaborative level of design intervention where one basic product is

offered to the marketplace in a vast range of options. In India, the next level of design intervention is

retarded by the absence of a strong intellectual property rights protection regimen and the unwillingness

of industry and government to invest in design at that level. In spite of this there have been several

examples of product innovations and patents that have resulted in remarkable products that have

shaken up the competition in the respective product segments. India has over the years invested very

heavily in research laboratories and science establishments without a corresponding investment in

design. This has effectively retarded the creation and delivery of breakthrough products although a large

number of innovative basic technologies have been developed by the science and technology initiatives.

It is only in the defence sector that have we seen the large-scale conversion of these basic technologies

into product systems to be introduced into active service. This too has only happened because the

developed nations were reluctant to part with their know-how in these areas compelling the Indian

defence administrators to make the necessary investments in product level design and development.

Design can be a very powerful tool to convert these innovations in materials and processes into products

and systems that are usable and acceptable to the user. Corresponding investments must be made in

design to realise the full benefits of the investments that have been made into science and technology

over the years. With India joining the World Trade Organisation this too is likely to change especially

since the economy has been rapidly opened up to international competition. Design opportunities will

snowball in a number of industry sectors just as we have seen massive investments being made by the

pharmaceuticals sector in recent years due to the heat of intense competition in that sector. A large

number of concepts have been developed in the classroom assignments that await industry support to

carry forward to their logical conclusion. We are now beginning to see design investments being made in

sectors such as the automobile sector, the electronics sector and the consumer durables sectors.

However the dominant approach in Indian industry is still the importation of design and technology as an

undifferentiated package that will in the long run retard the country’s capacity to compete in a fast

changing world. Investments in design at the innovative level will also generate long-term strengths that

will be critical for the profitability of several industrial segments in our economy. It is gratifying to note

that the software sector in our country is beginning to make such investments in end product

development and in the creation and delivery of branded products and services after having offered cost

based services all these years. This move up the value chain has seen several companies deriving


enormous benefit and in the near future we can expect to see global level players emerging from the

Indian subcontinent in this sector that uses design as the principle tool of competitive advantage.

Interface design of user-friendly software products, development of durable brands, and the creation of

computer-based training and education systems are directions that are indicated for rapid growth. Some

of our companies are particularly well placed to exploit the Internet for e-commerce initiatives if the

supportive infrastructure can be provided at a reasonable cost. The next level of design intervention

creates whole new industries and new markets. At the strategic level it is the vision of the design thinker,

be it the designer or the entrepreneur, that maps new opportunities and visualises strategic initiatives

that open up whole new markets. I must point out here that it is not sufficient to have a bright vision of

some future product or system but the design teams must be able to mobilise the supports and the

energy needed to realise the vision through a long and complex process of exploration and realisation

that invariably involves considerable work at all the other levels of design intervention as well. An

infrastructure for venture finance is critical for the success of such an initiative. We have seen that a

burning desire to create something different or useful is normally associated with most of these efforts

and in many cases the driving forces are ideological convictions. The search by design students for

meaningful projects in the Indian economy has resulted in the development of a large number of very

interesting concepts that promise to make life easier for the user groups that were addressed by these

projects. One project initiative that stands out is the Jawaja initiative of Prof. Ravi J Matthai where

designers from NID and managers from the Indian Institute of Management went to the villages of

Rajasthan to test their skills at the creation of viable and durable options for communities of village

craftspersons. This strategy echoes the one initiated by Mahatma Gandhi by creating the Khadi

movement (self-reliance through handspun and hand-woven fabrics) across the country when leading up

to the struggle for India’s independence from British rule. The processes and tools of Industrial Design

can work at various levels of industrialisation, from the handcrafts sector all the way to the capital

intensive processes of automated production and across a wide range of materials and processes.

Companies, countries and local communities can use these design processes to envision new scenarios

for their future selves in the complex and changing world order. We are looking at the possibility of the

new genre of designers assisting the crafts sector of our country to face the global challenges through

the setting up of a new design school in Jaipur that will focus on the needs of the crafts sector and other

design initiatives that are led by industry vision hope to create the human resources that are needed by

their industry sectors in the years to come. The focus of design is on the users and their aspirations.

New areas of emphasis are the concern for the environment and on the social responsibility of the

designer that will be increasingly discussed in the years to come. Two recent projects done by our

students under my guidance as part of the invited Apple Student Design Competitions in 1995 and 1996

subsequently won the Du Pont award at the Human Village Congress of the International Council of

Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) in August 1997. These projects, INFARM – an agricultural pest


monitoring system for the illiterate Indian farmer anticipates the use of sophisticated technology in an

extremely user friendly manner and uses available technology to address real needs of the people, and

the other project, MANDALA – creates and visualises a new product system that gives new meaning to

retired middle class urbanites who are trying to cope with the problems of aging. Both these represent

the design opportunities presented by the rich fabric of our society and the need for design at

unconventional levels of intervention. The investments needed are substantial to take these concepts to

the field level implementation but the results can be very sweet indeed. Any takers? ~ References

Manish Chandra, Nipa Doshi and Samit Roychoudhury (students) M P Ranjan (teacher), A Systems

Approach to Design, an educational document (unpublished), National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad,

1992 Stafford Beer, Platform for Change, John Wiley & Sons, London 1975 M P Ranjan, Design

Education at the Turn of the Century: Its Futures and Options, a paper presented at ‘Design Odyssey

2010’ design symposium, Industrial Design Centre, Bombay 1994 National Institute of Design, 35 years

of Design Service: Highlights – A greeting card cum poster, NID, Ahmedabad, 1998 J A Panchal and M

P Ranjan, Institute of Crafts: Feasibility Report and Proposal for the Rajasthan Small Industries

Corporation, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad 1994 Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World:

Human Ecology and Social Change, Second Edition, Themes and Hudson, London 1984 Victor

Papanek, The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture, Thames and Hudson,

London 1995 John Thackara, European Design Prize Winners: How Today’s Successful Companies

Innovate by Design, BIS Uitgeverij, Amsterdam 1997 Esther Dyson, Release 2.0: A design for living in

the Digital Age, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth 1997 Priya Prakash, Rajib Ghosh, Vijay Indalkar

and Satvinder Channey, Project INFARM – Apple Design Project ’95, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad 1995 Divya, Samrat Nawle and Anab Jain, MANDALA – Apple Design Project ’96, National

Institute of Design, Ahmedabad 1996 ~ Unquote: Regards M P Ranjan 12 February 2004

004558 2004-02-05 21:18 Re: Recognizing excellence + conference structure-Ranjan


Dear Rosan

I have a comment about the open review mechanism that you have suggested and it makes a good deal

of sense since it can bring in transparancy and help maintain high standards both on the side of the

authors and the reviewers. It is only a very recent phenomena that we have the Internet based archieves

to make such a system work. In earlier times such an archieves of all submisions including, drafts, full

papers and formatted presentations could not be made available to all members or to the public at large

even if we wished to operate at such an open level. There has been some attempt to develop and use

such a system for a design conference that I know of in the recent past and this was the DyD02

(Development by Design 2002 at Bangalore) organised by MIT's Media Lab Asia in collaboration with a

number of sponsors including the Srishti School of Art and Design in Bangalore. The full reference for


the conference is: 2nd International Conference on Open Collaborative Design for Suatainable

Innovation, Bangalore, India December 1-2, 2002. This Open collaborative initiative required the use of

web based technologies and systems design which was provided by doctoral students at the MIT

through an open source initiative called ThinkCycle. <http://www.thinkcycle.org> Poonam Bir Kasturi

coordinated the Bangalore end of the conference as an active faculty at Srishti and being a graduate of

Product Design from NID she involved many of us in this initiative. I am sure that we will see more such

open collaborative ventures in the future as web based screening and participation methods develop

amd mature. Your idea of developing such a mechanism or model will help refine these systems from a

human perspective and bring in the necessary filters that do not intimidate or frighten away novice

authors who may have some very valuable contributions to make in any case.

With warm regards


05 February 2004

004538 2004-02-02 18:36 Design and Cultural Attributes: Some experiences


Design & Cultural Attributes: Issues for cross cultural design research and application: Prof. M P Ranjan,

NID, Ahmedabad

The recent discussions on PhD-Design have raised many issues and questions about the various

dimensions of the representation of culture in design research and practise and on the tools and

processes within design that could help cope with research into the impact of cultural differences on the

delivery of design research and design applications. While the range of issues at the global level would

be huge and of great significance for future research I would try and share some experiences that we

have had in the past few years in India in trying to cope with such cultural and linguistic differences in

our own application of design principles to several tasks that recognised and required the resolution of

such critical parameters in our own design work. Unfortunately very little is published about this work

although we have some internal documentation in the archives of the Institute upon which some of my

comments and insights are based. Many of these projects are done by teams of designers on the faculty

and in many cases student designers have been active participants. NID was called upon to design the

electronic voting machine (EVM) in 1988-89 by the Election Commission of India. At that time I

happened to Head the NID Design Office, which managed all design tasks of the Institute, and our

design team consisting of Product Designers J A Panchal and V M Parmar were entrusted this particular

design task. The electronics for the voting machine had already been developed by the Hyderabad

based Electronic Corporation of India but it was clear that the Industrial Design inputs were needed to

bring coherence to the form and representation of the EVM so that it would be acceptable to all stake

holders involved as a reliable and effective interface that could work across the vast range of linguistic


and cultural diversity that covers the India voter population. The complexity that the team encountered

was not a technological one and it was apparent that we would need some critical user studies to be

undertaken before we could offer a credible solution to the design task. We called upon our Graphic

Design colleague on the faculty to undertake such a study. Neeta Verma, an NID graduate and then

faculty of Graphic Design, took up the challenge and devised numerous experimental mock-ups in

cardboard with graphic representations that simulated the look and feel of the voting machine and took it

to the field. The idea was to use these mock-ups with a variety of user groups in order to evaluate their

feedback and it was based on such interactions that the final solutions were evolved. This voting

machine works across the country with a huge variety of people and cultures and linguistic differences

and many of who are totally illiterate. Today it is used in every single election and we believe that the

semiotic analysis that was conducted as part of the design process helped a great deal in embedding

the reliability and credibility that the machine has in the electoral process in India. This was perhaps the

first time that such semiotic analysis was conducted for defining the critical characteristic of a product

that we developed at our Institute. In 1994 Apple Computers, USA entered the Indian market for the first

time in a big way and were looking for partners in the higher education sector in India across design,

technology and management institutions to showcase their Macintosh computers for the education

market. NID was chosen as their active partner Institute for design and I was deeply involved as Head,

Information Technology and Apple Academy at NID. Apple initiated our involvement in the Apple Design

Projects in 1995 and 1996 when our students were invited to be part of Apple’s global initiative of

involving design schools in the development of new forward looking IT applications and interfaces that

could solve critical local problems. Many students took part in the Apple Design Projects and these

required them to do considerable field studies to locate challenging design tasks and then to develop

concepts using a highly interactive process that had the users at the centre of the whole design process.

Two outstanding projects were selected in each year out of a crop of several significant proposals

submitted by the competing design teams at NID. INFARM (1995) and MANDALA (1996) were

presented at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino along with similar offerings from many leading design

schools in Europe, Australia and the USA. INFARM was a solution that helped illiterate Indian farmers

use technology to test their field for pests and obtain rapid recommendations for suitable action from

experts using shared public telecom resources available at that time. MANDALA on the other hand was

a hand held personal device designed to give retired and elderly people in our society a means to stay

connected through an interface that was evolved by an active process of learning from the user so that

their cognitive and physical abilities informed the design decisions and not just the aesthetic sensibilities

of the design team. Both these projects were awarded the DuPont Canada, Student Design Award of

Excellence in 1997 at the ICSID Congress in Toronto, Canada. The lesson that we learnt through all

these projects about the effectiveness of user centered design and about the associated design

processes that we had to innovate with the help of a vast variety of users has by now been assimilated


into our way of thinking and acting in the areas of design research and practise. This more than anything

else gave us the conviction that design is more about culture that it is about technology and business

although it is about these as well. http://www.meadev.nic.in/photogallery/perspec/dec2001.pdf

During this period another significant project was carried out by a team of professional developers and

designers from Apple on which one of our students, Amitabh Pande, was involved as a member to help

the team with local contacts and an interpreter of the local culture as part of his diploma project in

Graphic Design. The task was the design of a health management system for villages in Rajasthan

called the Apple Healthcare Project using the handheld Apple Newton and a new local language

interface and software that were developed by the Apple team. This project was an experimental venture

that Apple had initiated through their Advanced Technology Group that was being led at that time by

none other than Prof. Don Norman, the Guru of usability in software interfaces and products. This

project is better documented and some information is available on the web.

http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigchi/chi97/proceedings/briefing/mg.htm

http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/documents/sn37160/Chapter02.pdf http://www.thinkcycle.org/tc-

filesystem/download/development_by_design_2001/

unfamiliar_ground:_designing_technology_to_support_rural_healthcare_workers_

in_india/IndiaHealthcarePDA.pdf More recently in 2000 – 2001 I helped set up the Web Usability

Research Lab (W-URL™) at NID with support from an Indian software company in Bangalore so that we

could carry out a sustained programme of investigations into issues of usability of software and web

based resources across many domains. The question of differences in culture and the varied abilities of

user groups across the globe were very much in our list of research objectives. We conducted many

explorations using this facility but the full impact of our research could not be achieved since at that time

we had not managed to get a broadband connection that was at the very basis of our enquiry. Many

usability issues on the web are also determined by the speed of connection available. However with the

limited facility available then we conducted many research and mapping exercises with a group of

volunteer students on experience of several selected websites and news portals. We also set up an

ongoing and distributed volunteer group that reported on interesting websites from a design and usability

perspective which we called the “Taxonomy of the Web Project” and this continued for a period of two

years till the lab was wound up for lack of funding, the dot-com bust!! The other projects of significance

worth mentioning here in the context of design and culture that we are discussing here are two recent

ones explained below. An international camera and photo company seeking to enter the Indian market

with a range of digital photographic products commissioned NID design teams to conduct research into

Indian preferences in shape, colour and features in a whole class of electronic and digital products. The

NID team led by Gaurang Shah and Dr S Ghosal included students of product design who designed the

research to cover numerous regions and ethnic groups across India and many economic profiles as well.

This project was shrouded in secrecy due the confidential nature of the contract but now I hope that the


procedures and the findings will be published more broadly in the context of the growing need that is

perceived in such areas of research in design and culture and the tools and processes that work. The

second project is one being currently being carried out by an NID graduate who has been working in the

Non-Governmental Organisational (NGO) sector in issues of communication of critical health and social

development type information with disadvantaged and illiterate groups in parts of India. Lakshmi Murthy,

has an ongoing project where she has been exploring visual communications strategies for transmitting

critical health and personal hygiene knowledge to village women in Southern Rajasthan. Her work is

briefly documented on the web at her Vikalp Design website http://www.vikalpdesign.com/

commconc.html She was previously associated with the NID as an associate of Prof Ashoke Chatterjee

and Prof Vikas Satwalekar who had conducted extensive research work on social communication in the

area of health and family planning which are very touchy and taboo subjects in traditional societies of

Rajasthan. This work has been published as a book by NID. Lakshmi Murthy, Amita Kagal & Ashoke

Chatterjee, “Learning from the Field: Experiences In Communication”, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad 1998. All these initiatives and project experiences, and many others done at faculty and

student level at NID over the years are perhaps examples of the critical interplay of cultural forces on the

design initiatives and on designers groping for pathways into an undocumented and unexplored areas of

social design action with all the complexities of culture, politics and the softer attributes where the

classical principles of industrial design do not quite seem to add up and hence call for a reappraisal of

our values and aspirations in building a better profession and a cadre of design professionals who can

find their way through this maze of undefined contradictions that is “Design in the Real World” if I may

borrow Papanek’s famous title and modify it as well. Yes there is much that we do not know about

culture and design while there are many examples of designer attempts to bridge these spaces and

these need to be revisited by our research community to make sense and discover principles through

reflection. Design research will have a big agenda ahead and there is much to be done, which may be

quite “unscientific”, but meaningful, which perhaps only design and its associated sensibilities can

provide. The discussion on the list has been rich and full of exciting directions for the future.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan From my office at NID


004464 2004-01-19 20:52 Re: Analyzing exhibition design


Response to Hanna on exhibition design from the designers perspective- Prof M P Ranjan

NID has over the years handled many professional exhibition design projects ever since it was set up in

1961. The very first major project was the Nehru Exhibition on the life and work of Jawaharlal Nehru,

India's first Prime Minister, designed by Charles and Ray Eames and executed by NID faculty, staff and


students using inhouse facilities of our workshops and photography labs. This set the quality benchmark

for the exhibitions that followed in the later years and there was much learning and internal debate about

treatment, effectiveness and ofcourse about costs and delivery schedules. Nehru exhibition was

designed to travel all over the world and it did just that. Each time an NID team of faculty and staff

travelled to the location and set it up in the usual impossible deadline but without sacrificing quality

standards set up by the Eamses. The exhibit was built three times after the existing copies started

showing signs of wear and tear from the extensive travels overseas. In 1972 a fresh copy was prepared

at NID for installation at the World Fair in New Delhi in November and I was fortunate to be on the

design and execution team and in the process understand the detailing and content of the exhibit

through very close involvement. I was therefore invited to be part of the three member team that

travelled to Chile in January 1973 to help renovate and set up an earlier copy that had previously

travelled to Japan, Australia and was then shipped to Chile. The task had to be accomplished in two

weeks since the exhibition was scheduled to be inaugurated by President Salvadore Alende on the 26th

of January 1973. Meeting the President after the ceremony was memorable and the shock impact of his

assassination on 11 September 1973 has had a lasting impression on me since we discovered the work

of Stafford Beer in Chile and of Gui Bonsiepe’s work as well soon after the turn of these events.

Understanding the role of multiple disciplines that collaborate to deliver complex and competent

exhibitions and the systems nature of all design tasks came hand in hand with the learning about design

in a developing country. Since this particular experience NID has undertaken many major exhibitions

that drew on the expertise available inhouse and on the large network of specialist consultants and

contractors who worked with the Institute. The expertise included professional photographers,

typographers, graphic designers, copy writers and editors, model makers and special effects experts to

name only a few. As these experiences were being accumulated by the NID teams some of us also

expressed our dissatisfaction about the absence of an articulated sharing of these experiences but very

little was recorded or disseminated by way of knowledge sharing or documentation. The end results

were always very well photographed and the panels captured as facsimile pictures but the process and

excitement of solving complex communications in the form of compelling exhibits remained as folklore

that was discussed by the players involved and new students who came into one of our fresh projects

that needed to draw on previous knowledge at the Institute. This was not unique to exhibition design but

extended to all design disciplines uniformally in a complete neglect of publication about the experience

of designing with very few exceptions. The many major projects done at NID included the World is My

Family 1970, the Texrtile Pavillion 1972, Our India Pavillion 1972, Agri-Expo 77, Manipur Pavillion

1981, Energy Pavillion 1983, My Land My People 1986, Discovery of India 1992, the Rta- Rtu Exhibition

1996 and the ongoing Khalsa Heritage Museum project which is the biggest permanent exhibit

undertaken by the Institute to date. There was a major professional effort made in 1978 to study and

measure the impact of the massive Agri – Expo experience in the form of user and viewer and audience


studies which was conducted by external teams of market survey professionals who used

methodologies for evaluating recall of Indian advertising in the media to the exhibition that was designed

and set up in Delhi. This data is available in our library but I am not sure if this was really useful to the

designers in either their strategy for subsequent exhibitions and in determining and particular

approaches to design of these exhibitions. The knowledge otherwise remained in the folklore that was

retold many times at meetings when individual experiences were shared through presentations and

discussions and the sparse documentation that was left behind by all these projects. However the

discipline of exhibition design was re-established after a break of several years and it has been an active

and much sought after discipline as far as the students were concerned. Pictorial documents of all the

major exhibitions are available at the NID library along with the full text of all the panels used in the

exhibition. Process notes and letter based communications must be available in the office records that

are maintained in the archieves of the Institute. So the very big question is how can all this experience

be converted into knowledge resources that can inform future projects and build knowledge resources

that can be used for education and development initiatives at the Institute? How can this kind of

research be applied to all the work at the Institute in a sustained manner? In 1986 the Crafts Council of

India organised an International workshop on the Role of Crafts Museums and the participants included

curators, art historians, art collectors, specialists in museum display, marketing experts, sociologists,

craftsmen and designers. I used this opportunity to try and articulate the NID experience and offered to

present a paper that was accepted . This paper was published in the proceedings of the workshop titled

“Crafts India ’86: Workshop on Crafts Museums” conducted at New Delhi. I am quoting the text of the

paper below for immediate reference since it will not be available from any source now. I look forward to

comments and suggestions about how designers and design professionals can sustain the much

needed documentation and articulation on which the profession applications can be based on

established good practices leading to high quality implementation of all domain specific projects and

activity

With warm regards

Prof M P Ranjan From my office at NID


Quote

Cost Effective Displays – The NID Experience

M P Ranjan Faculty of Industrial Design National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, India

Paper prepared and presented at Crafts India ’86, a workshop on Crafts Museums, New Delhi, October

1986 and subsequently published in “Crafts India ’86: Papers Presented at the Workshop on Crafts

Museums”, Crafts Council of India, New Delhi, 1986 - pp 125 - 129


My presentation on design and display techniques for museums is based entirely on the considerable

body of knowledge built up at the National Institute of Design (NID) in the area of exhibition design. Over

the past 25 years, designers at NID have had the opportunity to work on a large number of exhibition

projects, both as professional consultancy assignments as well as student-level projects. These

exhibitions include temporary and permanent ones covering thematic, scientific, and cultural and trade

topics. I am convinced that much of this experience would be applicable to the design of craft and other

museums, especially in the context of the changing role of museums in our times. NID is a design

school composed of two major faculties: the Faculty of Industrial Design and the Faculty of Visual

Communication. In many design schools these disciplines are kept apart. However, we found that

exhibition projects offered the possibility of building cross-disciplinary bridges, as the design of any

exhibition is essentially a multi-disciplinary task. Putting together an exhibition requires teamwork

involving many disciplines, many of which are drawn from outside the Institute as circumstances

warrant. This premise that design of exhibitions and the design of museums is a multi-disciplinary task is

an important one for curators and museum administrators to keep in mind when planning new exhibits or

museums. Sometimes experts in subjects attempt to put together exhibitions themselves, some may be

able to do so effectively. I am of the view that the involvement of professional designers working in close

collaboration with the subject experts is far more desirable although it may seem expensive initially.

Demands made on museums and the public's perception of its role have undergone dramatic changes.

Traditionally, museums were seen as a repository of rare and exquisite cultural, natural and historical

artifacts primarily concerned with conservation, classification and research tasks. However most people

would agree that today's museums should go beyond that role in becoming a vehicle for communication

and dissemination of information in an interactive manner. Hence the added responsibility that the

contemporary view holds for a museum includes education, entertainment and community service.

Entertainment is important because it means involving the viewers and educating them through a mode

of interaction. Without this element of interest it is impossible to communicate with viewers. Education

too implies something more than transmission of knowledge. It means raising questions in the minds of

viewers rather than providing all the answers in an absolute manner. Having established the premises

on which we design exhibitions let me go on to individual principles, devices and techniques used to

make an exhibition participatory and interesting to the viewer. These would of course have to be used in

an imaginative and creative manner, appropriate to the task at hand, to be effective. Here I have

attempted to abstract the principles from the variety of exhibits and displays incorporated in a number of

NID exhibitions so that these could be used consciously to enhance the viewers experience. Interactive

exhibits: Each key exhibit could be designed to induce the visitor to participate in some way other than

just looking at or reading about the object or display. The visitors may be required to do something with

their hands or even feet in order to activate another dimension of the display. A map of India displayed

at the India Exhibit in the Commonwealth Institute, London, required the visitors to press a set of


electronic switches in order to compare distances between Indian cities to cities in Europe. This helped

the British audience to appreciate the vast distances in the Indian sub-continent when compared with

familiar distances between capitals of European nations. Another such ,device is a display of rare and

exotic musical instruments the sounds of which can be heard by activating a tape recorder. It is not

necessary that technologically sophisticated displays be used, as simple devices could be equally

effective while being easier to maintain. Spaces for interaction: Spaces around displays need to be

planned in such a way as to permit the museum and its displays to be used in a variety of ways. It is

particularly important to consider the activities that take place when groups of visitors come in to use the

museum as a teaching resource. Both the Energy Exhibition a science museum at the Pragati Maidan in

New Delhi and the India Exhibit in London are used as classrooms by teachers who want to use its

resources. Hence fairly large spaces need to be provided around exhibits along with strategically placed

benches which encourage the use of these spaces. Display structures: Hardware used to display

objects and information such as photographs and text must be designed to suit specific needs. In many

cases it might be possible to use readily available hardware systems that are versatile and

inconspicuous. In other cases it may be necessary to design hardware that would show up the object in

the most favorable manner. Sringar, which was a traveling exhibition of Indian costumes required display

cases and props that could be quickly dismantled and packaged in minimum volume of transportation.

Similarly strong, light-weight and flexible panel structures were required to permit the exhibition to be set

up in a variety of existing buildings, while still retaining its identity and quality. Graphic layouts: Some

exhibits require the presentation of a considerable amount of supplementary and explanatory

information especially if these are to be used as an educational aid. Here the graphic treatment of

panels and surfaces presenting the information demands both visual coherence of all its components

and the stimulation of the viewer to absorb the essentials in the limited time available. This has to be

achieved with an effective and economic use of words and images. Invariably the same space has to

serve both the casual visitor as well as the serious learner. This necessitates the presentation to be

"readable" at several levels simultaneously. The first level is a predominantly visual one that can be

appreciated instantly at a distance while subsequent levels elaborate appropriate details. Hence the

components need to be structured in a hierarchical manner both in terms of their information content and

their size in the layout. The components of such informative displays would include lead-visuals in the

form of photographs, illustrations, charts or diagrams as well as supporting visuals in an appropriate

media. Text matter that compliments the visuals needs to be carefully structured into evocative headings

or titles, lead-text, sub- text and captions which an experienced copy-writer can make concise and

interesting. Typography used in a sensitive and creative manner can be visually stimulating. A versatile

grid is an effective tool in generating interesting layouts while maintaining visual continuity between a

series of panels throughout the exhibition. It would permit the use of a large variety of sizes and

proportions of visuals and text helping these to hang together. While a grid aids in the exploration of


layouts the final layout would need to transcend a mechanical interpretation to avoid a sterile

presentation. History walls: When a progression of events or developments through time are to be

depicted history walls are the most effective means of modeling such patterns in time. Since this

technique was first employed and refined by Charles Eames, the great American designer, numerous

variations have been developed for a variety of themes. In principle a history wall, as the name

suggests, is an expanse of wall that is graphically treated to depict the flow of time in the horizontal axis.

The vertical axis is divided into bands, each of which traces one subject through time. For example, in

the Nehru Exhibition, while one band deals with Nehru's life the other bands cover national and

international political events, developments in science and technology, developments in fine and applied

arts etc. Hence while the horizontal bands represent transition the vertical columns represent

simultaneous events. While typography is used to highlight decades or centuries depending on the span

of time depicted the treatment is predominantly visual. A great deal of visual research is a necessary

prerequisite for the preparation of an effective history wall. Illustrations and Charts: Information

translated into illustrations, diagrams and charts has far greater effectiveness than a great deal of text.

There are a variety of styles and techniques to choose from, each with its potentials and limitations.

Statistical data could be presented in the form of graphs, bar charts or pie charts to make it visually

interesting and easily appreciated. Complex relationships could be modeled with flow- charts, diagrams

or even electronically operated charts. Drawings and illustrations can be used effectively to highlight

aspects that would be impossible to depict photographically such as the working principle of a tool or

machine or the cross-section of an anthill. Choice of technique is determined by the resources, time and

information available. Some elaborate techniques can be both expensive and time- consuming while

others could be effective, yet inexpensive and simple to execute. Scale modes and principle models:

Both children and adults enjoy examining detailed three-dimensional models and replicas. Specially

constructed models have the advantage of being able to highlight specific features through the selective

treatment of such features. Communication of a working principle or structural feature is effectively

conveyed through appropriate types of models. A variety of model types could be employed depending

on the theme or subject to be communicated. These could include block-models, cut-away models, see-

through models, and realistic scale-models, working principle models, replicas and casts. These models

could be executed in a variety of materials depending on the resources, skills and information available.

Just as a carefully detailed and executed model can be breathtaking, shoddy one can have disastrous

consequences. Hence if models are to be used they must be carefully designed and ski11fully executed.

Treatment of surfaces and spaces: The mood of an exhibit is considerably enhanced by the manner in

which the ambient surfaces and spaces are treated. One fairly inexpensive way to enliven surfaces and

spaces is through the use of textiles. Plain or patterned fabrics stretched over panels or suspended from

high ceilings add colour and vitality to the exhibition space and help set-off the exhibits. Careful choice of

colour and texture helps in creating the desired effect. Both the Nehru Exhibition and the Manipur


Pavilion used this technique extensively each in its own way. Another type of surface treatment

explored was the simulation of mud walls seen in village houses. The Agri-Expo theme pavilion used this

technique extensively to re-create village spaces in full scale so that the audience could experience

these-spaces, which were intended to heighten their perception of rural artifacts and motifs.

Photographic blow-ups are yet another means of creating an illusion of space and detail. A series of

related blow-ups is a powerful means of simulating spaces while providing a great deal of detail. These

help to establish the context of scale within the space available inside exhibition halls. Dioramas: These

form a special class of three-dimensional models. Dioramas are an effective means of creating an

illusion or reality especially in depicting spaces with the use of very limited exhibition space. This is

achieved by the exaggerated use of perspective distortion, which deceives the eye. Combined with

photographic backdrops and controlled lighting the effect is a stunning recreation of reality. The interior

of a village hut or an underground coalmine can be a realistic experience for an audience. Sound effects

emanating from strategically placed speakers help enhance this effect. Dioramas are of two basic types:

open-dioramas and peephole type dioramas. Open-dioramas created with the aid of foreground props

and a photographic backdrop were used as settings for live craft demonstrations in the Manipur Pavilion

at the trade fair in New Delhi. Illumination and mood lighting: The use of light in exhibition spaces is

both functional and aesthetic. The functional aspects relate to ease of visibility by establishing suitable

levels of illumination, avoiding distracting reflections and glare. Circulation spaces and information

surfaces generally require a functional treatment. An altogether different dimension in the use of light is

the creation of a certain mood or effect that is possible through sensitive and controlled use. Here

professionals from theatre and cinema are by far the most competent. Such specialized lighting when

used inside dioramas increases the illusion of reality manifold. Audio and Audio-visual: Sound effects

and specially prepared sound tracks can be effective means of enhancing one's experience of specific

exhibits. Sound is difficult to control unless confined to soundproof spaces or delivered through proximity

speakers. Specially designed handsets or earphones located near key exhibits could be used to provide

a sound track, a running commentary or discourse on that subject. The interest of an audience is

generally aroused when such devices are made available result1ng in a heightening of awareness and a

corresponding openness to receiving information. Audio-visual media which include changing still

pictures, motion pictures and video images are powerful communication devices. A multi-screen audio-

visual programme can transmit an enormous amount of information in a short duration. Such

programmes are technically complex and expensive to execute and maintain. However no other media

can replicate their effectiveness with reference to viewing time. Feedback from visitors: In a permanent

exhibition or museum any attempt to obtain the views of visitors on what interested them and which

exhibits held their attention will certainly provide indicators for improvement of exhibits. Over a period of

time a great deal of improvement can be made in the quality and effectiveness of exhibits as well as in

the selection of display techniques to be used. Viewer feedback could be obtained both through


questionnaires as well as through discrete observation of viewers as they move from exhibit to exhibit.

The Design Process: The design and development of a new exhibition can be handled as a fairly

systematic task. As I have stated earlier, this is essentially a multi-disciplinary exercise. The process

begins with research and information collection on the subject matter of the exhibition. Once a fair

degree of clarity emerges, the theme of the exhibition is articulated in the form of a preliminary concept

for the whole exhibition. This is usually visually represented in a skeleton concept model, which would

be arrived at through an exploration of alternative treatments. Such explorations are carried out for

various levels of detail such as overall layout, detailing of sections, individual displays and panels. Final

concept is frozen at this stage while individual exhibits are worked out to very fine levels of detail.

Expensive or complex exhibits are tested through specially built mock-ups before major investments are

made in their execution. Detailed plans, layouts and technical specifications are drawn up for each

exhibit so that they could either is executed in-house or through contractors. These numerous iterations

from experiment to specification are the central features of the design process. It is this systematic

procedure that proves to be cost-effective in the long run. Note: Mr. Ranjan used slides to illustrate his

talk. ~ Unquote

004359 2003-12-16 22:44 Re: Session 5: Closing remarks …part 2- M P Ranjan

MPR on PhD-Design_2003_12_16-01 Session 5: Closing remarks and some…part 1- M P Ranjan

As the online conference winds to its close I choose to look back at all the submissions and add a few

notes to the comments and issues that touch me the most as a designer, a design teacher and finally a

design researcher with the privilege of having a last word in this (session) at this august gathering of

over 1200 design scholars. When Ken introduced the online conference on “Design in the University” on

the 14th of November with his welcome post I realised that Design had come of age, at least having got

past the toddlers stage when compared to the well-established disciplines of the languages and that of

the sciences. We had a group of visionary scholars looking at the future of design and it felt good to be

part of this process. While reading his review of the School of Design proposal a thought crossed my

mind that I did not post immediately. This thought was that perhaps Universities need Design in more

ways than one for the integration of knowledge and for building bridges of SYNTHESIS between the vast

array of specialisations and bodies of expertise that have been developed over the centuries of

existence of these Universities. This was a reflection of the trend in so many disciplines to specialise and

subdivide particularly in the research traditions of Universities notwithstanding the various attempts to do

cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches to solve the need for integration of

knowledge that was available to us. Further down in his review his comment on the four specialisations

to be offered at the UCI Irvine left me puzzled about the lack of Graphic and Communications as one of

the core disciplines at the school. There has been much debate on this matter through numerous posts


in the conference and I still feel that this may be an area for review and resolution in the days ahead.

Professor Richard Taylor in his opening post raised the issue of ownership of design and offered a

suggestion that we search for bridge building materials in “boundary people” and “boundary objects” and

this is a wonderful concept to search for in a world that seems to value subject experts with deep and

penetrating knowledge in a small area rather than such boundary people who could bring together

various threads of knowledge to solve vexing problems that seem to defy solution. However his mention

of “The Science of Design” had my guard up immediately with a reaction that “Design is not a Science”.

This is another matter that will need to be resolved at a future date. The issue is not whether it is one or

the other, but in my mind these are different classes of activities, all of which are needed and cannot be

substituted one for the other. Design borrows heavily from all known disciplines as the context emerges

and this to me is the very nature of design and therefore it takes on the hues and forms of the activity

from which it borrows, for a brief moment but then we must move on to resolve the problem at hand as

demanded by the context, the deadlines and the exigencies of the situation. Thomas Rasmussen in his

post (15 November) makes a comment on the nature of research in design schools and on why design

seems to resist research so adamantly for so many years since the idea of research in design was first

mooted in he seventies. This is an important question to answer in the context of the school of design

debate. Perhaps the answer would lie in our search for designers who have dared to wander beyond

design, in the boundary sense offered by Professor Taylor above and to try and build the school that can

indeed facilitate such a wandering. In my view the answer may not lie as much in the import of research

into design, although I may be wrong here. However his comment that trying to build basic research

solely on industry funding would be highly risky points to the fact that we will need to locate other forms

of funding for design research if it is to take root within the University system. The other major debate

that had my attention was the one on the need for sketching and drawing and model making in an era of

CAD and Rapid Prototyping as core skills in the future of design education. Much has been discussed

on these topics so I will not go over ground covered already by others. However I do submit that the

promise of CAD is far from evolved to substitute some of the early visualisations that are critical for

design synthesis and false promises from the IT industry may skew the curriculum in an undesirable way

which needs to be avoided. In my view the kind of drawing and sketching that may stand the test of time

may well be a different kind of activity and ability from the kind taught at schools of art and

communication. John Feland shares his views on the history of engineering from his Stanford

perspective and rightly calls for caution in moving design away from practise into an “Ivory Tower”

situation. I would suggest that we can look at another model for design and this I choose to call” Relaxed

and Thoughtful Practise” which is possible within a University setting to deal with design tasks that are

way ahead of the needs of current industry and their perceptions of priority. This would mean that

funding must come from sources other than industry, from social sources or from the tax collections by

government. This would give the school the freedom to choose its priorities of action, autonomy to model


and experiment new areas and provide a platform for advocacy and a platform for direct action in a

demonstrative sense with a great deal of risk reduction for the individual practitioner. This is to follow the

spirit in which Russel Nelson calls for new models and to avoid the imitation of science or any other

discipline for that matter. I have run out of time just now but will get back with part two of my closing

submission late tonight. Ken, I hope this is all right with you?

With warm regards



004348 2003-12-16 10:58 Re: Session 5: Closing remarks and some…part 1- M P Ranjan


Session 5: Closing remarks …part 2- M P Ranjan

Continuing with my submission this morning, I pass over much of what was discussed between the 16th

and 21st of November and I come across many valuable ‘Treats” or “Goodies” in the form of comments

and notes that enriched the discussion. Among them are a couple of submissions by Ken that I will

name. The detailed note on Einstein (21st November) is one of them where in the end he says “

Einstein’s gift to design was the science that paved the way for some of the most useful products in

today’s world.” Two ideas that are argued strongly here are the need for rigour in research and the need

for testing in both science and design. I agree that these disciplines, science, technology (engineering)

and design are not to be treated as adversaries but as one path, along a continuum, one leading to the

other with a lot of interdependencies between them. This note drew a comment from Cheryl Akner-Koler

(21st November) who referred to the visual imagination of Einstein as his strongest point. This is a very

designerly ability and it may well be a creative ability and one required for a scientist as well. The

question here is how do we encourage visual imagination and visual expression without undermining

rigour and systematic testing of those visions as part of our attempt to take design to a higher plane as

an acceptable discipline at the University. The second note (Treat 2) is Ken’s post on the history and

etymology of the word “design”. On numerous occasions I have witnessed states of utter confusion

when the word “design “ is referred to in a historical context. Thank you Ken for taking the trouble to

clarify facts in a usable format. Dino Karabeg (24th November) calls for a new social role for design

which is a very appealing thought and I wonder if the School of Design at the University would take up

this call in addition to the market oriented directions that are already planned. A similar line of reasoning

is taken up by Ricardo (25th November) and I do agree that there are limits to how far a marketing

based approach can be pushed for design to remain relevant. Ken (25th November) in his response to

Rosan’s three questions clarifies many of the issues raised about the nature of the School and the

position that the authors took while drafting the report. It is clear that there are no easy answers when it

comes to design and that is at the root of the very nature of design as an activity and a discipline. I do


hope that the School of Design at UC Irvene finds the support and required funding to realise the vision

that has been so carefully crafted and so widely discussed over the past few weeks. I take this

opportunity to thank the organisers and in particular Ken for inviting me to be part of this very exciting

event. I am signing off from the online conference having made many new friends in distant places who

are active in seeking answers to the very same questions that have held my interest over the many

years of design education and practise in India. I do look forward to hearing from some of you offline on

any questions about India or our ongoing activities here at the National Institute of Design in

Ahmedabad. Our website that is evolving may be a source of current information about the Institute if

you need to look it up <http://nid.edu>

Good bye and with warm regards



004310 2003-12-12 17:14 Michael Clark: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] UCI School of Design Proposal-Ranjan


Michael Clark: [PHD-DESIGN] UCI School of Design Proposal-Comments by M P Ranjan

Dear Dr Michael Clark

Coming from a non-designer background your discourse on the virtues of design as a future university

discipline clearly show that design is and can be appreciated by those who come into close contact with

it, and in this case your involvement in the School of Design proposal, seems to have strengthened your

own convictions that design will have a role within the University and that it will play an important role in

providing the binding within the interstices of the numerous disciplines that find a home at the University,

as an academic discipline in it own right. I do believe that design will need to find many champions

outside the community of designers who value the activity and its potential offerings if we are to see

design taking an important and necessary position as an academic discipline that can produce new and

vital knowledge for the future of humanity as a whole. Here I would draw your attention to the claims

made by a fellow Californian, Prof. Christopher Alexander, in his many writings, including his most

recent book that design is the discipline of the future that would help provide us with a means to develop

our future world-view just as science had enabled humanity to form new understanding of the world

which still holds sway over all of us.

Before I add my comments to your paper I would like to thank Ken and the UC Irvine team for inviting

me to be involved more closely with the deliberations at this online conference and let me tell you in no

uncertain terms that it has been an extremely stimulating and satisfying intellectual experience for me

and I believe that this event will send its ripples down the design academia to return with renewed vigour


the call for deep change and deeper reflection in design practise, which only a place located within a

University (perhaps) can provide. The scale of your thinking dwarfs anything that I have been involved

in over the past thirty odd years of design education, having taught at a very small Institute (60 faculty

and at most 350 students [now 500 students]) while the UC Irvine is dreaming of a place, including all

disciplines, of upward of 1500 faculty and 30,000 students when it reaches mature proportions!! Design

activity that is located within such an active setting with close proximity and with a structured

collaboration with the other disciplines of the University will certainly create a platform from which much

value can be derived by all those who are engaged in these activities, both designers and non-

designers. The new role of design as an integrating dicipline will need to find a bigger space for non-

designers and encourage the massive cross-linking of expertise that will be locally available in new and

meaningfull ways to further the research agenda of the University as a whole. Design can and will

provide the glue that can bind such research and much value can be derived if this scheme proceeds as

planned. Design as you aptly call it, is indeed a "syncretic discipline". Design has its body of knowledge

that needs to be articulated through sustained reflection on the practise of design in many domains of

need from which a body of robust theory will indeed emerge.

You have said, I quote "The integrative power of design as a conceptual process should be an object of

knowledge in itself and would certainly be a primary topic of study for faculty in Design Studies." -

Unquote. The role that the practise and study of design processes and transactions have in the building

of future knowledge is only (just about) being discovered and appreciated by those outside the

community of designers and the location of the proposed School of Design within the University at Irvine

will give an impetus to the articulation of this role in greater detail. In a recent course that I conducted for

a group of furniture design students dealing with systems thinking, I got these students to build a model

to represent human knowledge in a visual form which could show both the location of each discipline as

well as the sequential emergence of each along an extended timeline. Their model was very interesting

and I will take a few moments to describe this (in the absence of the picture) model that was

collaboratively built by the team after much debate and discussions with local experts and with

numerous references for our Knowledge Management Centre (as our library is now called). The time line

works like the ripples in a pond when a stone or pebble is cast into the centre. The point of contact is the

centre of the circle and the timeline extends outward from the beginning of time to the current day using

a sort of geometrical progression for the scale. The con-centric rings, each of one centimetre, represent

a period of time that becomes smaller as it reaches the outer perimeter. Over this was superimposed a

radial diagram with Philosophy at the centre, language, mathematics and "Visuality" in the next circle,

and all the disciplines falling outside these areas while being radially aligned to each of the inner

concepts mentioned above. For instance, the sciences sat in the space above mathematics, while the

disciplines of sociology and psychology sat above language while art and design was located above


"visuality" by using the meaning offered by Prof Gui Bonsiepe as the framework for this model. In the

outer space the names of key contributors (Thinkers) were distributed along the ripple timeline, each

aligned to the discipline mentioned in the overlapped radial diagram. This assignment gave the students

an opportunity to research "all of human knowledge" at least what was available in the history of science

and language and art, and to try and organise the findings into a representation that had an agreed

structure after discussions with numerous experts (many outside the NID campus). Further, using this

diagram, we were able to locate disciplines that could contribute to some difficult design situations and

needs the tools and processes that traditional design lacked or did not use in an active manner as yet. I

learned a lot through this experience and the students too came out of this three week long assignment

with a feeling of having achieved a better grasp of the huge field of knowledge that they would need to

interact with in a selective manner, with discrimination and judgement, in their understanding of

complexity and in their choice of appropriate design strategies that reflected the context that they are

being asked to serve. This is a very convoluted description of a fairly simple diagram, but I can send a

jpeg picture to anyone who is interested in seeing the model developed by the students if they ask for it

offline. Our understanding of how human knowledge is interconnected is still very sketchy but with

design getting an active place in the University one of the key benefits will be in the emergence of clarity

of the way these special disciplines can work together in a mode of "Synthesis" rather that the mode

usual of "Analysis." This is what people like Leornado da Vinci, William Blake and Frank Gehry have

perhaps been able to bring to their work through intuitive means and individual brilliance which we now

seek to bring in a systematic manner to all design tasks.

With warm regards



004294 2003-12-10 23:38 Rosan Chow: Re: [PHD-DESIGN] people (staffing) + kindness: response to Michael,

Carma, Kari-Hans & Sanjoy-Ranjan


Rosan Chow: On Kindness - Comments by M P Ranjan

Dear Rosan

Once you accept that values and attitudes form a basis for the performance of a design and in particular

the good performance from a design teacher, we can see the need for all kinds of softer attributes

including kindness to and absence of selfishness in terms of their willingness to share 'IPR' to come into

play in all their interactions with their students and their user groups in the performance of their design

tasks. In my model of the "Emerging Designer" that I have been using for many years in my class to

develop an understanding of the profile of a designer (a new kind of designer) in my students' mind, I


have a model based on a tetrahedron as seen in plan view – as a triangle with three nodes at the base

and the node seen inside, that is the top/apex node, which is the apex of the tetrahedron. (difficult to put

in words that which is so simple as a diagram, however I shall try to make it clear) (see Bucky Fuller.. for

tetrahedrons in many orientations) The three base nodes represent "Knowledge" i.e.. the ability to find

and know, the second is "Thinking" i.e.. the ability to process concepts and images as in imagination and

cognitive modelling, and the third is "Action" i.e. the ability to act and do or make which includes skills

and negotiation and transactional abilities with materials and with other people and the fourth node is

"Values" i.e. to do with feeling and sensing and discriminating with empathy, and in my view the word

empathy has a very significant role in design feeling, taking another’s point of view with tolerance etc.

The node in the centre is perhaps the most important one for education but I do not know how many

curricula state this as its key objective. In a world heading towards a greater need for ecological

sustainability and social equity in a globalised arena, these qualities may be the only ones that would

perhaps inform and help discriminate (even intuitively) those extremely complex issues that we will be

faced with as designers and design teachers. So your search for kindness is not misplaced and I do

agree that we will need to look deeply into these qualities over and above the ones that help us maintain

a practical domain of action in economic and social and functional terms. This model was developed to

help my students understand themselves in terms of these four key attributes and as a basis for a group

assignment when from a class of 30 students (now 60 students) we were able to make six or eight

groups who would go out into the city of Ahmedabad and interview local designers, each group meeting

designers from one discipline and they were required to represent their findings on these four attributes

in a composite model about the chosen discipline, usually richly illustrated with images typical of the

tools and materials used in each respective discipline. Such an exposure we found brought a sense of

humility and understanding of their own interest or highlighted their dislikes, and it helped them form an

idea of a role model for their own future career orientation. We have tried this out with our students for

more that ten years now and each time we sense that the students come back enriched with a sense of

conviction about the discipline of design and of their own place in that space. I have explained this

model at length since I see a similarity to the notion of kindness that needs to be at the heart of every

effective teacher and I would like to offer the term "empathy" as another way of looking at the same or

similar quality that you perhaps have in mind.

with warm regards

M P Ranjan

from my office at NID


004259 2003-12-08 00:20 Re: Session 4: Alladi Venkatesh, Christena Nippert-Eng and GK VanPatter: Comments by

M P Ranjan



Session 4: Alladi Venkatesh, Christena Nippert-Eng and GK VanPatter:

Comments by M P Ranjan

Alladi Venkatesh has opened the session 4 with his "DESIGN AS A STATE-OF-MIND" paper. He states

that: Quote - "the market-oriented approach (of industry) – is becoming an obsolete design ideology

and looking for an alternate model (or models). "design as a state-of-mind" " - Unquote. The examples

that he uses to illustrate his thesis "Swatch, Alessi and Nokia" and "Starbuck Coffee and The Body

Shop" and " Apple (iMac etc.)" and I could add " Muji " to the above list, all of which show the use of

design at a very high level of sophistication in terms of marketing and in obtaining and retaining a very

rich mind-share of their very devoted customers. However the idea that he has introduced to the

discussion that in my view needs deeper exploration is that of "ideology of design", from the perspective

of the designer, teacher and design student, which I see as being quite distinct from the earlier

questions about "the Philosophy of Design" raised earlier on the list by many others. The school of

design Irvine would need to try and articulate this dimension, not to restruct or control any ideological

perspective in particular, but to recognise that in design and in designing, there are a number of

ideological perspectives that motivate and inform design action and design thought and design

perception itself. Christena Nippert-Eng has raised the ante by her gently worded comment on Alladi

Venkatesh's thesis and in her closing question to the list: Quote - "And now, I wonder if there is anyone

else out there who wants to talk about the kinds of people it make take to make this thing really happen

– create the kind of mentality you would like to see in the future designers of the world?" Unquote. This

statement implies a value position for design education that is not usually seen or expressed in normal

design curriculla. At NID, we have had much debate about ideological positions in design and education

over many years but we kept hearing,(from government and industry representatives from whom we get

our funds) that industry calls the shots and there is no place for "ideology" in industry, although of late

the positions seem to be going through some softening, what with environment and social equity once

again becoming fashionable in management circles within industry as a result of globalisation.

Christena's question about this is central in both curriculum planning as well as in the attributes of faculty

and staff. I quote - "In fact, if we really want to think about the kinds of individuals who would be

absolutely necessary to make such a school really succeed, what should our list of

adjectives/categories/classifications look like? What kind of a designerly mentality should underlie the

hiring decisions for this school?" Unquote. If we are able to articulate the qualities and abilities of the

design teacher at the SoD Irvine, a great contribution would be made to the field by raising awareness

about the need for such attitudes and abilities in design education in general. This is particularly true

since we are indeed looking at a new form of design that is being invented as we speak, that will need to

have humility and behaviourial attributes in the designer that can enable team think and team work, quite

unlike the design of the old order where individual brilliance was celeberated by museum exhibits of


objects as works of art or by design journals showcasing individual designers as super-stars! This

possible direction is highlighted by GK VanPatter's long and detailed post on the NextD methodology

and the emphasis is on team behaviour in solving or attempting to solve very complex design tasks

using their "B4Design opportunity space", if I try to cut through the jargon, to recognise the essential

qualities of cooperation and collaboration between multiple disciplines working across a complex set of

levels and tasks. This brings me back to the question, "What design (designer) attitudes and ideologies

should the School of Design Irvine foster, if at all, and how should the various stages of its development

be informed by such matters?"

with warm regards



004258 2003-12-08 00:09 Re: Contact Dr. Nicola Morelli-Ranjan


M P Ranjan wrote:

> Message for Dr. Nicola Morelli > >

Sorry for the post online. There has been a failure of my mail to Dr. > Nicola Morelli mail ID <not

disclosed> with the message being returned > on two attempts in my reply to sender ID. Please send

me an alternate > mail ID to respond to. > > This message is for > > Dr. Nicola Morelli > > Associate

Professor > > School of Architecture and Design > > Aalborg University, Denmark > > The list may

kindly ignore this post. Thanks. > >

M P Ranjan >

from my office at NID >


004177 2003-12-01 23:32 Re: Session3: on systems thinking (very long post)-Ranjan


Session 3: on systems thinking (very long post – with brief intro) – Ranjan

Brief Introduction: Systems thinking as applied to design education: Some background to the design

scene in India and a case study of one course conducted at NID in 2001 that incorporates the lessons

and processes of systems design as introduced to Foundation students at NID by the author are

included in the long post below. This submission is triggered by the excellent (and awesome) exposition

by Dr Wolfgang Jonas on his understanding of how systems modelling & thinking can / and is applied to

design action and design theory. From his paper it is evident to me that while there are several shared

perspectives in design we may have many differences in our interpretations of the field as well. (For

instance I am not particularly familiar with the mathematical and logic tools used in dynamic systems


modelling but I continue to use the concepts in design education and practice). In his references

however, I miss one from Stafford Beer, “Platform for Change: a message from Stafford Beer”, John

Wiley & Sons, London 1975 which for me (personally) was the single most influential source of systems

application to the design and planning of complex systems on a National scale, in this case Chile in the

era of President Dr. Salvador Allende, between 1971 to 1973. I am sharing a recent (unpublished) paper

that I have prepared for a design journal which may give the list an insight into the perspectives for

design in India (not generally available) and some of the processes that we have followed in our own

education programmes at NID as well as my own interpretation of systems thinking as it could be

applied to complex and non-traditional design tasks, that is other than the design of artefacts,

communications, software and spaces. In this case study reproduced below, the design tasks that were

assigned to Foundation students at NID dealt with the conception and articulation of new institutional

frameworks for design, each focussed on one selected sector of the Indian economy in critical need of

design action (in our opinion – there was no client). The intention is to show that application of design at

the strategic level can be a very powerful tool for the solving of very complex problems, involving many

disciplines and spheres of knowledge, that goes well beyond the usual scope of design tasks as

traditionally defined and taught in design curricula. Perhaps, speculatively attempting to articulate a kind

of design for future generations of designers in India. The rest of this post is the full paper titled “The

Avalanche Effect: …. ” reproduced for the list as a case study on the application of systems thinking

concepts to design education at NID.



The Avalanche Effect: Institutional frameworks and systems design as a development resource in India.

Prof. M P Ranjan

Faculty of Design and Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives National Institute of Design Paldi,

Ahmedabad 380007 INDIA

Background

In India the term “Beautification” is alluded to be the process of making beautiful that which is not usually

so and this is grossly achieved by some superficial application of a coat of colour and some impromptu

decorations or by a general clean up operation, just in time, before the visit of a political big-wig or

dignitary and it is usually executed in quite bad taste. The traditions of Indian culture on the other hand

are beautiful and enduring but their urban and modern interpretations have been devoid of the exquisite

qualities that the Eames’s saw in the “Lota” that symbolised for them the elegance of Indian design as it

had evolved over the ages. This serious absence of the use of Design as a critical discipline that

supports the development agenda of a nation struggling to find a foothold in a global marketplace is truly

appalling. I propose the term “Designification” as a counterpoint, and call for a serious use of design as a

tool and a strategy for the development of all sectors of the Indian economy particularly since it is so


sorely missing from the nations policy frameworks in almost all of these sectors of the economy, quite

unlike the prominent position given to the fields of Science, Technology, Management and to some

limited extent, the field of Art. There is a pressing need for the “Designification” of our economy through

a rapidly expanded use of design in almost 230 sectors of the Indian economy. The means to achieve

this is limited by the current framework of Institutions that can provide the human resources, the

research initiatives and the sustained knowledge resources that are needed to support this massive but

achievable task. Design in India is sorely under invested in and much change is needed to mobilise the

power of design for the development of so many sectors in need. The current levels of investments in

design are at appallingly low levels when compared to the investments being made in science,

technology and management institutions in the past and as a continuing activity today. It is argued that

the such investments made in the past have failed to solve the critical need of creating the required

innovations and while a number of technological innovations have resulted from these investments very

little of this has been translated into useable products and services primarily because there has been a

corresponding lack of investments in design

Defining Design for Development

I must fall back on some of my previous writings to create a framework of definitions and ideas that can

put in context the views that I have expressed above and to build the foundation for the strategies that I

propose in this paper for the development of a design initiative for the country as a whole. Last year I

used the opportunity of addressing the first National Design Summit in Bangalore to touch upon some of

these issues and to take a long look at the last forty years or so of design education and practise in India

in a paper titled “Cactus Flowers Bloom in a Dessert” (Ranjan 2001) that tried to capture the struggle

that the design community in India have put up over the years in the face of extreme deprivation of

resources and support from Industry and Government alike. The paper built upon some of the

arguments that I had proposed in previous papers on the role of design in the Indian economy with

specific reference to the lopsided manner in which investments had been made in India with reference to

design and technology education and research. In my paper titled “Design Before Technology” (Ranjan

1999) I had argued that India was losing out in its search for sustainable development by ignoring the

investment needs of the design sector and although massive investments had been made in the science

and technology sectors we were acutely short of innovative products and services that could only be

achieved through the use of design as a layer over the investments made so far. In an even earlier

paper titled “Levels of Design Interventions” (Ranjan 1998) I had outlined four levels at which design

action and research could be perceived in the context of a complex global scenario. While design at the

‘Tactical level’ used the fairly well recognised skills and sensitivities of a designer the other levels were

ignored to a large extent in India that in fact needed these levels more than the first which usually

resulted in aesthetic and functional solutions. The three other levels that I had proposed in my model

were the ‘Elaborative’, the ‘Creative’ and the ‘Strategic’ levels, each that addressed the needs of market


complexity, innovation and intellectual property issues and the third the application of vision and

anticipatory strategies that the highest level of design affords, respectively. At this level design uses

scenarios and maps opportunities to create visionary scenarios that can foster completely new industries

and these approaches need the collaboration of teams drawn from many disciplines to build solutions

and frameworks that can transform the country in many fundamental ways from a resource poor

perspective to one of abundance from the mobilisation of integrated resources that work in synergetic

ways due to the efforts of such multi-disciplinary design teams. Design at the strategic level also sets the

agenda for many forms of research to be done by a large number of disciplines based on a shared

vision of the future that is desirable and can find administrative, political and entrepreneurial supports.

The systems model of design that some of teachers adopted at the National Institute of Design (NID),

Ahmedabad, for building courses and to conduct our research and client interventions had over the

years given us the conviction that design in India is quite different from that which is practised in the

West. Design for development has been discussed at many platforms for discourse on design, many a

time leading utter confusion with the debate being clouded by as many differing definitions of design as

there are people in the room. Notwithstanding this difficulty with the subject as complex as design we

need to use the power of this discipline to further the real needs of a huge population desperately

seeking solutions to many vexing problems in a very tight economic climate. It is our belief that design at

the strategic level can be used as a catalytic tool to mobilise innovations and policies that can indeed

transform the country in more ways than one that provides the substance for the title of this paper ‘The

Avalanche Effect’ since a relatively small investment in design can indeed produce incredible change in

each of the sectors that have been identified by us through a process of investigation on the state of the

national economy from a design perspective over the years. We have seen glimpses of this effect

wherever policy and action have embraced design in even small ways in the past and the results shown

have been dramatic. The two areas that I have personal experience in are the Crafts sector and the

Bamboo sector, both of which have made the moves needed to create Institutions and investments to

use design along with an integrated mobilisation of investments in related projects and research

initiatives at our behest. Design Education: Perspectives in India In 1991 as part of a committee set up

to prepare a curriculum for the proposed Accessory Design programme in Delhi, I had the opportunity to

create a structure for perhaps the first of the sector specific programmes in Design offered outside the

NID at Ahmedabad. The Garment and Accessory Sectors were growing rapidly in India driven by

massive exports and the low wage regime that prevailed at that time. The Ministry of Textiles had

developed a substantial cash reserve from the cess on these export earnings that it was obliged to use

for the development initiatives in that sector. The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New

Delhi, had been set up using this initiative as an integrated Institution for the creation of human

resources to provide quality service to this booming industry. The structure of the curriculum that was

conceived for the NIFT programme followed inputs and assignments in four broad domains of focus,


each with its own special knowledge and skill sets, to be offered to students as lectures, assignments

and practical projects and field exposure modules respectively. While the domain of design covered core

design sensibilities through courses in basic design, and action capabilities being strengthened with

design management and design methodologies, the domain of the subject introduced knowledge

specific to the areas of product categories that came under its mandate such as jewellery, footwear,

bags and travel artefacts, and belts and items of clothing, toys, gifts and other such areas each of which

needed specific knowledge to be handled with competence. The domain of Industry was identified to

provide students with the tools and concepts of the trade since each industry segment had its own

norms and practises and lastly the domain of the user or the consumer was introduced to understand

needs and processes in the marketplace. This four-pronged structure was developed further while I was

involved in the curriculum review exercise at the NID in 1992 – ‘94. All the courses offered at that time,

over 250 of them across almost nine disciplines, were reviewed by our committee with very detailed

presentations from the teachers who were responsible to conduct each one of these. The four-pronged

structure of the domains of Design, the Subject, the Industry and the User/Consumer were used to

locate each of the courses and to determine the methodology to be followed by way of assignments and

theory. This brought a lot of clarity to the exercise and helped the committee make a number of

corrective recommendations that shaped the texture of these courses and their content and delivery

structure. After many years of following borrowed curricula from the west we were examining our

teaching resources and methods in a great detail with reference to the complex context that were being

perceived in India. This was review process was the culmination of a number of initiatives and

discussions that had taken place at the NID campus, none of which were unfortunately published, since

all of these discussions, held behind closed doors, in the NID’s Faculty Forum were labelled as

confidential and made available only to its faculty and the Governing Council as abridged notes and

references. However the course information structure improved considerably with the introduction of the

course abstract paper that was made mandatory for each course conducted at NID and the review

process saw the articulation and assembly of all the course abstracts into a multi-volume set that was

placed in the NID Resource Centre as the Master Abstracts Set. The fact that NID had only published

its Syllabus and detailed course descriptions only twice in the past thirty years (1970 and 1982) made

these course abstracts all the more valuable. The information about the relationship between courses

was contained in a tabular flow chart that shows the sequence of the courses and the time duration for

each while the time table that was prepared and released each semester showed the timings, dates and

the names of teachers responsible for each course. This stark absence of publications about the fields of

application of design from NID (and other design schools in India) was a subject of much debate at NID

Faculty Forum but the action taken left much to be desired and is perhaps singly responsible for the poor

acceptance of design services in the sectors that need it the most even though so many successful

forays had been made into these difficult and complex domains by the Institute, its faculty and students


over the years. However, the students and faculty who were in the midst of the great happenings,

explorations and debates did benefit from this significant exposure to both quality and content of these

debates and in these years the NID product, its students and alumni, form the spearhead of the design

initiative in India, albeit in small numbers but still sufficient to make an impact in some sectors through a

sustained body of work generated over the years The other design schools in the country too had their

share of successes in various fields and these were facilitated by their location or by their affiliation to a

different Ministry from which they drew their funds. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai

(1970), Delhi (1985) and Guwahati (1996) started programmes in Industrial design while the NIFT

expanded its reach by setting up centres in Mumbai. Calcutta, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Bangalore and

Chennai in rapid succession in the late nineties. In the private sector two new schools were set up in

Delhi and Bangalore as the pressure for admissions to the existing schools and the demand for the

design professionals was rising in the country. Most of these schools used NID trained designers as

their teaching resource either as full time teachers or as a visiting faculty resource. Design Initiatives:

New Institutions In 1991 I was involved in an assignment aimed at the articulation of a feasibility report

for a school of crafts studies in Jaipur. The result was the setting up of the Indian Institute of Crafts and

Design (IICD), Jaipur, by the State Government of Rajasthan on the premise that design as defined by

us in that report was a critical tool for the development of the crafts sector as a whole and a national

mandate was given to the new Institute. The model that was proposed in that report projected the crafts

in India as an economic and social activity that could liberate a very large number of decentralised and

self-sustaining activities that required a very low capital base to initiate and to grow. The domain of craft

was studied in most design Institutes in India by then as a means of sensitising Indian designers to the

complexities of rural industries and to explore the need for alternate frameworks for action in India

outside the organised industrial sector that seemed least interested in the efforts of the design

community here. However this was the first time that a dedicated Institution was set up to address the

needs of the crafts sector that was already contributing a substantial amount of employment and foreign

exchange from the export activities that were growing year on year since the country became an

independent nation. The need for design to lead the initiatives of this sector was by now established by

numerous success stories of design interventions in this particular sector. NID was at the forefront of

these interventions in the crafts sector through its craft documentation exercises that had mapped the

cultural resources of the country in very detailed studies conducted over the years. These too remained

unpublished to a large extent but were available for limited review to students and faculty in the

Resource Centre. The IICD, Jaipur will be sending out its first batch of students this year and it is well on

its way to building a focused body of knowledge that can assist design initiatives in the crafts sector.

The next major demand in Institution building for design education and research came from the Bamboo

sector that had started looking up after a series of initiatives in recent years. The Bamboo and Cane

Development Institute that existed at Agartala for many years as a training section for young craftsmen


was restructured last year at the request of the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts (DC-H),

Government of India as part of their National Bamboo development initiative being supported by the

United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) in India. NID’s extensive study of the Bamboo Crafts

of the Northeast India and the numerous papers and design projects that projected the use of bamboo

as a sustainable resource brought us into a strategic relationship with the Government of India and

UNDP in initiatives that gave us the opportunity to demonstrate the power design action at a strategic

level. At the request of the UNDP I was involved in articulating the vision report for the National Bamboo

Initiative that resulted in a report titled “From the Land to the People: Bamboo as a sustainable Human

Development Resource” (Ranjan 1999). This report was built around six scenarios that were design

visualisations that placed a sequence of inputs, events and innovations that could spearhead a veritable

bamboo revolution if implemented in form and spirit. In the months that followed, a number of intensive

design explorations have created a climate of sustained investments into this sector from as many as

ten State Governments and numerous national and non-governmental agencies. The DC-H increased its

allocation to the bamboo initiatives and asked for an improved infrastructure for training and design

development. Once again the feasibility report that we developed called for an integrated approach with

design at the core of the Institution and the activities covering four clear subject domains. The revamped

Institution would focus on Plantation studies since bamboo is a natural material suitable for agricultural

development, Product Innovation, Technology Innovation and Market Research studies to sustain a

creative design climate that would inform all the activities and set the agenda for research and action in

all areas of bamboo related knowledge. While the major national Institutes for design that were set up

over the years continue to perform their tasks of design education and research, the massive need

anticipated from all 230 sectors of our economy in need of design resources and sector specific

knowledge is still largely un-addressed. The two new sectoral Institutes that we helped set up, the IICD

and the BCDI were relatively easier to fund and create since the message to the stake holders was more

focussed and the funding agencies saw value in each offering since the results could be funnelled

directly into their ongoing activities and thus justified in internal communications and through the

complicated sanctioning process of Government. It is also easier for industries from within the sector to

see direct benefits and to align themselves to such Institutes and – while design is a general discipline –

a great deal of domain specific competence is also needed by the industries and promotional agencies

alike. It was this premise that I brought to my class last year when I asked the group of Foundation

students at NID to look at the Indian economy and to try and build macro-economic models for design

action in India. The development of this course at NID is also a very significant aspect of this discourse.

Over the years the definition of design has shifted in many directions, each pulled along a different

vector by a vocal advocate of an inherent quality of design. Leaders of design thinking that influenced

NID education were many early international visitors to the Institute such as Charles and Ray Eames,

Armin Hofman, Louis Khan, Frei Otto and others and authors of some critical books made available to


the faculty and students of the Institute by its presence in the Resource Centre which was always well

stocked and protected, and in the context of design theory the works of Christopher Alexander, John

Chris Jones and Bruce Archer and the publications from the Bauhaus, the hfg Ulm, and the Basel

school of graphic design come to the top of my mind. Many of these books were subjects of great

debate on the campus and they provided the intellectual stimulus to some of us who were interested in

such discussions. Design Theory: New Frameworks The Design Methods course provided the limited

framework for discourse on design theory at NID and in the mid seventies the course went through its

first metamorphosis with the appearance of the environmental agenda into the Foundation Programme

being introduced by the then coordinator and teacher Mohan Bhandari and this layer has persisted over

the years. I started teaching this course in 1982 soon after Mohan Bhandari left NID and by then I had

started bringing in my own convictions to this course in some tentative way at first and later with a more

definite value orientation that is reflected in my own engagement with design research and practise over

these years in the crafts, bamboo and small industry perspectives and later in the domain of digital

design all informed by the context that is India. The case material and the concepts being developed

caused me to change the name of this course to Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC) in the mid

nineties. In this period we also embraced systems design philosophies that came to be accepted at the

senior years of the industrial design programmes at NID and its intellectual bearings came from the

works of Stafford Beer and Gui Bonsiepe besides Buckminister Fuler and Victor Papanek. Bonsiepe’s

books and documentations of the work in Argentina and Brazil continued the thought processes started

at the hfg Ulm and brought a new perspective that of the difference between design in the West and that

of the Periphery and its associated social and economic implications. For me the Design Concepts and

Concerns course became a platform to revisit the domain of theory each year after several fresh and

new experiences in research and practise during that year since all NID faculty are expected to teach,

research and practise within the Institutional studio and professional practise framework. Design

Concepts and Concerns is about Finding, Knowing, Doing and Feeling, the last word of the quartet being

the most important in my opinion. Which is why the name of my course was changed from Design

Methodology that was used in the sixties to suggest that design was a scientific discipline and later on it

was called Design Process to suggest that it was steeped in good management but now we understand

that t is neither Science nor management and it certainly is not Art. I changed the name of my course

without official sanction several years ago since NID gave a great deal of latitude to its teachers to

experiment and evolve their courses as they too developed a better understanding of their subject. I am

grateful for this liberty as a teacher but bemoan the fact that many colleagues do not read enough and

pursue an intellectual debate to argue these positions nor do they understand these ideas fully nor

support these views from a form of apathy that seems to permeate our intellectual landscape. My model

for the “Profile of the Emerging Designer” that I use in my class to sensitise design students to the range

of possible professional profiles was first published in 1994 at a seminar on design education at the IDC


in Mumbai provided a framework to look at all design professions from this tetrahedral view of the skills

and knowledge base of a design professional. (Ranjan 1994) No one is comfortable when we talk about

ourselves as designers in India and the role that we should, could, or would play as a designer in the

Indian context. It is the context that gives us the shakes. We get perplexed at the sheer size and

complexity and cannot see where to begin or we see the opportunities for our special skills at the

comfortable and special end of the economy where about two percent of our population lives and push

away our sense of guilt when someone asks us about the other 98 percent and our contribution to these

people or even the middle 60 percent of India. However all our students know that design as we are

discussing it in the DCC class is about looking, knowing and doing what needs to be done, however

uncomfortable. Doing it thoughtfully, skilfully and with a great degree of empathy for the user. The value

orientation in this class is deliberate and the model of the designer as a tetrahedron of vertices with

Finding, Knowing and Doing as its base and the most important quadrant, in my view is the apex, which

is that of Feeling. This is what we bring to our students each year and throughout their stay at NID.

Strategic Design and New Education Last year with the Foundation class of 2001 we were compelled to

innovate our teaching strategy because our city of Ahmedbad was seriously affected by the continuous

bouts of rioting that prevented the usual movement of students into the field for user centered studies.

Therefore we decided to look at macro economic issues as our point of reference for this particular

course in design thinking. The results wee startling to say the least. The “Concept Mela”, a sort of

concept sharing exposition, which the students put up at the end of the course shared visualisations and

explorations that the seven groups of students had created and each was the proposed framework for a

sector specific initiative for design action in India. These explorations were informed by a series of brain

storming sessions and the usual lectures and coupled group assignments that followed the structure that

this course has been known for at the NID. This time however the young students were in the process of

transforming India from a resource poor country to a self confident and successful economy that it can

be since nobody told them that this was not possible, the sceptics were missing. They were told to

research the various macro parameters and use the NID faculty and senior students as their immediate

source of expert consultants. The groups formed went through a progression of assignments at building

models of the economy with a view to discover structural relationships and functional proximities

between related industries and economic sectors. Five groups looked at the same issues and discussed

these with great enthusiasm and captured the major attributes of these sectors and their

interrelationships by a process of brainstorming and discussion. The thus identified parameters were

arranged using Post-it stickers into intermediate structures and based on a consensus within the team

and amongst the consultants that they chose to involve. The resultant structures were represented the

form of presentation posters, each using a suitable metaphor for organising the elements. The five

groups had five different models but several aspects of these overlapped and some models were more

amenable to further manipulations than the others. However at this stage all the students were highly


motivated and demonstrated a very high degree of clarity about these macro economic parameters and

their impact on the National economy and its related issues and contexts. One group proposed a

Ministry of Design and divided the economy into basic producers (primary), processors (secondary) and

services. The representation was in the form of a city road map with a downtown circle that had the

three forks, one for each category, which got further divided into a branching diagram that

accommodated all the individual sectors identified by the group. (Fig not included). Another group

selected to depict the economy as a Venn diagram with here major areas of economy, ecology and

society with the interstices of these accommodating the critical sectors that needed inputs across these

areas. (Fig not included) Yet another interesting strategy was to look at the interrelationships between a

few key-driving parameters and this was represented as an interactive wheel where the outer circle

defined the individual sectors where design could and should play a critical role, and these numbered

230 in all. (Fig not included) Design Initiatives: Sector Specific Strategies The efforts of the students and

the resultant flow of ideas was further supplemented by a series of lectures by the author on the

institutional frameworks that were needed to make this initiative a reality in India. I shared the work done

for the two institutes dealing with crafts sector and the bamboo sector with the students and asked them

to identify specific opportunities that they could locate for immediate action in the Indian context. The

teams were further divided into seven and this time the students were permitted to join teams that they

could align themselves with on a personal interest and ideology basis. The result was startling and the

motivation levels kept these students active in groups on an almost round the clock basis in a seemingly

inextinguishable flow of energy and creativity. Each group created panels that described the issues

visually and built models to share their vision of the proposed framework for action, each in a small

panel based exhibit that could be taken to the public. This time we invited the public into our campus,

and over two days of intense interactions, the students got a great deal of feedback and critique from a

large number of visitors. Seven sectors were selected from a larger list of possible choices and the

Institutional frameworks developed to address these are as follows: 1. Badal (Monsoon Clouds)

Proposed as a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), the metaphor of the monsoon clouds is used to

describe a process for strengthening micro-enterprises through the use of research, assimilation,

refinement and delivery of know how to the micro-entrepreneurs just as the clouds perform a function of

delivering rain to the people. This is way of understanding self-employment strategies of some

successful people in one part of India and to be able to share these with the others in need. 2. Udaan

(Flight of the Spirit) A strategy for the empowerment, modernisation and for Information Technology

enabling of rural India with a deep understanding of the needs of this particular community or groups of

such communities distributed all over the country, each in their own environment and unique cultural and

linguistic space. 3 Aavriti (A Platform for Change) The child and its activities are the focus of this

initiative. The design opportunities area of toys, games and active education are addressed in this

framework. India does not have a single agency that is capable of embracing the design needs of


children although they form almost 60 percent of the total population. 4. EDD (Education Design

Developments) The proposed network of designers would work towards improving the quality of

education in India. The design needs of the education sector are both complex and fund starved at the

same time. The use of the web and face to face strategies form the basis of this design scenario that

could build a network of designers with teachers, students and other interested specialist contributors.

5. SEEDS (School of Ecological Design Studies) This organisation fosters a holistic approach to issues

of environment through education, research and action strategies that are unique to the problems of

India. The belief system embedded in this proposal assumes progress through a two way learning

process in building contemporary design solutions and in learning from the traditional wisdom of an

established society. 6. Green Dots (Design Organisation for Sustainable Transport Systems)

Transportation strategies that do not damage that environment need to be innovated and made

acceptable to our society if the quality of life in our cities and villages is to improve. This strategy

includes the use of novel solutions and sustained information campaigns to build acceptable models with

the involvement of people. 7. IID (Institute of Interface Design) To supplement India’s software

engineering strengths there is a need for the capacity to make products that are usable and appropriate

for a wide section of indigenous users and for export needs. The proposed framework and associated

scenarios fill a real need for value added approaches to enhance the interface design capabilities of our

existing software industry. This effort gave us a glimpse of concepts that were both necessary and

achievable. The next stage in this course led to the development of scenarios by each student of one

sub-opportunity that they individually felt could help precipitate the necessary investments or action in

the sector of their choice. The fact that these explorations reached concrete action plans with well-

defined objectives and a visual expression of the possible scenarios made it easy for visitors, senior

students and faculty to engage in a deep discussion on the merits and risks of each specific approach.

This is the hallmark of design thinking and action that is rooted in the domain of the visual scenario that

can locate the discourse at the macro level and at the micro level simultaneously. The future of design

too lies somewhere along this path and we can and must find new roles for design in the production of

images that can inform decision processes, some of which are so complex that they need many

iterations and political mediations to resolve in an amicable manner. Most importantly these design

processes need the involvement and partnership of a multitude of stakeholders and such visualisations

make the concepts, decisions and issues available for visual review in a transparent and understandable

manner that fosters long term partnership needed to achieve the lofty results. Design at this level has

the ingredients to create the avalanche effect, a great positive mobilisation, an overwhelming quantity of

something hopefully new and beneficial, with a very small designerly effort. References: 1. Charles and

Ray Eames, The India Report, Government of India, New Delhi, 1958, reprint, National Institute of

Design, Ahmedabad, 1997 2. Richard Buckminister Fuller, Ideas and Integrities: A spontaneous

autobiographical disclosure, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1963 3. Thomas Maldonado, Gui Bonsiepe,


Renate Kietzmann et al., eds, “Ulm (1 to 21): Journal of the Hoschule fur Gestaltung”, Hoschule fur

Gestaltung, Ulm, 1958 to 1968 4. Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimer, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago,

The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1969 5. Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, Thames &

Hudson Ltd., London, 1972 6. Stafford Beer, Platform for Change, John Wiley & Sons, London, 1975 7.

M P Ranjan, Nilam Iyer & Ghanshyam Pandya, Bamboo and Cane Crafts of Northeast India,

Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, New Delhi, 1986 8. Herbert Lindinger, Hoschule fur

Gestaltung - Ulm, Die Moral der Gegenstande, Berlin, 1987 9. Kirti Trivedi ed., Readings from Ulm,

Industrial Design Centre, Bombay, 1989 10. J A Panchal and M P Ranjan, “Institute of Crafts: Feasibility

Report and Proposal for the Rajasthan Small Industries Corporation”, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad 1994 11. M P Ranjan, “Design Education at the Turn of the Century: Its Futures and

Options”, a paper presented at ‘Design Odyssey 2010’ design symposium, Industrial Design Centre,

Bombay 1994 12. National Institute of Design, “35 years of Design Service: Highlights – A greeting card

cum poster”, NID, Ahmedabad, 1998 13. M P Ranjan, “The Levels of Design Intervention in a Complex

Global Scenario”, Paper prepared for presentation at the Graphica 98 - II International Congress of

Graphics Engineering in Arts and Design and the 13th National Symposium on Descriptive Geometry

and Technical Design, Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil, September 1998. 14. S Balaram, Thinking

Design, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1998 15. Gui Bonsiepe, Interface: An approach to

Design, Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, 1999 16. M P Ranjan, “Design Before Technology: The

Emerging Imperative”, Paper presented at the Asia Pacific Design Conference ‘99 in Osaka, Japan

Design Foundation and Japan External Trade Organisation, Osaka, 1999 17. M P Ranjan, “From the

Land to the People: Bamboo as a sustainable human development resource”, A development initiative of

the UNDP and Government of India, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 1999 18. M P Ranjan,

“Rethinking Bamboo in 2000 AD”, a GTZ-INBAR conference paper reprint, National Institute of Design,

Ahmedabad, 2000 19. M P Ranjan, “Cactus Flowers Bloom in the Desert”, paper presented at the

National Design Summit, Bangalore, 2001 20. John Chris Jones, “The Internet and Everyone”, Ellipses,

London, 2000 and website http://www.softopia.demon.co.uk 21. M P Ranjan, Yrjo Weiherheimo,

Yanta H Lam, Haruhiko Ito & G Upadhayaya, “Bamboo Boards and Beyond: Bamboo as the sustainable,

eco-friendly industrial material of the future”, (CD-ROM) UNDP-APCTT, New Delhi and National Institute

of Design, Ahmedabad, 2001 22. M P Ranjan, Bamboo and Cane Development Institute, Feasibility

report for the proposed National Institute to be set up by the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts,

Government of India, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, 2001

004150 2003-11-30 13:31 Re: Sanjoy Mazumdar: Re: Session 3: response to Nsenga, Ranjan, Chow


Sanjoy Mazumdar: From M P Ranjan

Dear Sanjoy


I like your Lasagne model. I love models that are visually rich and that capture the flavour and texture of

the subject and its context, which yours does. It has taste as well!! Sometime ago, I used a "Hamburger

model" to describe the design processes that I used in a class that I teach at NID called "Design

Concepts and Concerns", description of which was posted to the list in October. Here I have Scenario

Visualisation and Concept Development sandwiched between User Needs and Business Models. The

Lasagne model on the other hand helps capture the complexity of the design activity. While there is talk

about the need for a "Core" for design (Pradeep Yammiyavar, Rosan Chow and others) I believe that the

core for any design activity is the "underlying philosophy" that guides and informs the various actions

and intentions of the designer and their clientelle. Design has been defined in many ways but at its core

are the "creation of value" and this is informed by the prevailing "value systems of a culture" in a "mode

of synthesis" while "addressing complexity" with all the "relevent tools and processes" available to the

design team. It is here that I feel we will need to look beyond the designer to experts and people from

other fields who can use the University based School of Design to enter the domain of design and

assimilate design thinking into their own line of inquiery. When the focus is on "design" and not the

"designer" the issues of education in a School of Design at the University will have a very different

connotation. Several years ago in a class called "Systems Thinking & Design" with a group of furniture

design students we used the metaphor of "Fire" to describe and capture in a memorable visual model

the systems nature of design. Fire in a hearth (context/ situation) uses or consumes materials (material

culture and processes of manipulation)through an active interaction with the environment (open system

and complexity) to produce an effect (heat, light- positive or smoke and destruction-negative ), giving a

glimse of the systems nature of design as well as the disasterous consequences of bad design. This

model places an enormous responsibility on the designer and has many implications for ethical practise

of design as a professional discipline. I am sure that your commitee examined many alternatives and

directions before settling on the final report as it stands today. However I chose to draw attention to the

difference in emphasis when one shifts ones focus from the education of the designer to the spread of

design use in the many fields that can support the activity with concepts and tools by facilitating a much

broader involvement of these professions and disciplines into design and design thinking.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my office at NID Ahmedabad


004107 2003-11-27 07:24 Session 2: Response to Ken Friedman: Re: Thoughts on three questions ...

MPR on PhD-Design_2003_11_27 Response to Ken Friedman: Thoughts on three questions: by Prof M P Ranjan, National Institute of

Design, Ahmedabad, India

Dear Ken,


Thank you for inviting me to be part of this wonderful but exhausting intellectual experience. (My

scheduled entry is in Session 5 as an invited commentator)

A brief intro, I teach and practise design at the National Institute of Design. I have been asssociated with

the Institute for over 35 years having joined as a student in 1969 and then as faculty since 1976. I teach

many subjects and have an active practice and research in many fields of design including Industrial

Design, HCI and Interface Design, Crafts and in bamboo where I now head the NID Centre for Bamboo

Initiatives. I have been involved in setting up two new sectoral design schools in India and in advising on

curriculum planning and design on two other schools including my own Institute. I have been in the field

for the past fifiteen days at the remote city of Agartala where I could access the web to download the

daily digests from the list and read it offline each night. I could not find the time to make any

contributions till now. We are setting up a new school to catalyse rapid development of the bamboo

sector in India and this is what brings me to Agartala quite frequently.

My brief response to Ken's comments on the three questions are as follows: Rosan Chow has raised

some very fundamental questions about the premises on which the School of Design report was

concieved. Ken has argued that the economic yardstick is a practical route through which all other

issues have been addressed quite adequately by the committee. My reading of the report and the

comments confirms this view. If I understand the response correctly. However these questions will not

go away. As designers we are used to asking the question "What if", and in the "What if" mode we build

alternate scenarios. My question is therefore to the list - "What if - Design is accepted by the California

public and the local and federal governments and all the other stake holders in academia and industry

as one of the most critical resources for the future of humanity on planet earth - Would the report and its

recommendations have come out different in terms of scale, priority, emphasis and focus? I will come

back later with my own views when I get back to Ahmedabad tomorrow. It has been an exciting

conference and I enjoyed every late evening read so far. Thanks.

With warm regards

Prof M P Ranjan on tour writing from the Bamboo & Cane Development Institute, Agartala


003850 2003-10-31 04:51 Re: Design in Developing Countries


Design in Developing Countries: Comments by M P Ranjan in response to Dr James WR Fathers note

quoted below.

The National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad was set up in 1961 and from a very early agenda set up

through the articulation of the India Report by Charles and Ray Eames in 1958 started looking at all

aspects of design for development as it applied to issues and needs in the very large and economically

deprived areas on the country. This experience is enormous and unfortunately very little is published of


our efforts over the years but this represents a great opportunity for this distinguished community at

PhD- Design to explore possible projects to study and share the wisdom that has been gleaned through

these years of experience. NID continues to be interested and involved in multi-sectoral design

research and development initiatives that are too numerous to list just now but I will be happy to point to

the few available published resources if anyone is interested. I will make a more detailed submission

when I have a little more time in the days ahead since it will help us as well in articulating some of the

enormous work that has indeed been done in this area at the Institute over the past fifty odd years.

Design education too has benefited through some remarkable innovations in the Foundation Programme

developed at the Institute as well as numerous assignments that take students of our fifteen disciplines

to real life research and design projects in the field all over India. We do have some interesting

publications from the institute and I will be happy to send a list of these to anyone who is interested off

the list.

With warm regards



003820 2003-10-25 12:52 Re: Beyond False Consciousness, etc.

MPR on PhD-Design_2003_10_25 Beyond False Consciousness: Comments by M P Ranjan

Dr GK VanPatter has raised many issues about the role and efficacy of the conventional western

research method in the light of new approaches being tried out in design circles and in corporate

innovation efforts across the globe. First let me state that the entire discussion on the subject of False

Consciousness has been for me a very educative and thought provoking experience and at first it led to

my looking for threads of connections in the understanding of the self in Indian and Asian thought and

mythology. There are many interesting references but I am not an expert on these issues to be able to

interpret these in the context of the current discussion. The discussion itself is of value since the effort

that I see is genuine in trying to establish whether or not an individual designer can plumb his or her own

consciousness for valid and credible research data that can be used to establish a new framework of

theory that would be a sufficient basis for the award of a degree or the acceptance of the same as

scientific fact. In this I must admit that just as observation of the world and particular events can be

reported as fact, the inner reflection of a designer during explorations and decision making too can be

reported and should be acceptable as primary data that can be processed further in many ways. Our

perceptions of the world around us are coloured by many of our sensory abilities, both physical and

cognitive and our current state of knowledge, and similarly our ability to truthfully reflect on our own

thought processes must be influenced by numerous factors including upbringing, moral and ethical

positions, cultural and psychological attributes as well as the levels of motivation, state of mind and


cognitive abilities and current knowledge etc. The field of optical illusions and the study sensory

ambiguities has contributed to many basic design assignments used to teach designers to deal with

thought and media in the foundation programmes around the world. We may need to device similar

assignments to raise the ability of design researchers to deal with the ambiguous area of false

consciousness while dealing with the complexities of self-enquiry and the search for inner truth. Dr GK

Van Patter has raised many other issues that pertain to design in general and the future of the discipline

in particular. The NextD initiative is indeed fascinating and an action for which the time is ripe, since the

air is rich with thoughts of the power of design when seen in the broadest sense and in search of the

best ways in which this power can be used by all of us to make a better world through collective and

collaborative actions. I say that the air is thick with these ideas because so many disciplines are looking

at ways of using the converging of technologies and knowledge domains that have remained separate

during the whole period of industrialisation. Prof. John Chris Jones in his recent issue of Daffodil 23

writes of his explorations towards “a 'field theory' of industrial living” and he has outlined the essence of

it in the nine points that he detailed out in the issue of Daffodil 23. (Public writings on the web http://

www.softopia.demon.co.uk/2.2/daffodils.html by Prof. John Chris Jones) Some of these ideas have been

touched upon in his book “Internet and Everyone”. (John Chris Jones, The Internet and Everyone,

Ellipsis, London 2000) Christopher Alexander in his new book “The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon

of Life (Book One) and his much awaited companion volumes, Books Two to Four, writes of a mega

synthesis through design which promises to totally change our world-view in the near future just as

science theory and discovery had changed it in the mid Nineteenth century. Gui Bonsiepe in his book

“Interface” speaks of the differences between science innovation and that of design innovation by

placing these into different spheres of action and into different modes of resolution. His matrix of

innovation places science, technology and design innovation on a common thread of action showing the

mutual interdependencies while his matrix of design development reaches maturity when an

organisation or country is able to involve multi- disciplinary teams at a strategic level of thought and

action. (Gui Bonsiepe, Interface: An Approach to Design, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, 1999)

These represent the state of the search for a grand synthesis that I perceive when I say that the air is

thick with ideas of a great convergence of ideas from a whole host of fields and we do believe that

design will play a role in facilitating this form of synthesis, even if designers may to be left behind, as the

NextD website warns us. The science thinkers too are in search of a grand synthesis of the many field

theories that are with us today. However each field is unfortunately insulated from the ideas and

thoughts of the other due to the extreme degree of specialisation that is practised and I have come

across some striking examples of such exclusion in recent publications attempting to look at he entire

gamut of human thought in search of the grand synthesis so to speak. Fritjof Capra, in The Hidden

Connections, chronicles the evolution of scientific break-through of recent times in a declared aim “not

only to offer a unified view of life, mind and society, but also to develop a coherent, systematic approach


to some of the critical issues of our time.” However when I look at Capra’s bibliography I find a large

number of thinkers whom I would have included as major contributors of human thought missing from

his list. This shows the great divide that disciplines have built amongst themselves that isolates each

form the ideas and concepts of the others, and it is in this space that design of the future will need to

operate. Another recent book on the history of human ideas, “A Terrible Beauty: A History of the People

and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind” by Peter Watson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2000,

explores in a lucid manner the key players in the history of thought but once again my set of champions

are missing from the list of references!! The missing players included Alexander, Jones and Bonsiepe

mentioned above. Also missing were Bucky Fuller, Stafford Beer and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, all of

whom have helped shape my ideas on design and the world at various stages of my intellectual life. In

spite of all the convergence in media and all the globalisation forces acting on all of us the huge chasm

of specialist- induced myopia continues to thrive and exist and influence the way we work and think.

This brings me back to the third major idea that Dr. GK VanPatter had introduced into his note that has

triggered off this response, the idea of creating new tools and models of understanding that could help

design deal with the complexity and scale of design opportunities at an unprecedented level. At NID

(National Institute of Design, India) where I teach, we have been fortunate to have cherished a multi-

disciplinary climate for many decades now and combined with an open door policy that has tacitly

encouraged creative trespassing, some of us have had the great opportunity to interact with the worlds’

best designers from a large number of fields and in turn this has helped shape our own ideas abut

design and design education. In a paper that I wrote in 1998 for a conference in Brazil titled “ Levels of

Design in a Complex Global Scenario’ I had proposed a four level model for design action, each level

dealing with more and more complex layers that design is having to cope with as our understanding of

the discipline ad its abilities develops. (pdf of 200kb file available on request off the list) The four levels

were named The Tactical Level, driven by the skills and sensibilities of a designer, The Elaborative level,

driven by market forces and market knowledge, The Creative Level, driven by Intellectual break-through

and IRP laws and the fourth level being The Strategic Level, driven by design and entrepreneurial vision

and opportunity maps that helps create new industries and systems usually not part of a formal brief

from outside. Today I would re-designate these levels as Sense Driven Design, Context Driven Deign,

Intellect Driven Design and Vision Driven Design. Further in the course that I teach at NID, titled Design

Concepts and Concerns, we have innovated a number of assignments and processes that help our

students cope with multi-disciplinary processes through a structured programme of learning in a highly

collaborative mode with students drawn from many specialist disciplines in the same class. In a recently

concluded class we chose the theme of “Khadi” based on the philosophy of Gandhi, to explore all

aspects of design thinking ad action as applied to a broad spectrum of needs in the Indian society and

towards a sustainable future for our society and our economy. The assignments had the students

growing through five stages of understanding, the Self, the Group or Team, the Subject, the Context and


the Future, each through a series of structured investigations and assignments that required them to

research, reflect and express their findings in a visual and expressive format, working in groups in all but

the first and last stage of the course. This course module has been innovated and applied at NID for the

past fifteen years or so, with constant improvements each year from past experiences, and it has given

our students a distinct advantage in the professional and research activities that are becoming visible

today through their work in India and elsewhere. I have shared this teaching experiment in a paper

presented at the National Design Summit in Bangalore in 2001 titled “Cactus Flowers Bloom in the

Desert: Reflections on Design and Innovation in India” (pdf file 125 kb available on request off list) Here I

have expanded on the four stage systems design model that we teach our students through the five

stages of understanding that makes it the “NID way”, a very powerful design tool indeed. The four stage

model can be visualised as a ham burger with two very generous fillings, the top bread is that of User &

Need Research, to be constantly tuned-in to real needs and to sense these long before the user

themselves are necessarily aware of these needs, the bottom bread is of Business Models, tools and

avenues to reach the innovation to market, while the middle layers are Scenario Visualisation and

Concept Development, each layer is iteratively explored through the five stages of understanding and

articulation usually in teams to get fantastic results every time. User& Need Research requires Empathy,

with observation and interaction skills, Scenario Visualisation needs Imagination, articulation (visually)

and should be driven by convictions, Concept Development needs abilities of Form Giving, Detailing and

sustained development while the Business Model Building needs traits of Entrepreneurship, Diplomacy

and a deep commitment almost bordering on religion or ideology. The five stages of understanding

brings us back to the starting point of this note which is the role of self in design thinking and research.

In our recent course we got our students to explore these levels and to share each stage with the whole

class in a presentation mode using rich visuals and specially devised models to communicate the

findings. The assignment on Self required the student to plumb their own self-conscious image and to

share what they could or would with the rest of the class. The team assignment required a group of

students to explore a given topic, a Subject, in this case, “Khadi” and they were required to map out all

that the group in collaboration could articulate about the subject from their past knowledge without

necessarily carrying out any external research, The third stage of understanding had the students

scouring the city of Ahmedabad for sources of information about “Khadi” and all other sources that are

published or on the Internet. Al findings are then organised and represented in a visually appreciable

model and some even performed a part of the presentation for greater effect in communication. The next

stage of understanding was to grasp the Context, to look outward from the vantage of the subject

knowledge to the world at large for trends and threads of change that are sweeping across our

landscape. They are permitted and encouraged to meet as many experts, people and informants in a

structured manner, each with a number of iterations built into the research to benefit from current

knowledge and new discoveries. Finally they were required to map out design opportunities for the


future through a series of group sessions following which they took one specific opportunity of their

choice for Scenario Visualisation and presentation at a concept exhibition that was scheduled at the

Kochrab Gandhi Ashram (the very firs Ashram set up by Gandhi on his return to India from South

Africa), the setting was selected to create a platform for sharing student design concepts with the city of

Ahmedabad, which we thought would be a source of great motivation to the students to build a credible

scenario, worthy of public presentation in a significant and historic location. The experience was indeed

wonderful, and the convictions that design ca indeed deliver wonderful new solutions is further

reinforced by the experience. I would like to thank the list participants for such an active exchange of

ideas on False Consciousness and so many related issues that it is a fascinating intellectual journey for

all of us.

With warm regards



Wish you all a very happy Diwali (A festival of lights in India today)

003681 2003-09-20 13:15 Creativity vs. Visualisation


Creativity vs Design Visualisation: Looking Inside vs. Looking Outside Prof. M P Ranjan - 20 September

2003 (A very long post: Not for the light- hearted)) Creativity for me has been a very ambiguous target

and much of the published references having raised more questions than helped provide answers to

many pressing questions that come to ones mind. However there is such a large body of literature on

the subject and it is interesting to see that there are as many sceptics as there are the believers in

search of the final truth in this matter. I have all but stopped using the term “creativity” because of the

numerous myths that surround the term in the domains of art, music and literature and nowadays in a

large section of management writings and in science break- through as well. However I am as yet

unable to find a simple, compelling and fitting explanation of the phenomenon of creativity that is not

prescriptive or aimed at the uninitiated others in search of that “elusive leap of imagination” or “flight of

fantasy” that I can use with my students effectively. From a design education perspective I have found it

to be far more fruitful to focus on the external models created by a profession, particularly in those

tangible traces of external manifestations that are used by designers when grappling with a solution for a

complex design problem, at the macro level of the total system or at the micro level of part detailing, that

are being attempted in the process of design synthesis. For me It has been more interesting to try and

watch the process of design synthesis through these external manifestations and to try and discover the

very fuzzy initial processes through the evidence provided by the external traces of early models

(external) that led to the comprehension of some major new pattern or breakthrough in the course of the

design exploration and iteration. This may be a more fruitful course of investigation in the understanding


of the phenomenon of innovation and creativity and perhaps the field of Cognitive Psychology will

provide some of the answers that we seek in the years ahead. Several years ago I therefore abandoned

the search for a description of creativity processes while dealing with my students in the design

methodology class (now called “Design Concepts and Concerns”) and I shifted my attention to the series

of external models that are generated by various professionals from a number of fields of art and design.

To make my views on the subject available to my students I offered a set of class notes and created a

lecture with supporting visuals from the works of great architects and artists. Unfortunately pre-cognitive

images are not easily available for the works of designers and if such references are available I would

certainly like to know of these. We had with us a remarkable set of original drawings and pre-

visualisation sketches created by the architect Louis I. Kahn who worked with my Institute (NID) as the

local architects to design and execute the campus for the Indian Institute of Management. These are

now published in the book “Complete Works of Louis I. Kahn” (* see reference below). I used these and

other available pre-visualisation images of progressive external models to argue against the single great

moment of break-through and in favour of this progressive external manifestation that facilitated the right

and left-brain interaction in the process of design synthesis. My paper that was created as class notes in

1997 to support a visual lecture is quoted below. (Since it has not been published outside NID so far, I

reproduce it here to facilitate this discussion).

QUOTE: Class Notes and Lecture on Drawing for Visualisation AEP Bridge Semester National Institute

of Design Paldi, Ahmedabad - 380 007. 16 October 1997

Design Visualisation

M P Ranjan

Design is a responsible and creative activity that aims to understand human needs and aspirations in

order to generate effective alternate solutions that can resolve these needs. By its very nature the

process of design deals with extremely complex interrelationships of issues and concerns of the user,

the environment and the well being of society in social, technological and economic realms. The

designer is therefore in the arena of generating scenarios and specifications and offering these for

selection and decision within the framework of professional contributions offered to a wide variety of

clients. The nature and complexity of different design tasks may vary to a great extent. Some tasks are

technologically complex but most design tasks deal with other realms of complexity in the social,

economic or psychological dimensions of users and the community that supports the conduct and

performance of the task. Design has therefore moved from being an individual enterprise to that of

being a team effort with a variety of members being drawn from a large number of diverse disciplines,

the selection depending on the nature of the task and our current understanding of the same.


Professional design has the further complexity of being conducted in an extremely competitive business

and economic landscape where the demands of time and quality are stringent and is accompanied by a

very high degree of risk. These pressures have mandated a number of critical changes in the processes

that designers and their collaborators employ in the conduct of the design programme. Design has

borrowed work strategies from all formal disciplines where effective approaches and methodologies

have been innovated and developed through experience and research. The morphology of the design

task has therefore become a complex set of iterations that revisit the stages of defining and redefining

the task leading to improved understanding of the task itself. In this process several alternate scenarios

are developed and examined critically and this may lead to restatement of the very problem itself.

Design thinking is distinctly different from scientific and management thinking styles in that the designer

and the design team are willing to cope with a great deal of ambiguity while the boundaries of the design

opportunity are gradually brought into sharp focus. The process of refining the understanding of the

design task and that of generating alternate solutions or scenarios follow one another in fairly quick

cycles and are mediated by interactions with real users in many cases. The user centered ideology

adopted by designers in recent years has necessitated the creation of several new stages in the design

process. Early concepts and prototypes are shared with users with the use of preliminary visualisations

that are specially conceived to permit user participation or facilitate user observation to develop insights

into potential problems that are not perceptible in the normal course of concept development. It is the

attitude of the designer that is put to critical test in such cases where it is very easy to slip into the mode

that the "designer knows best" which is in the final analysis counter productive. The designers

visualisation skills and cognitive capabilities are needed to create new and unique solutions, but the

evaluation of each of these is done through user mediated processes that have proved to be most

effective. The designer is then called upon to innovate appropriate representations of the design

concept in whole or in part so that individual or groups of users can interact with these representations

and provide fresh insights into both the nature of the problem and the suitability of the solution. Here the

challenge is to discover and use appropriate tools and media that are best suited to the process of

visualisation and the process of evaluation. The tools and media need to be selected with care so as to

afford fluent representation of complex relationships or geometries, form and content, structure and

context that is required by the particular design task. Traditionally the use of a variety of types of

drawings were the preferred modes of visualisation used by sculptors, artists, architects and designers.

However in recent times many examples of direct modelling in soft materials have been explored where

drawing would limit or inhibit the perception of new and unique possibilities. Preferred styles of

visualisation of individual designers may also emerge from their professional habits, degree of skill with

the tools of their trade and the cognitive modelling capabilities of the individual. Each design discipline or

design school may advocate certain standards for the design students or practitioners from their group.

Trade practices in particular industries may also set demands for certain standard specifications to be


followed by the designer in the manner in which the design concepts are delivered to the client for

further action and decision. Many of these standardised methods of representation reflect the

communication and documentation norms of the industry or trade in question. Notwithstanding these

trade practices and norms the individual designer is always at liberty to explore their personal repertory

of media and skills in the early stages of design visualisation when the emerging images of the external

models are primarily intended to capture the fleeting cognitive maps and scenarios that are being

iteratively explored by the designer. Such early external visualisations are barely recognisable as

coherent images to a casual observer, however for the designer they are of great significance since this

is perhaps the first stage of the dialogue between the left and right hemispheres of their brain that is

facilitated by the external model, however rudimentary. These early visualisations take many forms and

these depend on the media that the designer may choose to employ at various stages of their work and

these may be deliberately varied as a result of experience or in an effort to open up new and unusual

possibilities in response to the challenges of the design task. These external manifestations may be

barely discernible doodles or smudges that for the designer represent a rapidly executed trace of the

cognitive model that is being continuously refined, modified and developed in the designers mind. While

sketching and doodling are used extensively by the designer for this early stage of visualisation there

are a number of other media that are used. One characteristic of the media that is in common is that it is

very fluid and has soft features as if to reflect the fuzzy nature of the cognitive model at this early stage

of design exploration and development. These external traces and markings on paper or soft materials

provide the designer with the multilevel and internodal dialogue between the two brain hemispheres that

is critical for creative reinterpretations of possibilities and for pattern recognition of complex new

relationships that may have been studied in isolated instances but that needs to fall together in the

process of design synthesis. Design decisions are made as a sequence of choices exercised by the

designer at the time of articulation of the external model. The design visualisation progresses by the

designer creating a series of images or models, each an embodiment of a particular set of

characteristics as determined by the data available, the analysis of the task and the user or as perceived

by the designer at that particular point of time in the design process. This very act of articulation brings

new insights and may shift the direction of exploration or launch the designer into a search for a

particular detail that may be critical in making the overall concept to be either viable or interesting. Thus

the designer moves from the general to the particular, from the macro to the micro level of observation of

the cognitive model that is constantly being refined and elaborated without freezing on any one specific

alternative. Usually the designer defers decision on specific attributes and leaves some difficult details in

an ambiguous state in a deliberate effort to obtain clarity of the larger patterns and relationships of the

solution before solving particular structural, formal or production problems. In the user centered design

ideology adopted by many designers and by several design led companies, the early prototypes and

external models are prepared expressly with the intention that they be shared by groups of users in a


variety if real use settings so that they can provide critical insights into the strengths and weaknesses of

a particular design solution. Numerous iterations are made, each exploring one or more dimensions of

the design opportunity and these are documented so that the design team can develop a conviction

about the particular directions to be taken in each case. These external models begin as very abstract

and fuzzy representations and these are gradually refined and elaborated till more concrete models

replace earlier representations. These models, when drawing and sketching are used as a route for

visualisation, grow out of thumbnail sketches, doodles, scale drawings, orthographic drawings,

breadboard models for details of construction or performance of mechanisms, scale models and

renderings for form review, full scale mock-ups and fabricated prototypes where ever possible. It may

be useful to look at a few examples of such visualisation in action. Let us look at a potter as a metaphor

for the process of early visualisation. An artist, designer or studio potter, working at the wheel and

making the model of the clay pot works with clay in a series of iterations to produce one particular pot. A

lump of prepared clay is centered on the potters wheel and the material is turned at a suitable speed.

The potter applies her hands to the rotating clay and observes the transformation of the form with each

application of pressure. The form of the pot emerges as a result of her subtle manipulations. The

feedback to the potter is not merely a visual appreciation of its form, but with the eyes closed, she can

feel the shape and size of the emerging pot, at one point too tall and at another too wide, leading to a

corrective pressure on the tips of her fingers or at the base of her palm. Each application of pressure

and the result thereof is a result of years of fine training and experience and each pot is a unique

expression of a design intention that is revealed to the designer in the progressive iteration of its making.

The designer would have had the chance to see, feel and evaluate numerous intermediate stages

before a design and aesthetic decision is frozen in the shape of the finished pot. If the making of a pot is

taken as a metaphor for the early stage of design visualisation, then we see that a very flexible medium

is manipulated through numerous iterations before the designer moves on to another approach or

attempt to resolve the various conflicting variables of the task at hand. The cognitive model held by the

designer too gets enriched through each iteration. Each new "pot" adds to the designers experience of

the various scenarios that were explored and it helps form some deep bonds with preferred directions

especially if these are confirmed by the interactions with users who are able to see for the first time the

"products" of the designers cognitive explorations. In this process the cognitive model gets progressively

detailed and is far more complex and detailed than any representation. The designers’ cognitive model

is rich in detail and is instantly recalled under varying circumstances of the user and environmental

conditions. The designer sees the solution by day and by night, feels the air flow around its contours and

can sense the soft feel of the flexible material of a handle even if it is only in the mind at this stage. The

designer lives with the changing model through numerous refinements and critiques from users and

colleagues. In team mediated processes it becomes critical that all members of the team are clued in to

the current state of the model and their individual contributions are then directed at solving particular


aspects of the design task that their special skill or expertise enable. It is important to generate these

external models in a suitable media. Sketching has been used by many architects as a means of

capturing complex concepts that need to be clarified and developed through numerous iterations before

communicative drawings or scale models can be made. The works of architects Reima Pietila and Louis

I Kahn are well documented examples of great design vision being captured through a series of fuzzy

sketches leading to the articulation of some of their finest works of architecture in India and elsewhere.

Kahn designed the Indian Institute of Management campus at Ahmedabad and his early sketches speak

volumes of the highly refined cognitive model that he carried about in his head long before a single brick

was laid at the campus in Ahmedabad. Similarly the Finish Embassy at New Delhi emerged from some

very fuzzy markings and doodles in pen and ink and dry pastels from the experienced hands of Pietila.

The key decisions are made in the mind's eye and the external markings at this stage are but a trace of

the rich cognitive model where some critical details or proportions are expressed as a slight stress in the

quality of a line of the thumbnail sketch if you can call it a sketch. Like foot prints in the sand on a

crowded beach these fleeting impressions are captured on paper (or clay) by the designer in an attempt

to clarify and elaborate the form, structure, performance, content and context of the design solution, all

in a single moment of design synthesis, only to be reviewed and revised as the design task progresses

to its formal conclusion. For the designer these markings are very personal and memorable just as for

the person strolling on the beach his very own footprints are clearly distinguished from those of all the

others, which for him is mere noise. Very few design tasks are documented to retain some of these

moments of breakthroughs that are achieved on the back of an envelope or through a little doodle on the

corner of a large drawing that just lets all the complex variables fall neatly in place for the designer to

know that the solution is near at hand. The excitement of the moment is sharp and intense particularly

after many attempts were frustrated by the critical needs of the problem at hand. Sometimes the

designer too is unprepared to see the radical proposal that has emerged from the subconscious just as

Leonardo Da Vinci and his colleagues ignored the perfect sketch of a bicycle drawn on one of his

sheets. Mankind invented or should we say reinvented the bicycle four hundred years later as a result of

this oversight. There are many dimensions to design visualisation and it is this special capacity of the

designer to generate visible and tangible scenarios to complex needs that makes the profession different

from the managers who also develop strategies and scenarios for action in their own way. However

these are rarely expressed in visual form but in the form of feasibility reports and verbal specifications. It

is then the designers task to give form and expression to these strategies and the particular embodiment

of the design strategy is captured and the image produced carries with it messages of a complex nature

be it fashion, reliability or meaning to a set of users or the community. ~ UNQUOTE I would certainly

like to hear from those who believe that the term “creativity” is useful, critical and has a clear definition

that can be studied and used in the context of education. I would also like to hear from the list on the

ultimate short list of books that must be added to any design library on the subject of creativity and


perhaps we need to open a new thread on models and cognition in design to explore some of these

issues and processes to arrive at a better understanding of this very complex and elusive phenomena. *

Reference: Heinz Ronner, Sharad Jhaveri & Alessandro Vasella, “Louis I. Kahn, Complete Works, 1935

– 1974, Institute for the History & Theory of Architecture, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,

Zurich, 1980. (Pages 265 to 305 - Drawings and illustrations on the process of conceiving & building The

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.)

With warm regards



003632 2003-09-14 16:12 Re: Justification for New Design Schools


Dear Dr Terence Love

Thank you for your informative post on the various dimensions of need analysis for the establishment

and development of design related activities in any country. While there are unique needs in each region

and country that is dictated by its history and status of current development we still need some estimate

of how to place designers in an economy dominated by scientists, technologists, engineers and

managers as it is in India today. We have a reported 40 million technically trained manpower across all

disciplines in India and the design population is very small indeed when compared to this figure. The

group of colleagues with whom I am working felt that even a basic list of comparative statistics from the

industrialised countries and the newly industrialised ones would give us some basis for the initiation of a

deeper study into the subject. The points that you have related are indeed very pertinent and our

eventual interest must be to get a better understanding of all these dimensions as they apply to the

Indian condition. While we are very convinced about the value of a new design school at the University

level in India we do need to address the large number sceptics in the National administration who

unfortunately still perceive design as one that provides aesthetic embellishment to the hard core

research areas of science and technology. While design in India has made many successes it is still a

drop in an ocean of opportunity that some of us see on a daily basis, particularly in the areas of

development and outside the areas of conventional industry. I will get in touch with you off the list with

specific questions since what you say about the design scene in Australia has many parallels in the

Indian scene as well.

With warm regards



003628 2003-09-13 14:35 Justification for New Design Schools



Justification for New Design Schools - 13 September 2003 - Prof. M P Ranjan

Dear Friends I have been looking for statistics on design schools in industrialised and newly

industralised countries to develop an argument for the setting up of new design schools at the University

level in India. I seek your support in pointing out new sources that can be checked out for data on the

population of designers in each country in relation to the general population and if available some

information on the impact of design and designer population on the economic and social development of

countries. I came across a very interesting study by the Japan Industrial Promotion Organisation that

dates back to 1980 and some stats from this report are quoted below. I am looking for similar data from

any country or countries on or off the list so that this can be compiled to make my arguement for a

substantial increase in quality design educational seats in India at the University level. I am quoting

below some extracts from the report that I had circulated to my colleagues in India in search of current

data and statistics. QUOTE "International Survey on Design Promotion", Japan Industrial Design

Promotion Organisation, Osaka, 1980 The survey covered 20 countries for the 'Survey of Design

Activities' and 106 Organsations from 48 countries on "Summary Survey on Activities of Design-Related

Organisations. There are a number of interesting bar charts that show the analysis of the data that the

survey has generated which is summarised below for ready reference. Table 2-1 Social Recognition of

Design ( note: according to the JIDPO note this stage was reached at around the 1960's and in some

countries education of designers started before this event and in some others this was a cause for the

commencement of new education programmes) Europe 1930 - 1950 Finland 1945 Czechoslovakia

1950 Sweden 1957 East Germany 1959 Spain 1959 West Germany 1960 Norway 1965 Ireland 1965

Austria 1970 Switzerland Asia 1960 Japan 1960 -1970 India 1969 Hong Kong 1970 Korea America

1946 USA 1960 Mexico 1963 Argentina Table 2-2 Number of Designers per Million Population

Finland..................... 126 (persons) Japan....................... 95 East Germany......... 72 West

Germany........ 50 Czechoslovakia....... 43 Isreal........................ 37 USA......................... 33

Norway.................... 20 Austria..................... 19 Korea....................... 16 Spain........................ 14

Ireland...................... 13 Switzerland.............. 12 Mexico..................... 07 Argentina.................

04 Philippines............... 03 India......................... >01 This data is old but it does show the number of

designers in the industrialised and newly industrialised nations and India in 1980 had a very low

penetration of designer creation. The situation today is no better, on the other hand it seems to have got

much worse. Table 2-5 Includes Year of Initiation of Design Education in the respective countries

1900's Finland, Czechoslovakia & Japan 1920's East & West Germany 1930's USA 1950's Korea

1960's Spain, Mexico & Austria 1970's Argentina, Isreal, Hong Kong & India 1975+ Sweden, Norway,

Ireland & Philippines Table 2-6 Number of Design Training Institutios classified by country 1 (school) ...

Hong Kong / Norway 2 (shcools).. Argentina, Austria, India, Isreal, Ireland, Philippines, Sweden 3


(schools).. Czechlovakia 4 (schools).. Germany (DR), Finland 15 (schools).. Spain 16 (schools)..

Korea 20 (schools).. Japan 21 (schools).. Germany (FR) 30 (schools).. USA Table 2-8 Annual

Number of Graduates from Design Training Institutions (College or University) America > 10 ...........

Mexico, Argentina 500 ........... USA Asia > 10 ........... Philippines > 50 ........... Hong Kong, Isreal,

India 100 .......... Korea 1000 ............ Japan Europe > 10 ........... Austria, Ireland, Sweden. Norway

50 + ............ Finland 75 .............. Czechoslovakia 100 ............. East Germany 300 .............

West Germany Source: "International Survey on Design Promotion", Japan Industrial Design Promotion

Organisation, Osaka, 1980 UNQUOTE

I would appreciate any contributions of sources on the web or in print that we could follow up to

substantiate our arguments.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my ofice at NID


003625 2003-09-12 10:59 Re: Design Learning.


Dear Chris Heape

My comments were about the perrenial need and the current opportunity that exists for a new digital tool

set that could help offset the very problem of trying to get a contemporaneous documentation on any live

project in the real world and in real time. It is indeed extremely difficult to get a post- project review to

provide any deep level of insight since each of the participants have a particular view of the project from

their own vantage points and this does influence the collective view as well. If I look back at the various

experiences that we have had at NID to try and capture and build case studies (with limited success) it

has been due to some of the inherent difficulties in managing post-project reviews and documenting

these in some form of objective records that can be of use later in education and research. You have

stated that the review meetings with a sharing of experiences and process artefacts helped - QUOTE -

"......so in a sense there was a kind of re-alignment of the personal understandings of the project and the

common understanding then generated could help the way forward." - UNQUOTE This is indeed true

since the post-project review does tend to be a session for smoothing out many layers of pent up

communications between team members as well as an avenue for looking for lessons from the

experience and it need to be managed with a great degree of sophistication. This reminds me of the

great film Roshomon by Akira Kurosova where five actors relate in a dramatised manner their own

points of view of a single incident, each with their unique points of emphasis and with a great deal of

variety which represents real life perceptions fairly acurately. Similarly all players on a design team

would carry their own real and imagined sequences which would need to be re-aligned through the de-


briefing processes. In many cases theere is a conflict of credits, imagined or real which would get sorted

out by some established process of the Institute. All this does produce new learning and a degree of

humility for team contributions vis a vis individual excellence. The other example of externa model that

has proved to be very effective is the use of a history wall as created by Charles and Ray Eames for

their various extibition design projects and these techniques were used at NID by the Eamses for the

Nehru Exhibition. The History wall and its use are described in the book "Charles and Ray Eames:

Designers of the Twentieth Century" by Pat Kirkham, MIT Press, 1995. pp 266 - 298. Such history walls

or time-lines drawn in real-time on a digital work-flow system and digital tool set could help resolve some

of the needs expressed in these exchanges on design learning.

With warm regards

M P Ranjan from my office a NID


003578 2003-09-02 19:24 Re: Design Learning


Design Learning and change in the Individual - Prof M P Ranjan - 2 September 2003

Dear Chuck

Your question quoted below is generally true when design practice in successful agencies is like a roller-

coaster ride from one scene of action to another or from one project to the next with very little real

learning taking place on how they do design although the results of each task is both credible and

effective. Many of us do get caught up in such a chain of events with little or no time for reflection that

could provide such opportunities for learning about design and in devising new and improved

procedures. This reminds me of Prof. Bruce Archer's advise to all of us at NID when he had visited our

Institute in the early eighties to deliver the Sir Misha Black Award to the then Director of NID, Mr Ashoke

Chatterjee, for the excellence of the NID's education programmes in design. His specific comment which

I have repeated many times to my students and colleagues was that "experience by itself does not

generate knowledge, but it is the reflection on and about experience that creates new and useful

knowledge about design". He further suggested that NID should perhaps create a faculty or staff post

that could institute a procedure called in his words, "contemporaneous documentation", that would

provide the resources for such detailed and informed reflection that in turn would set the platform for the

creation of new knowledge about and from the particular design experience in question. Great words of

wisdom but indeed extremely difficult to implement and follow in the topsy turvy world of commercial

design practice. Today, with digital tools it is perhaps easier to implement such an exercise, if we were

to embark on it at an Institutional scale. I have tried to follow his advise over the past couple of years in

trying to systematically and comprehensively document all the stages of work done by my students and


also on my professional and research projects, using digital tools, and the effect is startling and very

satisfying. I now have a (crazy) collection of over 200,000 digital pictures, fortunately organised and still

accessible for reflection and an additional collection of over 700,000 other digital files, many duplicates

and versions of earlier files.....also organised and still accesible. This is perhaps possible since I live and

work in an academic environment and at an academic pace and not in a typically commercial work

place. Now this brings me to the key issue for innovation in the design workflow of a learning

organisation. Can we help create tools for designers that would facilitate their capture and reuse of the

complex action sequences and the associated data of their various actions so that such reflection can be

made an integral part of their review proceses leading to embedded learning from all ongoing tasks? A

tall order but worth trying since it is extremely difficult to pry the experiential data out of the designer

after the tasks are completed since many just seem to loose interest in the task stages once the event is

past and a satisfying synthesis is achieved. There is another situation where some significant learning

and change in the individual has been percieved and this is when we have our student designers coming

into contact with complex challanges in the field that change their attitude quite completely and in many

cases their pre-meditated career paths as well. The situations that I refer to are tough developmental

situations that could be emotionally taxing as well and that causes or seems to cause a major shift in the

motivation level of the student designer almost as a response to a higher calling and a search for

meaning in their lives and work. This is one of the reasons that we at NID introduced and encouraged

field contact projects and field exposure programmes in many disciplines as well as in the Foundation

programme as well which is called Environmental Exposure and the entire class spends a period of two

weeks in an Indian Village away from the campus in the Urban setting. I am convinced that ideology and

motivation play a significant role in design learning but the exact processes involved still beats me. I do

not know if this response can throw some new light on the very difficult question/s that you have posed.

However I do believe that design is a very complex and multi-layered activity that is yet to be fully

understood or defined, it is still being discovered by all of us. We will therefore have many interesting

questions to grapple with design learning which has parallels with other forms of learning but it also has

its unique place. While it uses all of human knowledge in a context driven manner, the style of operation

adopted by the designer is quite diferent from the route usually taken by the practicioners of that specific

discipline. There is indeed a designerly way of apropriating the available knowledge but this is still very

difficult to describe. Prof. Gui Bonsiepe has offered a new term for the classification of knowledge with

the term "Visuality" used in conjunction with "Literacy and Numeracy" as the accepted routes for

knowledge creation and documentation. It seems designers tend to use this route more often but I do

not understand this fully as yet and would seek some clarification on this from you. Perhaps this is what

Prof. John Chris Jones is also exploring in his call for a more universal use of design in his new book

"Internet and Everyone' but that analysis and reflection must be kept for another day.

With warm regards


Ranjan from my office at NID


003565 2003-09-01 18:28 Re: Design Learning


Design Learning: Comments on the Discussion – Prof. M P Ranjan – 1 September 2003 Long Post!!

New Member...

Dr Charles Burnette’s description of Design Learning appeals to me since it corresponds extremely well

with the stages that I have experienced personally (over the past thirty years) as a teacher and, as a

professional designer, and a design theorist over many different kinds of design situations and covering

several design disciplines that are practised and taught at the National Institute of Design in India. I

quote “…Design learning to me, involves learning to initiate, guide and manage intention; learning to

access and develop relevant information; learning to develop and analyze conjectural models; learning

to interactively resolve and communicate responses to situations; learning to act on proposed responses

efficiently; learning to assess success in terms of intention; and learning to acquire and adapt knowledge

for future use. (For me, design learning is related to the seven modes of thought that are the basis of my

theory of design thinking. Design learning is role related and modal even as it is holistic,

autobiographical, cultural and concerned with learning about learning)….” Unquote The first deals with

learning to understand the context and the situation that usually leads to trying to get clarity from a very

complex set of signals and processes the provide the essence of a direction. This kind of learning, like

many others, does go through several iterations but at the end of these multiple cycles the level of

conviction and sense of purpose is usually very high in the task and the purpose that it represents. Many

a times this conviction can be a source of great frustration since few others have the insights that the

design learner has garnered from the unique situations that has been investigated in some considerable

depth. The second deals with access to information to many classes of information types which includes

published and reported facts and speculations and also field based observations and self initiated

experiments that are contextually mediated to fill gaps in the current information or for a direct

confirmation of some reported fact or speculation which cannot otherwise be verified easily, to list only a

small sub-set of the information types involved in design investigation. Designers have drawn from all

kinds of disciplines the tools and techniques perfected within these disciplines over the years of

specialised investigations. For example for tips on field work and observation of people in the field the

work and techniques of anthropologists and sociologists have been adopted and used in numerous

cases that I know of. The third deals with analysis of conjectural models and the tools to conduct such

analysis. The hypothesis that drives design investigation is in the form of advanced scenarios of parts or

the whole of the design situation or in the form of stories that cover both the micro and the macro levels

of observation and visualisation of the need and the consequences that are being investigated by the


designer. This too moves through numerous iterations till a selection is possible of a few alternate

courses of action that can be taken to the next level of investment, be it models, experiments or

prototypes of part or whole, as the case may be. This also applies to the pre-cognitive diagrams,

doodles and fuzzy sketches that are the preliminary visualisations created in many cases intuitively by

the designer for themselves in the search for possible configurations and relationships of the various

attributes of the solution in a search for affordances that resolve the many contradictions that exist in all

design tasks. We can call this an analytical exploration of the design situation using visual tools and

processes that generate external models rather than numerical or verbal expressions, although in some

cases even these would be used in conjunction with the visual. The fourth kind of learning deals with

the typical nature of design that involves a number of participants who need to be convinced as the work

progresses. This calls for many interactions with numerous stakeholders and in most cases approving

authorities with whom the interactions are both critical and necessary for the task to progress to the next

logical level of action with funding and other supports. The learning involved is in communication, in

seeking collaborations and in understanding the responses with empathy to the situation and the needs

and feelings of the identified users. This leads to the fifth kind of learning to accept and process the

feedback into constructive actions which brings about a great change in the individual themselves since

some of this feedback could be cultural or outside the accepted frame of the designers frame of

“personal ethics” – for want of a better term. There are any instances of the designer embarking on a

new path outside the scope of the current task based on the insights and convictions derived from the

learning experiences. The sixth form of learning is in decision-making choices from out of the numerous

alternatives of parts and wholes that are the result of progressive visualisations and experimentations

conducted in the progress of the design task. The definition of the task itself is open to review and many

a times the investigations and design investments have veered of into an entirely new direction as a

result of this kind of review which is quite normal in a design situation that is complex and previously less

explored. The seventh deals with the constant self development that we see designers do in their

search for new and interesting bits of knowledge that would be of value in the future on some not yet

anticipated task usually within the frame of interest paths that each designer traverses over a career of

continued learning to cope with the new and the unexpected in their usual area of work and areas that

overlap their multiple interest paths. Thank you Dr. Burnette for this very crisp and evocative

classification of learning styles available and often adopted by designers. In spite of this level of

understanding exhibited at this forum we still find design education programmes floundering with very

antiquated methods and contents for technology, skills and conceptual areas of subject content for

design and the delivery of these that are neither effective nor suitable for the absorption of design

concepts and capabilities, not only in India but in many parts of the world. The implication that this

understanding has for the design of individual courses and projects and the whole curriculum at the

under-graduate and post-graduate levels of design education are quite significant when it comes to the


integration of a design programme inside a pre-existing University that deals with the traditional Arts and

Sciences streams of education. In India we are indeed looking at such a possibility when we need to

expand the base for design education and the question that comes to my mind for this forum is “How do

we differentiate the content and style of delivery of course contents for designers while the teachers may

have to be drawn from the traditional disciplines in the new University departments for design

education?” Is there a body of work that deals with this difference or do we leave the designer to

integrate ones learning on their own? This is a very long post but there are so many other observations

that come to my mind on the numerous and exciting posts that have appeared over the past few days on

this subject of Design Learning that I thought of venturing some comments from the Indian perspective. I

will perhaps add other comments at a later date. I have been a member on this list for a few months now

and have browsed through the archives, which I find of a very high quality. I have been a teacher at the

NID for over thirty years now and am indeed glad to have a forum to share views and learn from an

active dialogue on design and design issues. My school was set up in 1961 based on a report (The India

Report, 1958) by Charles and Ray Eames and was influenced in the early years by the teachings at the

Bauhaus and Ulm. I will be happy to share more about our school and its design education if it is of

interest on or of the list for which I could fall back on some of my earlier writings on design in India and

at the NID in particular. This is my first post to this list and my first name is Ranjan, which is what most

of my students and colleagues call me, in our rather informal design education environment at NID.

With kind regards

Prof. M P Ranjan Faculty of Design and Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives from my office at NID


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MP Ranjan on PhD-Design_Mstr_2003 Sept to 2013 May

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