Design in Emerging Markets and Idiom

 As you know, Design thinking today has become a Global Phenomenon. Organisations, individuals and others are applying Design Thinking in various aspects of life and work. All the emerging markets (countries like India, Brazil, Mexico and China) however, are applying Design thinking much faster than their counter-parts in the west. Design thinking today has become an integral part of many leading organisations across the globe. Recently, Fast Company featured and article on Design Thinking in Emerging Markets. The article was written by Bruce Nussbaum who is a leading figure in the global design industry.

We, at Idiom are proud to announce the fact that Idiom as well as SPREAD (our very own offshoot) has been featured as ambassadors for design and design thinking to India. We hope to spread the message of Design and Design Thinking in India and make it an integral management tool for every industry here. What do you feel about this growing phenomenon?


You can find the original article here 


Posted By Rahul

The EPIC journey

 
January 2010: I got an invitation to be on the program committee of an ethnographic conference, EPIC 2010. Which is a professional community conference, it is not a for-profit conference but instead is organized by the community for the community. My role was to select, coach and help organize the workshop session, along with a partner.

While I didn¹t know how much work this would be (not complaining - loved all the learning that came with the work), my reasons for accepting were A. That I firmly believe that the basis of all design in an ethnically diverse nation like India has to be deep seated, almost intuitive cultural triggers.

And yet, we operate on too many assumptions about our target audience/user/consumer. We generalize and don¹t get under the surface enough. So it¹s a great idea to have a dialogue about newer ways of getting under the skin of the end user. Ethnography is at a nascent stage of development in India but it¹s the only way forward B. A great, global and diverse group: practitioners, clients and academicians on the same platform C. Japan. Yes Japan, where they have taken inspiration from many lands and cultures, complicated schools of thought and culled the essence, reduced it to a spiritual simplicity. D. Kenya Hara. The final clincher. The art director of Muji, the no-brand brand. Design bliss - and if I believed in the idea of role models, he would definitely be one.

[Ethnography is Participative observation or the intimate study of human society. To investigate how people do things and discover what¹s missing in their lives. To then dream up products and services. To use concepts that avoid casual explanations and prefer symbolic interactions. Criminology, economics, social work, psychologyŠhave employed ethnography. Now, design does too].

 Epic theme: The theme of this year's Epic was DO (Japanese). Do captures the sense of individual mastery that is achieved only with the help of a community and its rich heritage. DO implies a body of knowledge and tradition with an ethic and an aesthetic. DO is the "path" we have travelled and also the way ahead of us. EPIC 2010 featured a wide range of ethnographic applications in industry, different "ways" forward.
Ethnographic praxis in industry is global in scope, but adapted to different geographies (Asia, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, North America), different contexts (academia, business, NGOs, government), different industries (technology, healthcare, consumer goods, advertising) and different purposes (product innovation, strategy, interorganizational collaboration, communications, policy making). The conference had 20 PAPER PRESENTATIONS, 12 WORKSHOPS, 17 ARTIFACT PRESENTATIONS, 7 PECHA KUCHA SESSIONS, 7 MASTER TOURS.

Some of the ideas that stayed with me were * hyperskilling, actively coordinating inputs from multiple disciplines in an attempt at effective collaboration. * Video as a powerful tool to bring alive the end user, especially user made videos. * Of seeking collaboration to understand new cultures and people * Of finding ever new ways of getting into the heads of the individual, especially in the age of the internet, where all you interact with is an identity. * Living Avatar Networks, where someone else lives an experience for you * Tools that need to be designed to continuously track user understanding * the role of ethnography in designing public
services *  


In the Pecha Kucha sessions, A young designer shared her journey through ethnography, another team looked at how we can build on traditions, yet another showed images that each tell a story. A designer sketched over the
18 minute walk from his home to his studio. Microsoft Research captured the digital photo studio in India. Then there were skeumorphs (features of tech products that have lost their original function but have been retained
nevertheless) and spandrels (features that have been retained because they have taken on a new function).

Do check out the concepts of cosplay and Meido Café, where the real and the created (anime) collide in new ways.

TOKYO: The Japanese I met were warm and sincere, albeit a little reserved, which is not a bad thing really. The Tokyo Midtown center and it¹s conference facility where Epic 2010 was hosted, was something else really.
Perfect doesn¹t even begin to describe the conference facility, where the light, sound and space made it seem like a one on one conversation ­ all sensory barriers that technology imposes, were nonexistent. And while yes, the materials used for the Mid Town center itself are ordinary, just glass with clean straight lines, the effect is touching. Nature ­ light, water, pebbles, sunshine are the elements that these otherwise overpowering materials framed. And typically, even with buildings that are many floors high, the scale is human, the journey from the road to within is seamless.
Spaces are tight and yet beautiful. It's Blade Runner photoshopped, vacuumed and depeopled! Besides design stores, hotels, shopping and dining facilities, TMC has a Design Hub with JIDPO, JAGDA.

Omote Sando is a vision: a place where both the people and the stores have been photoshopped just yesterday. I felt like the only thing real there!
Cutting edge brands and cutting edge style. Understated statements brand etherealism, if such a term can exist.

People I met and who are now my friends and Idiom friends are Hiroshi from Hakuhodo, Fumiko ­ a lovely and energetic person, Mizuki who showed me Don Quixote, Luis (of insitum) who invited me in the first place and Roberto and his warm and beautiful wife, Elizabeth and little Olivia, John (my workshop¹s partner) and his wife Rebecca. Nimmi, how can anyone not mention her ­ who presented her piece on digital photo stuidios in India like a bharatnatyam dancerŠcompletely unforgettable. Then, of course, The taxi driver, who told me about the sad state of the economy ­ the unions, the pay cuts, the long working hours, the insecurity and wedding expenses.

My last impression was the sharp, simple and beautiful black cone of Mt Fuji, surrounded by a ring of clouds - perfect!




Posted by Sonia




You can check out the EPIC website here

Design Education in China

On Sunday I was with a young man all of 25 who was a sales manager at this fixture factory that Suresh from our office had ordered shop fittings from. Curious about his background I asked him what he did in college. Two years of Industrial Design he said.

So I asked him why he was not practicing industrial design. Not the best career option he said. "Sales have more possibility." So why not an MBA?"  “Oh too tough to get in, ID easier."

"I love designing but with my qualifications I can work in the engineering department where I will be far down the pecking order …. No fun"

China has more than 200 universities and colleges that offer courses in Industrial design alone that produce about 30,000 graduates of varying skill levels through 2, 3 and 4 year programmes. Many of them teach drawing and sketching, CAD, ADOBE- Photoshop and AI with a bit of engineering and MT and very little of design research leave alone Design Intelligence.

This is what I find out on Monday from Sheng Wang at VIM DESIGN, a product design office run by him. He is an industrial designer educated in China running a 25 person studio in Shanghai in Building 800 that’s occupied largely by galleries; the contemporary art museum and a number of design and allied firms even those dealing with consulting on intellectual property.

Not surprisingly or should I say surprisingly Sheng does not speak English at all.....
It is a young office with 5 interns just about 19 years old, 2 engineers in MT which I reckon is material technology and the 15 odd designers working there would not be older than 22 years old on average.

The problem Sheng tells me is that there is no quality in the 190 or so colleges that churn out designers. The other issue is that among the students themselves there is not enough general awareness about design hence the students who stumble into design….. Well….. Stumble into design.

Out of the 200 colleges and universities I ask how many deliver quality education, Sheng and his young designers start counting literally on their fingers and come up with ten, which produce at best 1000 graduates a year. The design schools at Beijing and Shanghai are considered the best. The schools however teach more the skills and less of the thinking.

There was a great deal of curiosity about our methodology and design research. They were surprised to hear that we don’t actually go about interviewing customers but rather rely on observation.

They would love to do research for their projects but have not done so, so far as their clients have not offered to pay for it. When they design products for western markets they depend on information gathered by their clients for consumer insights.

Business design drew a complete blank; packaging is also not done at the studio although that is something that they would like to do in the future.

The model making they enjoy is Fabulous !!
I saw a range of CP fittings being developed for an MNC that were absolutely gorgeous.

Multi national companies like Whirlpool, Ariston, A.O. Smith, Samsung etc that operate in the Chinese market have been good pay masters though they have to deal with middle managers and not the very top managers.

There are also a few Chinese companies that are employers of designers like TCL, Haier, Lenovo etc.
They look to hiring VIM Design because of the broader perspective they bring in although all of them do have in-house design studios.
The largest design offices in the country that employ upward of 100 designers are almost entirely in the public sector or have some kind of government stake in them.

Idiom and VIM Design can look at collaborating on product design projects especially those that need manufacturing and production support in China and this is something we would be looking at in the future.



Posted by Jacob

Folding plug wins Design award

An innovative folding electric plug has beaten a final collection by late fashion guru Alexander McQueen to land a top design award

The folding plug is less than a centimetre thick when folded

McQueen, who committed suicide last month, had his latest spring/summer catwalk range placed on the shortlist for the title of Brit Insurance Design of the Year just days after his death.

It lost out to London student Min-Kyu Choi's reinterpretation of the plug, which folds flat for storage.

His design beat more than 90 international nominees who were shortlisted in seven categories.

The winners of the categories went forward to the final judging stage and Choi was presented with his title by judging panel chairman Antony Gormley at a gala dinner held at the Design Museum in London.

Panellists included designer Tom Dixon, editor of Wired magazine David Rowan and broadcaster Janet Street-Porter.

Gormley said: "Thought-through, responsive and modest, the folding plug shows how intelligent, elegant and inventive design can make a difference to everyone's life."

The winning design was inspired by having to carry around a hefty plug to power the world's thinnest laptop, a MacBook Air.

Choi drew praise when he showcased the plug at the Royal College of Art's graduate show in 2009.

Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, said: "It's great to see such a practical but elegant demonstration of what design can do to make everyday life so much better. Min-Kyu Choi is a designer just setting out on his career and he clearly has a great future ahead of him."

Posted by Elizabeth

Idiom-izing New York

Sonia, Girish and Jacob's visit to Parsons, the New School of Design

Notes from New york

10th March : Girish + Jacob + Sonia

Presented our perspective on India/emerging market and shared Idiom's work and successes with the students, in the School of Design Strategies [at Parsons, the New School of Design]. Followed by an interesting discussion with a group of students. Graduating students are worried about whether (E design thinking), this higher level play of design is a fad or is here to stay, whether sustainability again is just a fad. There was a palpable energy and excitement that the presentation and discussion managed to evoke the sheer speed and scale at which things are happening in India was one of the things that fascinated everyone. Carlos Teixeira [Director, Academic Affairs] our amazing host had quite a schedule planned for us.

11th March : Girish + Jacob + Sonia

Morning: Carlos and his co-faculty members (faculty members, the program director, and career service) presented to us, what they do in the program of Design and Management at Parsons. What is interesting about Parsons, The New School is that its really five schools spread across a few streets and blocks. There is the School of Design Strategies, The School of Fashion, The School of Art, Media and Technology, The School of Constructed Environments and ADHT (Art, Design, History and Technology). Interestingly, the street was very close to the New School's heart in the early years, where anyone could walk off the street and attend a class. Corridors continue to be art galleries. 40% of the students are international. But even the international students come from reasonably affluent backgrounds and we still need to find ways to make emerging markets, sustainability and such real world issues sexy to them.
  We discussed however, the opportunity of internships and of using our design success stories as cases and the possibility of online interactions. Besides, we also committed to developing an exhibition for the Parsons' gallery, that brings alive both India and our work.

Afternoon: With Carlos, met Joel Towers, Dean Parsons and Mathew Caballero, Asst Dean, Parsons. It was nice to find out that one of the most respected design institutions in the world had quite a refreshing perspective and had chosen to be nimble. Joel talked about the New School being part of a global network, where there would be a lot of exchange in not very typical/formal/structured ways. We were all very excited about the possibility of collaboration.

Evening: The evening rocked! We presented in the Orozco room. This is a room reserved for very special occasions. Orozco (a Mexican mural artist painted a mural on the walls of this room, in a way that it couldn't be taken out. He wanted his work to be accessible by the public and not put away in a museum). Well, we made our work accessible to the cool junta of New York (finally!) But seriously we had an amazing crowd of academicians, practitioners and industry. Most that Carlos had invited, some whom Jacob and Sonia had called. We showed our E India movie, The Idiom presentation (by Sonia and Jacob) and then Kishoreji (Kishore Biyani), along with us, took questions. We started at 6 pm and it showed no signs of winding up, even by 9 pm and continued on to dinner. (The legendary) Bruce Nussbaum, who was there went on record to say that this was the most engaging discussion he had had on design ever. Even Mr Biyani was excited and enjoyed the discussion.  Most were fascinated by the scale and speed at which things are happening in India. Carlos was beaming (he made it possible and everyone was thanking him for inviting them). We made new friends, in the UN, in Panasonic, in Havaianas, in AIGA, in Smart Design and many more.

12th March

We (Carlos, Jacob, Girish, Sonia) had lunch with Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Dean, School of Design Strategies. He told us about the idea of laboratories/about the India-China School. It was a meeting that turned out to be more than just refreshing!!! We have a follow on meeting early next week to make a plan of action to develop on the emerging design education needs in India looks like things will happen sooner than later. 

Posted By Sonia