Notes

Exhaustion. That’s how I felt having finished the 4th episode of Leaps of Knowledge. With no time to spare, we continued with the 5th… we experimented and rushed with game making. In what felt like three to four weeks, we built a game on Unreal from the ground up, knowing next to nothing about game dev. In spite of that, this building experience… surreal!

So here we are. 2021, the year after the year that was.

It never ceases to amaze me, how adept at and reliant we are of the senses. While the world is ever changing, some scenes and senses will always remind us of familiar somethings or trigger emotions of a not too distant memory.

"Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design." – Dieter Rams

Today I found Experiments with Google. It's so very cool! It's kind of like a quaint tinker-y maker thing.

In 2015, we were tasked to design a booth for Dewakan. The setup is for the Theatre of Cuisines at Taste MIGF, an annual two-day food fair featuring food samples from local restaurants. The task was simple... design a space for very light cooking and a counter for preparation and service. Naturally, I said yes!

So, what is syncopation in design? What is it in design, that can actually make you want to dance?

Designing in a particular context or premise and for a particular proposition, is so important. We see here the compounding issue of different perceptions and challenges people face, in different cities. The question of subway maps v diagrams - does it persist? What and which is good... better?

Beauty matters. And here's a good overview explaining why. Also, gotta start saving to check out The Beauty Project by Sagmeister & Walsh. For now, I'll buy the book.

Carrying on with the mission, I pause to question, what is the quotient. What is that one single most important quotient to eye out for - in a potentially good designer? Is there even such a thing? Surely this is oversimplifying. I can spout a few to form a rubric to gauge whether or not, he or she is a good designer... Alas, if I had to choose just one quotient - then the most telling one, should and always will be: what is your love quotient? What you love, defines a constant...

But love and meaning and joy and hope? That’s compelling. That’s what I’m after. That’s worth the risk. I found an old picture of a set of sentences from a book called, "What We Talk About When We Talk About God". It was and it still is particularly meaningful. It paints a soliloquy of someone on the cusp of understanding that which is uncertain. We often align our attempts at understanding the abstract with concepts we do understand... replacing the intangible with the tangible...

The question persists... How do we, maintain a business wherein good designers, get to do good work, for good causes - and to do so everyday, sustainably. Every so often we attribute 'good work for good causes' - with less than favourable pay. The good designer for good causes - is assumed to be synonymous with - a designer that has minimal pay, and is yet keeping at it, because he or she is compelled to - often in answer to a call. Such a designer with such a call is rare...