Everyday...

It has been 5yrs in Pune for me, not very long… but long enough to understand the city. I am still opening new layer each day of this young at heart city with a blend of culture, history, education, technology, religions and strong root beliefs of local people. But this blog entry doesn’t speak about Pune. This blog entry seems to be coming from deep down memory lanes.

I am sure many of you must be taking same route to office or college each day for weeks, months, years. It’s the same path everyday, isn’t it? Same “what the####!” traffic, the same wrong lane drivers, the same wadapavwala on that turn, the same flower selling kids… and so on. It has been years now for me also travelling the same roads at same hour of the day. It seems nothing has changed, everything is static here, sometimes even me. But today when I was going through the same routine, same traffic, same unending honking; I realized it has changed a lot. Its just that I got so used to seeing it that I couldn’t tell the change. But here again I don’t want to elaborate on the changes of the road.

Today I want to talk about travelling the same road by travelling miles in my life. When I first stepped in Pune, I was a family person… the youngest in my entire family and the only girl. I never was away from my home, loved my room (with a whole wall painted by me). Then I entered the institute in pune as a loner, a total tomboy with least interest in what talks happened in hostel. I look at my pics from that time and I go like “who is that? me?”. Torne denim - painted on one leg, bandana on head, short t-shirt and curly unmanaged hair. Only thing girly that I knew of was kajal(eye liner). In the next few months it turned out that I came up with more enemies than friends (friends were few but were the best). I turned out to be a strong person with deep respect for my personal space, I stood for what was right, fought for design and non-design issues with equal strength and created a whole new understanding of the world for myself. College, internship and job turned out a new side of me as a nomad, easily shifting few bags lifestyle. And slowly the personal space started getting restricted to my bed and cupboard, in hostel and as paying guest. The roads of Pune remained same.

 I fell in love, tried best to convince people for accepting us and saying yes for marriage. And I finally got married a year back. Now this nomad was supposed to be tamed as a family person overnight. Why not sure!?! So this tomboy started turning to being a nice, sweet, girl who can be accepted as the daughter-in-law and a beloved wife. The task seemed very simple!!! – cook food, do job, respect everyone, dress up like a married female, learn culture, learn language, get up early……….. so I accepted the challenge. And today on the 1^st marriage anniversary I can proudly claim that I have tried my best on all these levels. And again when I see my pics of what I look today, typing this blog… straight hair, Kurta-pajama, bangles, mangalsutra, bindi, toe rings… And I say “who is that? me?”

 Its “Everyday’s Path” I travel everyday… it’s the miles that I travel which made the difference I guess…

What colour do you want in life?

When I entered my office today, the topic of discussion was, “what colour do you want in life?” A very simple question was taken as a theme to promote a print media group turning complete coloured. Without even thinking for even a second I spoke “Blue”… that has always been my favorite colour for years now and for many reasons too. But later when I started thinking about the same in evening I realized, Blue is my favorite but its not what I want my life to be. You will say I am now turning very philosophical! But no I am not. I am turning towards Physics for the answer now.

But before I come to the reason of me choosing colour and why, let’s start the colour journey right from where it all began in my life. Well to start from the beginning I would share my mom’s first memory of seeing me as a new born, wrapped in ”Pink” colour in the nurse’s arms. She says I was like an angel for her. But why “Pink”??? I hate that colour. For the reason being solely that I turned out to be a girl (Pink for girl & Blue for boy). So, my journey with colours started from my first breath itself.

Later in school (catholic school), my uniform for many years turned out to be colourless in all terms – white shirt, grey skirt and grey tie; sole reason that I could understand was discipline that they wanted to teach us. Only place or rather time that I used to feel colour was my drawing class (half an hour on Saturday). Our drawing sir always thought us to draw the same scenery of a hut near a river with mountains behind it and a rising sun. I think I have drawn it so many times in those days that I can even tell you number of sun rays I used to make (6). The other place which added one more colour was my classical dance classes, with uniform of white and orange colour. The reason of orange being added was that it creates positive vibes and it’s a colour of energy. When I went to college, best part no uniform, so no colour coding. I had a wardrobe full of colours from bright purple and violets to yellows and turquoise… anything and everything. The colours of youth filled me up. Since then, no stopping of colours and no colour coding.

So, now as a designer when I was told about colours, I reflected back to everything around me. When we say Pink is for girls or orange is for energy, we refer to not our personal choice but on the thoughts that we have being hearing, seeing and sharing with others. But here also there is a difference between a community, a group and an individual’s thought about a particular colour. Like my mom’s favorite colour is red. Red in Indian tradition is an auspicious colour related to a married women. For a youth in love it’s the colour to portray his or her feelings, for a signage on electric board red skull is of danger, for one of my friend she is afraid of red because it reminds her of blood and pain etc. So though red is referred as one of the most auspicious colour in India still it gives a negative feel at a personal level.

All this makes me wonder, when we design or predict a palette of colour for next year are they really valid / work? For the answer I want you to go back to the first drawing you did when you even had no clues of colours. Say I made a drawing of a balloon. Now when I sort of made the shape, and was reaching for blue which I like visually, I get stopped by my teacher and I get a red instead to paint it (because she prefers red). So indirectly or directly rather I am being told that red balloon is what is good or better than the blue. Even when we design or predict the palette, yes there is a research, synthesis, analysis done, but somewhere a designer is also doing a job of telling what one should like / not like. Isn’t it amazing that a designer has an ability to understand others and make them understand what is that one should use / wear.

So what colour I want in life? BLACK… because it’s the colour (or according to few theories not a colour) that absorbs all other colour frequencies. Hence I want 2 absorb more knowledge like black. Now again favorite colour may be blue but in a particular context the colour choice changes. Just like red is auspicious in India, maximum vehicle bought in India are in white or black, uniforms are of grey & white, and even Identity colour preferred are blue and green.

Colour has meanings more than one can think of; personal, spiritual, science, community, religion, geography and trend wise. So don’t stop by just knowing the basic colour palette… go ahead and know your colour. 
BE COLOUR OF YOUR LIFE.

Tri - angle

Tri – angle :

Studying basic shapes has always being fascinating for me as a part of geometry. There angles, intersections, theories, vector qualities have been so interesting. Even if you start thinking, whole education system revolves around them. From language, to maths, to science, to geography and history. Imagine you describing your newly made friend to your mom – “He is round faced, curly haired, sharp pointed nose…”, so on and so forth. Even the first scenery that maximum of us have drawn has the basic shapes of sun as round, hut as rectangle with triangle roof on top. So, what about writing about my favorite shape today – triangle.

What’s so special about this shape? Nothing much I guess just makes me remember the ice-cream cone filled with all my favorite flavors, or the arrow marks I see every day when boarding the elevator to my office / home. Even the chips have started coming in this shape for a change from that oval or round Pringles and Lays.

Maths fine, but you would say where does language comes as a user of triangle? Hey, the first alphabet you learned in school, “A”… followed by others like “V”, “W”, “X”. Great isn’t it even before we knew what these shapes were we started doodling them as alphabets. And what say if I take your memory a little further back to your toddler age when you tried to make castles with your block building toys / cards. In science just look at the symbols you use from marking a vector (physics), to the table of species according to food they eat… where happily we as humans sit right on top(bio) and organic chemistry bonds of hexagonal shape(hexagonal is a shape made up of basic triangle).

Archaeologically the great Pyramids, the Effile Tower, the Taj Mahal, The Pei pyramid etc are derived from the basic form of triangle. Even the Indian mythology talks about the “Tri-dev” placed in a form of triangle and the fertility symbol is a merger of two triangles.

Let’s see what history has in store for us when we talk of Triangle. We all are aware of the man of all times, with mysteries in his work yet to be solved, Leonardo Da Vinci. Many know him as a fine artist only. But, I consider him as a designer. Will talk about why, in some other blog entry. But for now let’s see how some great works of him just revolved around this basic shape – Triangle. Consider Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous and truly magnificent painting “The Last Super”, the one with various mysteries hidden. All the figures in the painting are actually made into group forming triangle, four triangles formed by the disciples of the Christ and the fifth is the Christ himself making the central triangle, pointing upwards (towards the Almighty). The mystery of triangle formed between Christ and his right hand side disciple is been highlighted in the bestselling novel “DA VINCI CODE” by Dan Brown. His other paintings like Mona Lisa, Madonna of the carnation are also forming triangle. The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci continues on the same line of forming triangle.

Wait, am I not writing on a design blog… yes. So what’s all this science and old memories doing here? Guess its time to clear this jumble and start talking of design and triangle. So, let me take you again to whom I consider the biggest designer of all times – LEONARDO DA VINCI. The various angles of the triangle formed make’s it possible to make the focus points of the paintings stronger. His balance in each painting and sketch is maintained by the triangle formations by him. The Parachute design by Da Vinci is also a sectional cut of Pyramid (form derived from triangle). What say about the design of so many musical instruments forming the main form as triangle? The forms in many national flags are also made up the same form – Triangle. Even Indian national flag has spokes as we call them, graphically can again be considered as the triangles inserted inside the circle.

Finally the brand identities (my favorite topic), from Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, FedEx etc many high brands are using the properties of triangle to create confidence in their brands. Our own (India’s) Population control logo used for ages now uses this form to give a complete family feel. The basic words that are easily associated with Triangle shape are: growth, forward, ahead, motion, next, with strong base, mystic, on the top, confident etc.

   

 

Brand, brand identity, brand values…

Brand, brand identity, brand values… I have come to using these words at least 100 times a day. But, yesterday when I went to my college and was chatting with the new batches… a question asked by one of them triggered my mind. What is the definition of “Brand”? My first reaction was about to come as the one that is taught in all design lectures, “a brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business”.

But, is brand the identity which actually exists or is it an identity formed or woven around it to create the kind of aura required to distinguish, sell the brand. Aren’t we as an individual also a brand of ourselves?  Packed in certain kind of manner to be perceived in a certain manner in front of the world, for job, friendship, love, sometimes mere acceptance?

Its not just the strength of the brand itself that might matter sometimes. Even the brand it can get associated with or shares the shelf space can make a huge difference in building its own strength. Isn’t it just like you and I preferring a particular brand to be able to get associated with the values of that brand. Like a sporty look might get incomplete without NIKE or Reebok. Whereas, the Versace gives a different brand value to you.

Question that followed next was how much does the brand identity matter in reality. Can they have the power to transform the brand and its market. Getting back to you and me again on this question, if you are the one who is more towards say vodka and rum, and to show sensuality are branding yourself as wine lover. There can be two things that can happen, one you fall in love with wine, smelling tasting being a part of every other wine fest in town. Or you pretend to like it, but finally someone can make out from your face when you sip in the finest of the wines or you yourself give up and go back to your own lounge for that amazing Absolute. This is the same that happens with brand identity, brand values. Either you already posses those values and you showcase them through your identity. Or you build yourself to match it, which sometimes might not end as a happily ever after Disney story.