POOL 63 by Designindia Magazine

Tanay Kumar pg 30 | Photographed by Amit Rajapurkar Deshna Mehta 02 Greenopia 12 Hardik Gandhi 18 Harshit Vishwakarma 24 Sujay Das 44 Himani Mantri Grover 50 Karunya Devi Rajan 56

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November 2015 | # 63

Sudhir with students of SPA-ID on their visit to Indi Design, Pune

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Editor in Chief | sudhir@indidesign.in

How to Find a Good Mentor Look for someone who has been through what you are going through now. All successful people may not be good mentors. Look for someone with a similar background, and definitely from the same industry. Avoid people who are struggling themselves. Most probably you will find your mentor in someone you have known for some time; someone who has been around, and you have been meaning to speak to anyway. Look for the following traits: Self reflective: You want someone who can reflect on his own experience and recount the steps. Not everyone is capable of doing this. But this is most important for you. You need your mentor to remember how he did things when he was in your shoes...and if he would do it any differently.

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Tanay Kumar pg 30 | Photographed by Deshna Mehta 02 GREEN FINGERS 12 Hardik Gandhi 18 Harshit Vishwakarma 24 Sujay Das 44 Himani Mantri Grover 50 Karunya Devi Rajan 56

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Busy: A good mentor will be successful and busy...but he will make time for you. Avoid mentors who seem to have more time than you do, and may treat mentoring as a hobby. Curious: Just as you will be curious about your mentor, your mentor should have natural curiosity about you, your life, your work and whatever is happening with you. More often than not, a mentor will also consider himself to be your life coach...that's a good sign. Warm: This is most important. Warm mentors will want to help you with connections and resources; they will want you to become what you want to become. They have such affection for and faith in you, that their advice will make you glow. It is good to have a good mentor, but a mentor who is self reflective, busy, curious and warm will change your life. Sudhir

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Publication design

THE KUMBH JOURNEY Deshna Mehta, on behalf of Mumbaibased design studio Anugraha, throws light on the extraordinary experience of working on the Kumbh Mela books project. This is an extract of an ‘extended note’ she wrote on the whole process on the suggestion of late Prof. M P Ranjan. 2 POOL #63

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sustainable design

GREEN FINGERS Use an intelligent personal gardening assistant to help your plants thrive!

Living with greenery is not a luxury all of us can enjoy these days, and lack of space is not the only constraint. In the absence of a garden we may be able to fill our homes and terraces with plants, but looking after them can be a challenge. Caught up in our busy lifestyles we may not be able to lavish the care and attention plants need to be healthy and grow well. As a result our little oasis at home tends to become barren and lifeless over time. If you’ve ever stared at a wilted plant, bemoaning your lack of green 12 POOL #63

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industrial design

3D DESIGNER ‘Define, derive and delight’ are the three cornerstones of Hardik Gandhi’s design philosophy

What does design mean to you? HG: Design is a wonderful challenge because it is not necessarily an art – it's based on rules and paths defined by the industry. Achieving a balance between innovation and rationalization is the engine pushing me towards new horizons. Therefore, I explore these paths, but in unexpected ways. I believe in creating thoughtful and aspirational designs for everyday living, and have spent a decade maneuvering designing into products with functionality, quirkiness and twists. Why did you choose to pursue Industrial Design? HG: I have always been inclined towards creating things. This involved me constantly exploring various materials, visiting local markets, observing people and the interface with objects and building stuff. As I grew up I planned on converting my passion into some fruitful work and that’s how I enrolled into Industrial Design at NID. Often my designs have traces of the limitless land of inspiration, my homeland, Gujarat. I was initially interested in Industrial Design because of my innate appreciation for producing viable stuff but it has now proceeded into a wider spectrum of designing. What challenges did you face when you started ‘DesignGandhi’? HG: DesignGandhi is a multi-disciplinary design studio based in Mumbai, of which I am Founder and Creative Head. It came 18 POOL #63

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graphic design

NEW CANVAS FOR DESIGN Graphic Designer Harshit Vishwakarma uses the unique medium of taxi seat covers to spread awareness about Indian Sign Language 24 POOL #63

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cover story

INNOVATIVE INTERACTION For Tanay Kumar designing experiences that enhance the day to day lives of people is what gets the creative juices flowing. As CEO, Creative Director and Partner of Mumbai-based Fractal Ink Design Studio, he is poised to take interaction design to even more userfriendly levels.

30 POOL #63

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furniture design

HARMONY IN DESIGN As a product designer focusing on furniture, Sujay Das finds inspiration in simplicity

Simple and functional design Design is a solution which gives better human experience. Experience can be from a physical product or from a well designed system. Simplicity is the best definition for a well designed product or a system. I believe good design should be esthetically gorgeous and minimal. I’m also a fanatic for details. Nice form, exploration of material and finish, and an intelligent design approach always 44 POOL #63

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jewelry design

ROOTED IN RUSTICITY Himani Mantri Grover, Founder and Creative Head of Chicory Chai, chooses raw over refined to express her creative sensibilities

Early influence of local crafts My early days in Kolhapur (Maharashtra) had nothing to do with design, but they were filled with the taste of local crafts and family heirlooms. The richness of the Maratha culture along with its history had a strong influence on me. My ancestors were advisors to the Maratha kings, and this heritage that I came with always played an important role in how I thought. All the time I spent in this small town kept me rooted to it, so that no matter where I went, I took that piece of my life along. There were at least a thousand things I wanted to be or do! I’m not sure how I zeroed in on NIFT (Accessory Design - Fashion), but that’s when my design journey started. It took one full semester to understand the ‘design approach’ in its true sense. I went on to do an MA – Design (Luxury) at the

Creative Academy, Richemont Group, Milan. From 2003 to 2008, I dabbled in many areas: from fine jewelry and export markets to crafts projects to teaching to designing in the luxury sector under Giampiero Bodino, Milan. It was a phase where I was trying to figure out my forte. In the beginning of 2008, I moved back to India from Milan and was in the process of deciding on a place to settle in when marriage happened. I shifted to Gurgaon where my husband (who’s an artist) was doing a project, and we eventually ended up calling it home. From 2008 to 2012, I was a design consultant in the area of fashion accessories and lifestyle products. By this time, all I knew were the things I didn’t want to do! I was frantically looking for an answer to what I should do. Chicory Chai – from blog to label Sometime in 2011, I started to blog. The blog was called ‘Chicory Chai’ for reasons I don’t even remember! It was more of a personal diary of all things that I loved or those that inspired me in some way or the other. I started narrating events from the past and over time realized that these

50 POOL #63

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textiles

QUIET ELEGANCE

The fluidity of fabric is what captures the imagination of Karunya Devi Rajan, Creative Director of Coimbatore-based Kalki Design Studio

How did you find your way into the fashion sector? KR: My way into the fashion sector was not really planned, and there was no formal training involved. In fact I majored in business administration! The quest for textiles and the curiosity was there all along but it took some time to surface. As a child I saw my grandfather wear khadi every day; my father would get lovely saris for my mother. She wore some of the most exquisite silks, and with every hug she gave us we also got to experience the magic of the texture, the softness of the fabric against our cheeks. All this may all have influenced me and laid the path for the journey I have undertaken. 56â&#x20AC;&#x192; POOLâ&#x20AC;&#x201A;#63

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RE-WORN: GETTING A NEW LIFE A weaver sits on his loom patiently weaving 'Khesh' – a weaving technique that uses new yarn in the warp and strips slashed off old saris in the weft. The weaver chooses these strips randomly off a pile sitting next to him; the result is a stunning piece of fabric where the colors of the old saris blend in with new yarn to produce unexpected, eye-pleasing combinations. The place is Shantiniketan's vocational training center, Shilpa Sadan, and the time is somewhere in the early 1920s.

Upcycled fabric detail on cushion cover

A group of many-aged women sit together hemming discarded cloth scraps and old saris together with a simple running stitch. They decorate it with beautiful motifs of flowers, animals and birds, and geometric patterns in simple embroidery. The new amalgamated fabric that emerges out of the old, rejected scraps is called 'Kantha' and the women have been taught this art by their mothers who got it from theirs and this tradition has been going on since at least the mid 1500s. ‘Gudri’, a patchwork quilting technique, utilizes the