Diploma Documentation by Siddharth Dasari

DIPLOMA PROJECT Architectural publication for Studio Lotus Sponsor : Studio Lotus, New Delhi

Volume : 1/1 STUDENT : SIDDHARTH DASARI PROGRAMME : Post-Graduate Diploma Programme

GUIDE : RUPESH VYAS

2013 COMMUNICATION DESIGN FACULTY (GRAPHIC DESIGN)

National Institute of Design Ahmedabad

The Evaluation Jury recommends SIDDHARTH DASARI for the Diploma of the National Institute of Design

IN COMMUNICATION DESIGN (GRAPHIC DESIGN)

herewith, for the project titled "ARCHITECTURAL PUBLICATION FOR STUDIO LOTUS" on fulfilling the further requirements by

Chairman Members :

*Subsequent remarks regarding fulfilling the requirements :

Registrar(Academics)

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Lotus 10 Architectural publication for StudioLotus

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THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN 5 / The institute and the diploma

DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE ONE 33 / Starting out

LOTUS 7 / Who they are and what they do LOTUS TEN 9 / About the book - the working title WHY LOTUS/WHY THE BOOK

11 / Why I chose to work at Lotus and on this project TIME SCHEDULE

12 / Proposed and actual PAYMO

15 / Time tracking everyday *

ยง2 THE BRIEF - PROPOSAL 21 / Lotus' initial brief about the book UNDERSTANDING LOTUS 22 / The first few days CASE STUDIES

24 / Books which I referred to *

34 / PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS INITIAL MEETINGS 36 / The first concept 37 / The first meeting 38 / Multiple meetings EXERCISES - PHASE ONE 40 / Design iterations 44 / Story telling 45 / The Lotus survey 46 / The timeline 47 / Meeting with paper suppliers and printers 48 / Contact sheet 51 / Rendezvous with Salmonella Typhi *

ยง4 DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE TWO 54 / Getting back on track 56 / The Lotus server

Contents

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FORMAT

58 / How we arrived at a size 60 / IMPOSITION

123 / THE WAY FORWARD

DESIGN PROCESS

125 / IN BETWEEN WORK

62 / The selected projects 70 / The other projects

74 / Conversations with people associated with Lotus 78 / Office stories 84 / The vector poster 88 / The contents page 90 / The cover 96 / The end pages TYPEFACES & TYPOGRAPHY 99 / Selecting Kohinoor 103 / Selecting Diavlo

106 / GRID 108 / PAPER, PRINTING & BINDING 110 / PROTOTYPE *

127 / LOOKING BACK 129 / REFERENCES 129 / DOCUMENT TYPOGRAPHY *

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*Danke schĂśn (German) thank you very much - a more polite and emphatic way of saying thank you

— ✌

DANKE SCHÖN*

The team at Lotus - Ambrish, Ankur, Kullu, Pankhuri, Vedika, Priya, Asha, Chandni, Shilpa, Akhil, Adwait, Vritima, Vanshika, Clarisse, Xabrina, Shikha, Kristel, Aisha, Rohit Kapoor, Rohit Sharma, Goutham, Swathi and Navin Jha without you all, Delhi would have been a colossal disaster

The typo guru - Tenzin Yeshi - for the crash courses on typography, publication, layout and grid

My doctor - Dr. Venugopal - for being the most amazing human being

PGGD2010 - Lalith and Dhwani - their encouragement and criticism whenever I needed it and Gargee for the textures and pictures with the prototypes.

My partner in crime - Solen - for coming on board when I was clueless and needed help to finish the book on time

The NID Print Labs - Bharat Suthar, Patel bhai and Sachin bhai - for helping me with this document and the prototype.

My project guide - Rupesh Vyas - for encouraging me to think out of the box

My family, friends, teachers from school, college, NID and Germany - for being a part of my journey and helping me get to where I am today

× × 1

✈ THANK YOU

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/ THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN / / LOTUS / / LOTUS TEN / / WHY LOTUS/WHY THE BOOK / / TIME SCHEDULE / / PAYMO / *

Peacock, pictured at the National Institute of Design's heritage campus in Paldi, Ahmedabad

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The National Institute of Design The institute and the diploma ×

—

ABOUT NID

The National Institute of Design (NID) is internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education and research. The Business Week, USA has listed NID as one of the top 25 European & Asian programmes in the world. The institute functions as an autonomous body under the department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. NID is recognised by the Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) under Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, as a scientific and industrial design research organisation.

—

THE DIPLOMA

The end of the students’ academic tenure at the National Institute of Design is marked by the culmination of a substantial investigation in the field of design on a topic closely allied to their discipline of study. It is through the diploma project and subsequent documentation of the same that this investigation takes place. This is the final academic project for the student. A jury comprising faculty members evaluates the students’ performance in the diploma project, after which, students are awarded NID’s professional education programme diploma

✈ THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF DESIGN

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Ambrish

Sidhartha

ARORA

TALWAR

Ankur

Arun

CHOKSI

KULLU

Lotus Who they are and what they do ×

—

Lotus (now called StudioLotus), setup in the year 2002 by Ambrish Arora, Sidhartha Talwar and Ankur Choksi in New Delhi, is a multidisciplinary design practice whose work seamlessly weaves interior and exterior spaces, from large architectural ideas to the smallest of furniture details. The 40 member team at Lotus is from diverse disciplines of Architecture, Interior Design, Exhibition Design, Furniture design, & Graphic Design.

PRINCIPALS

TEAM LEADERS

Ambrish

Sidhartha

Ankur

Arun

ARORA

TALWAR

CHOKSI

KULLU

* Asha

The firm takes a deeply contextual approach to its work and combines this with a strong focus on the tactile and sensory qualities of the space. The design process looks at sustainability through the multiple lenses of cultural, social and environmental impact. There is an active engagement in integrating localized skills and resources with state of the art materials and technologies.

SAIRAM

Pankhuri GOEL

Priya

Vedika

JINDAL

JHUNJHUNWALA

TEAMS Architects, Interior Designers, Furniture Designers, Draughtsmen, Interns

The team at Lotus * People whom I used to report to / work with

✈ LOTUS

Raas Jodhpur. A project which got Lotus a lot of fame and recognition, nationally and internationally.

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Lotus Ten About the book - The working title ×

—

Having been around for 10 years in the industry, the people at Lotus felt the need to showcase their work done over the years. After winning a number of national and international awards, including the World Architecture Award for the Best Holiday Building in 2011, the firm has been engaging with an increasing number of national and international clients and projects of various scales and typologies. Looking back at those years, they completed over a hundred projects and all of them who worked on these projects had some amazing stories to tell. Though the website was a preliminary approach to this, they felt that a publication would do justice to showcase the work processes and celebrate the people who worked on them. The book was meant to be released at a grand event on the 30th of October, 2012, to celebrate the 10 years, at the reopening of Khoj (an urban artists village in Khirki extension, New Delhi - an internal architectural redesign project at Lotus.)

✈ LOTUS TEN

✍ The event never happened, and has been postponed indefinitely

11 ~ Interior + Furniture designers 8 ~ Technical draughtsmen 7 ~ Architects 6 ~ Interns 5 ~ Support staff

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3 ~ Graphic designers 3 ~ 3D visualisers 1 ~ Exhibition designer 1 ~ Human Resources The team profile of the studio when I left (February 2013)

Why Lotus Why I chose to work at Lotus and on this project ×

—

Having wrapped up the studio projects at NID by April 2012, I spent a good amount of time at home, figuring out my next step. I was confused between taking up a branding project as it was my new found love then, a spatial/ environmental graphic project as it involved a good mix of my interests in combining space+graphic design or anything which would offer me a chance to travel. Lotus was one of the places I had initially applied to as it was the perfect mix of a studio with people from multiple design disciplines. I feel that this is going to be the future of design and every practise should have within themselves a team from different design backgrounds and skill for cross discipline learning and exploration. I got a call back from Lotus at the end of May and I was very excited at the prospect of working with them because

11 ✈

WHY LOTUS

☛ They were doing one of the kinds of work I had always thought of doing in the future - spaces which are visually very rich and exciting - I wanted to be exposed to this environment to see if this was what I really wanted to do. ☞ I find joy in doing things I have never done before. Within a span of 2 years at NID, my portfolio consisted of illustrations, type design, branding, typography, photography and advertising. Publication was something which I had never done on a full fledged scale apart from the semester documents we get to do at NID. ☛ The project allowed me to develop content, edit and also offered me the freedom and opporunity to explore different formats. ☞ I had been constantly travelling and living out of my suitcase since the last 8 years (Visakhapatnam➝Hyderabad➝Bangalore➝Ahmedabad➝Germany) and there was never a day that I complained about it. It also offered me the chance to travel, live and experience a new city - New Delhi.

Time Schedule Proposed and actual ×

June 15 / 2012

The proposed schedule - When I looked back at the proposed timeline, I began to wonder as to how ignorant we were of the fact that we thought we could finish a book of this scale in less than 4 months! This will be the first project which I started off and haven't completed on time.

July / 2012

August / 2012

Research + Data Collection

September / 2012

Design Strategies + Content Development

Prototyping

Retired hurt - Phase One

The actual schedule - Owing to generation of massive loads of content, figuring out a structure, digging through Terrabytes of folders, delays in internal decisions and a couple of setbacks in terms of my personal health led the project to be extended multiple times.

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October / 2012

November / 2012

December / 2012

Print + Publish

Retired hurt - Phase Two

13 ✈

TIME SCHEDULE

January / 2013

February / 2013

∞

Screenshot of the software interface, showing my entries for a month.

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Paymo Time tracking everyday Month view

—

Paymo is an online application which is an easy time tracking and online invoicing tool. Paymo helps an organisation with project management, billing and timesheets online, by allowing employees or the workforce to update work done everyday, on an hourly or a task wise basis. Though it was pretty irritating to religiously fill up what I was upto every day, it helped get me an idea as to how much time I had spent on the project. One can see how a 7 day work week had become the norm as time progressed (on the next page)

Week view

15 ✈

PAYMO

HOURS / DAY

Hours put in at work, visualised

JUNE

J U LY

AUGUST

S E P T E M BE R

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 ✖✖ 1 Jun

4 Jun

7 Jun

10 Jun

13 Jun

16 Jun

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✖✖ 19 Jun

22 Jun

25 Jun

✖✖ 28 Jun

1 Jul

✖✖ 4 Jul

7 Jul

✖ 10 Jul

13 Jul

16 Jul

✖✖ 19 Jul

22 Jul

25 Jul

28 Jul

✖✖ ✖✖ 31 Jul

4 Aug

✖✖✖✖✖ 7 Aug

10 Aug

13 Aug

16 Aug

✖✖ 19 Aug

✖✖ 22 Aug

25 Aug

✖✖ 28 Aug

31 Aug

✖✖ 4 Sep

7 Sep

10 Sep

✖✖ 13 Sep

16 Sep

✖ 19 Sep

22 Sep

25 Sep

28 Sep

O C TO B E R

N OV EMB ER

DECEMB E R

J A NU A RY / 2 0 1 3

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 ✖✖ ✖ 31 Aug

✖✖ 4 Oct

7 Oct

✖ 10 Oct

13 Oct

✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖ ✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖✖ 16 Oct

19 Oct

22 Oct

25 Oct

28 Oct

31 Oct

S I C K

L E A V E

4 Dec

7 Dec

10 Dec

✖ 13 Dec

16 Dec

19 Dec

22 Dec

✖ 25 Dec

28 Dec

31 Dec

4 Jan

7 Jan

10 Jan

13 Jan

16 Jan

19 Jan

22 Jan

25 Jan

28 Jan

31 Jan

Total no. of days - 229 No. of working days - 139 No. of holidays (Saturdays, Sundays and sick leaves) - 90

17 ✈

TIME SCHEDULE

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/ THE BRIEF - PROPOSAL / / UNDERSTANDING LOTUS / / CASE STUDIES / *

graphic design diploma project proposal title Lotus*10 – A publication celebrating 10 years of Lotus – an architecture+interior design firm based in New Delhi.

background / context Lotus is a multidisciplinary design practice whose work portfolio includes interior and exterior spaces ranging from large architectural ideas to the smallest of furniture details. The firm, started in the year 2002, is celebrating its 10th year into service and has grown exponentially in a short span of time. It intends to celebrate this occasion by publishing and releasing a book, to showcase the spirit of the firm and work processes, consisting of some of the works done over the years, its philosophies, office work environment etc.

literature review The firm, headed by Ambrish Arora with Sidhartha Talwar, Ankur Choksi and Arun Kullu as directors, is a 40 member team from diverse disciplines of architecture, interior design, exhibition design, furniture design and graphic design. The firm takes a deeply contextual approach to its work and combines this with a strong focus on the tactile and sensory qualities of the space. The design process looks at sustainability through the multiple lenses of cultural, social and environmental impact. There is an active engagement in integrating localized skills and resources with state of the art materials and technologies. They believe that “..globalization is an opportunity for sharing. It offers stakeholders the opportunity of addressing global concerns through the diverse expression of localized responses.”

target audience + Students of architecture, interiors and design + Architects, interior designers and various other designers + New, existing, future clients of the firm + General public who are interested in design

siddharth dasari + pg graphic design 2010 + national institute of design + ahmedabad + india ma il

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s i d d hart h.d @ n i d .ed u

p ho n e

+ 9 1

8 8 2 6

2 5 2 2 1 2

The brief - Proposal Lotus' initial brief about the book ×

21 ✈

—

WHAT TO DO

✑ To observe and study the firm’s philosophies, its design processes and work environment by interacting with the people working at various levels. ✒ To read and understand from the existing literature from various sources, the work of the firm done over the years to get an idea of the scale of projects and the design methodologies. ✑ To generate content based on research and available data and literature. ✒ To figure out what all would go into the final product and plan and estimate the budgets, timelines and deliverables

—

DELIVERABLES

The end product would be a publication, based on the research and content (artworks, images, photographs, sketches, write ups) developed over a period of time, and existing content.

—

FOR WHOM

✑ Students of architecture, interior design and other design disciplines ✒ Architects, interior designers and various other designers ✑ Past, new and future clients of the firm ✒ General public who are interested in design

THE BRIEF - PROPOSAL

Understanding Lotus The first few days ×

—

I had no idea what to expect when I joined Lotus on the first day. All I knew was that they wanted a book done to showcase and celebrate their work, and I had a feeling it was going to be a very coffee-tablish book - the ones you see of famous architects with stunning pictures, some write ups and a few drawings thrown in. It turns out that this wasn't what they were looking for, initially. With a very open ended brief, and not so sure about my role in the project, or whether the book had a team being built, I set out to talk with various people trying to understand the work culture and the people and the first few weeks were just spent in conversations with all the employees and getting an idea of the workflow and the projects which were done, so that I could familiarise myself with the names of these projects and people which I was going to hear a lot about in the next few months.

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I sat here.

23 ✈

UNDERSTANDING LOTUS

Case Studies Books which I referred to ×

—

Since this was essentially an architectural publication, I referred to some of the books in the Lotus library to check for different sizes, the average weights, the layout styles, the kind of paper, the general tone of content and the price tag. Though the team initially felt that the publication should not be conventional like a celebrated architectural firm, it was later decided that the work should be the main topic of discussion with different layers of information.

✍ After reading multiple books in this genre, I felt that none of them had inside stories of how those architects / firms function and what would have gone into the evolution of the projects, and this formed the basis of the Lotus book. Even today, the only recognisable architecture books by Indians still remain Charles Correa's and BV Doshi's and I felt there was a need to showcase more Indian firms on this platform and this was a good reason to pitch the book to International publishers

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Charles Correa by Kenneth Frampton ×

—

SPECIFICATIONS

Publisher Thames & Hudson Publication Year 1996 Binding Hardcover and section bound Number of Pages 271 Pages Book Dimensions 10.9 x 9.9 x 1.1 inches Weight 1.8kgs Price Rs. 1500

—

FEATURES

◉ third person narration ◉ purpose of the project, size, site, description of the design - what

works and why, the materials ◉ drawings and isometric views of the spaces

25 ✈

CASE STUDIES

Tadao Ando by Yann Nussaume ×

—

SPECIFICATIONS

Publisher Birkhauser Basel Publication Year 2009 Binding Hardcover and section bound Number of Pages 191 Pages Book Dimensions 8.5 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches Weight 1kgs Price Rs. 3400

—

FEATURES

◉ third person narration ◉ extremely little description ◉ no explanation of photographs ◉ lots of white / breathing space - a perfect canvas for Ando's work

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Calatrava by Philip Dodidio ×

27 ✈

—

SPECIFICATIONS

Publisher Taschen Publication Year 2009 Binding Hardcover and section bound Number of Pages 528 Pages Book Dimensions 11.4 x 1.5 x 9 inches Weight 2.5kgs Price Rs. 2130

—

FEATURES

◉ lots of sketches ◉ comparison of sketches and pictures ◉ text kept to a minimum ◉ spaces (pictures) flow so you can follow the project easily

CASE STUDIES

Frank Gehry: The Houses by Mildred Friedman ×

—

SPECIFICATIONS

Publisher Rizzoli Publication Year 2009 Binding Hardcover and section bound Number of Pages 320 Pages Book Dimensions 9.8 x 1.3 x 12.3 inches Weight 2.3kgs Price Rs. 5000

—

FEATURES

◉ third person narration ◉ very well written and perfectly detailed

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Domus Magazine (October 2012) ×

29 ✈

—

SPECIFICATIONS

Publisher Domus Publication Year Monthly magazine Binding Softcover and perfect bound Number of Pages 150-200 Pages Book Dimensions 19.2 x 0.8 x 12.7 inches Weight 0.7kgs Price Rs. 650 (per copy for an annual subscription)

—

FEATURES

◉ clear structure ◉ good combination / selection of typefaces ◉ under construction images ◉ uniform language for drawings maintained throughout the book ◉ consistent flow of imagery (like a walkthrough)

CASE STUDIES

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{ 31

/ DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE ONE / / PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS / / INITIAL MEETINGS / / EXERCISES - PHASE ONE / *

SHOULD IT BE A BOOK? IF YES, WHAT SHOULD THE BOOK BE ABOUT? WHAT ARE THE PROJECTS GOING IN? HOW SHOULD THE BOOK BE STRUCTURED? WHAT ARE THE OTHER THINGS YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT APART FROM THE PROJECTS DONE OVER THE YEARS? HOW BIG SHOULD THE BOOK BE? WHO IS DEVELOPING THE CONTENT? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DRAWINGS, IMAGES AND 3D VIEWS? WILL THERE BE A COPYWRITER OR AN EDITOR ON BOARD? WILL THERE BE ILLUSTRATIONS? TYPEFACES? BOOK WEIGHT? PAPER? PRINTING? PRODUCTION?

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Developing Content - P 1 Starting out ×

—

Since it was initially an open canvas for me to work on, I had to understand what they wanted to convey in the book. The book was supposed to be 'conversational' in nature according to the preliminary discussions where we came up with a set of questions. To understand the organisation and their work philosophies more, I spent the first couple of weeks, getting to know the people who worked there. The exericse allowed me to be a part of the team in a short span of time which later helped me in getting to know some inside stories, nostalgia, how the firm evolved, the organisational structure, what people like and don't like about working at Lotus, how client meetings happen, the extended family and people who had worked before, how the firm changed over time in the last 10 years, the design processes, and the current projects which were happening.

✍ This also allowed me to strike a chord with everyone in the office as the book needed inputs (in terms of drawings, images, write ups etc.) and personal takes from each of them.

33 ✈

DEVELOPING CONTENT

Preliminary Thoughts

—

After the first few discussions informally with the team, I came up with some keywords about the organisation which could determine how the book would look like. I also prepared a set of questions which I was going to ask the stakeholders: ◉ What do they look for in an architecture+space book ◉ What kind of details ◉ How big / heavy ◉ What kind of a book would they always want to keep in their bags or study tables for immediate reference ◉ How much would they spend on a book / what would be an affordable price ◉ Favourite architecture / design book ◉ Where do they generally buy books from / channels of availability Ambrish later asked me to scrap this idea of the questionnaire as he wanted me to "avoid asking people what they want, give them something they don’t expect, give them a new experience, create a new segment ."

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The second Saturday of every month was a working 'fun' Saturday at Lotus where we usually invite a speaker over, make lunch for each other, clean our workstations, get to know about the projects happening in the studio, and once in a while, a trip to a Lotus designed project or a Delhi landmark.

Buy the book

Initial Meetings studiolotus

The first concept ×

—

Download templates periodically from the Lotus website

During the initial briefings we had, they wanted to explore a possibility of a living, breathing system. Something like a desktop calendar you look at everyday, learn something new, feel happy about it, and carry on with your work. Based on this thought I initially proposed a Lotus calendar book, one which grows every month. It would be a table top book about the projects and philosophies or learnings of Lotus, one on each page and as projects finish, a template is uploaded on the Lotus website. The user could download and print the template, punch holes on the side at home or at work and add it up to the existing book. This way, the book grows over time, the user generates a relationship with the content, and follows and gets updates of the work Lotus does and lessons it learnt on the way. Though we were very kicked about the idea initially, it didn't take shape as we felt that it was too ambitious to expect people to put in effort to print-punchadd the sheets and also on the studio's part to religiously fill up the templates to download.

36 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Print the templates at home / office

Punch holes and add it up to the exisiting book

The first meeting ×

—

I proposed the following formats in the first meeting I had with the entire team - the associates and the team leaders

21st JUNE, 2012

for feedback

10 lessons for 10 years - The book would be divided into 10 sections with each section talking about a lesson learnt and showcasing the projects where the lessons were learnt. This was not taken up as it was too 'preachy', something they wanted to avoid

The people's book - The book would consist of people’s stories with each person’s interpretation of the organisation, what they like, don’t like, the experiments they’ve done, how they partied, how everyone comes together at the end of the day, their own take, something where each person designs his/ her own page, chaos, coming together to create order, leading to the projects/ works in the end F This was not taken up as they felt it could get political and wouldn't involve the take of people who have been a part of the journey before the current team 10 years - each year - 10 years - 10 sections - each section describes work done in each single year starting from 2002 till 2012 - how the team grew - mistakes made and lessons learnt every year F This could be a possible direction 37 ✈

INITIAL MEETINGS

Poster Book - 10 posters book where each poster contains work done in each year showing the comparison/growth of projects which can be seen easier. The posters could be torn off and framed/pinned up F This was not taken up as it didn't sound exciting! Scrap Book - A rough, raw, crude, unfinished book - engaging the book directly/physically with the reader - print b/w text on packing paper - using different kinds of paper - posters, postcards (tearables) interaction with the book - laser cuts of patterns for spray paint fun - foldable 3d models F Though this looked very ambitious, the team was kicked about it and felt that this could be a possible direction The Lotus kit - A packaged kit which could consist of a book, a postcard book of laser cut patterns, material samples, a poster etc. F They felt this was a very 'corporate' approach and it was decided to scrap this idea

Multiple meetings ×

—

Regular meetings with the team followed in the next two months where we kept brainstorming on the possible outcomes of the book. I kept generating options for every meeting and we kept going back to a lot of things which we thought wouldn't work in the beginning. Some of the minutes of 'significant' meetings were -

23rd JUNE, 2012

The pointers which are in bold made it till the exisitng prototype

◉ “The Next 10” – possible title? ◉ Could be about the next 10 years ◉ Projects happening today, structure of work, conversations ◉ Narrative as if someone walked into the office today – conversations with people – different perspectives ( where are we today? ) ◉ Talk about failures – what worked and what didn’t ◉ Maintain language (weights, fonts) in drawings – refer Domus – clean up ◉ Include contractor / client / workers words in the project ◉ Express frustration, aspirations, desires ◉ The book is majorly for students / professionals/ colleges who want to know about the work ◉ Website gets decent traffic – people like the navigation

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30th JUNE, 2012

◉ Identify core ideas – churn stories around it ◉ Book about lessons you carry into the future ◉ What inspires us ◉ Tone of humility ◉ individual points for individual projects ◉ 10 lessons – spread throughout different chapters ◉ Possibility for a clear architectural book to give a clear picture ◉ Poster in the end? (with all the projects) FIRST GUIDE VISIT - 6th JULY,

◉ Why would people buy? ◉ They would NOT want to see the journey ◉ Character of work ◉ Find the character and celebrate that ◉ Brand their work ◉ Think beyond clients ◉ Other people’s engagement ◉ Sensitivity, innovation

Multiple meetings ×

—

12th JULY, 2012

23rd JULY, 2012

◉ Refer to '57 by 8' – Samira Gupta (suggested by Vedika) ◉ quotes smaller – keep it aside ◉ ability to add pages (template) ◉ project flow (chronology) ◉ show projects through graphic work ◉ freeze on the scrap book approach, make the book more interactive

◉ go back to the same way representation was done on project images with dotted arrows, more activity should happen on the image ◉ make it more rough, more raw, scrap booky, unfinished, let go of grids ◉ more stories about projects should be talked about ◉ develop the content and data now ◉ follow a timeline, what happened in every year and write about stories of that year along with projects, the book follows the same structure

16th JULY, 2012

◉ iconic character weaving the story throughout – binds together ◉ he tells the story – “we did this”, “we did that” ◉ first set of projects ( not in detail ) ◉ gyaan on every page – quotes which inspire ◉ a book which you can flip through every day and find something new and interesting everytime you open it (like the Art of Looking Sideways)

39 ✈ INITIAL MEETINGS

✍ The frequency of meetings gradually decreased over time and it kept getting difficult to get immediate feedback. So a lot of decisions were either taken in consultation with one member without the knowledge of another person which was a reason for the multiple delays. I spent a lot of time doing tens of iterations as I did not stand firm on some of the design decisions which were made earlier. Also, I figured out that the design process at Lotus makes sure that, even though the best options turn out to be the initial ones, one is made to try a hundred others just to make sure that all of them don't work, which is nice in a way, but very exhausting!

Exercises - P 1 Design iterations ×

—

PHASE ONE 12th JULY, 2012

Since I had no real content initially, I set out doing dummy layouts of how the book could look and feel like. The juice of the book would be the projects, so I chose a couple of well documented projects which had good pictures, some drawings and write ups, and set about designing some trial layouts. The team felt that these pages looked like a magazine and wanted the feel to be more unfinished, more 'sketchy'. We also felt the book needed to showcase some 'inside' stories on how the firm functions, to give the readers a picture of the work culture. Though there were people for and against the idea of including office stories in the book, I nevertheless went ahead with the idea to try and see if I could capture it well.

In this phase, I had access to: pictures from the Lotus server, some drawings and write up from the website

✍ Looking back, I feel this was a very silly approach and I should have rather focussed on figuring out the structure and content of the book or read up on some publication basics first. I took more than a month from here to arrive at that stage and I would have saved some time (and effort) if I would have done that during this phase.

" phase one - option one

40 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

phase one - option two 41 ✈

EXERCISES - PHASE 1

phase one - option three

Design iterations ×

—

PHASE TWO 12th AUGUST, 2012

In the next stage, I had to figure out what else would go into the book other than the projects, aside from devicing a better way to explain a project. One method I adopted was to put myself in a readers shoe and think about what I would like to know from say, a Charles Correa studio or Peter Zumthor's studio - what else would I be interested to read about in a book, other than the pictures, and drawings. I chose an infographic style to tell these inside stories rather than have paragraphs of texts and essays. The infographics would be a combination of pictures, type, graphs, numbers combined with an insiders take of what it means to work at Lotus, which could form an interesting read and break the monotony of the narration of projects

In this phase, I had access to: pictures from the server, some drawings and write up from the website. Still no hard data.

As an example, I chose to talk about how many number of rotis were made during lunch over the years to give an idea of how the firm grew, stories of the suggestion box and liqour in the office refrigerators, a spread on the 'words used at Lotus' everyday. A couple of these made it to the prototype.

42 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

I figured out that one of the main differences between a magazine and a book while telling a story is that text and description happen between images in most magazines (unless it is a picture story), since it is more of a 'reporting' style. I got away with that and came up with the option to put all the copy in the opening page of a project, with pictures and 3D views following it. It worked, and I developed on this in the later stages of the design process.

At this stage, it was also felt that the stories of the firm, which were going to be the main content, needed to come out from people who have worked over the years. The first step was when I made blank sheet posters of each year from 2002 to 2012 and stuck them up on the pin up boards and asked people to come and write/share their experiences and memories. It failed miserably as the sheet remained empty even after 3 weeks after putting it up.

43 â&#x153;&#x2C6;

EXERCISES - PHASE 1

Story telling ×

—

The team decided to sit together, and remember how they started up, how they faced difficulties, how they got projects, how they evolved, the people who joined and left, interesting experiences right from 2002 till 2012. We did about 3 sessions of 2 hour durations spread over 3 weeks and it was a lot of fun when the principals got together and went back in time, sharing these stories. The 10 empty sheets looked full at the end of these sessions and my complaints of 'no data' decreased for a while.

In this phase, I had access to: pictures from the server, some drawings and write ups from the website. Some data was generated through these exercises

44 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

LOTUS BOARD OF SECONDARY EXAMINATION, NEW DELHI General Knowledge - Paper 1 Time Allowed: 1 week

Maximum Marks: 100

General Instructions: (i) This paper is divided into 3 sections - A, B and C. All sections are compulsory (ii) We would compile the data from this ‘exam’ and create interesting information graphics which would go into the Lotus 10 book. (iii) Kindly stick to the time schedule and submit your answer sheets in the suggestion box outside the washrooms - this way your identity will not be revealed (iv) All the information you provide would be completely confidential, so you have all the freedom to be as controversial as possible!

SECTION A

The lotus survey ×

—

EXERCISES - PHASE 1

7 \ Your star intern

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

2 \ Favourite lunch menu

8 \ Most rocking party

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

3 \ Secret crush at work

9 \ People who move in pairs

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

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

4 \ The best dressed person at work

10 \ Best cake cutting ceremony / best cake

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

5 \ Fondest memory

11 \ Person with the best dance moves

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

To get in some more stories from within the team, I prepared a questionnaire with questions like — a team members' favourite project, their favourite celebration, their best holiday with the team and things which would give insight into the studio for someone who wants to know what the work life at Lotus felt like. To make it an interesting exercise, I chose an examination format — prepared a questionnaire like the ones you get in the ICSE or CBSE boards and passed it across to the entire team who were pretty enthusiastic to answer those questions, however silly there were. I did a lot of exercises like these to generate content and stories and it was ultimately felt that information like this is enjoyed and related to by people who were / are associated with the firm and not someone who would buy the book to go through the kind of work being done. Rather, I should concentrate more on getting stories of the projects from people who worked on them and how Lotus evolved over time.

45 ✈

60 marks

1 \ One project (done at Lotus over the years) you wish you worked on

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6 \ Person who takes a really long time in the loo

12 \ Favourite song of all time in the office playlist

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

The timeline ×

—

Based on the data which trickled from the meetings, I came up with the 'timeline' option where icons depicting events like - a store opening, the beginning of a project, a foreign trip, a team member's wedding etc, would narrate the events on every page along with some illustrated personal stories. 18th SEPTEMBER, 2012

◉ The concept was not accepted — the dates shouldn’t be so evident, book should flow seamlessly with stories interspersed in between ◉ Relate all the infographics to something – Like the Pankhuri-Kullu story can be a chapter about Kullu and this can be just one part of the story ◉ Clients, workers, contractors, designers should all be a part of the projects ◉ Make a contact sheet of all pages from the book – this way people can pitch in and add stories to the existing structure by looking at the possible pages – addition/ deletion of sheets

January 10 - Work begins on Asahi

January 4 - Khaaja Opened

46 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

January 15 - Sangeeta joins

November - Kullu gets married

February 17 - Last turnkey project, Ravi Bajaj store opens

Meeting with paper suppliers and printers ×

—

47 ✈

EXERCISES - PHASE 1

To arrive at a convenient size for the book, as I was about to begin work on the layouts, we set up meetings with representatives from BILT Paper, Kyoorius papers and Pragathi printers. We got some samples of paper delivered and we shortlisted some of them. This dictated the size of the book and helped me to start working on a layout which could be close to the final one.

21st SEPTEMBER, 2012 - NITIN SARAF FROM KYOORIUS

19th SEPTEMBER, 2012 - MANEESH FROM PRAGATHI PRINTERS

21st SEPTEMBER, 2012 - PRAKASH BHATT FROM BILT

◉ Showed samples of books printed and bound at Pragati. ◉ No jacket concept – too old and pointless ◉ Need to decide on the number of pages ◉ Printing and color correction requires at least 6 weeks ◉ Designer just needs to give the final print ready files, they will do the imposition and all the other things related to printing ◉ Also a possibility of choosing between the coated and uncoated paper for showing projects and other stories respectively (like the Art of Looking Sideways which has a very raw feel to it)

◉ Discussed about paper sizes and coated/uncoated papers ◉ Calculated the approximate ‘weight’ of paper roll required for the book – 280X220MM, 500 copies, 300 pages, 120GSM – requires about one tonne of paper which costs about Rs.60,000/- approximately. ◉ Suggested papers for coffee table books

◉ Discussed about paper sizes and coated/uncoated papers ◉ Takes a minimum of one month to print and deliver 500 copies ◉ Showed various paper samples, printing techniques and books ◉ Suggested papers which could work for the book

Contact sheet ×

—

It was high time to shortlist the projects which would be published in the book and we made a list of them after long debates and discussions as to why something should go in and why a project should not go in. Based on the first list, I made an approximation of the number of pages which would be dedicated to a particular project depending on the scale and the information load of it. This also allowed me to make a contact sheet of all the pages as we felt that once we have an idea of what the projects are, what we would talk about etc., everyone could pitch in and add storiesto the existing structure. After I made the contact sheet, Ankur felt that the book was still not structured and we sat down to discuss one last time as to how I could create some interest with the kind of content going in.

A copywriter was signed up 3.5 months into the project

Around the same time, we got a copy writer on board who would create the content, edit the book for consistency of flow, copy edit the facts and check for consistency of style.

48 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

THE BOOK WOULD BE DIVIDED INTO 5 PARTS happened

☛ SHORTLISTED PROJECTS write up, pictures, drawings, pro-

cess and interviews with people who worked on them – timeline format happened

☞ OTHER PROJECTS 1 or 2 spreads of other projects of a par-

ticular year – interesting details, process, stories about them – first page of that year happened

☛ PEOPLE STORIES parties, trips, interviews (internal team,

consultants, extended family) happened

☞ OFFICE STORIES facts, numbers, how system func-

tions, scale(consumption, teams, office space facts), office location(anupam and cp singh spatial organisations) did not happen

☛ GENERAL CONVERSATION concerns that we are addressing,

design philosophies, materials/techniques/localization, who we are and what we believe in, our take on various subjects; ex- branding, importance to prototyping

49 ✈

EXERCISES - PHASE 1

Going home ; October 2013

50 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Ă&#x2014;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Just when things were finally falling in place and when the content was slowly coming together, I had a one month tryst with the typhoid virus. I had to mention this here as all the confusion and uncertainities at work were slowly draining me of my enthusiasm. This 'break' for a month got me back on track again and gave me some time to re-think and re look at the book in an entirely different perspective.

â&#x153;&#x2013;

Rendezvous with Salmonella Typhi

§4

52 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

{ 53

/ DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE TWO / / FORMAT / / IMPOSITION/ / DESIGN PROCESS / / TYPEFACES & TYPOGRAPHY / / GRID / / PAPER, PRINTING & BINDING / / PROTOTYPE /

SHORTLISTED PROJECTS and OTHER PROJECTS

✐

Developing Content - P 2

Pictures Pictures for every project needed to be shortlisted for final selection. They needed to be dug up from the archives of the Lotus server and old external hard disks. Assigned to The intern and myself

Getting back on track

Drawings Every selected project had multiple drawings and drawings done in different styles. All the drawings needed to have the same language. I started off working on freezing a particular style, and the intern took over from me later. Assigned to The intern

—

PLANNING

The write up Every project had some amount of description to do. It needed to be very short (about 250-300 words) and brief. For this we had multiple meetings with Ambrish, Ankur and the team who talked us through the design process. Assigned to Copywriter

Once I got back to Delhi in the first week of December, I came up with a proposal to put together all the sub categories which we decided upon earlier. By the time I got back, I had another intern in the office who was assigned to work with me on the book and help me swim through terrabytes of data from the Lotus servers. We also had multiple meetings with the copy writer to arrive at a writing style which would describe the projects and processes in a very humble tone without being too pompous.

❐

3D views A 3D view of a space would immediately give the reader a sense of scale and the entire spatial layout in one go, which you normally don't get to see in conventional architecture books. Some of the projects had them already done and some didn't. We took the effort to generate and regenerate them for some projects. Assigned to The intern Interviews One of the most important aspect of the book was to have the take of various people who worked on the projects. It was a challenge to find and locate the people who worked on them since 2002 and we managed to interview quite a handful of the different people who worked on these projects at various levels. Assigned to Copywriter and myself OFFICE STORIES Infographics Internal office stories which wouldn't be too personal and unnecessary, but stories which could talk about how the firm grew in terms of numbers and the spaces, and graphics which could give a reader an idea of the work culture Assigned to Myself

54 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Jama Masjid / Old Delhi / September 2012

55 ✈ DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE 2

SERVER

The Lotus Server ×

—

PROJECT ARCHIVES

The Lotus server is a highly complex huge repository of all the things Lotus had done since the past 10 years. It contains all the images, drawings, tenders, documents, presentations, minutes of meetings and emails of every project. The only problem was when it came to sorting out all these folders. There were hundreds of files in every folder and another hundred of them in the sub-folders. A major part of my time was initially spent in understanding the folder structure and selecting the files which were the final ones.

✍ Digging through the servers was a huge effort and just being able to find the right files used to take up weeks of my time. Thankfully, the intern came right in time to assist me with 'file-finding'. At the end of this exercise, we were able to sort out the final drawings and presentation files for all the projects which were selected and were going into the book. This exercise also made me realise how important file and folder classification and data storage are.

56 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

FOLDERS OF DIFFERENT PROJECTS

SUB FOLDERS OF A PROJECT

FILES AND FOLDERS FROM THE SUB

➲

— Screenshots of the server structure and navigation (and complexities in life)

57 ✈ DEVELOPING CONTENT - PHASE 2

Format How we arrived at a size ×

—

One of the very initial decisions taken by the team was what the approximate size of the book could be. It was initially meant to be a book which one would refer to everyday, like the 'Art of Looking Sideways', by Alan Fletcher, so we were very open to experimenting with different sizes and formats, but later, when I began going through the images which were going in to the book, it was felt that a landscape size worked best, as most of the pictures which were shot were in a landscape format. Since the firm had not done a lot of architectural projects in the initial 10 years like tall multistoreyed buildings which need a portrait size (the ones you see of famous architectural publications) and they were mostly spaces which were flat horizontally, a landscape size could do justice to the pictures, we thought.

I was given the book, 'The Harappa Files' by Sarnath Banerjee by one of my colleagues to observe the illustration styles in it. I felt that the size of a page in the book would be pretty interesting, non conventional and could work for the size of images we wanted to have in the book. Also, the book felt very light, comfortable to read and

So the first explorations were made on a size a little smaller than A4 on a landscape. I observed the stacking of books in the Lotus library to understand the conventional sizes for books of this category and felt that a book, roughly half the size in height (when placed horizontally on the rack) would stand out in the middle of other huge, big and fat interior/architecture publications.

58 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

store (the paper being very light) and hence we used the proportions of this book as our base for the initial explorations.

59 ✈ FORMAT

Imposition

—

We estimated the book to be around 312 pages (300 for projects and 12 for the introductions, index, foreward, credits) - on a 100GSM paper it would roughly weigh around 500gms with a soft cover, a comfortable weight. We calculated the number of pages based on the assumption that on an average a project would have around 10 pages. By imposing a spread of 46cm(23+23) x 18cm plus a 3cm bleed on the length and breadth for each spread, leaving margins of an inch on 4 sides of the sheet, which measured 70X100cm, we were getting 6 spreads (12pages) on one side of a sheet = 24 pages for a sheet. 13 sheets of 24 pages gives us 312 pages which is equal to a book. A sheet measuring 70x100cm can take 24 pages of a book

60 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

= 1 book ( We found out that Pragati printers - the printers we were in talks with, use a Mitsubishi Diamond V3000 printing machine, capable of taking in paper sizes as large as 70X100cm or 29.5inx41in - so a whole sheet could be fed into the press without cutting)

61 â&#x153;&#x2C6; IMPOSITION

Design Process The selected projects ×

—

The main selected projects form the crux of the book as they make up for atleast 60% of the content. The idea was to keep the text describing the project simple and to let the images do the talking. Also, the projects consisted of 3 dimensinal views, quotes from people who worked on them, which could be engaging to the reader, drawings which consisted of plans and sections, and sketches for projects which had them. Since I had already done a lot of iterations for the layout of this section, freezing on a final one was easy in the 2nd phase of design. The first page would have the name of the project, a graphic strip which depicts a pattern or a detail of the project, the client's brief, the copy summing up the project in 2 columns, the page number and the project category. The page opposite to this would have a bleed image of a space or a detail which would give an overall idea of the project. The next spread would have the drawings with the 3d views and/or sketches, the project details - the client, area, location, year and the team which worked on it. The following pages would be images, bleed or within the grid with description for each image.

62 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

We initially toyed with the idea of writing descriptors on the images with a spot colour - like describing a material, a detail or a special feature with carefully drawn out pointer lines. We had to scrap this as I realised later that not all images have backgrounds conducive to placing text on them, and they were spoiling the picture viewing experience.

> Vector pattern from a feature in the project. (Refer to the next page for some examples)

GOOD EARTH

Good Earth handed the project of two of its stores, one in Khan Market and one in Select Citywalk, New Delhi, to Lotus. Though the challenges were different, the design dialogue was the same..

> The introduction to a project would be a client's brief or an overall approach to the project. This was done for the readers who are not really interested in all the text

> Project Title

describing the details and would just want to know what the project was about in 3-4 lines

> Picture introducing the project, spilling onto the introduction page. It would usually be one which is a space or a detail which would give an overall look and feel

of the project.

> The project category and page number. Only the starting page of a shortlisted and

Retail

'other' project would have this. The red was

in Khan Market, the space that was handed over was a trapezoidal area of 1200 square feet strewn with randomly placed columns. At that time, the site... for the one

the last baseline of the page

chosen as it was the Lotus brand colour, something which would remain constant

> The main descriptor is kept to 2 columns

throughout the book, unifying all the con-

of about 300 words on an average, with the

tents together.

content being very brief. The description gets a jump start with the first three words highlighted in Lotus Red.

63 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

> Picture descriptor aligned to the base of

A Spread from the book The opening spread of a Shortlisted Project

Pattern for Chowk and Khaaja Chowk restaurants

Pattern for Sirpur House

Pattern for Rohit Bal store, Emporio

Some of the graphic patterns of various projects 64 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

Pattern for Keya Kainoosh restaurants

Pattern for Raas Jodhpur

Pattern for Khoj

Some of the graphic patterns of various projects 65

> Hand drawn conceptual sketches were either found or regenerated. > 3 different line weights have been used for all the drawings to retain consistency in the style. The weights worked well for both inte-

Ambrish Arora

rior and architectural drawings

“I met Nikhil (the client) towards the end of 2005 during the time of the Mehrangarh shop project. Nikhil came for the opening of the Museum Shop and talked about doing..

> We got to speak to a bunch of people (designers, craftsmen, carpenters, fabricators etc.) who worked on these projects since 2002 and felt that quoting them while describing a project would create an emotional connect with the reader. The conversations usually mention incidents which happened while the project was being designed/built.

A Spread from the book The 2nd spread of a Shortlisted Project

> The scale for drawings. Instead of having a conventional ratio system, the width meter gave a clearer idea of scale as one could easily compare while looking at a drawing

1. Entrance 2. Office 3. Toilet 4. Entrance court

> The key. Initially, I tried labelling on the drawings directly, but the more detailed they

C L I E N T Walled City Hotels Pvt. Ltd., Nikhilendra Singh Y E A R 2009 A R E A 5500 sq.m. L O C A T I O N Jodhpur, Rajasthan T E A M Ambrish Arora, Ankur Choksi, Sidhartha Talwar, Arun Kullu, in collaboration with Praxis Inc., Bengaluru (Rajiv Mazumdar, Jamuna Rani)

were, the more cluttered they became. So I came up with the option of numbering the

> Project details which mention some

drawings. I used the same system in the later

significant facts like the client details,

pages where images needed to be labelled to

the year, area, location and the team who

maintain consistency in reading.

worked on it. I avoided it in the opening spread as I felt that it would be an overload of data.

66 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

A Spread from the book The 2nd spread of a Shortlisted Project

> For the visual language of the drawings, I was asked to refer to the Domus magazine's style. It was a very clean style without hatching, bordered the elements well and gave a neat, clean layout of the space. We did try a number of styles initially by using multiple lineweights for different objects but ultimately, I limited myself to using 3 lineweights - one for the walls and boundaries, one for furniture and secondary level details, and the last for tinier details so that the sections also stood out in different layers. We later added silhouettes of people in the sections to give a clearer sense of scale. 67 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

> The location of the numbers. All the labels are at the bottom of a picture - on the bottom left of a left page or bottom right of a page on the right. After reading through a couple of projects, it would make navigation easier.

A Spread from the book The 3rd spread of a Shortlisted Project and the spreads thereafter

1 > Numbering the images. The image number is imposed on a Lotus Red* circle, subtly in a

The three wheeler set against a backdrop of imageries of an active streetscape play a vital part in the creation of a unique dining space which houses varied seating arrangements inspired from the automobile

> Labelling. I finalised on this style after looking at various options. Some of them were :

Right Far Left Top of the Far Left

A very confusing method to navigate

➜

Though I liked this, it wasn't working well,

➜

corner of an image.

➜ *Lotus Red is the brand colour used in the logo of the firm: c5, m85, y94, k0

68 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

when there were 2 images on both the pages Wouldn't work well when there are 2 rows of images on a page

A Spread from the book The full bleed spread of a Shortlisted Project

> For spreads with bleeds on both the pages, description is written on the images. The descriptors not only mention what the picture is about, it also talks about the concept behind it and mentions the ambience and experience created and/or materials used (if any)

69 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

The other projects ×

—

Working on this particular section was extremely frustrating as I had a tough time understanding what the team wanted these sections to look like. It took me close to 2 months to arrive at the final design and the process involved atleast 50 iterations, some of which are illustrated in the next few pages. The other projects section were intermediate fillers between the 'selected projects'. In order to showcase a lot of the work done in the studio, denoting 4-5 spreads for each of the 80 projects which were selected was impossible. That was when we came up with the 'other project' concept where we talk about 3-4 projects on a single spread. An 'other project' would contain its synopsis/ concept/a special feature, with a couple of images and the project data. Initially we wanted to squeeze in 4 projects on a spread, but we later filtered down to 2 and decreased the number of projects as we felt that there was no point in filling up the spread with heavy content which a reader would rather skip through.

Stage One - We set out with 4 projects on a spread with multiple 'thumbnail' images describing the project. It was felt that this approach did not convey anything clearly and was just trying too hard to fit in everything. 70 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Stage Two - The next set consisted of a page per project where, instead of talking about the entire project, we tried to concentrate on one particular detail which stood out. 71 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

Stage Three - We tried to do abstraction and juxtaposition of images to make it look

Stage Four - One fine day, Ambrish came in, saw all the explorations and said, "2 images,

'graphiky' - to create some interest in the book, a break away from the grids. It was felt

a short write up and project details. Nothing else."

that this chaos dominated the story of the project

72 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

HAYTA old fashioned modernist Bangalore house into a premium bath accessories destination was executed by restructuring the load bearing walls of the building to extend into the landscape to create a seamless blend of the inside and the outside spatial zones with the materials blurring the boundaries. conversion of an

> The description for the projects. The title, C L I E N T Espio Solutions Y E A R 2009 A R E A 450 sq.m. L O C A T I O N Bengaluru T E A M Ambrish Arora, Ankur Choksi, Sidhartha Talwar

body text and project details retain the same visual language which was used for the 'shortlisted project'.

> The pictures have a set grid to align to irrespective of a landscape or a portrait

> The project category and page numbering also retain the same visual style as a 'shortlisted project'.

> 2 visually strong images sum up a project

A Spread from the book The spread of the Other Projects

73 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

Conversations with people associated with Lotus ×

—

One of the most interesting parts of the book are the conversations with people (clients, designers, craftsmen, fabricators, engineers) who worked or were a part of the projects done over the years. The stories they shared about their association with the firm, their experience of working on a particular project and interesting snippets provided new layers to the book, something which one doesn't get to read in a conventional architecture book. The interview pages consisted of an image of the person who was speaking, usually narrated in first person and placed near or in a project he/she was associated with. The challenges faced during this exercise were getting to speak with those people who worked on these projects long back and were not a part of the organisation anymore and finding suitable images of them. Usually, I was left with extremely low resolution images which I posterised.

74 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Two different styles of illustrating the images - one, a posterised image for people who are not a part of the internal team, and two, rubberstamp patterns on posterised images for people who were/are a part of the internal design teams.

// THE FIRST PROJECT

The first project that Vikram collaborated with Lotus was Khaaja Chowk in Gurgaon which was opened in January 2004 and was given national coverage. After the first one, they

> The interviews follow a question and

> A vectorised image from the screenshot of

answer pattern and I divided the conversa-

a video interview with the client. The page is

tion into subheadings based on the topic on

placed within their project to connect with

which they spoke about.

the story.

A Spread from the book The spread of an Interview with a client

> The backgrounds are watercolour splashes on top of a colour picked from the opposite page of the interview

Vikram Nair

CLIENT, KHAAJA CHOWK AND COONOOR HOUSE

75 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

> To create portraits for the internal team, I used the rubber stamps which are usually used on official documents

➲

and drawings every day at Lotus. I made a mish-mash of all the rubber stamp impressions and juxtaposed their portraits on this by knocking off areas with high exposure to create a single layered image of the rubber stamp pattern.

A Spread from the book The spread of an Interview with team members

76 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

➲

77 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

Office stories ×

—

To give a reader an internal insight as to how the office functions and how working at Lotus is, the office stories section provided a good platform to talk about it. Placed in the middle of the book, we wanted to do away with a lot of text for this section, and came up with the option of using an infographic style of story telling combining facts, figures, numbers, words, images etc. Some of the key pages of this section are - how the office evolved over time in terms of the spaces where they work/worked from, the number of rotis made for lunch everyday at work over the years, words which one gets to hear everyday at Lotus and cakes cut for birthdays.

Explorations done for the 'Lotus Survey' which I conducted during the first phase. This didn't make it to the final cut as we felt that not everyone would connect to the people and data of this kind

78 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

A Spread from the book The spread of an Office Story

> A spread which talks about the 'Words you hear at Lotus everyday'. To add some drama to the composition I cut some images of custom made desk lamps in the office which are on the tables of every employee at Lotus

79 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

A Spread from the book The spread of an Office Story

> The spread is a collage of more than 50 birthday cakes which we found from celebration pictures in the server. It worked well to illustrate how birthdays of every employee are celebrated at Lotus.

80 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

> The take of 2 very important people (the cooks) who have been a part of their 10 year journey so far > Recipes of popular lunch favourites at Lotus as told by the head cook

A Spread from the book The spread of an Office Story

> A roti illustration conveying the number of rotis made for lunch everyday at Lotus since 2002. It gives an interesting picture as to how the firm grew in terms of the number of employees over the years.

81 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

> 3D sketchup views of the various workspaces in Delhi where Lotus had been based out of, were regenerated, to give a picture of how the spaces evolved.

> The spaces have been numbered with corresponding images to signify the activity going on in that area.

> The spread spills onto the next page, so the next page you open is a continuation of the previous space

82 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

> Translucent silhouettes of people using the space give a sense of scale and an idea of the activity happening in that particular area

A Spread from the book The spread of an Office Story

> The photographs change from a sepia tone to colour to signify that they are the pictures of the current office of Lotus in its 10th anniversary year.

83 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

➲

The vector poster (proposal) ×

—

➲

One of the things I was really kicked about in the beginning while exploring the work of Lotus is the sheer amount of work done in detailing and designing furniture and lighting. Every project had a significant amount of furniture which was designed inhouse and I was looking for ways to showcase them. The book was already loaded with pictures and drawings and I didn't want to add to them. That was when I came up with the idea of creating vectors of selected furniture and light fixtures designed over the years. It could be a poster which could be pulled out from the book and pinned up on walls and pin up boards. This could be a nice method to celebrate the work of hundreds of people who worked on these and also add up to the recall value of the book and the firm, reminding people of its existence and as a sort of inspiration. The end poster consists of around 200 vector silhouettes of different furniture and lighting details.

We set out to vectorise the outlines of the furniture in black, which later looked like AUTO CAD drawings. Black fill led to a fill with the Lotus red and this was chosen as the visual style of all the vectors.

84 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

e o th ter t to pos k c e u h st ts t n or nec o n i t o c ec hich th the s i er w pap nd w n u o o i er b tens eith > Ex d is , an k o e bo pag end the

lotu o i d tu

iture

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+ li

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2 200

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- 20

iture

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2 200

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- 20

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➲

th , wi line n cut nsio pre e t a x g ee alon d th r d n e n t a ee os ter he p to th nning pos off t the i uck ing is st tear ter p d r l n n o o e a h c th ng ne c like r wi idge ndi s r e i >O d b b p o a h p ny he met de t ster ry ti i o e d s i v p n o i a av the oes e to age ch g don dam whi is is ich . h h s T e w e. lin ion pag ion orat orat perf perf r and o in er p eith

➲

lotu o i d tu

➲

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ils deta

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2002

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itu

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2012

eta

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.lotu ww

200 ils

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85 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

k.in

slin

tu w.lo

2002

- 20

â&#x153;? This was one exercise where I had a lot of fun compiling all the furniture and lighting fixtures along with the intern who was working with me on the book. It was a good break for the both of us from the monotonous job of cleaning drawings, searching through pictures and hunting for data, and was done towards the end, when we figured out the layout and the grid, and all we had to do was to compile all the data and arrange it across the pages.

studiolotus furniture + lighting + details 2002 - 2012

www.lotuslink.in

86 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

87 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

The contents page ×

—

We initially had discussions about the importance and need of an index page and even numbering the pages in a publication of this category. In my own experience of reading architectural books, I don't remember going back to the contents page to check for the page number of a particular project. The discussions mainly revolved around the fact that the book is not a conventional coffee table book where you read it once or twice, but go back to it a multiple number of times to discover something new each time, owing to the quantity of content and the different layers of story telling. Ambrish mentioned as to how paranoid he'd get if he doesn't know which page of a book he is in as he felt that one would go back to a book to check for a particular detail or picture after the first read, and the index would make it easier. To make the index interesting and to begin the conversation from the first page itself, the index includes thumbnails of all the projects to give an idea of what to expect, and to facilitate the recall of a particular project when you visit the page for future referencing along with a short description of what the projects are.

88 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

A multi designer women's prĂŞt wear boutique

CHAMOMILE

> Project title with an introductory text

> Thumbnail of the projects to facilitate

to give an idea of what to expect and to

recall of a particular project when you visit

begin the conversation from the first

the page for referencing in the future

page itself.

A Spread from the book The Index Page

> The project category and the page number. The position of these two are retained throughout the book for easier and simpler navigation

89 â&#x153;&#x2C6; DESIGN PROCESS

The cover ×

—

I worked on a number of iterations for the cover and it is still work in progress. (at the time of writing this document) The book needed to be easily recognisable on the book shelf and one which either arouses curiosity or is easily recognisable by someone who has been following the work of Lotus. In the next few pages, I have illustrated some of the options which I have worked on.

90 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

91 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

❶ Juxtaposing pictures of all the projects one over

❷ Inkless letterpress of the 'studiolotus' logo on a jute

another, with varying opacities. An artistic take on

cloth dyed in Lotus Red. Signifies Lotus' interest in

summing up all the projects done over the years

working with craft and regional traditional art forms.

❸ Rubber stamp on every book of the official 'Good for

❹ To make the book more interactive and to encourage

construction' stamp at Lotus. 'Good for construction',

frequent use, I proposed a Perplexus (the maze game

was a suggestive title for the book, initially.

with a small steel ball) with the Lotus initials as a part of the maze. It is a 3 layered cover, one with a print of the maze, a layer of paritions and then an acrylic sheet on the cover

92 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

❺ Laser cut letters on acrylic of 3mm thickness, of the 'studiolotus' logo with the Lotus brand colours, which makes it easy to identify

93 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

➏ Screenprint and letterpress of the RaasJodhpur's famous iconic picture on cloth or recycled brown paper

94 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

❼ 3/4 jacket on a recycled paper cover with an image

❼ A full bleed cover option of the same (I made a

of the RaasJodhpur hotel project. This particular image

prototype of the book with this option) The idea was

was chosen as the project has won a number of national

to emphasise the hotel, by embossing it and giving it a

and international awards and is easily the most recog-

matte or a UV coat.

nisable of all the Lotus projects.

95 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

The end pages ×

—

The end pages are a pattern created with the rubber stamps used everyday at work on drawings, approvals and documents.

96 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

97 ✈ DESIGN PROCESS

Typefaces + Typography

—

The book was initially intended to use a number of typefaces - infact different typefaces for the different sections, but as time progressed and when we started putting it all together, each section looked like a different book. So we decided to use one font family, throughout the book for the body text, with the headings and titles in another typeface or with handwritten or custom made lettering for different chapters. Also, at the same time, the studio wanted to invest in a typeface for use in the future - for presentations, competitions, the website etc. and adopt it as its corporate typeface. We started exploring typefaces designed by Indian designers, as the team felt that it would work as a metaphor for the use of local skill and craft in almost all their projects. That was when we started to look at the typefaces designed by the IndianTypeFoundry. Two of their families - The Engrez Sans and Kohinoor Latin were shortlisted and after much deliberation on the economics of buying a typeface within the studio, we bought the Kohinoor Latin at FontShop.com

98 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Engrez Sans (ITF) - The team really liked the modern look of the Engrez Sans with the softness and sturdiness in the lowercase. What worked against it was that the family was smaller than Kohinoor Latin.

Selecting Kohinoor Latin ×

—

✑ ✑ Kohinoor Latin has a very nice X height and large columns of text when printed did not look cluttered. ✒ A lot of economics were also weighed while purchasing the typeface. One of it was that the font was sold in 5 different styles with their complimentary italics, so the entire family could be used to create varying levels of hierarchy within a single family when used ✑ Another reason was that the typeface was a part of the super family of the IndianTypeFoundry's Kohinoor multiscript. They felt that they could use Devanagari and other regional scripts from the family in the future and investing in the Latin typeface now made sense. ✒

Kohinoor Latin designed by Satya Rajpurohit of Indian Type foundry An elegant low contrast, humanist Latin typeface suitable for both body and display text. Part of the super family Kohinoor Multiscript.

99 ✈ TYPEFACES + TYPOGRAPHY

Museo 300 / 9pt / 14pt L

Sansation / 9pt / 14pt L

Diavlo Light / 9pt / 14pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean

but distinct design approach to their store-the personality

clean but distinct design approach to their store-the per-

but distinct design approach to their store-the personality

to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor.

sonality to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a

to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor.

The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate

metaphor. The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns

The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate

a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls

to generate a lace like surface which was then wrapped on

a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and

and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scis-

the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands

ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scissors were

sors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework.

of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lace-

sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors

These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market

work. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the

are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to

made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number

market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large

various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected,

of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural

number of them were rejected, as they did not have the

as they did not have the structural strength required for the

strength required for the welded panels.

structural strength required for the welded panels.

welded panels.

Museo 500 / 8pt / 13pt L

Maven Pro Light 200 / 9pt / 14pt L

Chantilly LH Light / 10pt / 14pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean

but distinct design approach to their store-the personality to

the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The

“scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like

“scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace

have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean but distinct design approach to their store-the personality to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

Museo 300 / 9pt / 13pt L

Quicksand Book / 9pt / 14pt L

Chantilly Regular / 9pt / 14pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean but

but distinct design approach to their store-the personality

distinct design approach to their store-the personality to the store

to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor.

was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The “scissor” was

The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate

laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like surface which

a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls

was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure.

and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scissors

The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal

were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These

lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market

scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made

made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them

from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them

were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required

were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength

for the welded panels.

surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

100 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure.The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not

required for the welded panels.

Bariol Regular / 10pt / 13pt L

Calibri / 10pt / 13pt L

Whitney Medium / 9pt / 13pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean but distinct design approach to their store-the personality to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure. The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

Myriad Pro Light / 9pt / 13pt L

MetaNormal / 9pt / 12pt L

Whitney Light Regular / 9pt / 13pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean but distinct design approach to their store-the personality to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure. The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

Myriad Pro Regular / 10pt / 14pt L

Gill Sans / 10pt / 12pt L

Kohinoor Book / 7pt / 10pt L

‘Rajesh Pratap Singh’ as a brand wanted a simple and clean but distinct design approach to their store-the personality to the store was given using the tailors’ tool as a metaphor. The “scissor” was laid into motifs and patterns to generate a lace like surface which was then wrapped on the walls and ceiling to create an enclosure. The thousands of scissors were sourced, for the extent of this metal lacework. These scissors are of various kinds as found in the market made from iron to various kinds of alloys. A large number of them were rejected, as they did not have the structural strength required for the welded panels.

101 ✈ TYPEFACES + TYPOGRAPHY

RAJESH PRATAP SINGH RAJESH PRATAP SINGH RAJESH PRATAP SINGH RAJESH PRATAP SINGH Rajesh Pratap Singh RAJESH PRATAP SINGH

Rajesh Pratap Singh

Bodoni Ultra Bold

Academy Engraved

Garamond Titling

Bell MT

db Today

GillSans Light Shadowed

Lobster 1.4

RAJESH PRATAP SINGH

Quicksand Shadowed

RAJESH PRATAP SINGH

GillSans Shadowed

RAJESH PRATAP SINGH

Diavlo Bold

102 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Selecting Diavlo ×

—

103 ✈ TYPEFACES + TYPOGRAPHY

Another typeface which would remain constant throughout the book was the typeface used for project headings. Again, this was chosen to maintain continuity in the book and to easily identify the start of a project. Diavlo, which was a 'free for commercial use' typeface, was chosen among others for its Indian feel at the edges and ends and it complemented Kohinoor well. Also, the font was not too loud, yet it silently stood out in the bold style and helped maintain the hierarchy of different sets of information in the opening pages.

Typeface: DIAVLO BOLD Point Size: 20pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Light Point Size: 8pt Leading: 12pt

Typeface: kohinoor medium - small caps Point Size: 8pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Bold Point Size: 8pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Book Point Size: 7pt Leading: 10pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Medium Point Size: 5pt Leading: 7pt

Type features, explained

Typeface: Kohinoor Medium Point Size: 7pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Bold Point Size: 6pt

Typeface: K o h i n o o r B o l d Point Size: 6pt Tracking: 150

Typeface: Kohinoor Book Point Size: 6pt

Typeface: Ko hi no o r L i ght Point Size: 5pt Tracking: 100

Typeface: Kohinoor Light Italic Point Size: 7pt Leading: 10pt

104 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Typeface: K O H I N O O R B O L D I T A L I C Point Size: 6pt Leading: 9pt Tracking: 150

Typeface: Mission Script Point Size: 30pt

Typeface: BARIOL REGULAR AND THIN Point Size: 15pt

Typeface: Lobster 1.4 Point Size: 16pt

Typeface: Kohinoor Medium Point Size: 5pt Leading: 7pt

105 â&#x153;&#x2C6; TYPEFACES + TYPOGRAPHY

A colourful arcade of layered fabric framed the entry

Local women working on site

The walkways were framed by poles connected at the top by lines of colourful fabric whose flapping in the wind provided chequered shadows on the ground

Grid

—

We worked on a 12 column grid on a 10pt baseline (a term I learnt for the first time, 4 months into the project) which was determind by the amount of body text we had to use for the introduction page of a 'Selected Project', as that had most of the content and remained consistent throughout the book I initially restricted myself to three columns - 2 for body text, one for the picture spill but later found out that the book was getting too structured once I started putting in the pictures. Also, I did not want the book to look monotonous and confined within boundaries and rather the projects and the people's interviews take centre stage, so the 12 column grid gave me some flexibility while placing images and the different blobs of text for the different categories in the book.

106 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Margins: Top/13mm Bottom/13mm Inside/16mm Outside/13mm Columns: 12 Gutter: 3mm Baseline Grid: Increment every 5pt

107 â&#x153;&#x2C6; GRID

Paper + Printing + Binding

—

After going through a lot of papers and talking with the vendors from different companies - Sirpur Kagaznagar Papermills, Cordenons, Ballarpur Industries' Bilt and Kyoorius, we shortlisted 3 options from the Premium Series of Kyoorius. 1. Conqueror Connoisseur Neutral White - 120gsm 2. JC Colorscope Natural - 100gsm 3. Sensation Tactile Natural White - 120gsm We zeroed in on the JC Colorscope Natural because of the following factors: It is slightly off-white in colour and has a very nice matte finish to it. Since the book was going to be image heavy, it was felt that the matte and the slight yellowness in the paper would enhance the visuals and make the colours look rich. Also, glossy papers would usually tend to tilt towards coffee table books, which we wanted to avoid.

Paper - JC Colorscope Natural Weight - 100gsm Dimensions - 70x100 cm Book Cover - KaressWove Soft white Weight - 240gsm Dimensions - 72x102 cm Vendor - Kyoorius Papers Category - K Series Printing - 4 colour offset Special Features - Emboss and UV on the cover Printer - Pragathi Offset Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad Proposed Specifications *The dummy is printed on one of SunPapers' collection which is a very

The book was going to be more than 300 pages and to keep the book light with the amount of pages, it was important to choose a paper with a light weight, without being too light as it would affect the quality of paper after printing bleed images on 2 sides.

108 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

close match to the one we shortlisted for the final book.

To make sure that we were not over - quoted, I did a breakup of the estimation. Job name: Lotus 10 Quantity: 1000 Actual size: 49cmx21cm (with bleed) Paper:70cmx100cm No. of colours: 4 No. of pages: 312 + cover Finishing: Cutting + Trimming + Folding + Section Binding A. Paper Cost Cost per sheet (after 20% discount) - Rs. 12/sheet 13 sheets/book = Rs.12x13 = Rs. 156/book For 1000 books = Rs. 156x1000 = Rs. 1,56,000 B. CtP+Printing 1 colour/plate (1000sheets) = Rs. 1000 26plates (13+13) = 26xRs.1000 = Rs. 26,000 (for 1 colour) For 4 colours = Rs. 26,000x4 = Rs. 1,04,000 C. Cutting, gathering, folding, section binding Approximately Rs. 80/book = 1000xRs. 80 = Rs. 80,000

Quote from Pragati just before I left from Delhi 109 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PAPER + PRINTING + BINDING

Total (A+B+C) Rs. 3,40,000 for 1000 books (minus the cover)

Prototype

—

A prototype of the book was made in the NID Print labs. Since the open size of a spread was bigger than an A3 size sheet, making a section bound book was not possible as it was difficult to print front and back on an A2. So the dummy was printed on an A4, to scale and perfectly bound. The cover was printed and pasted in 3 layers — One for the main cover, another for the insides of the cover, and the third matte printed photo paper on the top of the book cover.

110 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

The scale of the book. The size and weight have been decided keeping in mind, the ease of use. It does not need a table always and can be a nice read on a Saturday evening in one's balcony /

111 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PROTOTYPE

Details of the cover and spine. The hotel on the cover will be embossed and will have a matte finish to it, to highlight the designed property /

112 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

The index page and the introduction page. The team is introduced here with rubber stamp patterns used in the office juxtaposed on their posterised portraits /

113 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PROTOTYPE

The introduction spread of a project /

114 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

Type details on the introduction spread /

115 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PROTOTYPE

Details of the inner pages /

116 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

Close up of the stamp pattern vectors of portraits of designers working with Lotus /

117 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PROTOTYPE

A full bleed spread of images on both the pages /

118 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

Interview page of people who worked on a particular project /

119 â&#x153;&#x2C6; PROTOTYPE

§5

120 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

{ 121

/ THE WAY FORWARD / / IN BETWEEN WORK / / LOOKING BACK / / REFERENCE / /DOCUMENT TYPOGRAPHY / *

122 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

The Way Forward

—

Lotus initially wanted to bring a publisher on board who would take care of printing, publishing and distribution as there was no one in the studio who could follow up after the design process. We felt that instead of bringing them on board in the beginning, we would rather figure out what the direction would be while designing the book. After my last presentation of the book with the team, Ambrish felt that the book projected Lotus as an Interior Design firm whereas they are now diverging into architectural projects too, most of which are under construction and would be completed this year (2013). He felt that adding those new projects would change the perception and project the firm as one which has done a significant amount of work in different categories and scale and not just interiors and exhibitions. There were also talks about getting an international publisher on board who was very interested and enthusiastic about entering the Indian market and approaching him with a hard copy of the prototype could be a possible direction once the new projects are included.

123 ✈ THE WAY FORWARD

Signage systems outside the coffe shop and inside the fort

The Royal Palanquin Th Logo for the cafe. The brief was to use the image of the Palki in the logo from one of the traditional Rajasthani paintings inside the fort

A graphic band running across the shop inside 124 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

In Between Work

—

Being a multidisciplinary design studio, a lot of graphic work for the architectural and interior projects are done in house and I got to work on a bunch of them throughout my project. These little 'breaks' from the book, were necessary as they acted as 'breathers' whenever saturation happened and I wanted to do something else rather than wait for information and content to pour in. A couple of projects I particularly had a good time working on were branding for the Mehrangarh Museum's coffee shop - Palki in Jodhpur which I did with Pankhuri Goel, a Lotus team leader and an exhibition designer from NID, and visual patterns for seating systems for the Sagar Ratna chain of South Indian restaurants in New Delhi with Chandni Aggarwal, a communication designer from NIFT, Delhi.

Some of the patterns generated for Sagar Ratna's furniture. The inspiration were the square and rectangular patterns on the lungi's/dhoti's worn by South Indian men 125 ✈ IN BETWEEN WORK

Mirror wall opposite a material library on the first floor of Lotus' office in Lado Sarai, New Delhi

126 â&#x153;&#x2C6; siddharth dasari â&#x153;&#x2C6; diploma project documentation

Looking Back

Ă&#x2014;

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;

127 â&#x153;&#x2C6; LOOKING BACK

The last nine months have been extremely challenging, adventurous, confusing, uncertain and demanding. What with living out of my suitcase for an 8th consecutive year, multiple extended deadlines and living in one of the most difficult cities I have been to. Specially the last 2 months of the project, putting in 12 hours at work everyday, 7 days a week was extremely taxing. Though there wasn't any pressure to deliver from the studio (which was also a reason for the delay in the project) I have the tendency to slowly start distancing myself from something I do for long periods of time, which I was sure was definitely going to happen to this one, once things started going in circles. The project was filled with uncertainities, delays in decisions, lack of a support team and there were times when I pondered whether the book would have taken a completely different turn, had I been working in a communication design studio as I knew that this was my first tryst with publication design and most of the time I ended up trusting my gut with a little knowledge I developed from reading books and blogs and what I felt personally worked best for the book. It gained me valuable exposure as to how a design studio of national repute functions and looking closely at how they scaled up in a very short span of time really impressed me. I got exposed to the kind of work done at that level and a multidisciplinary approach to design.

The book was going to be their baby and I was working on it in their studio. So at times it became difficult to decide on how to channelise the thoughts and ideas of 8 different people and arrive at the right solution. It taught me how to deal with problems like this. Also gathering content, communicating with different sets of people, creating deadlines for myself and realising that I was all on my own were further challenges which I tried to overcome.

128 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation

—

129 ✈ REFERENCES / DOCUMENT TYPOGRAPHY

References

Document Typography

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher Phaidon Press

Alegreya by Juan Pablo del Peral Huerta Tipográphica

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst Hartley & Marks Publishers

Aller Display and Aller Bold Dalton Maag

Typography Workbook by Timothy Samara Rockport

Erler Dingbats by Johannes Erler for FontShop

Designing with Type by James Craig Watson / Guptill Publications

and a host of the typefaces used for the main book, to explain those details in this document

FRIDAY , MARCH 22, 2013

130 ✈ siddharth dasari ✈ diploma project documentation