2011

Dear God, grant us...

the Serenity to accept things we cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can, and

the Wisdom to know the difference.

Patience for the things that take time

Appreciation for all that we have, and

Tolerance for those with different struggles

Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways,

Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other, and the

Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

The Portfolio

It was my turn next.

I went in and wished Him good morning. Yes, I wished God good morning.

After the initial identification crosschecking, He thought for a while, and sitting in a relaxed posture, asked me the question,

"so, tell me something about yourself."

"I am your creation only! You are supposed to know everything about me, aren't you?"

"Yes, I know. But I want to know what 'you' think you have done in your life on earth."

" You know, I was very good in academics, I also worked for some good companies as an engineer in first years of my career. Then I managed teams of professional people and guided them to achieve organizathional goals. I was a good son, a good husband and..."

"Ok wait. Let me clear my question to you. Do you know why are you here?"

"Yes, to be interviewed for entry to the Heaven."

"Right! And I want to know, from you, why do you think you are the right candidate? I am interested more in the 'relevant experience'. What have you done for my other creations on the Earth? How many of those starving poor people got food from you? Did you save any life? Did you ever bring smile to the children who live in the slums near your skyscraper? How many trees did you save? How many animals? How many tears?How many people you think, have thanked you from the bottom of their heart so far? And why? How many smiles have you earned? How many people can come to me and tell they love you? To be precise in my question, how do you think you can help us perform better, achieve our goals here in the Heaven. How can you be a good addition to the God's team? Tell me"

apple i-Think

"Dear apple, you had the power to do something really good for the generations to come, but this is what you have done so far, probably in an irreversible manner"

'Good is not good enough when the best is expected', I had read somewhere sometime ago. And in context of this article, this does not refer to the apple products, but what they could/should have done with the way they design them!
I always liked the way apple designed their desktop computers (i-mac) and laptops, for their simple, clean, neat and 'different' design. Visually this translated into compositions of nice rounded rectangles mostly! This smart design sense certainly helped them earn a clearly distinguishing identity for the apple branded products as well as its consumer group. To some extent, this design language can be spotted in many other products of various brands, making apple the trendsetter in today's consumer electronics design.
This is certainly good for apple, but lets have a look at a little bigger picture. Look closely at the tiny icons seen on the big screen of i-phone.

Even if you couldn't read most of them, you still can figure out what they stand for. Great, isn't it? But Give it a thought. Why could you understand them? Why do you think the green icon in bottom is for 'PHONE' ? Why the second icon means 'MAIL' or 'messages'? Why does the youtube icon or the CLOCK icon looks 'normal' or familiar to you and me? Because we have associated these different shapes/visual identities to some specific objects for a lot of part of our life so far. Look at the 3 pictures below viz. TV, wall clock and telephone. Quite familiar right?

At some point of time in past, we have used or at least seen these vicually clearly different objects and we already know what they used to do for us. And that is why we can recognise the icons on i-phone's screen!

Now have a look at the following few pictures.

Yes, these are images of some phones, digital camera, waching machine and TV. These products (i am tempted to call them blobjects) exist in the same era as that of apple i-phone. But can you imagine apple or anyone else using these 'forms' to make icons for the products we discussed at the start of this article? Do you think our next generation kids born in this world full of soft-touch rectangular objects will have some distinct visual identities associated to them (and their icons)? The worst part is, Aplle won't be able to use even the icons discussed in the beginning which we could very easily identify. These kids wouldn't have seen the products which made these icons! All they will get to see is a nice rounded rectangle!

It's time we pause for a while, think about what we, as designers are doing, for the world yet to come, to think if form is still following function? or just the technology born yesterday? or just some other form?

I fear, one day we will all have some rectangular screens looking just the same and we will wait till the device starts and shows its 'visual interface' to know what that product does... or even worse, we will have to download 'apps' to actually be doing something with that nice rounded rectangle!

Human, really?

'IIM-A grad launches subzi mandi on laptop. Your daily aloo, baigan and bhindi will soon be just a click away. No more finding your way through the filth at your neighbourhood subzi bazaar and haggling for prices with rude vegetable vendors. The website will create an online mandi where one can “see” the fresh vegetables, check prices and place orders. Apart from purchasing daily vegetables, one can "gift" fruits using the web service.' from Times Of India, 30 Oct 2009.
wowwww... so nice no???? we will be able to SEE vegetables on screen!!! even if thats means we won't be able to touch, smell, choose the best ones, bargain (verbally) with the (real) subzi wala bhaiya, accidentally meet our acquaintances in the (real) subzi mandi, may be subsequently fall in love with one of them, know that there is 50% sale in the silk emporium near the subzi mandi, get reminded that your distant relatives daughter is getting married next month, know that the (so called rude) old apple (fruit) wala at the entry of subzi mandi baught a Tata nano and so many other things which make and keep you social and/or human (if not tech savvy)... BUT you will be able to place orders looking at the pictures on your laptop screen!!! So great!!!....
The best thing is you can even GIFT fruits to your beloved ones using the web service! So what if you haven't even touched them with your hands? The receiver will be more interested in fruits and nutritions they will give... not in the feeling of receiving them from you... So nice!!! Yesterday someone bought me a handcrafted fabric elephant, and while giving she mentioned that she chose this particular because the mirrorwork, and overall pattern is placed more appropriately on it! This is what matters... right? that the one who is giving actually took time and care to see that you get the best possible! Whether it is an elephant or a cow comes second for me and probably for anybody.
The 'subzi-mandi on laptop' news today just triggered the thoughts and served as an example, but the basic issue can be seen in many such 'human (?) advances'. Good (read: effective) marketing can sell anything you have as the 'best new thing/way'... but is that what we have been educated for?
4-5 years down the line, kids will surf internet to learn that 'touch' means 'way of operating mobile and computing devices'. You can try searching 'touch' on google images even now.
Are we really working for the betterment of HUMANS?