In Design, one plus one can often equal to three - Josef Albers

“The Kumbh Mela of the US” – SXSW 2013, Part 1

An official note arrived this evening from SXSW. The SXSW Interaction and other notable SXSW avataars for 2013 finally comes to an end. Downtown Austin is a bit more quieter, traffic more orderly.

Five days of SXSW Interaction, six days of the SXSW Music (the oldest of all the events) and ten days of concurrently running  SXSW Film – clubbed together under the big umbrella of South by South West. For my lot – the UX folks, the first five days presented a mind boggling array of talks, panel discussions, keynotes, short presentation, mentor reviews, book readings, meet-ups, a fair Continue reading →

An Unexpected Journey: To the heart of design influence…

My move to Adobe was unconventional. An unexpected journey in many ways. But I am certainly not alone. Not in Adobe or possibly many other organizations elsewhere.

For many years I dabbled with branding and communications – creating many brand identities and communication strategies to differentiate and position new entrants or incumbents in overcrowded and fiercely competitive marketplaces. Working cross media – in digital, print and 3D has its unique advantages and the need to constantly look at the big picture without losing sight Continue reading →

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Five favorites from the 57 Things

57 Things is a collection of beliefs – and a book, that loosely (or tightly) defines the collective wisdom and culture of Experience Design (XD) organization of Adobe. I recently gave a talk at UXIndia 2012 conference at Hyderabad and included five of the beliefs that I hold dear. And in the last few days I have had some questions and comments on these few of the 57 Things. Here are the famous five – with some minmal annotations and I hope to publish more soon. Continue reading →

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2020 & Beyond: Mapping the future

What does the Future hold for us – in technology, in finance, in education, at work and play and in our relationships – with our fellow beings, with digital entities? The tryst with 2020 is on everyone’s mind. From companies to teams to speculators of tomorrow – the date provides a fascinating milestone to wind our roads and wrap our roadmaps around.

Here are a 3 interesting vizualizations of the Future that look at 2020 and beyond. Continue reading →

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White, wearable & wicked?

A humble white cotton garment holds out a simple, but oft forgotten lesson for those who define and design products: the inevitable, and often messy, fingerprints and footprints of our actions. On people and on our planet.

In a May 2012 blog post on The Design Observer, John Thackra reasons “Why White is Wicked”. Just two of the several points that Thackra posits (and I haven’t double checked the stats) underscore the environmental concerns around making cotton whiter and wearable: Continue reading →

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Adobe Design team is featured in Kyoorius Magazine

Over a period of close to 9 years Kyoorius Exchange has undoubtedly made its mark on the Indian Design scene. What started off as a paper company found its way into the Kyoorius Conference and the Magazine. Kyoorius today is arguably India’s longest surviving Magazine on the mainstream Indian Design – and a very well produced one at that. So when the curious Kyoorius folks decided to dedicate 6 pages of their June issue to report on the Adobe India’s Design team – it was both a pleasant surprise and a welcome one. Continue reading →

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Wolfram Alpha and the bowl of brown rice

Every now and then the story of the Google-killer resurfaces and like many of you, I had heard of the coming of the new search engine – Wolfram Alpha. Since the child prodigy and founder/creator of Wolfram Mathematica, Stephen Wolfram, unveiled the Alpha at a Harvard lecture in end April 09, reactions have been many. Google’s was possibly one of the first – Stephen Wolfram hadn’t finished his demo when Google’s official blog announced “a new service allowing users to search and compare public data”. Continue reading →

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Hello 2012

The cyclone has passed by.

Day two of 2012, day one of back-to-work, back-to-school. Missed my morning alarm, kept postponing it until it could be postponed no more. But yoga is good – listening to the revised, expanded Indian Anthem on my iPod, full volume – in midst of a dark 6am morning was a treat (but then there is only so much you can take of patriotism). And this was another treat, of a visual kind – a trypographically well crafted piece of work from Teresa Wozniack – her New Year’s resolves – mirroring most of mine (and others too, I think) except possibly lose 30 pounds… Continue reading →

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Every status has its symbol

Found on Facebook: “My curfew was the street lights. My mom called my name, not mobile. I played outside with friends, not online. If I didn’t eat what mom cooked, I didn’t eat. Sanitizers didn’t exist and you could get your mouth washed out with soap. Getting dirty was okay. And the neighbours gave a damn as much as Continue reading →

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Disliking Like

Neil Strauss’ article on WSJ was a complete contradiction: I ‘super-liked’ it and it was all bout the self-non-affirmation propagated by the likes of “like” and “+1″. Strauss notes that:

the “like” culture is antithetical to the concept of self-esteem, which a healthy individual should be developing from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Instead, we are shaped by our stats

Neil has seen ”rock stars agonize over the fact that another artist has far more Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers than they do” so nothing really needs to be said about the agony of those mere mortals who crave their 15 minutes of likeability or trending – aka fame in the virtual world. Recommended read…

Image via Tamar/Times

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