Young Designers 94-95

Preface

On the occasion of NID's sixteenth Convocation, it gives me great pleasure to dedicate this volume of Young Designers 1994-95 to all the graduating students. This publication represents the Institute's commitment to remain relevant and therefore, in close touch with the Indian reality. Real-life projects keep our Professional Education Programme in step with national development and at the same time, strengthen NID's resolve and ability to provide meaningful challenges as part of its training curriculum. The Institute has recently revised its curriculum to meet the unsparing professional demands of the coming decade.

Industry, as understood at the Institute, includes the widest possible range - from the state-of-the-art technology in research/manufacturing units to the small crafts cooperatives, from digital multi-media labs to communicating health and hygiene to the non-literates. This is the Indian reality. While it is true that the young designers graduating from our Institute cannot overnight demonstrate a dramatic change, it is also true that in these past few years, areas in which design was an unknown quantity are today making demands on the profession. There may still be more uncharted areas where the design profession has a role to play and therefore our endeavour would necessarily continue.

As the new emissaries of the design profession, our best wishes are with the graduating students in their pursuit of excellence, which, I am sure they will achieve with integrity, humility and grace.

Introduction

Young Designers '94-'95 is the fifth in this series of publications from NID. On the occasion of the sixteenth convocation we felicitate the graduating students of the Institute's Professional Education Programme. The presentation of student work has been revised in this volume and is structured according to the academic disciplines offered at the Institute. Each student's work appears on facing pages with the Diploma Project featured on the left and two selected classroom projects on the right. Hence all information pertaining to a particular student appears together and the contact addresses in each case appear at the top of the right hand page.

We take this opportunity to once again thank the sponsors for their support and for the faith that they have shown in NID's education process of 'Learning by doing'. The fact that so many of these projects are being commercially implemented by the sponsors continues to be a source of strength for us and a confirmation of industry's appreciation of NID's educational methodology and the quality of its content. The section on Index & General Information includes Faculty Profiles, NID's Culture and Facilities, Guidelines for sponsoring projects, Index of Sponsors, Index of Students and a Project Index that shows the range of issues and subjects that have been touched by the 133 projects featured in this volume.

These projects represent a benchmark for the quality of the education they have received and which is intended to prepare young designers to grapple with the realities of the very complex and dynamic environment that is India, in a responsible and sensitive manner. Each student prepares a detailed documentation of the process and the outcome of the Diploma Project, one copy of which is archived in the NID Resource Centre for future reference and research. Only a glimpse of this is given in the synopses featured in this publication. The Index of Students includes the library accession numbers that can help access each diploma document placed in the NID Resource Centre.

Growing concern for the environment is being felt in our day-to-day activities as our planet is being pushed inexorably towards catastrophic man-made calamities. Nature is fighting back with a vengeance - with floods, storms and earthquakes of hitherto unforeseen intensity. Short term and short sighted perspectives that fuelled competitive industrialization based on the relentless exploitation of labour and natural resources are no longer valid premises for the development of nations.

Systems design and Green design have emerged as a worldwide response to this challenge with designers in search of solutions to the problems of environmental degradation. Designers are re-examining their concerns and priorities realising that their professional actions could have far-reaching consequences. At NID too these concerns have led to the re-examination of the profile of the design student. The revised curriculum being implemented this year hopes to strengthen the capability of the emerging generation of design students to cope with these immense challenges. Enabling design students to deal with complexity needs attitudes, skills and knowledge that can be integrated in a sensitive and effective problem-solving methodology which is the challenge for design education. Technical and managerial capabilities need to be directed above all by a value base that is rooted in the larger concern for the environment.

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