Books I read in 2015

Though I was not successful at finishing my backlog I did get some really good books into my collection which I shall finish in 2016. Unlike those long lists out there, I am just getting back to reading. Here are the chosen ones.

Being Mortal: I loved his style of introducing his topic and keeping you interested through every chapter.

Do androids dream of electric sheep: One of the smoothest sci-fi stories which is bound to make you fall in love with the genre.

Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist: I do not know why i like the story, but I finally read the novel behind one of my all time favourite movies. Next up is Me, Earl and the Dying Girl.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Surprisingly my first Rushdie was a book written primarily for the child in you. Next up is Luka and the Fire of Life.

Modern Romance: A subject I would not have chosen to read upon but was a delight and reading it made me enjoy ‘Master of None’ even more.

What I talk about when I talk about running: Easily the best book i’ve read this year and the one I shall recommend and gift to people to read. You need not want to run to read this book.

The Hard Thing about Hard Things: Recommended by a lot of people, this book did not live up to its hype and Ben came across to me as a mighty lucky chap who is looking at things in hindsight but there were good things to be learnt from it.

The New Ghost: A short story about the afterlife with some great art.

By this Shall You Know Him: A short story about creation with some mind boggling art

In Real Life: A story set in the contemporary world of MMORPGs and questions ethics on the internet.

Killing and Dying: This anthology of short stories of people like you and me made it to bestseller lists this year.

Gaysi Zine #3 #4: A shoutout on the Kokkachi fb page showed me this wonderful zine and I ended up funding the #4. However I liked #3 better 😛

Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland: This tribute revival of the Winsor McCay comic strip was beautiful though I had bought this book thinking its the entire collection.

Prophet: Remission Volume 1: I bought this book because I am a fan of Brandon Graham. The story so far has been cryptic.

The Wrong Place: What a pretty watercolour graphic novel. Brecht Evans’ debut has a good story to go with the art but it ends up lacking something.

Chicken with Plums (reread): Because I was feeling like Nasser Ali Khan.

Antares Episode 5: I just love this series, the alien world’s Leo illustrates are fascinating.

I hope to read more in 2016. Feel free to recommend me books to read.

Third time’s not a charm

Me: this sem review will be fun no? 😛
Rasagy: Sem review? As in your blog post wala?
Me: yes 😀
Rasagy: I wonder what you’ll write in there this time! 😛
Me: exactly.. ditto to you
Rasagy: I’m not posting. You’re the one who posts sem wise. I’ll post next year 😀

Indeed, half this semester was marred by a module that made me wonder what I was doing with my life. I know, I am still a crappy designer but what I felt this semester module left me just feeling plain stupid and so I will not be speaking about it at all. Some part of this failure project has been documented here.

So here are the highlights of this semester.

We started this semester with a new faculty Mr. Venkatesh Rajamanickam, rumoured to take over as the new IID coordinator. At first we were apprehensive about how this would shape IID as a discipline. But our fears were unfounded because within the first few days itself, we realized how awesome he was and still is. I personally had an awesome time, discussing things with him. He showed me Durell Bishop’s Answering Machine which blew my mind. Someone doing such work, when I was in preschool was something I had not imagined. From this I learnt that ‘Why should something digital always mean having a display?’ Sadly, all good things tend to end and with this semester end, Venkat resigned from NID citing personal reasons- a loss, that IID will feel for quite sometime.

Moving on, one of the things that I had decided to follow this semester is try and document my projects. And document I did 😀 You can find the projects over here at the Projects page. This was good because when the time to make a jury presentation came about, I just had to go back to the posts and find the relevant content already prepared by ‘the past’ me.

Being sent to MIT’s DIy workshop was an eye-opening experience. This I feel was the central design project that I did this semester. A week packed to the brim with research, design, prototype and testing; I wish we had atleast one module this intensive at NID, every semester.

As for data visualizations, I’ve begin to realize the balance that I will try to maintain in my work anymore. Not too functional and not too arty. Easier said than done. My semester work is out here.

I became aware of real interaction design thanks to Sudhakar’s interactive classroom assignment. I intend to take this output forward.

So there, another semester goes by and am not any closer to figuring out what I want to do after this. All in all, as I look back this was not really a bad semester. I got to interact with Girish Dalvi a whole lot as part of his Grids and Layouts workshop and APCHI. Arun’s Geo viz workshop gave me a diving board into cartography. Listening to keynotes at APCHI was also wonderful, interacting with Jun Rekimoto or Alan Dix was not something I imagined I would be doing at the beginning of this semester.

What I hope I shall learn some more about the next semester is physical visualizations, tangible user interfaces and anarchistic visual design. A tall order to fulfill but next semester’s going to be a bore otherwise.

Design School : Year One

After last semester, I wrote what I had learned. At the end of this semester I was confused what really happened in that one semester. So I thought I could use this post to talk about other things that I experienced this year.

Being a Quizzer, you end up having an ego because you have all that information in your head, ready to spout out at the slightest notice. I really believe that that knowledge repo originating from a well read childhood is one of my strengths. Still I was humbled in Girish Dalvi’s typography workshop when I couldn’t answer any question that he threw at us. I mentioned last semester that reading is crucial. But this semester was when I realized that the reading stack is hundreds of books high. Actually, its infinite.

Open Elective although a major disappointment (atleast I got to meet some awesome people) had a good theme this year – Old age. Our world is increasingly getting older but most companies out there are busy trying to solve endemic problems. In one year, I might end up in the same industry and that actually made me wonder if I should try to end up someplace else where I can really make a difference.

Good research is important. Last semester made me realize that. I also realized that surveys, interviews mostly masquerade as research methods. I have lost faith in both of them while at the same time learning that custom research methods(like this one) make for better insights. I have begun to believe more in end user testing.

Talking about things make them better. I learned that getting people to critique your idea or talk to them about it is the best way to get out of that creative rut that you find yourself in. When you are working on it all by yourself you will not see be able to see what it is that is not working with your design.

I learned and built my first grid based presentation which was well received by the Jury. Except for my Cognitive Ergonomics work, the rest of what I presented seemed to have been appreciated. This is a big improvement from last semester where I was mostly clueless about the work I was presenting.

I’ve realized that the design process you follow is really important. I still have a long way to go before I learn to use it well. Working on MSR’s Design Expo this year made me realize the value of a good process. When working on Meteorites, I somehow formed a process unknowingly and it did help me to produce the end result. It’ll help you where your skills wont.

And you can learn anything given that you want to. At the end of last semester, I only knew Photoshop which I had largely picked up while at TCS. Now, I am comfortable with Illustrator and I even made a short film on Adobe Premiere Pro. A desire to create things in crunch time really helps me learn faster. Hence deadlines are good.

Hard deadlines are even better. Work only gets done if they are enforced. Most of last semester’s projects did not turn out so well because I kept procrastinating. Maybe because…

I fear big projects especially due to the lack of experience. We have not done anything big academically and I wonder how equipped I will be to deal with full projects all alone. Hope I can confront that fear this semester. Geronimo!

One of my favourite moments of last year was lying on @nid_b’s roof and looking for shooting stars. The cold, the company and the squeals when you spot a golden trail all made that night magical. Also worth noting are the Paldi campfires. This time next year, I shall be lamenting the end of 2 years and I shall miss ‘this’ life dearly.

You can read Rasagy thoughts on ‘Year One’ here.

Objectified

I just finished watching ‘Objectified‘, a film by Gary Hustwit. Its a documentary which takes us through the various facets of design; the conception, the sustainability and the innovation. Objectified is the second part of a three-film “design trilogy” by Gary Hustwit, who is currently working on the final film: ‘Urbanized’.

Watching it made me realize some things about design. About how design is everywhere and how good design is invisible. Whenever an individual designs he/she brings to it their own being. I know i am not happy when i am doing something eventhough it looks okay. I always tend to get my geeky nature involved into things i create like those quizzes.

“At the end of the day, when you are looking around the objects in your house and you are deciding ‘what here really has value to me. They are going to be the things that have some meaning in your life.
The Hurricane is coming, you have 20 minutes to get your stuff and go. You are not going to be saying. “Well that got an amazing writeup on the design blog”. You will pick the most meaningful objects to you because those are the true objects that truly reflect the true story of who you are and what your personal narrative is, the story that you are telling to yourself and no one else. Coz thats the only audience that matters.”

Thanks to Citruz for the recommend.