Category Archives: Designer Life

I’m designLAB!

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COVID-19 shutdown in India happened on 24th March 2020. All of us are working from home since then. It is a new experience for us and after three months, I think we are adapting well to it. The working day is mostly spent on communication and collaboration apps. Weekends are spent on reading, writing, listening to podcasts/music and personal projects. I rarely venture out of my home and once in a while I go for a ride in my vehicle.

Welcoming new designers

Last year, we created a welcome guide for the new recruits to our designLAB. This PDF document was sent to them in Whatsapp so that they can read this beforehand and come to designLAB on ‘day one’ with the right expectations. Here are the screenshots of the document.

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A shared Masala Chai :)

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Friday Evening

Kabir walked into the meeting room with two cups of tea, some biscuits and chocolate. Yogesh and I were waiting for him as he greeted us with a smile.

“Would you gentlemen like to share a tea with me?”

We hesitated for a second as we just had a hot chocolate drink from the cafeteria.

“This is a very good Masala Chai from the shop around the corner at our office lobby. It is not machine made, the shopkeeper himself makes it on a stove.”

Yogesh ran out to get an empty cup so that we can share and enjoy the tea during the upcoming discussion.

And boy, it tasted great!

As soon as the discussion finished, we ran downstairs to the small shop as its closing time was 5:00PM.

Continue reading A shared Masala Chai 🙂 →

My New Year Resolution

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Cover image courtesy: Pixabay.com

There are 400+ bookmarked articles in my Medium, Flipboard, Google Chrome, Evernote and Google Keep apps. I have amassed them in the past couple of years while skimming through various blogs, news articles and websites. I’m aware of the fact that I have read only less than 10% of these links.

My new year resolution is to stop bookmarking articles till I complete reading and absorbing the links I have favorited.

2017 will be the year of de-cluttering my bookmarks and slow reading of articles. Wish me luck!

What is yours?

"If all you have is a hammer…" From MobileSparks 2015

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If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
–Law of the instrument
(Narrated by Sahil Kini of Aspada at MobileSparks 2015)

MobileSparks is YourStory’s conference on mobile. The 2015 edition happened in Bengaluru on August 7th and 8th. Yours truly attended this conference.
I would like to share some quips I picked up during the event. I have created the following from my notes. The words may not be the exact ones uttered by the attributed persons. But I think I have succeeded in retaining the spirit.
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Cartoon time!

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teaser-Perfect10-600px-ed

I have created a few cartoons in the past months. Sometimes, the idea just comes to you. The only thing you need to do is execute it well. But most of the time, I waited patiently and searched the whole web for an idea spark. Today, let us see the style evolution of my creations.

WARNING: Technology jokes – Not all can appreciate them!
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Typography — A Quickstart Guide

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A few weeks back, I got the opportunity to attend the ‘Expo PDi’ Workshop conducted by IDC, IIT Bombay. The participants were an amazing bunch of people with diverse backgrounds. Some were designers in reputed companies, IT professionals, toy designers, architects, social workers, teachers, media personalities, students of design, CEED aspirants and a father-daughter team (She is studying in Class 12)!
The three day workshop sowed the seeds of design awareness. Since CEED 2013 is just a few weeks away, I thought of compiling some knowledge I gained from the workshop as a blog post series. Let us start with Typography.

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Desktop backgrounds of creative people

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Most of us would like to customize the desktop background with an image that is closer to our heart. I have seen family photos, movie posters and stars, landscape photos taken on the last holiday outing… as desktop backgrounds. Some people, like me, are content with the default Windows/Mac/Ubuntu backgrounds.

People who work in the creative field usually flaunt their latest work on their desktops. Some designers, before giving a slide presentation to an audience, deliberately tinker with the projector cable connected to their notebooks for some time so that the viewers can see and envy their latest desktop background!
Last year, around this time, I asked some creative people about their desktop images. My intention was to publish 10 such images, but I could get only five as some people replied that they are using the default images of their OS.
Here are the five desktop backgrounds. Click on the images to download the high resolution file.
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Spicing up your Design Portfolio — Tips from a designer

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Hi there, how have you guys been?
The other day, while screening portfolios of prospective designers for my employers, I spotted a lot of problems and irrelevant data. Then I realized that I too have committed mistakes in presenting my work as a portfolio. Then I determined to jot down some general guidelines on the preparation of an effective product design portfolio. I am sure that these points will help you to ‘wow’ your prospective employers.
So here goes everything….

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Seed ideas for CEED — Tips from a designer

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ceed mdes

Can you please tell me what should one have do to be a good product designer. I mean, what are the prerequisites for entering M.Des. course like what software I should know, what books I should read ? I would be thankful for any help you give.

I’m a software professional who is keenly interested in product design and hoping to pursue it by taking up the CEED & DAT exams in Jan’11. Since you guys are also involved in the same area, I was therefore wondering whether any of you could answer a few of my questions about the test and maybe provide some tips, if any..

These are samples of CEED (Common Entrance Examination for Design) or M.Des. (Master in Design) related questions that we often receive. Well, here goes my answer…
Continue reading Seed ideas for CEED — Tips from a designer →