#1 Doting on Design
Thoughts, ideas, design, are born from an epicentre of pre-conceived and existing realities. Art and its history, its numerous periodic shifts, even renaissance came in with a bang of precocious ideas and principles. Where did it all begin?
A constant question from the beginning of my design education was defining art and design. Though it seemed very ambiguous in the beginning, it slowly dawned upon me that if art were the vivid colors of a Van Gogh, design would be his articulation. How does the world differentiate them?
I grew up with vivid colors, multiple pop-art posters, mostly ones that showed overly sensual actors or sometimes handouts that had heavy or leaky typefaces. Our visual imagination was synonymous to beautiful women that wore glaring shiny baubles and angels were creatures that would be bright, like the skies opened before your eyes all at once. Of course, I’m exxagerating. But you get it. We’re not afraid of colors. We love indulging in excesses. Monochrome translates to lifelessness. We love life, hues, to an extent that anything less would only mean dull.
One isn’t entirely wrong referring to only beautiful things as “design”, however one isn’t entirely right when they say the milk-man gives milk.
Is it necessary to know about Design and its uses? Are there really any rules? Why is it important?
Is design only to make our life smarter, easier and comfortable?
As I grow older, I began to appreciate the ability to get lost in thoughts and change your mind often. It is in this process that you re-discover what you really want and discard the rest, for later use. I believe that the world is embracing design to solve problems that would be hard to solve independently. It is also important to know that design requires abundance of empathy and great amount of collaboration. Before I begin answering my questions, let me discuss this recent incident that took place that may be a revolutionary design/idea that can be an excellent disaster management tool. And also a brilliant example to support my argument.
(In case, you thought this was about me educating you about design, no, it is me obsessing with questions to come back five years later and snigger at the answers, as always.)
Super Typhoon Haiyan has caused massive damage to the Phillipines, estimating the largest death toll so far. Mind you, just an estimate. The city of Tacloban and other badly hit areas have been mapped online by millions of volunteers who with the help of online mapmakers, spot the Typhoon hit area, roads that have been damaged, building missing, landmarks that will identify the hit-areas so rescue operations would run smooth and provide care and relief to places that will be identified with the help of these online mapmakers.
And this is possible just because of the internet.
This isn’t the first time online mapmakers were used to detect disaster hit areas to rescue, but this is one such time that the Red Cross has tied up with OpenStreetMap (OSM) and planned to rescue people who are struggling and missing. The best part about this process is that, the mapmakers weren’t difficult or confusing to users. It was simple to track roads using satellite data, areas and edit them online.
See where this is going?
Now, how does this actually help the entire operation? The data will be collected and printed by the volunteers, distributing it among themselves. Just take a look at the amount of inputs by the people that brought in this edited map of the rescue areas. Not just that, offline editing can be done too. Workers can pin, cross buildings and roads on the printed maps as well. And people who have contributed to the online mapmakers? Well, they tweet. They post the areas, the landmarks, the area covered, the major hit locations that needs emergency rescue. As quick as possible. And this is how a plan can be devised, this is managing a disaster with evidence and proofs of how to channel workers and plan operations that will not only be resourceful but time-conserving.
This is technology and design coming together and providing solutions to a problem that people would take a whole month to assess, contemplate and provide half-true estimate values and news. This is Design Thinking.
But whoa, wait a minute. How can it not have loop-holes? Of course, that is the best part about design. It need not be perfect and it can never be. It’s a process that endures enormous amount of changes, iterations and more often than not, leading to several other solutions for different problems. There will arise a few questions when discussing this design solution. Geospatial mapping and its uses have been popularised and have benefited many a time. However, when predictions and warnings have been given, do we take alerts seriously? What about the accuracy of the maps? Considering previous small storms and minute occurrence of heavy rainfall, do we have a tendency to watch how worse it could get until the last minute to jump during such disasters? Also, is the prediction time and warning time enough for people to evacuate and run for their lives, to shelters or other locations? Do such places exist where the government provides shelter and basic needs before the occurrence of a natural disaster?
What we can do, is repair. Rise as soon as possible, one must move on and technology can assist in that direction tremendously. Design alters life, it provides reasons to look for hope when there is nothing but helplessness. It is not a single man’s job to clean up after the damage is done but it can be a single idea that can unite a thousand others. We can do much more, bring in more possibilities of a future where such incidents can be managed, not saying everything is in our hands including the end of the world, but a thousand hands plus some design thinking would probably find a solution to that too.
Design helps you co-exist. And Art translates your design.
Rest in peace, you were brave when you had to be. I pray for your peace, people and pain to heal quickly.
Love,
Snigdha
That was an old blogpost of mine from 2013. Naïve, hungry, curious and excited about every little development with design and technology regardless of how much it made sense to me back then.
Here I am, secretly wishing I could communicate to me from 2013 about how relevant that post is today for me. And how Data will be the biggest tool in this journey of discovering delightful things across the world.
Doting on Design is a series of personal Data Exploratory Stories that have inspired me to believe that Data is the secret super-hero of the 21st century. The creation of the Universe, the answer to the oldest question, our lives and experiences, everything leads to one destination: Data and its dissection.
P.S. Open to suggestions, feedback and changes.
