Indian Design. Global Recognition.
With Indian design solutions being increasingly recognised globally, can innovation design be the driving force behind the Make in India campaign? Also a look at how Moonraft’s design engagements are making global designers take notice and contributing to the cause
Last week I attended the CII Indian Design Summit 2016 in Mumbai where Dr. Naushad Forbes, Co Chairman of Forbes Marshall and President of CII spoke about some very thought provoking points. He said that with all the buzz around Make in India, we as a country need to decide on what it would represent…and what would be the driving force behind it? (For example, Made in Switzerland is associated with watches, Made in Italy is associated with shoes and bags etc.)
This got me thinking…what exactly should Make in India stand for?
Being a part of the design industry…I would love our design community to step up and position innovation design as the key driving force behind Make in India. Hopefully in a couple of years Indian design and innovation would be synonymous with Make in India! And why not…design has increasingly been at the core of a lot of successful Indian companies…we are doing some extra ordinary work which is being recognised globally so there’s no reason why we can’t make this dream happen. We just need to be committed to the cause of design…and strive for nothing but excellence.
At Moonraft Innovation Labs, we are trying to do our bit towards this cause. Our phenomenal design talent has been consistently churning out world class solutions year after year. Last year, our telematic app for Mahindra e2o connected car won praise from Fast Co Design which termed it as ‘the coolest feature in the e2o’. This year, two of our design engagements have been recognized on global platforms…
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
IDFC Bank
The Financial Brand recently published an article listing 9 of the Most Beautiful Brand Identities in Banking and our client IDFC Bank made it to this really cool list.
The author Jeffry Pilcher described the list as banks who leverage their brand identity to prove to consumers that banking doesn’t have to be boring anymore! And we simply love that…because that is exactly what we worked on as the digital experience design partner for IDFC Bank!
The key design philosophy behind IDFC Bank’s design was the ‘Unbank’ concept. The Unbank concept ensures that the bank’s experience and communication is personal and human, something which users can relate to and more importantly trust. Designing a banking experience which understands the users and offers relevant and timely solutions instead of just pushing out products is what was aspired for. The bank needed to be the trusted ‘human’ friend of the user, and not another run-of-the-mill bank…hence ‘unbank’.
Oh…and by the way, this was the only Indian Bank to make it to the list! :)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Sikkim Manipal University of Distance Education (SMUDE)
The prestigious IxDA Awards 2017 (Interaction Design Awards) shortlisted the SMUDE distance learning application as one of the 60 shortlisted design projects for the year…from a selection of over a thousand applicants!
This application was selected under the empowerment category which recognizes global design solutions which “help people do what they otherwise could not”.
The moment of truth in the design process was encountered during our user research process. We set off with an initial assumption that poor course content was a detractor to increased adoption of distance education programs, but our user research showed that the biggest challenge faced by the students was in fact that of anxiety and loneliness. Addressing this anxiety of the students became the core around which the entire distance education program was designed!
A more detailed description of the distance education program can be found in one of our earlier blogs here
Oh and by the way…once again we were the only professional firm from India to make it to the shortlist!!
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
And its not just us…
Many of our fellow designers and design firms have been producing exceptional work and we’re glad to see our Indian Design community move forward with such strong and long strides. Maybe it’s high time we take the onus of design being the key driving force behind Make in India!
If you’ve got examples of design solutions from India getting global recognition…please share with us!
If you liked what you just read, please click the purple heart button below and stay updated on future posts by us…thanks!
