Digest 1: The Design Master
Hi UX in India Followers,
To all 108 of you, a Big Thank You for following UX in India. There are now 38 super cool articles and stories penned by UXers in India.
I believe we need more UXers to voice their opinions and thoughts about design, products and services. You can help, by spreading the word about ‘UX in India’, by asking your friends and colleagues to follow and contribute to the collection.
The design community recently had a shocking Sunday with the sudden demise of Prof. MP Ranjan. I am dedicating this first digest to pull out two stories on him in the collection.
Design Thinking in India: Remembering MP Ranjan
by Derek Lomus
Few have done more to advance Design Thinking in India than MP Ranjan. As a faculty at the National Institute of Design (NID), he has influenced thousands of students over 45 years of teaching.
I interviewed him two days ago and, very sadly, found out that he passed away from a heart attack earlier today.
I feel extremely grateful to have spent so many hours with him.
Read More for some excerpts from the interview.
Remembering Ranjan
by Akshan Ish
“Why is there only this guy? What about the fat guy, the busy fellow, the loving mom, the drunk retard and the rickshaw puller?”
Early 2011. I was a timid and unsure 21 year old Computer Science student from a mediocre engineering college in Delhi. I had ditched a potentially stable career in the IT industry, in the hope of making it as a Graphic Designer. Only problem was, I had no design education or even a moderate idea of how I was going to pursue a career in design. And what was design? A few fancy brushes overlaid on stock textures in Photoshop.
I was not a design student, but I went to an engineering school(DAIICT) across NID, Gandhinagar. I had many interactions with design students from NID across the road and with many colleagues who went to NID, almost all of them were MPR’s students. In all my conversations with these designers, there is always one thing that keeps coming up “The Design Process”. His students swear by the process, they learnt from the master. When in doubt they fall back to it. It is amazing how one man could train so many brilliant minds on how to solve problems and help them become better designers.
I will leave you with his Academia profile, where has shared many of his papers, writings, thoughts and course materials.
https://ahduni.academia.edu/RanjanMP
Look forward to these letters every other week with some great articles from the collection.
Best,
Praneet
