Design Lota

In Part 2 of our chat with Ragini Siruguri, Visual Communication Designer at Tara Books, we talk about her love for colours, her photography and visual inspiration. 

Ragini shares her approach in her graphic design projects and how local context helps us design better.

We discuss the state of Design Education today and Ragini tells us about her course at OwnPath.

The transcript for this episode can be found at designlota.com

Co-hosts: Sushmita Charlu and Angeline Bhavya

Podcast Music by: Shankar Narayan 

In this episode we talk to Ragini Siruguri about her work as a book designer at Tara Books. 

She shares how she got started and tells us about her interesting book projects while working there. 

We also discuss her eye for visual communication and the ways in which she documents the world around her visually.

Find the full transcript and references at designlota.com

In this episode, we talk to Aditi Agrawal who is the co-founder of Studio Gudgudee - a design studio that works on inclusive playgrounds.

We discuss how designing for playful learning requires deep observation and getting out of the way and allowing it to happen.

We re-iterate the power of play in the over all development of children and also to transcend the boundaries of age and ability.

Aditi shares the challenges of designing for the differently-abled and what sparked the need to make inclusive play spaces rather than just accessible spaces.

Sushi and Aditi ponder over how adults can benefit from unstructured, playful experiences and how that can help build bonds among each other and with kids.

We talk about the concepts of risk versus hazard in play and how to use risk effectively to design interesting play spaces.

We think about the importance of inclusive public spaces and designing for longevity and public usage.

[Episode graphic image courtesy: Studio Gudgudee]

In this episode, Sushi and Angie discuss productivity and how it’s about managing expectations and emotions as much as it is about managing time. 

We discuss how emotions play a huge role in how we feel about our work and go about accomplishing tasks. 

We share how high expectations can be counter-productive and keep us from taking the first step.

We talk about how to tend to your to-do list often to keep it realistic. 

We look at ways to take real breaks that actually energize us instead of shortcuts that wear us down.

We talk about the power of scheduling and saying no.

In this episode, we speak to Nitasha Sarangi, who is an experienced graphic designer and an Art Therapy researcher.

Nitasha talks about what sparked her interest in Art Therapy and how art can empower people to deal with issues like stress, grief, personal tragedy and more. 

She talks about the variety of art activities like drawing, pottery, music and movement that she uses in her workshops. She also elaborates on the science of Art Therapy and why it works.

She also enlightens us on how she points her clients to clinical therapy where that may be more beneficial. 

We discuss the importance of teaching art as a core subject in school education.

She shares how conducting Art Therapy workshops has made her a more empathetic designer.

She shares her views about making art accessible and how natural it is to us as human beings.

References:

Nitasha’s Art Babblers initiative: 

www.artbabblers.com

https://www.instagram.com/artbabblers

https://www.facebook.com/artbabblers/

Presenting Season 3 of the podcast! Coming this Friday, August  9th. We have some interesting episodes lined up - we’re talking about  Inclusive Design, Art Therapy, Productivity, Illustration, Visual  Communication in the Indian Context and more. Stay tuned!