In Kerala, the boundaries between rural and urban life are often blurred when it comes to visible cultural patterns and lifestyles. The rich, the poor, the villager, or the urbane—everybody seems to agree with and adapt to a range of traditional beliefs and practices. This link between the past and the present often creates a clash between the mythical and the rational. Many manifestations of such a distinct culture can be seen in the objects of day-to-day life, festival iconography, and architecture. This research and documentation project is a photographic compilation of some of those objects and icons, looking at them from inside their own cultural fabric.

Typeface design in Indian language scripts still suffers from the absence of typefaces, which are tailor-cut for specific needs. There is a complete lack of awareness of the needs of well-designed typefaces that meet both the requirements of digital technology and the functional requirements of typefaces.

Kerala State, which boasts a rich literary tradition and the most popular publications in the country, also suffers from mediocre design standards when it comes to typefaces. With a day-by-day growing publication industry and information portals from the state, the demand for typefaces that meet functional and technical aspects of typography is more than ever.

This project studies the existing typefaces in Malayalam, the script from Kerala, in the contexts of usage, visual quality, and technology in the publication industry. These studies identified the need for a display/byline typeface for standard publication needs. Thus, a typeface family named IDC Vani, consisting of five typefaces in true type and postscript formats, has been designed. A demonstration of various applications of the typeface and a stylebook featuring the guidelines for usage of the IDC Vani family also formed part of the final output.

Multimedia-enhanced children's games and storybooks are available in plenty these days. Most of them, in the process of achieving a great deal of interactive entertainment and powerful imagery, fail to understand a child's way of thinking and their creative strength in story telling. In addition, children of today are being exposed to and attracted to violent arcade games and entertainment concepts that fall short of any good virtues. This project is the result of a study of South India's traditional puppetry, its story-telling methodology, and its subsequent application in developing a multimedia story-telling/creating application that is interactive, giving the child options to create his own characters and stories. Further, it also allows for forming an active team and enacting a play with the characters and stories they make. Thus, integrating a great source of learning from traditional visual forms and developing a highly participatory and hence dynamic play environment, 'Puppettooner'—the multimedia application provides 'edutainment' rather than just entertainment.

Nigel J. T. Thomas describes mental imagery informally as 'seeing in the minds eye', ' visualization and is a quasi-perceptual experience; it significantly resembles perceptual experience but occurs in the absence of the appropriate perceptual stimuli. The focus of the research started with the goal of understanding mental imagery in the field of design. This experiment is a continuation of the studies of mental imagery in the architectural design process. The earlier experiments attempted to study the nature of mental imagery in the mind of the architect during the design process and the subsequent sharing of the same with a co-architect. In this experiment, the focus would be on the issues that arise in a team while sharing mental imagery.

JadooWorks is a Bangalore-based animation company. With a strength of about 150 people, the company does commercials for Indian television, but the focus has been on production work for the US and French markets. The production unit has two studio divisions for 2-D and 3-D animations, respectively. It also has a gaming unit. During the period of training, the production processes in animation were studied. Hands-on experience with some production techniques was attempted. Some of the training assignments developed by the company were attempted for a better and quicker understanding of concepts.

Every city has an identity. This identity is built over a period of time. It is built on the city’s culture, architecture, environment, arts, crafts, and lifestyle of the people. Heritage places are important reminders of where we have come from, and each generation has a responsibility to future generations to protect those places. Built heritage convinces us that the past really happened and gives communities links with attitudes and values that have shaped their environment.

Many times, we take for granted what we see around us and fail to appreciate its value until it is too late. With specific reference to our past and the reminders of it, i.e., our heritage, it has been seen that negligence and insensitivity have led to the erosion of many of its valuable components. A simple form of awareness for this purpose is explored in this project. Introducing heritage components in their built form to a person by taking him for a walk.

The project needed an understanding of the components involved before presenting them to the target audience. The city of Pune presented some problems in terms of its heritage buildings being scattered and not confined to one area. The issues involved identifying the building amidst its new surroundings and retaining the interest of the target audience during the walk. Information had to be presented in such a manner so as to locate the building easily, making the experience of the walk an engaging one. The project provided an opportunity to interact with the INTACH Pune chapter and understand how they had dealt with the same problem.

In India, since ancient times, there have always been explanations about the sun's activities in the fields of astronomy, philosophy, religion, cultural traditions, and rituals. A brief study of these subjects proves the depth to which people have given meaning to these phenomena occurring in their everyday lives.

Aditya, the Sun in Indian thought, is a documentation of the influences of the Sun in the daily lives of the people in India and how they have perceived, understood, and explained these influences. This fascinating subject of documenting the sun has not been attempted before on these lines and will prove to be an awakening to the role played by this Supreme Force, which has been forgotten in many aspects.

An exhibition has been visualised to present this documentation to the general public. The presentation method attempts at the ‘experience’ approach in a manner that would involve the participation of the visitors. While this would by no means make understanding concepts simpler, it would also help me explore better ways of presenting information to a larger target audience.

The Urban Opportunity Project, a research initiative of the Institute of Design at IIT Chicago, has provided the scope for adopting a collaborative approach of working between ID Chicago, IIT Bombay, and non-governmental organisations like the Society for Human and Environmental Development (S.H.E.D.) in Mumbai. This collaborative approach has enabled the acquisition of true and valuable insights on the livelihoods in city slums. Dharavi was taken as a specimen for the study.

The Society for Human and Environmental Development (SHED) was formed in October 1982 with the prime objective of improving the outlook and living conditions of those living in slums and rural areas, especially tribal areas. At present, the society is working in the major slums of Mumbai—Dharavi, Jogeshwari (East), Sagbaug, and Kalina—and also in a village and 21 tribal hamlets of Saphale Block and Palghar Taluka in Thane district.

Dreams inspire people to live and then strive towards fulfilling them. Biji is almost at the sunset of her life. As a child, then a woman, a wife, and a mother, she has had her own dreams and expectations.

Dreams inspire people to live and then strive towards fulfilling them. Biji is almost at the sunset of her life. As a child, then a woman, a wife, and a mother, she has had her own dreams and expectations.

The aim of the project was to collect information about the history of special effects in the context of Indian cinema. A need to document the history of special effects is observed. The Indian filmmaker has been content with experimenting with topics and ideas, but the efforts by these pioneers, the techniques used, and the social implications of the choice of subject have not been steadily recorded in a single place. The project was to have an output that would give an overview of the factors contributing to the advent of special effects in Indian cinema. Due to time constraints, the research has been limited to the mythological film genre, which was the first genre to grace the Indian film scene and relied heavily on special effects for storytelling. Similar research could be carried out for the entire genre that followed.

The mission of IITB Sports will be to bring students together in activities that promote healthy lifestyles, enhance a sense of community and belonging, encourage the pursuit of excellence in a spirit of productive cooperation, foster responsible behaviour, and foster growth in leadership and teamwork skills. Fulfilment of this mission will ensure the all-round development of the students - the leaders of tomorrow.

The project was to design the packaging for a set of educational kits designed by Navnirmiti, an organisation dedicated to the universalization of learning science and math. The educational kit contains six games that differ in their identity as a family and lack branding. They were also lacking in their attempt to reach the home sector and were limiting themselves to the dissemination of these kits in the school areas where students could access them for a limited period of the school day. The project aimed to build an identity for the kit through packaging design, communicate the potential of the games, and thereby increase their reach in the home sector.

The project aims at designing a visual system for a set of books on a subject, with each book exploring a different aspect of the subject. This is a set of books on Marathi poetry, compiling the works of six poets with different styles of writing poetry. The set was created with the objective of system design in mind, with an exploration of design and typography. The set overall expresses the marathiness and poetic quality of the content. Variations in the system in terms of grid, typography, and overall look allow individual books to express their own content while still being part of the set.

Ram Mohan the legend of Indian Animation has walked for fifty years in the animation industry. Being the doyen of the industry, he has witnessed the history of animation in India. He has a wide spectrum of work in the areas of 2D classical animation, 3D and CGI, cinema, and live action. He is also credited with creating a whole generation of modern animators in India. But to date, there has not been any kind of documentation or collection of his works. So the project aims to find out more about the animator, his back story, and career, collect his works, and make a chronology of them. This project will help future design students who want to study Ram Mohan as an animator, his method of working, style, and vision.

The world of motion graphics has always moved me but remained unknown; hence, I wanted to explore it. Motion graphics is time-dependent; hence, its beauty lies in the pace, force, and energy at which different things occur. Every element has its own growth cycle (in its seed), which is evident over the course of time. I wanted to explore this concept in design.

The order of growth unfolds in nature. Unfolding is a process that occurs in the growth programme of every living organism. Life unfolds every moment and in every aspect from the beginning to the end. Unfolding bears all the changes with the increasing complexity of growth. Hence, a tender young leaf of a plant looks very different from that of a mature leaf. This metaphor of unfolding happens in our lives as well; life unfolds with different seasons. Seasons unfold with days unfolding. Every day unfolds differently with changing times, events, moods, and people. A person unfolds with different happenings and stories around him. Thus lies the beauty of unfolding.

It is ultimately the past that creates the present. This project is aimed at understanding the story of Indian animation. Initially, animation in India was the result of experiments by Indian film makers who were inspired by Disney. After independence, it was mainly the government that started to encourage animation through the Films Division. A significant part of this report is dedicated to the detailed study of animation films made by the state-funded Films Division. Especially the period between 1956 and 1969 is of significant importance since some of India's best-known animators worked in the Films division during this time. The earliest attempts at animation were the outcome of experimentation by the founders of Indian cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke, who used time-lapse photography due to a shortage of films. Subsequently, other animation films inspired by Disney's animation films were being made at periodic intervals until the end of British rule in 1947.

The Films Division was established in 1948 for the production of documentaries and news reels. An animation film called The War That Never Ends was made in 1949 by British animator Myna Johnson, with J. S. Bhownagary serving as the script writer. The Cartoon Film Unit (CFU) was set up at the Films Division in 1955 and, for the first time, received an animation camera under the Indo-American Technical Aid programme, accompanied by the services of Mr. Clair Weeks, a former animator at Disney Studios.

A template is a blank page layout where the kind of information and the placement of information are pre-defined but sufficiently flexible for the end user to modify it according to his needs. A webpage template helps webmasters create and maintain professional-looking websites. The primary task of the webmaster when using a template is to upload information. This project aims at designing a template specifically for engineering colleges, taking into consideration the problems faced by them and their design needs. The deliverables of the project can be used by webmasters at Indian engineering colleges to create and maintain a professional website. Also, the template shall provide screens through which college users, like faculty and students, can manage their content on the site without the help of a webmaster.

Interactive storytelling, a story in which the audience has influence over the narrative, has existed in non-digital variations for thousands of years. In India, respected storytellers in the 'Harikatha' styles have studied the scriptures, literature, languages, classical music, and elements of drama. These storytellers adapt their stories according to the audience, either by their response or by popping questions to keep the audience involved. Theatre, film, and TV can be viewed as steps in the evolution of dramatic language. Interactive drama should be seen as the next evolutionary step. Interactivity helps to create a sense of action and movement, but it should be fundamental to the story, not something trivial and unrelated; otherwise,  the spell of immersion is broken.

The most innovative interactive stories don't try too hard to be innovative. There's simplicity in the presentation, a subtlety in the navigation; it flows smoothly from beginning to end, engaging the user occasionally, not constantly. That's good storytelling. Whenever possible, a story needs to be presented as a vital part of a cultural whole. Folk tales form the unwritten literature (stories, proverbs, riddles, and songs) of a culture. This project was aimed at exploring the possibility of telling such stories in an interactively rich format.

This study attempts to understand the patterns approach for interaction design, tracing its roots to architecture, and looks at how it has been adopted by computer programmers while highlighting the recent interests shown by people from the HCI domain. The paper also tries to establish the merits and limitations of the pattern approach and speculates on the use of patterns to aid the 'expert evaluation' in usability testing. It suggests the use of patterns as a delivery mechanism in place of specifications and the use of interaction design patterns to enrich the project life cycle. With the study of examples from IDC projects and the web, an attempt has been made to suggest how the ‘Patterns approach’ can be used to understand the fields of user interface design and IxD and its design implications.

India is a land of fascinating experiences and exhilarating destinations. A vast country with a history that goes back 5000 years. Its vast geographical diversity, heritage and culture, fairs and festivals, yogic education, varieties of cuisine, and monumental attractions are unparallel to any other country in the world. India has an unlimited variety of innumerable tourist destinations to showcase. But it's not one of the top tourist destinations. Off late, the tourist inflow is registering sturdy growth. To reach out to a larger audience group, a new aggressive integrated (web, print, and TV commercial) campaign 'incredible India' has been launched. As a result, the official tourism website is getting enormous hits but fails to satisfy the users because it fails to provide the required services and information.

In today's context, with large hard discs and network connectivity, we store an enormous number of files on local discs; as a result, maintenance and retrieval become tough. Aggravating the problem, most people have tendencies towards haphazard file management. It becomes practically impossible to locate files when file names or folder locations are forgotten. A variety of user research was done to unearth individuals' habits and tendencies pertaining to file management. A parallel study of current technological trends and research in visualisations was undertaken.

The main file management problems were attributed to the lack of differentiation between folders, not being able to guess the contents of the folder from outside, the necessity to remember accurate folder locations and file names, and the lack of supportive tools. Based on the findings, a conceptual system called ‘viewport’ was developed. It is a recognition-based file system that uses a zoomable interface paradigm for navigation. The system supports a new visualisation system that allows for quick, efficient ways to find a required file and accommodates informal ways of managing files.

Kerala is world-famous for its natural beauty and its vibrant art forms. Kerala was also world-famous many centuries ago for its spices. A time in which pepper was known as the black gold and was worth a king's ransom. The most important of Kerala's ports were in Malabar. Malabar consists of six districts, namely Kozhikode, Tellicherry, Cannanore, Kasaragode, Palghat, and Malappuram, which make up north Kerala. This was where the first European traveller, namely Vasocodi Gama, landed, a few kilometres from Kozhikode, at a place called Kappad.

Malabar is also called the land of the living gods. This is because of the vibrant art form called Theyyam. The coastline is dotted with temples and Kavus, each of which has a festival associated with it. The festivals are social events whereby all the people in proximity to the temple join together and celebrate the festival. When the festive dates are decided, flags are hoisted to inform people about the event. It’s a really colourful spectacle to see the green landscape dotted with vibrant flags, visible from ar away. This study was aimed at understanding the usage, varieties, standards, if any, and meaning of the traditional flags in north Malabar.

The computer has come a long way from its humble beginnings and is now a part of our everyday lives. The coming of the internet was another major factor that made the computer one of the most important tools in the 21st century. The most widespread application on the internet is person-to-person communication. Electronic mail has revolutionised the way humans communicate and thus brought about a new era of faster and more efficient communication. The number of emails sent per year has grown by leaps and bounds with time, as has the underlying technology. The email interface has not been able to keep pace with the advancement of technology. Electronic mail started as text-only communication, but the scenario has changed with the advent of newer technologies and faster communication speeds. Even with the advancement in GUI and faster processing power, the basic structure of any email interface still remains the same.

Communication is one of the most fundamental needs. The new century has brought about a revolution in the way we communicate. The coming of wireless devices and the wired world has changed our lives and made devices ubiquitous, but at the same time, it has brought forth new problems and issues. One of the most important developments in the area of interpersonal communication is the telephone. The telephone, which was a public device, developed into a very personal device with the advent of cell phones. The path of this development wasn’t smooth; the video phone was predicted to become the next-generation communication device, but somehow it failed miserably in its task. The development of new technology and services needs to learn from the mistakes made in the past.

Information graphics are visual representations of any information, statistical data, or reconstruction of an event. The graphical display of information is among the most obvious and important forms of visual communication. The organisation of realistic data into a field that is recognisable at a glance yet can be studied and probed over a period of time can prove to be a useful tool that offers tremendous value to both the audience and the designer. Graphics can describe information in a better way through visual mapping. Visual aids can compress huge amounts of information into smaller, more comprehensible capsules.

We are aware of the presence and importance of graphic representations throughout the history of man. Diagrams, maps, charts, and many other kinds of symbols take part in our daily lives. All visual media have explored various aspects and advantages of infographics, and television media is no exception. The dynamism of TV media offers more scope to the designer and broadens the horizons of possibilities. Graphical representations benefit from the fourth dimension of 'time', and can help create better.

In 1995, Dentsu of Japan and the US-based Young & Rubicam decided to pick up a stake in this Indian agency, and in 1998, Rediffusion-DY&R formally assumed a new name, "Rediffusion-Dentsu Young & Rubicam brand communications." Rediffusion is ranked #5 among Indian advertising agencies.

Technology affects life; it is meant to do that. But it seems absolutely illogical and unfair that it should compulsively change the way people live. It is evident that the personal computer is completely impertinent to the home environment, its needs, and its physical location and does not blend with the family lifestyle. A study of these, as well as of those devices that work well in households, suggests some strategic changes to the approach of bringing a computer into the home setting. A brief overview of Indian household needs and home environment suggests the need for reminders, family communication aids, and assistance in household tasks.

'Yojak' is an attempt to bridge the gap between PC and Indian home needs. It is a home computer with the basic form of a digital calendar. In India, family schedules revolve around the calendar, family accounts are maintained on a calendar, and most home information comes from the calendar. In effect, this is mainly what the personal computer aims to do today in a home setting, yet quite ineffectively. 'Yojak', with the metaphor of a calendar, radically changes the scene, and the computer achieves a physical, psychological, and emotional 'space' in the household.

Wherever there is a settlement (society), it is bound to be affected by change on the micro or macro level sooner or later. This is caused by a number of factors and has some impact on that society. Through this project, I have tried to analyse the effect of social change on the East Indian community, keeping one aspect as my main issue of study, i.e., ‘wedding ceremonies’ The research method I have used for this study is the ethnographic methodology, wherein I went around talking to people and used an open-ended questionnaire. Only after fully understanding the practices and observing them have I drawn my inferences about identifying the cause of change. The East Indian community offers itself as an ideal subject matter for this kind of study, as the changes are recent and ongoing at different levels.

Miniature paintings are viewed through a magnifying glass, where one sees the finer details of the painting. Taking a cue from this, the idea of 'digital miniature paintings' got evolved. These paintings are created by digital illustrations that are to be viewed on the computer screen. One can explore the painting by clicking on certain areas, which zoom out to reveal a new painting.

Alphabet learning is the means to an end that few teachers or parents question. Several techniques and methods to learn the language and script have been extensively developed. The material developed is dull and eliminates "experience." Children have to learn to read and write the language, but the process is narrow and monotonous, and the love for learning is never induced. Looking, observing, and carefully observing never seem to be an important part of learning or an aspect of developing the learning material. We know that if a learning material can overcome the problem of attention span and engage a child, then most of the problems of learning can be tackled. I am interested in exploring how a material can encompass the enjoyment and discoveries that looking and experiencing can bring.

The Urban Opportunity Project, a research initiative of the Institute of Design at IIT Chicago, has provided the scope for adopting a collaborative approach of working between ID Chicago, IIT Bombay, and non-governmental organisations like the Society for Human and Environmental Development (S.H.E.D.) in Mumbai. This collaborative approach has enabled the acquisition of true and valuable insights on the livelihoods in city slums. Dharavi was taken as a specimen for the study.

Doordarshan Kendra, Nagpur, came on the telecast Map of India on August 15, 1982. Initially, area-specific programme kendras now have the identity of local kendras in Maharashtra. It is the third-largest telecast centre after Mumbai and Pune in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. The daily telecast time is from 6-7p.m. from Monday to Friday, mainly in Marathi language. It covers an area of 120km. in diameter in and around Nagpur.

Technology is not an educational panacea, but it is an important facilitator of education. This is a strong rationale and the dominant argument for expanding the use of technology in schools. A clear understanding of the role of technology in change and the implications of technology-mediated changes for education is the key to the success of any innovation in education. We need to take a look at the traditional goals of education and formulate new definitions of learning consistent with the revolution in cognitive sciences. It is time we viewed the learning process as selective filtering of experience, coordination of information, and construction of knowledge. To be able to do that is the biggest challenge of information and communication technologies in education. If we are convinced of this, then we shall be able to fashion a climate of values that encourages the ordering and re-ordering of thoughts needed to comprehend technology and strive for education to emerge from its disciplinary narrowness.

Physical Reality has been a subject of contemplation from time immemorial, right from the times when our ancestors pondered about the mystery behind stars to the unfolding facts about black holes today. Man has classified the physical as real and non-physical things like dreams and hyper dimensions as virtual. Virtual is something which doesn’t exist. The digital technology has given rise to a new order of reality – the virtual real, which addresses all the sensory perceptions of humans and make the brain believe that something non-existent as real through the projection of a virtual world onto him.

The theme behind the film revolved initially around weapons of mass destruction and technology getting into the wrong hands. The bomb blast that took place at Zaveri Bazaar and the gateway of India on August 25, 2003, made me focus the film on the blast and portray the mindless destruction of human lives and properties. I started collecting footage related to Black Monday (blast on August 25). With some 6 hours of raw footage consisting of the footage on the day of the bomb blast, interviews with the eyewitnesses, victims, and their relatives, various forms of reactions that happened after the blast, and the few secular activities in the city, I was faced with the major task of editing them and making a short film out of them. I also saw the potential of making a full-length documentary with the collected footage on the construction of communalism in India, which would require more time and research. After repeated watching of the footage and reading about communal terrorism, I decided to focus the film on themes like religious misconceptions and extremism and the co-existence of love and hate in a cosmopolitan setting.

The core idea of the project is to design a digital sketch book that can facilitate the user's ability to capture his thoughts and expressions effectively and enable him to share them with different people in a local group, like in places where collaborative learning and sharing take place, or with a global community through the internet. A device that can help the user with brainstorming and idea generation, which can help him visualise his ideas better. The device is envisioned as a digital sketch book that has the flexibility to be updated while retaining the quality of a sketch book that the user keeps with him for a long time.