Digital Alter Natives Book Design

Hivos (Netherlands) and Centre for Internet & Society (India) had commissioned Lucid to design a 4 part book for them entitled “Digital Alter Natives: With a Cause?”. The book was also accompanied by a kit that contained a booklet entitled “D:Coding Digital Natives”, a poster, a cd and some stickers.

The project involved submissions from over 50 contributors, from academics to scholars, to practitioners, educators, policy makers and corporate representatives, to share learnings on the Digital Native (defined as a person born during or after the general introduction of digital technology such as the internet). These technologies have allowed Digital Natives to reshape the structure of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic expansion, political protocols and government mediation, and the books highlight these redefinitions.

The project was launched on September the 16th, 2011 at the Museum of Communication in the Hague. We enjoyed designing these books tremendously. We wanted them to be edgy and engaging (unlike other research books) and imbibe and portray the interactive nature of the internet into a static medium. The project was very well recieved!

To learn more please follow this link: http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook

Or to read the books online, please click here: http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/Digital-AlterNatives-with-a-Cause

Talk about Eco-Friendly

I came across this packaging recently for some ayurvedic soap. In addition to the obvious benefits of using ayurvedic soap (all natural, locally made, no harmful chemicals, rich in minerals and vitamins) the packaging also sported some strong eco credentials.

The outer covering is made from palm leaves that are heat compressed into a shell. The soap is wrapped in recycled paper and the shell is closed with string making sure the product is untampered with. When you are done with this packaging you can simply toss the entire thing into the compost bin. But with such beautifully natural design and simplicity, I found that a little hard to do without looking at it a few more times.

The Sundial Bridge

This is a design classic that I’ve dug out of my archives. On a road trip heading north in California, we took an intentional detour to see Santiago Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge in Turtle Bay, Redding.

The bridge did not disappoint. A majestic single cantilever holding up a translucent deck that glows blue at night. It also doubled up as a clock, using the sun to tell time by casting shadows onto numbers in the park at one end of the bridge. The bridge spanned 700 feet and did not touch the water at any point.

Interesting story about this bridge, it was constructed at nearly ten times the intended budget. Long battles were fought at city hall against this blatant waste of public funds. However when it was finished it became directly responsible for a 42% increase in visitors to Redding.

Funny how a pedestrian foot bridge can put a whole city on the map!

Freedom Park in Bangalore

Pleasantly surprised to see a nice public project where they’ve taken a 150 year old prison in Bangalore and converted it into a park.

Aptly named Freedom Park, the city held an open competition inviting submissions for the conversion. The winning architect was given a generous budget to execute the transformation.

The architects have retained a sense of history and maintained the prison barracks in some areas so you understand the history of the place. Since a lot of freedom fighters were imprisoned here in colonial times, a contrast between the beautiful outdoor spaces and the cramped dark cells highlights the lack of freedom inmates undoubtedly felt.

The park features sharp, light and angular features of rock and landscaping, against the rounded, overbuilt and heavy colonial buildings. A modern exhibition space with dynamic walls that can be opened, is very stylishly connected with a beautiful angular sectioned foot bridge. Even pathways progressively taper off into nature in an angular design to symbolize the overbuilt and overly secure prison returning to nature and freedom.

Very inspiring overall, I hope to see other public projects of this caliber in Indian cities.

So Much Information Built Into the Streets

I know that in most parts of the world, a street is covered in tarmac and then a whole bunch of paint is applied in various configurations to delineate the different functions of different parts of the street. And a lot of the time, the lines are worn away making the street quite unsafe.

If you think about it, a street has to communicate a lot of information to the various types of users on it. You have pedestrians, bicycles, rickshaws, carts, cars and trucks amongst other things, depending on where you live (I’m talking cows in India!)

In Penang, the Malaysians have taken this to a whole new level, and in a way that is not likely to be worn off soon. The street is cast in concrete and brick in various colors. The main driving lanes are gray in an interesting pattern. The bicycle lane is cast in a red toned concrete with a horizontal gray concrete brick separator. The parking areas are outlined with a yellow toned concrete brick. The intersections are a criss cross pattern of gray and red toned concrete. And there is even a pattern in gray and red for motorcycles and cycles to park in.

The result looks very sophisticated, is very informative, and naturally very durable and permanent as it is all cast in concrete. Pretty smart!

The Coolest Restoration

A hotel in Penang has done one of the coolest restorations I’ve ever seen. Taking a congested row of Chinese shop houses and combining it into one very casual and stylish hotel with multiple rooms.

Inside, the walls are retained as is, exposing the wonderful layers of build up gathered over a century of use. However, the furniture has been nicely updated with a few modern objects and a lot of restored pieces that retain their original wear. By carefully controlling the colors and placements, the space exudes a sense of style that is simply not achievable through just modern furniture.

I hope to see more such restorations in the future that retain all of the glamour and sense of history of a bygone era, but accent it with some modernity that is fun and classy.

Britannia Healthy Start by Lucid

We recently completed the brand identity and packaging designs for Britannia’s Healthy Start line of breakfast mixes.

Britannia wanted to take on a fresh new perspective for this project, and work with us in particular, to deliver something that the Indian market hadn’t seen!

The products launched last month and will be sold all over India in a months time. The response so far has been great and we’re looking forward to seeing Healthy Start products catching on as it’s something that we really believe in ourselves.

Britannia is one of the largest food and beverage companies in India. And we’re looking forward to working with them again in the future to improve the way Indians relate to food!

Minimal Motorcycle

I ran across this little gizmo on the streets of San Francisco. I couldn’t help but stop and marvel at the simplicity of it’s design.

As we move toward the future, one thing is clear, we need our products to be as simple as possible. They need to be made from as little materials as possible, and they need to be as easy to disassemble and recycle as they were to put together in the first place.

This motorcycle is a brilliant first step towards that future. From the tubular structure that houses the fuel tank, to the exhaust that is held up by the seat. At every turn, parts have been minimized, and attached so that they are in full view for easy disassembly. In fact you could probably recycle this whole motorcycle by removing the electricals, tires and the seat, draining the fluids and then simply melting down all of the remaining metal parts. I think this is just beautifully simple!

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everybody out there a wonderful new year!