My close encounters with ‘Design Thinking’

During my short stint (a few months institutional training) at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 1996-97 my thirst for understanding the science behind ‘Design Development’ became quite unquenchable. Through the innumerable hours spent in NID’s state-of-the-art library, I had

Through the innumerable hours spent in NID’s state-of-the-art library, I had learnt that the ‘Concept of design’ as a way of making sense of things has recently been the subject of many studies (starting with the Krippendorff study – 1989).

Those days ‘Design Thinking’ was also immerging as a topic of study, but that would still take time and would only be developed into a subject in 2008 (Brown 2008; Brown 2009).

But, I didn’t have time.

A seeker with a hungry young soul – I blindly fall in love with another new subject named ‘Communication Design’. I had to delve into the endless ocean of – strategic communication design to quench my thirst, to learn more and more and more.

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30 yrs later, today when I use Human-centered design (HCD) as one of my key methodology of Concept and Design development I still allow a healthy mix of my idea of ‘Design thinking’ and ‘Strategic communication design’ to develop solutions which are relevant to human perspectives and to the society.

I now develop a design and management framework that further develops solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. In my methodology – Human involvement typically takes place in observing the problem within context, brainstorming, conceptualizing, developing, and implementing the solution.

Here’s a Billboard design prototype I had developed considering the ‘Human perspective’ of design development along with the theories of ‘strategic communication’ in 1999 to launch the Drive in McD on Mathura Road.

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The creative idea was – a subtle change in flow or in the arrangement of the garlands subtly making the McD Identity and hitting the human subconscious. The flowers represent the festivity of the inauguration as well as the divinity of the destination – Mathura.

There were around 25 large billboards leading to the restaurant from both ways with this kind of floral arrangements (real flowers of course).

This idea brought over 7 awards for the agency. : )

Victor Ghoshe