MP Ranjan: A Teacher for a Life in Design
The thing about Ranjan was that you couldn’t ignore him; he was prolific, he was everywhere and he had a deep, unshakeable conviction that design could and should change the world. To me, he was the friend who always stayed in touch, a philosopher whose ideas sparked an enduring fire, and the beacon whose light...
Sketchnotes: UnBox Festival 2014
For four years now the UnBox Festival has been a torchbearer for cross-disciplinary pollination of ideas. A combination of design, technology, craft, art, activism, systems thinking, city-planning and social change action, the festival has constantly challenged the presumptions of a way of life taken for granted. By bringing together makers, thinkers and doers from a...
Sketchnotes: TEDxGateway 2014
A continuing source of inspiration, TEDxGateway is an invaluable forum that highlights important issues and relevant solutions to the problems facing the world today. Held on November 2nd, 2014 at the NCPA in Mumbai, the theme for the day was #BetterIndia. Here’s a roundup of some of the ideas to take home from this edition....
The Design of Ordinary Things: Ambassador Cars
The second comic in the series for The Small Picture was on the design of Ambassadors – those beloved cars that I and so many of my fellow Indian grew up in. We didn’t always love the Amby – and it wasn’t ever the sexiest car on the road – but when production of the...
The Design of Ordinary Things: Pressure Cooker
Earlier in 2014, I was selected as one of the new artists for The Small Picture – a weekly comics column run by the team at Manta Ray. Following from the comic from the Creating Change book I contributed to for Kyoorius, I decided to make a series of one-page comics tracing the design history...
Sketchnotes: India Design Forum 2013
This past March, Mumbai hosted the second India Design Forum. A gathering of the who’s who of the design world, the two-day event was a packed schedule of speakers and panels, all against the backdrop of a city-wide design week. A number of local studios and design entrepreneurs participated in the daily events leading up...
Perch in 100% Yatra
Many thanks to the team behind 100% Zine. They’re doing a great job of bringing together artists from different backgrounds on the same platform and we’re very happy to share our work with them. 100% zine can be bought online or at design stores like Filter and Bombay Electric.
Sketchnotes: TEDxGateway 2012
December 2nd saw the third edition of TEDxGateway hosted in Mumbai. An independently organised version of the now famous TED talks, the day brought together 21 speakers from 17 different countries for the largest event of its kind in the city. While the TEDxGateway met its organisers’ objective of sharing “unique ideas from India and...
Sketchnotes from Kyoorius Designyatra 2012
These sketches were created live at Designyatra 2012 using the Paper app on an iPad. To see more sketches, join us on Facebook. All sketches, text and material are © Ruchita Madhok, 2012. Please do not distribute...
Amul’s India
Growing up in Mumbai, the one thing I looked forward to on the morning bus trip was the unmissable Amul hoarding at Mahim Causeway. Every week, once a week for all my school going years, that one hoarding would bring a smile to the day. Sometimes it would be a giggle at a piece of...
Pink Is The Navy Blue of India
These days one doesn’t think twice when looking at a magazine spread of a fashionable femme fatale striking a pose in an exotic locale, or a candid shot of a model in the streets, but the genre of fashion photography owes a great deal to one of its original pioneers in the form of...
Building Books
In a virtual galaxy of book publishers hawking their wares in bookstores these days, Tara Books editions illuminate India’s rich and vibrant visual culture. An impressive catalogue that straddles fantasy, fiction, poetry, folklore, visual arts and design, each publication is created through the effort of academics, anthropologists, writers, artists and designers working together. Founded by...
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