It is 12:15 AM now, I am working on the study proposal. I have become very comfortable with the deadlines now, which is concerning. I have to present this on Monday. However, that is not what this blog is about.
This blog is about an information nugget that made its way through my brain during the GBI X DAD sessions. We were presented with a worksheet to try and understand the place that we choose in Albertropolis. Earlier, I used to just visit a place and observe the surroundings without thinking about what deductions I am able to make from it. For the past few weeks I have visited the Kensington Gardens and clicked pictures. Now I have data in the form of pictures and my journal notes but I do not know what to conclude from my findings. The worksheets from the South Kensington have helped me understand how I can manage my findings and have a nice flow of the information. I am very excited about my FMP. Hopefully I am able to do justice to it.
I realise how I just LOVE investigating. I also love delving into a problem and creating functional solutions for it. The outdoor work session in South Kensington was in fact a picnic-day for me.
I have been procrastinating on watching the FMP videos uploaded by Paul on moodle since a week now. I’ll do that now.
15 June 2025, 2:24 pm
Tomorrow is my pitch, I am now starting to work on the presentation. It is incredibly difficult to organise information. I have no idea how this project is going to work out. I cannot map out its trajectory which is exactly what I am supposed to do in the presentation. I need divine intervention.
First things first, there are some concepts that I missed talking about in my hand-in. The most significant of them all is the 360 wheel approach that I learnt from the Wolff Olins studio visit. This concept ed me to form the word ‘world-building’. In the 360 wheel approach, the creatives at Wolff Olins divide their deliverables in the following categories- Visual, Interactive, Verbal and Sensorial. They then decide what collaterals are necessary for the brand and then build the brand.
I was also inspired by a few projects from the BA show. I now know exactly what I want to get out from the remaining months of the MA. I get a chill as I write this.
I have had a very interesting day today. I would go even as far as to say that my entire Spring holiday has been eventful. This was absolutely the time I was waiting to experience. When I imagined what it would be like to live in London, these were the days that I was visualising. I have just finished watching the last season of ‘The Crown’ and all of the seasons of Sherlock for the millionth time. The experience of watching London on the screen and then stepping out to see the landmarks in real time is unreal.
To talk about today, I was wanting to visit the Blank Street pop up at Charlotte street. I was a bit apprehensive about getting into the line because I did not want to be seen as pitiful and unemployed both of which my mind thinks I am. My destiny never lets me experience anything for free, it does not believe in luck. Keeping that in mind, I just wanted to look at the picnic pop-up in terms of it being a branded experience.
I reached there fifteen minutes before the event began. I realised that I was too self-respecting of an adult to be doing this and decided to just buy a matcha. I then decided to buy a large matcha after all and walk back home. There was a line even for the normal orders now. Turns out, people who did not get to participate in the free pop-up event had decided to get a drink for themselves anyway. I was one of them. I felt like a guinea pig but I will give them the credit of getting their creative strategy to do good business for their store. I wondered how such decisions require collaboration from all of the departments at Blank Street to persuade me to just buy the drink at their shop.
I got my matcha and walked outside of the shop. Someone in the line had just received a Blank Street picnic blanket from the pop-up. Other people in the line clapped and hooted, I felt second hand embarrassment. Another person on the street in front of the pop-up line then shouted “we are going through a world crisis and look at these people standing outside a shop for free drinks” He said this just as I was stepping out. I practically ran at this point to get away from the shop. I really had nothing to do, I had stepped out of my home with no agenda so I decided to walk home gawking at the landmarks that would come along my way and boy was it a surreal experience. I passed along Leicester square, China town, Trafalgar square, Victoria Embankment gardens, London eye and BFI Southbank on my way home. I have decided that I will do this walk again on a sunny day with my camera.
It is 4:16 PM, the sun is still shining bright. It is a miracle.
I am seeing a significant difference in the way that I approach creative briefs now as compared to the way that I did in Term 1. It is a positive change and I did not think that it was possible.
I was taught about methods and methodologies today. I love working with data. I thrive with logic and logistics.
We started working with the Hearst brief today. I did not realise how tied I was to the idea of working alone until I suggested my group to meet tomorrow with different iterations. I was instantly reprimanded by my friend who suggested that we start working on the brief together after class instead of staring to work on it alone. Then I realised the difference between working individually in a group and working together as a group. I learn new things everyday.
I appreciate my team mates having an optimistic outlook towards the briefs and building on to each other’s ideas. While collaborating, I love the idea of trusting a teammate’s expertise and not having to bear the responsibility of every design decision.
What I witnessed today morning was a blast of communication. It was dynamically fun and surprisingly engaging. I am very happy with the brands that I have chosen and the people that I am collaborating with. We looked at today’s networking event with the perspective of it being a speed dating event. There is so much that I learnt about collaboration through this networking activity.
This unit makes me want to look forward to collaboration which I find quite ironic considering disdain towards humans. Collaborating with yourself is also a thing if one considers the different personalities residing within me as separate individuals.
I can divide my current project briefs into two types-
Where I an working with friends- Here I do no have to over explain my decisions.
Where I am working with people having a certain skill set- Here I do not have to take the burden of making all the decisions myself. I could learn trusting and predicting.
I will now design my collaboration with the teams and decide how I could make the process even more creative.
While finalising upon my briefs and my team-mates, I learnt of rejection. I found this process to be very similar to piecing together a puzzle. To summarise, I have amazing briefs, I am working with amazing groups of friends. I just hope that we are able to stay friends by the end of this ‘collaboration’ unite. This was a joke.
Story- recession- how people with practice based on art and culture lost jobs- Vodafone saw an opportunity to sell chip SIM cards- People working on commercial projects were saved- capitalism saved lives- INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE
“Form a world for each of your brief”
Paul
I had an interesting discussion in the Language Development class today. The discussion was about collaboration. It helped me land upon the fact that none of the work that I do is truly mine. There are always external factors garnering my decisions. Claire put forward such a poignant perspective of natural phenomena occurring as a result of collaboration happening within its elements. I came up with the example of a rainbow which is the outcome of the successful collaboration between the Sun and the raindrops.
I feel the need to design the collaborative process for my briefs and decide beforehand which areas of the briefs that I have selected require my intervention. I also agreed with Rob when he stated that you do not have to take the lead on every project.
Collaboration also reminds me of the sincere efforts Neha and I took to book a boat ride from Canary Wharf to Waterloo. We went there to click pictures of the winter lights. We saw the last boat of the day (RB6) leave right before our eyes. It was disappointing but made for such a funny story. We might try to do it again.
What else? The WIP show was also a great example of how collaboration can result into great things. I helped the curation team stick manifestos on the wall. It was not a very ambitious job but I enjoyed interacting with the team and got some amazing amazing BTS footage with the inta360 camera.
I will be honest, working on this assignment has turned out to be more fun than I ever imagined. I took my camera out for the first time. I took him to the Bankside to work on this assignment. I returned back home with beautiful pictures and the desire of visiting Bankside more often. I am so proud of my pictures.
The other adventure has been finding books related to brand archetypes. Here is a fascinating book that I found in the library:
Archetypes in Branding- A toolkit for creatives and strategists. Margaret Pott HARTWELL. Joshua C. CHEN with CHEN DESIGN ASSOCIATES.
I found this book just sitting on the rack of the un-borrowed books, almost as it was anticipating my gaze.
Apparently there are sixty (and counting) archetypes in the branding world as opposed to the twelve fundamental archetypes that I was initially aware of. I am attaching images of the book here. This book qualifies as the first entry to my ‘Library Gems’ page.
Moving on to the assignment.
Needless to say- creator archetype- first glance- got the book- got a little confused- still confused- process
Design 1- I am not too happy with the design, it could use some more design input.
The title does not makes sense, nor does my Unit 1 hand-in, but the good thing is that I am done with it. I am already regretting not blogging enough in term 1. (I did have my reasons. I needed to get comfortable with the surroundings- both inner and outer). This blog is to prove my future self that I do in-fact learn from my mistakes. I am trying out a new way of documenting things. It includes experiencing things and racing straight up to the ninth row of tables in the LCC library, sitting on the first monitor there, gazing out of the window to make people think that I am thinking about something important and getting straight down to writing, not giving my brain any chance of thinking whether or not would my writing would make a mark.
Today was definitely eventful. I am glad I chose this day to begin blogging (again). I had a very healthy lunch and boy did it feel good to eat real food after surviving on literal crumbs during the submission week.
While walking here, I realised how subtly London makes you realise that you actually are living in it. You might think that you would have the ‘eureka moment’ of arriving in London after stepping into Heathrow, taking your first tube ride, watching the Big Ben, getting on the London eye, clicking a picture in front of the tower bridge but no. I realised I was in London today when I was walking to the college today. The sky was gloomy, the light was dim, I was overstimulated by my jacket, my scarf, raindrops, a tote bag containing fifteen library books, my spectacles which have started slipping down my face ever since I have got here (should I be worried that I picked up the wrong size? should I be concerned that occasional starving has slimmed down my face or should I be happy that my skin-care is working? I do not know) (see how I keep getting distracted by my thoughts? It is utter mayhem up there in my head) and my headphones playing the Marathi song ‘Ka Kalena’ This was definitely a main character moment.
I did a photo-lithography workshop today. Needless to say, it was amazing. I go absolutely crazy when it comes to booking workshops and borrowing things from the kit room. Call me gluttonous and I would not care. I got the insta360 x4 camera today. It is an absolute beauty. Did I mention it is new and I should be the first person using it in the entire college? It does not matter but it helps me feel ambitious so I am going to say that it does. I am thinking of documenting the work-in-progress show, hopefully I will get it done.
These workshops that I have been doing help me realise how intertwined the streams of science and the arts really are. I wish I could just do the workshops at LCC till I die. Experimenting is fun. It also takes care of your physical health. I had a full blown upper body workout in the workshop today- rolling the ink and turning the press’s wheel. Good times.
The other thing that I witnessed today is London’s mood swings. It relieves me to think that London is just as indecisive as me. I was in the workshop, I looked out of the window and it started pouring. Pouring, mind you, not drizzling. For a second, I thought we were amidst a storm. Then I received a weather app notification on my phone saying that the rain will stop in two minutes and it did, and at the very next instant I was blinded by a ray that had made its way through the workshop window. I wish I had taken pictures but my hands were dipped in paint. Crazy day.
I am excited as I will be going grocery shopping now. What has adulting turned me into?
This is it for today’s yap session. I really need to think about a navigation system for my blog so that my lovely godsend tutors do not end up reading this instead of the academic blogs.
This is an experiential video depicting the narrative of a square being just as adorable and fun as other shapes. This task was a part of our experiments in PlayLab.
I was not very happy with the narrative that all of us subconsciously kept assigning to the form of a square. Initially we ended up thinking of square to be a boring and restrictive shape, someone who does not like to experiment, socialise and leads a lonely life. I do not blame us, that is a thought that every designer has come across at least once. Why do you think the ‘anger’ in Inside Out is square in shape? Even the phrase ‘don’t be a square’ means to not be a conventional, old-fashioned person. I knew that this narrative needed to change.
My introverted temperament helps me empathise with squares. Some of us like to know people better in order to know if they truly deserve to experience our personality and our presence. So we came up with a story that shows how interesting squares can be. They might look boring on the outside, but what if they are always having a little party of theirs in their head?
The aroma of freshly brewing ginger tea whirled above my face, rested horizontally on my pillow and tingled my nostrils. Sun’s rays pierced my corneas through the crescents of my eyes and ushered me into the day by giving my torso a warm embrace. This quintessential morning affair helped me establish the fact that I had in fact woken up at my home in Pune, India.
My favourite part of being a brand designer, a place-brand designer to be specific is that I get to travel a lot, explore the unexplored, experience the full spectrum of emotions, soak in the complex information and build a narrative of being swamped with branding projects instead of sitting in my bed with a blank face placed between the two palms of my hands, giving in to the traps of the existential questions that have lodged themselves permanently into the attic of my mind palace.
My life has always revolved around questions. Even as I took the first sip of the tea brought to me in bed by my mother, I remember thinking why at all did I decide to go forward with the alumni event at my school when project deadlines were literally pouring down on me like torrential rains. I was not particularly excited about visiting my school. The idea of living a past reality all over again made me feel uncomfortable. I was not the same person as I was fifteen years ago when I graduated school. The only thing that was similar to the eighteen and the thirty-three year old Rutvi was the internal battle of FOMO vs JOMO that was raging inside my mind even at this moment.
The birds on the trees across my window, however, looked cheerful and chirped almost as if in anticipation of the day that was yet to unfold, a day that I had lived in my dreams or perhaps in a parallel dimension that could only be perceived by them.
Today was indeed a very special day in my life but I could not get myself to admit it. All my values as an empath and as a designer have to manifest within my actions, within my designs and heaven forbid if I decide to acknowledge my wins and talk about them. I was supposed to receive an award at my school recognising my contributions to India’s design sector. I was also supposed to deliver a ten-minute long speech to the current cohorts at my school today. I got dressed as I thought which of the two tasks felt more daunting.
“Kon tu”? (Who are you?) the security guard asked me as I stepped into my school’s premises. Ironically, I had been asked this question at the exact spot fifteen years ago. In fact, a spiteful “Kon tu?” uttered from a certain person’s mouth was the foundation of my career. And to think of it, who really was I? Was I a boring human pretending to be a brand designer or was I a shrewd brand designer pretending to be humane? Over the years, the nature of the questions I ask myself has kept on evolving in an unhinged manner but the “Kon Tu?” has been my constant companion.
I assured Sham kaka (the guard) of my identity and walked towards the venue hall to see my schoolmates hovering around the stairs leading up to the dais. We joked for a bit and I returned to the seat reserved for me. As I attempted to adjust the pleats of my saree gracefully, I saw a hundred cheerful and a hundred confused faces enter the lady Ramabai hall. I could easily place the eighteen year old Rutvi within their cliques. Fifteen years ago, I had walked into this very room with questions- Who is Rutvi? Did she ever exist for her peers? Would they remember her ten years later? What would they remember her for? hovering in my mind.
Today, my destiny perseverance had given me the surreal opportunity of answering all these questions myself. Today, as I walked up to the dais to receive my award, I witnessed my life come to a full circle.
The time I spent at UAL, London College of Communication pursuing my MA in Graphic Branding and Identity granted me the opportunity to ponder on questions. The MA dared to challenge the timid caterpillar of me to emerge out of the chrysalis of my self-conscious disposition and morph into a butterfly all ready to flutter along the stream of consciousness.
If it weren’t for the MA, I would not have been able to realise the beauty of these existential questions that my brain serves me as breakfast. The MA handed me the responsibility of catering to these questions in the most creative way possible by cooking up a three-course meal of complexity, capability and opportunity.
Experiencing a full circle moment made me think about circles. I think that circles make up for an interesting shape. They are an epitome of symmetry and grace symbolising life itself. As I stood up on the dais talking about my experience as a designer, all I could see was a kaleidoscope of vibrant circles forming and dissolving against a dark background. That is when it struck me.
I did watch a full circle moment unfold before my eyes but I had been unjust while turning a blind eye to the other moments in my life which were just as infinite and just as complete. I realise now that life is not about slogging everyday until you witness a full circle moment at last. Perhaps, life is about acknowledging a multiverse of a full circles being created and completed simultaneously. My design journey has led me to discover the enigma that lies within these circles.
“As humans, we have gotten the age-old saying all twisted. I believe it ought to be ‘circles all the way down’ instead of it being ‘turtles all the way down’ ” Saying this, I ended my ten-minute long speech.
The event went quite well, better than I expected, to be honest. Was it because of my award? or was it because I figured out the ‘circles all the way down’ analogy on the spot? No one will ever know.
There is one thing, however, that I know for sure. I will walk through the circle of inquiry with every project I undertake because that is what I think makes me a good designer. Questions increase my integrity as a designer and hence I will listen all my rude and intrusive questions with pure earnestness (Why do you think a question mark looks like an ear?) These questions push me to think about cultures, empathy, ethics and morals involved in any piece of tangible or intangible design. Questions lead me to discover and complete my circles. Why else would you think question marks flaunt the little circle in their symbol?
The aftermath of this long, painful writing task
I am not even kidding. You have no idea what just happened. Maybe I am putting a lot of thought into it, maybe it is just a coincidence, but who cares? I was writing this task when I received a message on my school’s WhatsApp group chat. I am attaching a screenshot of it beneath this. Make what you want out of it.
Language Development Class task (Twenty minutes) :
It was a dreadful Friday when I realized the amount of course work that had piled up after two months of rigorous academic class schedule. I could see data spewing out of unwritten blogs, incomplete homework assignments and rotation briefs. I was determined to get all tasks completed before the weekend ended.
I got myself a cup of coffee and sat at my desk. I stared at the screen for some hours. My eyes watered from exhaustion but my brain refused to think of solutions that would lead me to complete my assignments. I lay on bed dreaming about the demons of the unticked to-do list. I woke up and it was a Sunday. I spent the afternoon turning pages of my sketchbook, looking for inspiration. In the evening, I decided to finally leave my desk and do my laundry because I have learnt the hard way that adulting cannot wait.
I stepped into the laundry room and that is when the first idea hit my brain. As I poured the detergent, loaded my clothes into the drum and cursed the Circuit Go app, more ideas started coming in. I spent two entire days at my desk waiting for the ideas to arrive but they only manifested themselves when I left my workspace.
I realised then, that movement motivates me. The state of urgency puts me in a position to think creatively, giving rise to more ideas. In the future, not too distant, I will actively design my day to fit in all sorts of tasks instead of fixating and worrying about the assignments. I will stay in motion and try to enjoy the entire process as much as I enjoy taking pride in my creative output.
