Nanki Nath

$fractal.jpg$

DESIGN SPRINT-LIKE EVENTS IN CORE COURSES: Quizzing, Hackathons...more soon

QUIZZING: Supplemental Learning Activities

Quizzing is an involving activity. At NID Ahmedabad (2019 - 2020); developed

quiz for Typography courses of both B.Des and M.Des batches & also for the

course of Visual Theory as VT quiz for B.Des at NID (2020); Colour Quiz for

B.Des at Department of Design, IIT Guwahati (2015), online quiz for the course, 'Semiotics' for B.Des, II yr. students (2021) at MIT-WPU effective tool to gauge

students' applied learning; in addition to hands-on assignments assessed; but a

QUIZ is also a great community-building tool between students' and faculties.

Among students, a 'Quiz Activity' strengthens their competitive cum participatory

spirit, spirit of exchange, working together as Design Teams (see for VT Quiz 2020) and is also a promising teaching learning mode for the faculty instructor to address more curiosity, questioning, debates / discussions with student teams.

HACKATHONS: Augmented Learning Activities & Intense Innovative Retreats

Recent developments of Design-A-Hack-A-Thon approach is an attempt to give

in-class an event-based experience of a live project / a design competition, etc.

to students. The teacher becomes either the creative head or a client to design

students - who wear the cap of lead designers to design for real project briefs. In the core courses such as Typography, Graphic Design, Design elements;

keeping an avenue to augment skills, concepts and learnings from the course

in context of a live project/ competition based creative brief of a project helps

students experience their learnings for existing target audience, understand

design's value in systems and events that involves people or a contextual

scenario at large. It is also an intense retreat to test and honing skills and their marriage with technologies, trends and conceptual design for better/ effective

design solutions for real-time projects.

LEARNING BY DOING: Skill-based Rotation Blended Learning

Certain skills and techniques (design trends) orientation to students in a

blended format has been part of courses Elements of Design, Graphic Design

and Typography at IIT Guwahati and NID Ahmedabad. Learning-by-doing through

both classes in core courses and conducting design workshops for students has

been fruitful for skill developments and augmentation: learning a new technique

or tool to design, practicing the elements and principles of visual design in the

making of a certain aesthetic in the final design outcomes.

VALUE FORMATION:

Experiential Learning & Research

The Value formation assignments included the specific aims to capture

history, material culture, heritage employing a visual narrative approach

about an object, culture or a space that students' selected as part of

such courses. These value-formation assignments included in-depth

field research, ethnography and related methods to present the origin,

evolution and future of these objects/cultures/spaces. In the courses

of Environmental Graphic Design, Documentation of Visual Culture,

Introduction to Field Work, Study Tour courses at NID; the course

objectives and the teaching pedagogy was accordingly aligned to

develop Value Formation in Design. At IIT Guwahati, value formation

approach was part of design research methods in semester-driven

and annual masters degree projects in areas of way finding and

signage design, interactive storytelling through local games, design

revivals for indigenous Indic script, etc.

PERCEPTION-BASED STUDIES:

Self-guided/ Flex Learning method developments

This includes observation and cognition-based tasks based on critical design, speculative design, deconstruction. Established case studies and classic works

are observed, analysed and experienced as a discourse by students'.

Visual Journaling, 'Reading Images' sessions, Interpretive sessions on direct observations and decoding the image, Photo Essays to deconstruct the origin, existence, meaning and essence of visuals/visual forms, etc. 'No texts' principle

is the basis of formulating assignments, activities and specific perception-based

tasks for students to question, explore, learn and share. The purpose is to

develop observation eye and the required need of harnessing an interpretive

mind as a designer.

DESIGN FRAMEWORKS

Frameworks Designed & Applied for Core Courses

This includes design frameworks formulated for developing the pedagogical

aims behind assignments that students are expected to achieve. These

assignments involve a balance of both concept design and skill-practice

for students.

View published framework

Springer Link

ENGAGING DESIGN PROJECTS [EDP] Methodology:

New Normal Design Projects of M.Des students (2020)

This includes a four-fold method development that students followed in 2020

in the wake of distance-learning through blended methods. From project

selections, proposal making till final outcomes a new framework was followed

for design projects - these projects majorly include a blend of graphic,

interaction and industrial design mediums, concepts and technologies.

Learnings from FEEDBACKS:

Critical Design Dissections & Reflective Practice through PBL

In: Design Reviews as part of Design Projects, IITG & NID

A blended approach (verbal and written) feedbacks to students was followed

as part of semester-driven design projects of individual students. 2-3 review presentations with at least 1 display-cum-presentation based review by each

student helped in a focused attention to understand and reflect upon the

design project at IITG and NID. After review presentations at NID, per

student a written feedback as part of a collective batch feedback write-up

was mailed to students. This included more details in critiques from the

perspectives of product, process, research, presentation & communication

skills, etc.

As a design faculty, efforts were to facilitate students' during the long-form

design feedback sessions with analogies, anecdotes, resources, similar or

competitive design practice projects, knowledge of research methods and

trends that they can take inspirations/ leads from to fine-tune the process

followed by design detailing of the outcomes and the curation approaches

to select, formulate and give a tone of voice to their form and content in

project documentations.

In: Design Juries as part of Design Degree Projects, IITG & NID

This includes a four-fold method development that students followed in 2020

in the wake of distance-learning through blended methods. From project

selections, proposal making till final outcomes a new framework was followed

for design projects - these projects majorly include a blend of graphic,

interaction and industrial design mediums, concepts and technologies. A

design degree project by my student Honlung Ragui, M.Des final yr, 2016

followed a rigorous research-centric design process - that led to publication of

this project on indigenous script revival through contemporary type design

practice at HLS 22 interantional conference; organized by Dept. of Humanities

and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG).

NEW: MENTORSHIP TO INDUSTRY-ORIENTED TEAMS

This was a great opportunity in the May of 2020 to actively join in the Task Force, UMO.Design as a mentor to industry-oriented team from Verizon, Chennai, India