Lakshmi Murthy, founder of Vikalp Design, has been working with the rural population in Rajasthan & Gujarat for over 20 years as a communication designer, to develop an effective framework for communication. And in doing so, she has uncovered a way of seeing, and consequently a new way of conversing with her audiences. Below is a short excerpt from an interview with her in Dekho—Conversations on Design in India.

“In distinguishing between the urban and the rural audience, the latter is wrongfully regarded as visually illiterate. The rural audience has a sharper perception of their environment and are keener to infer from indexical traces that the urban individual would neglect. In fact it is the city-bred individual who may be ‘illiterate’ in the rural environment, lacking their visual knowledge. While an urban designer will draw in proportion and orientation of what they see as ‘known’, a villager would rely on vernacular knowledge to draw, displaying a keen unlettered intelligence.

Urban designers need to re-examine their role in communication when working with non-literate and rural groups. They need to assume the role of a facilitator and act as a catalyst in encouraging people’s own visual expression, finding a common visual language and producing visuals that are responsive to the needs of the audience.

A participatory process of self-expression holds one answer. Encouraging people to draw has been looked upon as an empowering process that leads to inclusion of notions otherwise difficult to express.”

Image from Vikalp’s Rural Pictorial Gallery. Drawn by people in rural areas of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, and collected by Vikalp since 1992.

In the above excerpt, Lakshmi puts forth a new role of the communication designer when working in a new social and cultural environment. She proposes a shift, from creator to a facilitator—wherein the process of design seeks to leverage existing knowledge and language—gently questioning and guiding and eventually co-creating a solution. The process brings one of the key principles of design—empathy into action, and goes beyond merely sensitising a designer to enabling him/her with the building blocks of a design intervention. The other key benefit of this process can be the emergence of a natural ownership. World-over, well meaning design interventions often break down with users/communities not being able to sustain a connection with it (design intervention). But this new way of building together, breaks down barriers and roots the foundation of an idea in the user community.

Image from Vikalp’s Rural Pictorial Gallery.

Learn more about Vikalp and their work, here.

Dekho image, courtesy Codesign.  Illustrations courtesy Vikalp.

Design to Improve Life Education from INDEX: Design to Improve Life® on Vimeo.

The Compass offers interesting methods, processes and filters which educators and students in design schools (irrespective of their geographical location and age), can incorporate in their work, especially in projects concerning social, economic & environmental sustainability. While it is relevant for both teachers and students, the Compass needs careful study and some level of experience to understand how all or parts of it can be customised or adapted for different projects for social impact.

The Compass is structured with the user as the central point of focus, always reminding and anchoring activities through a user-centric lens. Four sequential phases of Prepare, Perceive, Prototype and Produce present distinct parts of the creative process. Each phase contains suggested actions, which further contain multiple ways each of implementation. A detailed overview of objectives, approach, plan, right down to time allotment for activities at every level, clarifies the utility and execution. A ‘Sum Up’ action at the end of each phase, provides an important pause in the process, for reflection and better awareness before moving on to the next stage of idea development.The Compass also brings rigour to the overall process, by suggesting a 3-pronged evaluation criteria—Form, Impact and Context.

For me one for the most valuable features in the entire model was the idea of Jokers. Described as ‘positive interruptions that can change design teams’ mindsets, make them change their course of direction and see new possibilities’ Jokers offers activities and processes that can tackle the inertia or heady rushes in the creative process. Despite the best of intentions and dedication, creative processes for design students (and anybody else for that matter) can often hit the wall with extremes of narrow focus or lack of focus. The idea of Jokers calls out that gap, and provides suggestions for it.

The Compass may have been designed keeping in mind school children. But don’t let that throw you off. In the ideas it offers on navigating the creative process and validating your ideas, it can be helpful, especially if you are designing (or mentoring) to improve life. Check it out here.

All images courtesy INDEX Design To Improve Life.