taskFOUR: corporate social responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR is a self defining term. With globalization, organizations today can no longer afford to be only profit making units and treat CSR as a fringe activity. They have a social and ethical responsibility towards the society in which they exist and function. This means actively making a contribution towards the welfare of the community.

There are two types of socially responsible companies, those which donate money to charities and those who believe that "cheque book philanthropy is not the way to transformation".

The Aditya Birla Group falls under the latter. This Group has done such vast scales of welfare work for the community, that one blog seems to do no justice to talk about it.

The Birlas have been the largest Indian industrious family for generations. The roots of this group dates back to the 19th century in Rajasthan, India. Starting with simple cotton trade, the foundation was laid for the House of the Birlas and today under the leadership of their Chairman, Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the Group has sustained and established a leadership position in its key businesses through continuous value-creation. The Aditya Birla Group is a leader in a swathe of products — viscose staple fibre, aluminium, cement, copper, carbon black, palm oil, insulators, garments. And with successful forays into financial services, telecom, software and BPO, the Group is today one of Asia's most diversified business groups.

The Chairperson of Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development, Rajashree Birla looks after the CSR of the Birla Group. Their activities include self-reliance through the engine of sustainable livelihood, providing employment schemes for rural youths; making safe drinking water and health care easily accessible; and reaching out to the physically impaired. They support social causes like widow remarriages, dowry-less marriages and foster women's empowerment programmes.















Mrs. Birla with her son Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla

What is most striking about their vision, policy and strategy is that they believe that in today's world, companies expecting the government alone to address the welfare issue is unfair and unrealistic. They are truly the change catalyst as they are the first to access and use government funds for their various schemes to enlarge their reach. They want to change the quality of life for the weaker sections of the society by forming collaborative partnerships with goverment bodies and organizations with similar visions to leverage upon collective expertise and experience to be effective. And so far they have been extremely successful in doing so.

The Birla Group has not only earned a tremendous amount of respect and loyalty of their stakeholders, but have created goodwill in the community with years of functioning and contributing to the society with a conscience. No other business house stands at par with them in this regard. They have and always will be the foremost family to effectively help the community, not make hollow promises, and make the country believe that they really do care.

Must visit and data taken from:
The Aditya Birla Group website
Rajashree Birla on CSR

As a graphic designer, especially one still creating her own niche, being socially responsible and ethical is vital for me. This also extends to my personal life. When I say socially responsible it is not only related directly to people but to the environment as well. As a human being it is my moral duty to protect and not harm the enviornment and community I live in, and as a designer my job to do so is supposed to be easier.

Be it not wasting paper, ink, and other design supplies. Be it working with organizations that do welfare work for minimal or no fee. Be it giving up a fantastic paying job because the company doesn't have a good CSR policy, or is unethical in their operations. Be it using skills as a designer to communicate important messages to people such as stop smoking. The opportunities to be socially responsible are endless, as long as you want to indulge in them. This would mean sometimes not making profits, having extra workload and actively doing something to benefit society around you.

A lot of times it is easier said than done, but what matters is you try, even if it is in the smallest ways.

I've brought an energy saving lamp which consumes 30% less energy. It is huge, bulky and sometimes difficult to move, but I still use it late into the night. I use both sides of any sheet of paper for printing. I did awareness posters on female infanticide for free. So since I'm only starting out I will be faced with many obstacles and opportunities to be socially responsible (or not), it is up to me to use my moral judgement and make my choices.

taskTHREE: motion graphics

Starting from drawing with pencils and rulers, graphic design has come a long way. The shift was drastic - from hand drawn letterforms to introduction of design softwares to webpages and now to 3D animation.

The scope of motion graphics are vast. Starting with movie titles and credits, commercials, video games, 2D and 3D animation, cartoons, medical and flight simulations.. the list is endless. We see moving images in all forms around us. It is such a common sight, that we fail to even notice it sometimes. Letters can jump and twirl, billboards can have talking cartoons and even street signage today is motion based!

The combination of graphic with movement and sound has resulted in the creation of motion graphics. They are an integral part of the design industry and almost all media based communication today has motion graphics in some form or the other. The development of 3D softwares have only facilitated the growth of motion graphic design. There is a large demand for animation designers everywhere. Still images almost have seem to lose their charm to the moving image. 

In the competitive world of the moving image, there are many designers and design studios worth mention. It's not like the 50's anymore where a pioneer like Saul Bass could be singled out. There were and still are many unsung heros who have contributed to the field.

So to name a few studios which have been doing fantastic work over the past years is simply trying to pick the needle(s) from the incredibly large and tremendously talented haystack.

My first encounter with the moving image was in India when MTV decided to revamp its logo and present their new 'cool' image. Many design studios around the world handle their account and a few are mentioned below.

CRITICA

With its genesis in only 2005, Critica, based in Singapore, is an award-winning graphic and animation studio. They have clients such as CNN, AXN, MTV, Hallmark, Ogilvy and Mather and Lowe. They have a fabulous body of work to boast of. Although their showreel is unavailable on YouTube, the following link is a must watch to see their plethora of motion work and appreciate their brilliantly creative minds also showing that they have so much potential.

Critica Studio Showreel

THANK YOU

A Copenhagen based motion graphic studio, they have a vast variety of work ranging from branding to commercial videos and short films.

Their website is: thankyou studio

Thank You Showreel 07

Channel V in India came up with their very first animated mascot (of sorts) called Simpu. He speaks Hindi and is a funny cartoon and there have been several videos based on him. It was done by Vaibhav Studios.

Channel V mascot Simpu

Animation designer Dhimant Vyas, India, has done the title sequence for the hindi hit movie Taare Zameen Par in 2007. It was a starting point of Indian cinema accepting and creating in-house animation. The sequence is incredibly cute suiting the theme of the movie as it is about a child, and creates the right mood to start off with. It is very imaginative using clay animation and captures the essence of the the protagonist Ishaan, almost already defining him and every child. (The movie is a must watch! And you would probably understand this better after reading a synopsis of the movie at: TZP Synopsis)

Taare Zameen Par animation

Thus, while this highlights only a few of the design studios involved with motion graphics, the scope for the same is limitless. It is going to become easier to create the moving image with the rapid advancement in technology (softwares). It already has extended its wings into all possible communication channels with iconized text messages, they say that the time isn't far when we get our morning newspapers on thin computer screens!

taskTWO: wayfinding

For the second task, I chose my favorite place in London - Victoria & Albert Museum to discuss a contemporary wayfinding system.

Designed by Holmes Wood, a UK based identity and communication design firm, they have managed to create a unique graphic language in the V&A navigation system.

Outside the museum they have glass components which are changeable and inside is a simply done color and symbol co-ordinated navigation system. The exhibition rooms and other areas of the museum are color coded using orange, pink, blue, purple and green. There is of course the usual grey, black and white as well, used only when necessary. The huge space the museum occupies demands a comprehensive and user-friendly sign system which Holmes Wood has successfully managed to do.

The bright colors add a lot of life to the high ceilings, cream-colored sober interiors of the iconic structure. They make the place look very modern and friendly as well. The several entrances of the museum have huge maps on the wall, as well as small booklets which one can carry around when exploring the space.

In these maps the rooms are color coded, which is also carried onto the banners in the rooms itself. There is a key to the map which further describes what exhibit is on display along with a symbol key as well. The walls of some rooms are color coded too.

Throughout the Museum, there are symbols describing the facilities present in the space and the usual arrows pointing the direction. The typeface is simple and clean and one which has high legibility even from a distance.

Although the system is very comprehensive, owing to the size of the space, one does tend to get lost despite the map as there are too many nooks and corners which are all not possible to identify on a map. This cannot wholly be blamed on the designer. Nevertheless, the staff is VERY friendly and helpful, and getting lost isn't a luxury there! Moreover, after a few visits you can navigate yourself around without the map.

Overall the wayfinding system has its own graphical flow combining symbols, type and color and has a very classy appeal, just like the museum. Uncluttered and sophisticated, the design is in sync with the image of the V&A - contemporary yet retaining a traditional feel.

taskONE: two typefaces

Type is subject of design in itself. We are exposed to a million different type messages each day. Everywhere we go, there's type - ads, signs, branding, books and so on. Using the right type makes ALL the difference to a design. Thus understanding type, it's correct usage becomes inevitable for a graphic designer.

For the task I have chosen three typefaces I like.

1. Century Gothic

It is a simple, clean, geometric sans-serif font designed in 1991. It is said to take inspiration from Sol Hess's Twentieth Century and closely similar to Avant Garde. It has excellent legibility, well defined letterforms, and can be used comfortably in a formal as well as an informal design layout. It was designed for the Monotype Imaging although I have not been able to get details about the designer. The typeface is pure geometry with no stroke variations in the letters. It works best in lowercase, although the uppercase is often used in formal communication. A weakness of this particular typeface would be that it doesn't work very well in a large point size for example, 24 and beyond. It looks like it has too much space and no real depth. Whereas when used in publishing, annual reports, etc. this gives a very clean, defined and system look to the project.

2. Eurostile

It is a sans-serif geometric typeface, designed by Aldo Novarese (Italian type designer) in 1962, originally made for the Italian foundry, Nebiolo where he worked. Born in Italy in 1920, he had a background in woodcutting, lithography and copper engraving. He also designed, Eurostile condensed and heavy and Press Gothic.

Eurostile utilizes the shape of the square for it letterforms, which was a reflection of the modern designs gaining popularity at the time, such as television screens. It became a typeface that represented technology. It is linear in nature and is both technical and functional. I like the square shape to the letters as well its functionality of adapting to upper as well as lowercase with the same ease. It has a family of seven fonts and has been used for branding, music, video games and television series (BBC One during 1976-1983). Too much use of this typeface can prove to look monotonous, and too square-like to appeal to the eye. While it works well in large point sizes, not so much in the smaller point sizes. It is a good typeface used in branding, labeling and even in wayfinding and navigation but not in lengthy pieces going over a few lines.

3. Impact

Impact is a sans-serif typeface designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 released by the Stephenson Blake foundry. Born in Wimbledon in 1929, he designed the font when working with Pembertons London as Type Director and Head of the Graphic Design unit. Impact is one of Microsoft's core fonts. After retirement he produced Impact wide and italic. Some fonts similar to Impact are - Helvetica Inserat, Hattenschweiler and Press Gothic.

As it's name suggests, the minimal letter space, very thick letters and elongated look are aimed to Impact. It has very short ascenders and descenders and although has limited usage (mostly for headlines) it is a very powerful typeface. It is commonly used in television and has better legibility than Arial and Times New Roman. It is a simple, not very commonly used, but when used correctly, a brilliant font for any designer or publisher. While being a brilliant typeface, its limited used is its biggest drawback. Since it can only be used for headings and branding, small point sizes do not seem to work very well for Impact.