Decoding secrets of good visuals - What makes some images and photographs stand out from the crowd

Some tips, tricks and subjects of images, graphics and photographs which is bound to cast a spell

1)     B&W background subject with semi-transparent bright techno/pop color in      foreground

2)     Picture with range of depth and focus

3)     Green appeal in innovative way

4)     Lush rainy/moist green landscape in terra incognita

5)     Realistic corporate affair capturing the mood of subject and vibes of business  minus ( - ) plastic smiles

6)     Simple things in perspective view

7)     Pattern or geometry unseen before

8)     A well framed shot of pets or wildlife with serious engaging looks

9)     Capturing Interactive and playful pets

10)  Green appeal in innovative way

11)  Bird’s eye view of Rooftop innovation

12)  Well framed commercial subject

13)  Black & Yellow Composition

14)  A well framed worm’s eye view of skyscraper or anything towering

15)  Caves or any undulating interior, lit with bright morning sun displaying    excellent interplay of light and shadow

16)  Translucent colored containers

17)  Hand drawn-water color effect in this era of 3D Simulation

18)  Morning sun rays filtered through simply anything

19)  Innumerable colorful interplay of sunlight and cloud at dawn, dusk further  accentuated if captured in hills

20)  Laughing giggling girls

21)  Asymmetrically captured frame of symmetrical building or symmetrical  something

22)  Translucent building glowing from inside - filtered hint of colors further acts  as charm

23)  White doodle on black background, call it old school blackboard nostalgia or  whatever!

24)  Futuristic ambiance and setting seemingly within reach in near future, not  just another fancy unreachable idiosyncrasy

25)  Anything overwhelmingly luxurious and classic specially interiors

More to come….

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Why architectural clients should be more demanding today?

Need of "Creative demand" and false in-vogue benchmark of "what is good!"

In a time of century when you should be asking for interactive customizable digital walls for your indoors as a client you are still busy choosing wall colors and wallpaper patterns, in a time when you should be demanding multiple mood lighting possibilities for your every room you are apparently happy and content with your stylish off-the-shelf chandelier and much propagated energy saving CFL lighting fixtures, when you should be asking your architect what kind of living experience he or she is envisaging and designing for your home, you are busy asking what would be the effective sqft area of your house, when you should be deliberating about multi-tier security system for your hard earned asset called home,  you are busy choosing stylish looks of your door knob, when you should be looking for indoor ambiance inspired by your sun-sign, you leave this design choice to the idiosyncrasy of architect after little deliberation, who will now design "your" house inspired by his or her "own" sun sign traits - if you believe in such thing called sun sign! And there are ample other examples which demonstrate you are more or less content will "Less" when it comes to Architecture for your home.

You do demand as an architectural client but mostly in a wrong direction. And you know, you only get what you ask for.  You really need to channelize your demands towards design, ambiance, technology integration, customization and personalization and to the little architectural elements which is going to make your life better and effortless at home. All you need to do is to be little more creative in your demand. Also you need to shed this notion that “popular is good”, that’s not the case when it comes to architecture because you as an individual or a group of family might have a totally different needs and aesthetic perception than your friends, or neighbor or that guy with million dollar Mansion, so your house need not necessarily be exactly like others no matter how tempting those options are.     

You see, if you are of this opinion that insisting your architect for your favorite pink or blue color for your living room wall makes you a good client, then you need to take a look way back to realise that those cave men were more creative for their homes, decorating their caves with such amazing cave paintings or drawings, even after thousands of years later you are still struggling to decorate your living room wall with pink or blue or some painting of great artist! Have you really evolved in this large span of time or are you repeating the same old story in some way or other. That full clad digital living room wall which you can color customize everyday or on which you can write your daily to-do-list or which can remind you of unpaid bills in a flash or where you can leave a message for your loved ones while leaving home is just an example to make your realise that there are no boundaries which defines and restricts architecture or interior design. 

The best part is that architects like challenges, so if you demand "more" as a client in terms of stretching the possibilities of design and innovation, they would be more than happy to help you and probably will give you something many shades better than your expectations, all you have to do is to be little more creative in your demand. 

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Amazing revelations about Photography-

1)   It’s not just about Iconic structures or monuments it’s about capturing their interaction with the people

2)   If you are capturing a lively street, capturing an element of motion is a must (people, car etc.)

3)   When capturing sculptures or carved details in the open sun, wait for the right time of the day for the perfect shadow which accentuates the dimension and details of subject

4)   Capture the clouds in the background (particularly at dusk ) and half the job is done

5)   Capture  water fountain in the foreground and half the job is done

6)   Capture someone capturing others (seems a cheap trick though)

7)   If you capture street dining you must capture some element of service - something being served or by someone who is serving the thing

8)   If capturing museum or exhibition you must capture the chemistry between the exhibit and spectator, capture someone quite still and who is trying to understand and appreciate the meaning of exhibit

9)  Capturing the public spaces, capture the people and their behavior at the very intersection  of daylight and shadows (it naturally captures the human dilemma of judgment whether to go out in open sun on stay in the shadow) 

10)       When capturing motion you must have something static for reference, but for best results “that static one” has to be the one of the vary things which are moving (people, car etc.)

11)        Capture a glass building at dusk at the very moment when it gets illuminated in the evening while it is partially illuminated from outside as well from setting sun

12)       There is at least one definite location from where the famous sculpture or display (or structure) looks perfect (and usually it’s the most abused one as well, since whole world seems to capture the shot from the same point)

13)       When taking a shot of any high end restaurant  dining scene, don’t just capture the food and luxury, and candlelight, you need to capture the people having supper, with their interactions and their exaggerated animated  expressions

14)        When in vegetable market capturing a vendor interacting with customer, a price list smudged with chalk or otherwise in the backdrop is must.

15)       Shop display window + scripted shop name typo + passer by = classic shot without fail

Another series of interesting observations will be part of upcoming posts, Join me on twitter @urbanoregional for updates.  Your view and experiences are most welcome.

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What does growth cycle of design industry looks like?

Design industry follows a repetitive elliptical growth path.

If you look back down the development lane of design industry especially visible in product design and fashion industry, you will witness some familiar recurring pattern of growth, repetitive, though every time in a new avatar.

More than say 90 percent of designers still use direct or derivatives of primitive or rather eternal   geometrical building blocks as raw material- shapes and surfaces, like circle, triangle, square, prism, hyperbole  etc. and remaining 10 percent relentlessly trying to unearth some divine pattern or previously unseen building blocks or magic design elements, anxiously looking here and there for some clue, looking into microscope, looking up to nature, science, nano technology, microbiology, history or mythology or whatever or simply resorting to hallucinated inspiration, so that some divine "never before design element" descends upon them out of luck, while still acknowledging that those basic geometric building blocks like triangle and circles are not going to go away anywhere soon, probably never.

So, when majority of fundamental design elements have remained exactly the same throughout the evolution of design industry, this industry is bound to follow a recurring path starting from basics, evolving on the way through innovation, reaching to maturity, taking an inspirational U-Turn and finally going back to its roots, from where it all started. Apparently a perfect circle of growth; but it goes further, we haven’t talked about technology yet, this ever evolving technology provides designers even bigger opportunities, with new materials, new textures, enhance durability and elasticity, new colors, new opacity newer viscosity and so on, which helps prolong this period of growth cycle pushing this circular trajectory to follow an even larger elliptical path, finally going back to its roots just to be born again.

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City’s problem isn't congestion; problem is the way we approach to solve the congestion!

Majority of city's problems can be solved by simply restructuring policies, but physical infrastructure is more lucrative an option for many.

You can pump millions of dollars in augmenting and upgrading city infrastructure, of course you should, but city in its functionality will still remain a mess and increasingly convoluted unless you pause and think that what has been wrong with our planning approach, why it is that our planning solutions always seem to lag far behind the pace of growth, is it revenue constraints? No! Is it land constraint? No! It is nothing but common sense deficit. It’s simple, if it doesn’t work go back to the drawing board, put you approach up-side-down or whatever, something different need to be introduced; at least as an experiment.

Our conventional planning approach borrowed from industrial age has remained more or less the same since decades, that is to put it crudely "Planning means addition", more people - let’s make more housing, more congestion - let’s make more flyovers, more heat let’s put more air conditioners and so on.

Buildinganother affordable housing is not a problem but it’s also not the solution. Building another flyover will of course ease the traffic for sometime but it is also not the solution which cities are looking for. The single largest criteria of a livable city can be effortlessness of any city, but effort seems to be the mandate of our city life. 

Have we ever considered why such sheer number of people are heading to metropolis in the first place apart from recreational purposes, it’s not because metropolis provide better employment opportunities, it’s because we simply fail to provide livelihood opportunity in small towns and villages. Can we suggest something to calm down this vary pace of regional population flux, instead of simply focusing on making another housing colony here in every metropolis, can we propose something which will help people earn their livelihood in the place of their choice not only in the place where they often come to struggle and survive.

Have we ever considered before making another flyover that why so many people and car out there on the roads in the first place, is it really necessary in this so called wired era for every single individual to commute to work to accomplish a job, is it that being physically present at a specified location every work weekday is of such monumental importance in a time of century were everyone claim to be virtually connected to everyone and having access to the resources of whole world on their finger tip. Considering this can we suggest something to reduce the very need or frequency of people to come to streets, people who commute to work 5-6 days a week or 24 to 40 hour a week. 

Why people have to waste a substantial portion of their productive lifetime commuting on city roads or tracks, commuting long hours to work mostly doing nothing, may be listening to music or playing video game on their tab, why to commute to work unless they work in a factory like production environment.

You see we are so caught up in the debate of public transport vs. private transit vs. walkability that no one is willing to ask this fundamental question why does every one of you have to commute almost every day for the purpose of work choking almost every street of city, why have we created such system or business environment or society in general. We simply can’t seem to think of any other possibility than expanding infrastructure trying to meet the pressure of self imposed need of commuting for work.

Whether travelling through private or public transport or walking to work, it’s still a waste of precious time, energy and resources. Can you even imaging the lost opportunity cost of millions of people spending several hours commuting to work-home-work almost every day of their productive like. After decades of industrialization is it still so important even today for 200 employees of a random organization to agglomerate everyday at a specific place called office at a specific time to accomplish some work, majority of which can be done from anywhere in the world, majority of which on majority of days does not fundamentally demand physical presence of worker or employee in office. Can’t we instead of simply expanding the city and transport network think of reducing the number and frequency of trip to work? Can’t we think of increasing the share of recreational trip and reducing the work trip instead of aggressively focusing on increasing the share of public transport?

This conventional additive approach of planning is a vicious cycle of inefficiency perceived as virtuous cycle and promoted relentlessly without delving deep into the roots of problem and without pausing and questioning the inertia of planning process. Instead of this additive approach, a supplementary approach of planning is needed for fostering and supporting equitable growth across the region, and at the same time conventional planning wisdom which is dear to many, needto be questioned!

Let me show you the true artist in you!

No art is as inclusive as fine arts or call it whatever. 

It seems every single person is born with artistic talent specifically more pronounce and visible in the field of fine arts, abstract art or call it whatever, an artist even in you, whether you consider yourself an artist or not that is irrelevant,  proof is your childhood notebook filled with weird characters drawn by you and spoiled pages of your dad's diary and all the tattoo that you made on your hand, graffiti on your school desk and crayon spoiled walls of your house where you spent your childhood days and that creative surge when you were staring at the damp basement or loo walls trying to infer some meaning out of those grunge damp patterns, or even today if you occasionally tend to draw a smiley face on moist, dew clad surface and so on. Every adult was an artist in his or her childhood so they are today, so are you. 

Every child with his or her genuine creativity, making and living their own dreams in their sketchbook or on wall, vivid and real in their own imagination, a spell-bounding piece of rawness with bit of influence from surrounding, and we are not talking about all the art and craft assignments forced by educational curriculum and competition, those are plastic, manipulated, and imposed, threatening and robbing the very creative rawness of child. We are not talking about biased aesthetic judgement here. We are talking here for example the child's own interpretation of how round a sun should be or how round his dexterity allows him to draw it, not the Vinchi style geometric perfectness of circle which we tend to impose on them. Since art being essentially a true expression of self does not necessarily demands shape of circle to be a perfect circle so it really doesn't matter how well you used to draw a circle to qualify as an artist in your childhood, and since art is beyond the clutch of time so if you draw the similar weird circle today when you are grown up it is still an art and so you are an artist. Another reason is that if making a perfect circle is a qualification criteria for an artist than our computer or tab can do that job better than our master artist. 

So acknowledging the truth of your own childhood talent now you can appreciate the works of kids around better. Not judging them on their perfectness but admiring them for their innocence. You see these kids will grow up one day and change the very definition of understanding of what an art should be. After all its art if you can prove it. 

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