Publication
Writing articles and/or papers for Journals or for Conferences keeps me tuned and updated with my peer research community.
This exercise aids me in developing better my study material. Eventually, the results showcased are appreciated by wider audiences through the articles and presentations. The articles and/or papers are easy read and thought provoking enough for audiences both, nationally and internationally. Hand-picked from numerous published works so far, featured here are few interesting papers and presentations.
https://www.designingforchildren.net/index.html
Children Storybook: Weaving Contemporary Stories with Traditional Artforms.
A play + learn self-educative book series on personal hygiene, etiquettes, values and creativity for ages six to nine.
Abstract:
Young minds need information; not teaching but motivating them. Children acquire knowledge through listening, imitating, observing and reading. Books play important role in their knowledge expedition. Many Indian books have western-style influence. If exposed to Indian Artform-style at early ages, children can develop sense of appreciation to Indian ethos. This paper describes project designed as M.F.A. research (2005), with an intention at revealing six to nine-year-old children to Indian Artform with contemporary situations.
The paper also studies same age group’s reaction, fourteen years later, over-exposed to visual aids through digital media. The paper documents self-educative storybooks from conception to execution, primarily identifying child psychology and storytelling essence. The paper explores children and their liking for pictures, colors, simplicity, form, space, perspective, line and situation perception. In conclusion, paper proposes that physical storybook reading experience and Indian Artforms have great appreciation value even today to this modern fast-learning generation.
You can watch the full presentation here:
https://youtu.be/35r5BKcSCY0
You can read the full paper here:
https://www.designingforchildren.net/Full_Final-Submissions/papers/Dr.%20Prajakta%20Parvatikar/Dr-Prajakta-Parvatikar-Children-Storybooks-Weaving-Contemporary-Stories-with-Indian-Traditional-Art-forms.pdf
2021
Play + Learn
International Conference Designing for Children,
IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay
2020
Advocacy in Design: Engagement, Commitment, and Action
(Cultural Connections)
https://designprinciplesandpractices.com/about/history/2020-conference#block-6
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Advocating Indian Culture into Design Education
Abstract:
Culture, in artistic resource, is to India what evolution is to nature. India is a country where culture and history has defined its people. History has carried itself into future and yet is always a part of present India. The country has rapidly changed itself with different cultural aspects adapting to changing needs of the consumer. Design in India too, is transforming; influencing national, cultural and visual diversity by being user-centric and modern. Yet, the customer is aware and curious to display something unique and traditional (indigenous). Participatory practices and design experiments from industry show a remarkable appeal for these traditional designs. Indian design is collaborating with native artisans and increasing a demand for specialized market. Teaching in design schools through certain projects, could make present design students conscious of ingenious skills and rich Indian culture. This paper explores sensitivities in design education, teaching and learning environment within a modern context. The paper discusses how today, through ways of teaching and passing on valued knowledge of rich tradition through bank of design resources; urban design students can give exposure to artisans. This generation of academic designers can promote positive relationships between glorious past of Indian crafts, skills and present culture-hungry social class. The paper aims to showcase ideas behind advocating culture and history into Indian design education. By setting a precedent and an analogy to students, the design process can positively influence society and encourage indigenous artists.
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14th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices (Online)
2020
Article posted on medium.com
How ancient Indian Folk-Art Form Madhubani looks amazingly superb.
An account of workshop conducted on Madhubani Folk-Art form revealing surprising results.
Abstract:
“Oh, I hate Art history theory!” This is my design students’ most common comment before Visual
Communication theory lecture. And every time I overhear this, my lectures turn out to be a blockbuster hit!
That’s because I try to execute practical projects based on these feedbacks and make students curious about what they should know about their past. I have been a design teacher for almost two decades now, so practically I am ancient. I was born in the nineteenth century, so yes, I am! A true Indian; I strongly believe, the vast treasure of Indian Culture and Folk-Art forms have a strong scope for design. But, this millennial young adult I deal with now-a-days is attached to modernity.
I have to explore modern ways of connecting to them. I try and plan activities that engage these young minds fruitfully exploring some traditional Art Forms through design projects.
You can read the full article here:
https://medium.com/@prajakta_p/how-ancient-indian-folk-art-form-madhubani-looks-amazingly-superb-8752fa223bfc
2019
Design + Context
13th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, St. Petersburg, Russia
https://designprinciplesandpractices.com/assets/downloads/design/G19Final_Program.pdf
Folktales: Design Context in the Storytelling
Abstract:
Practices of Design have cultural-historical influence in context to India; where 22 official languages are written in 13 scripts, with over 720 dialects spoken within the country. Design here is used as a diverse tool to convey messages of communication. There is a vast archive of (Design) Art forms-traditional and folk, which remain unknown or forgotten today because of Modernity. Present day student applies principles of Modern and Western design to Indian context. This creates modern visual impact but the challenge lies in making them aware of the Indian traditional culture. Moreover, the student rarely finds ‘traditional reading’ interesting today.
With advent of technology, even the book-reading experience is converted to digital reading one. There is a need to develop creative (cultural) awareness amongst current generations. The paper discusses a well thought design assignment that challenges the capacity of making ‘reading’ a book or story an interesting affair. Through research, developing an understanding of ‘seeing’ and ‘reading’ a story, exploring various folk art forms from India to identifying and applying these art forms into a suitable design in context to the ‘reading’ material (folktales); students learn to appreciate and value cultural legacy they possess in spite of maintaining the Modernity. The experimental results accomplish the purpose of telling a tale, but moreover design results are beautiful to the eye!
You can watch the full presentation here:
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-GSYVr9G8
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2016
Typoday: Typography and Education
International Conference on Typography by IDC, IIT Mumbai held at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. India.
Typography and Education https://www.typoday.in
“Where do I find ideas to design letterforms?”
An amateur type designers’ attempt to develop typefaces based on design primitive from a culturally diverse country - India with rich visual values, several beautiful languages and scripts.
Abstract:
The paper describes a process aimed at pre-final year (B.F.A. Applied Art - Third year) lettering and typography class project. The paper documents the task set with a primary objective of identifying, developing and applying a design primitive into designing an Indian language typeface (letterforms). The paper further discusses how the project explored, learned and stretched students’ creativity by merging Indian classical music and Indian Script. The project also made the students look beyond a typical set of graphic primitives and thus aimed at making them conceptually strong. The project intended at making an attempt to convert an audio mode of communication (music) into a visual one. The paper hopes that this ‘teaching aid’ project serves as an inspiration to many contemporary educators of typography and future designers.
You can watch a glimpse of the presentation here:
https://youtu.be/o4uFinrr0Bg
You can read the full paper here:
https://www.typoday.in/2016/spk_papers/Prajakta_Parvatikar_TypographyDay-2016.pdf