In a bid to boost new business opportunities, Australia is aiming to enter into a formal tie-up with rapidly growing Indian auto companies. If such a thing happens, the Kangaroo country’s world class firms will be able to put up their show in world’s second fastest growing auto markets. And India, in turn will be benefitted with Australia’s innovative green technology.

Multi-billion-dollar Australian auto industry has already taken up the initiative by sending their Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, on a three day visit to India. Carr said that Australia was looking forward to make closer tie-ups between their innovative automotive corporations and the Indian companies.

He said, “With the help of the Australian Government’s ‘a New car plan for a Greener Future’, our auto industry has not only survived the global economic downturn but is transforming and becoming a world leader in new technology.”

Enthusiastic Carr further pointed out the benefits of Innovative technology that the country would get from this alliance. The Indian auto majors and related companies can take advantage of the newly introduced R&D Tax Credit Legislation for up scaling their product sales and manufacturing part, he added.

After discussing some crucial points with utility car leads Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors, the minister said, “This expertise makes our companies attractive partners for international companies including India.”

He continued to extoll on the profit that the Indian auto companies could get from the collaboration. The subcontinent’s auto firms can take the benefit of the opportunity as Indian auto industry desires new vehicle designs, building process and low emission technologies, and Australia is an ideal country to help them out with its innovative technology, he added.

SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/4y9tahv (Car Trade India)

These workshops were a unique opportunity for students to learn the basics of automotive sketching. The workshop equipped them with the skills and confidence to build great portfolios, preparing them for an exciting career in automobile design.

Our faculty coached them one-on-one, and taught them quick tips and tricks to master the art of sketching and ways to get progressively good at it.

Here are some of the pictures from the event:

Sketch like pros in no time!!
Learn tips and tricks of the craft.
See your super-cool ideas magically come to life on paper

This workshop is a unique opportunity for you to learn the basics of automotive sketching. DYPDC’s Learn from the Masters automotive sketching workshop will equip you with the skills and confidence that will help you build great portfolios and prepare you for an exciting career in automobile design.

Our faculty will coach you one-on-one, and teach you quick tips and tricks to master the art of sketching and ways to get progressively good at it.

Duration and Venue:

• The workshop will be held in major Indian cities
• It will be a full-day workshop
• Information regarding venue, time and city will be provided to you
on registration.
• All stationary items required for the workshop will be provided by
DYPDC
• Tea/coffee, snacks and lunch will be provided to all participants

Workshop fee:

A nominal fee of Rs. 600 will be charged per participant. Fee can be paid at the venue. The fee will include cost of the workshop, certificate, lunch, tea/coffee and snacks.

Please note that if a participant applies to DYPDC, the workshop fee will adjusted against the DYPDC application fee.

The cities where the workshops are being held are:

Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.

To register for the workshop visit http://dypdc.com/dypdc_newsite/workshop.reg/index.php

If you think, breathe and talk cars, and can’t think of doing anything else than designing cars and bikes all your life, then you should pursue automotive design at DYPDC. Here are 12 reasons why joining DYPDC is such a good idea:

1. Dilip Chhabria, your Chief Mentor, will inspire you to bring distinctness to your art, who will guide you, help you find your voice as a designer.

2. Focus – DYPDC College is completely focused on Automobile design education.

3. Instructional facilities that inspire ideas and breed creativity

4. Faculty that open a world of possibilities for you.

5. International visiting faculty that bring years of experience, who will make you question, discover, explore, and express yourself, and push you to new limits you never thought were possible.

6. A curriculum that is flexible, stimulates interest and develops knowledge, skills and understanding of automotive design.

7. Preparation for a life of continuous growth and learning.

8. A range of teaching and learning methods

9. Our deep-rooted partnership with the industry will help us source design projects, internships and placements.

10. International exposure through exchange programs and study tours

11. A stimulating, dynamic student life for a great college experience.

12. Students build an actual car at the end of their program. No other design school has this unique feature.

The lectures were held at Max Mueller Center, Pune, at their lovely, open air lawn. There were close to 30 participants who attended the lecture and included people from both academia and industry. The lecture began at around 7 in the evening and went on till 9 pm, followed by beverages and dinner.

It was quite interesting to listen to both gentlemen as they had different styles of approach to their presentation. While Jonas’s lecture was thought-provoking, to the point and highly technical, Elmer’s was light, lively and filled with anecdotes. The audience loved the contrasting styles and were equally involved in both the presentations. Jonas focused on strategy, design and innovation, while Elmer spoke about a concept called Poverty Car, hence the name Pover Car, which was built by his students for the developing countries, like India and such.

A little brief on the two gentlemen:

Wolfgang Jonas studied of naval architecture at the Technical University of Berlin. He has been a consulting engineer in the area of Computer Aided Design for companies of the automobile industry and the German standardization institute DIN. Since 1988 he has been teaching (CAD, industrial design, exhibitions) and research (system theory and design theory) at the University of the Arts Berlin and at the University of Wuppertal.

He is a visiting professor at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, Université de Montréal, Canada, Keimyung University, Daegu, Korea, Aalborg University, Denmark.

His areas of interest are: Design theory as meta theory, design theory and design methods in a systemic perspective, systems thinking, scenario planning, research through design.

His numerous publications on theoretical and practical aspects of designing include: “Design – System – Theorie: Überlegungen zu einem systemtheoretischen Modell von Designtheorie” (1994), “Mind the gap! – on knowing and not-knowing in Design” (2004), “Positionen zur Designwissenschaft” (2010), also publications on the history of naval architecture in Nordfriesland (1990) and on the aesthetics of modern ships (1991).

Elmer D. van Grondelle has close to thirty years of experience in automotive design and the design of automotive design processes. He holds a B.A. from the Dutch Royal College of Art and a Design Management MBA from the University of Westminster. He has worked for companies like Ford, BMW, Lamborghini, Volkswagen, Toyota, Kymco and Hyundai. Currently Elmer freelances as a strategic automotive designer, and spends half of his time at Delft University of Technology, where he is the program manager for Advanced Automotive Design. Elmer teaches automotive design, strategy and design processes. His research involves the design of management models that frame and facilitate tacit knowledge in automotive design.

Tell us a bit about your background. What you’ve been doing? What you intend to do in the future?

I am an Assistant Professor in Dept. of Design, IIT Guwahati. I teach Ergonomics and Human Factors to UG and PG students. I joined IIT Guwahati in March 2010. Before joining in IIT, I worked as a research fellow in Ergonomics Lab, DIPAS, DRDO, Delhi for five years. During my stay in DIPAS, I acquired research experience in the field of military ergonomics and gained expertise in ergonomic evaluation of products and workstations using digital human modeling softwares.

I received my Ph.D. in Physiology from the Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, T.N., India in Sept’ 2009 for the thesis entitled ‘Ergonomic Studies of Some Basic Human Performance Resources in the Design of Different Indian Military Workstation in Virtual Environment’. I earned M.Sc in Physiology with specialization in Environmental Physiology from University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India in the year 2003.  I was awarded with Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management by Pondicherry University in 2008.

Besides regular teaching activity, I am also continuing my research work. Ph.D student and PG students are enrolled under my guidance for their thesis work. In future, I want to strengthen my research in cognitive aspects of automobile design, particularly in information processing (visual, auditory, tactile etc.).

What does design mean to you?

Being a faculty and researcher in ergonomics/human factors, I feel that design is a co-ordinated approach towards better object/facility or service to satisfy human needs (physical and cognitive). There is more consideration of co-ordinate geometry and human perceptions in design.

What’s the scope of automobile design in India?

India is a country with a large population. There’s a big market out here. Indian people vary widely in their anthropometry and morphology due to mixture of various races in the population. There are also huge variations in their culture, religion, economic status, climate etc. All these factors influence the design of vehicle for them. Hence, I believe that there is enough scope of working in the field of automobile design in India.

Tell us a bit about your experience during conducting workshop at DYPDC College?

It was a nice experience to conduct the week long workshop on ‘Human Factors/ Ergonomics in Automobile Design’. I covered basic ergonomic principles in design to applied human factor issues in the automobile sector. Besides power point presentations, different assignments were given to the students for a hands-on experience in applying percentile anthropometric data, strength data, joint mobility values etc. in vehicle design, use of various reference points and standards for automotive packaging, analyzing view fields/visual obstruction, defining reach zone and subsequently positioning various controls, providing clearance spaces, assuring comforts in terms of single/multiple body joint angles etc. Demonstration on application of digital human modeling softwares in ergonomic evaluation of vehicle workspace was given for making the workshop more interesting and understandable.

All the participants were highly enthusiastic and some of them really performed well. I was extremely happy with the feedback from them. I am also thankful to all the faculty members and staff for their cooperation and help. It helped me conduct the workshop successfully. I want to convey my sincere thanks to Director, DYP-DC college for inviting me for conducting the workshop and providing me with all the facilities.

What are your thoughts about DYPDC College? About what it is trying to achieve?

DYP-DC Center for Automotive Research and Studies is a highly specialized and goal oriented institute for automobile design. They are developing sound infrastructure for laboratories/studios. Renowned faculties from premier institutes and experienced designers from industries in India and abroad are engaged here as fulltime or visiting faculty. So, it is becoming a global school. Moreover, partnership with the industry is extending job opportunities for students.

I hope in the near future, this institute will take the leading role in the automobile sector in India.

India’s largest automobile company Maruti Suzuki will supply its latest compact car A-Star to Volkswagen AG . The car, which will undergo some modifications and design changes, will be sold in India and Asian markets under a new brand, according to senior officials in the automobile industry.

The agreement to supply A-Star, Suzuki’s fifth global model after Swift, Ritz, SX4 and Grand Vitara will be inked soon. Volkswagen holds 20% stake in Maruti’s parent company Suzuki.

Volkswagen’s decision to choose A-Star comes after two years of Maruti’s success of supplying A-Star to another Japanese carmaker Nissan Motors, which re-badges the same car as Pixo for sales through its own network in Europe. A-Star sold as Alto in overseas markets is exclusively made by Maruti Suzuki at its Manesar plant in Haryana. It’s a futuristic product specifically developed by parent Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) for developed markets meeting all its stringent crash safety tests, emission norms and environment regulations.

Maruti’s engineering team would work closely with VW to tweak the car as per its global market needs, said a senior official from the automobile industry. “There could be some changes in the basic design though the overall technical specs won’t be altered,” the official added.

The company, which today became an official partner for International Cricket Council (ICC), will also be spending Rs 200 crore in the next five years on advertising and promotions.

“Starting from this year, we are looking at launching two new models every year in the next three years,” Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) Director Marketing and Sales Arvind Saxena told reporters here.

This year the company will launch two new models, he said without specifying details. The company is the second biggest car maker by volume in India after Maruti Suzuki.

Besides launching new models, Saxena said the company will be intensifying campaign and promotions, specially around the ICC World Cup, which is scheduled to be played in the sub-continent. “In the next five years we will spend roughly Rs 200 crore on campaigns across the board, including the partnership with ICC,” he said.

While HMIL will be the official partner for the mega cricketing event being held from February 19 to April 2, its parent Hyundai Motor Co has become the exclusive car partner for the global cricket body from 2011-2015.

Saxena said HMIL is looking to extract the maximum mileage out of the world cup to enhance brand image as well as push sales. “While it is difficult to put a number as to how much sales we would achieve during the world cup, the event gives us an opportunity to cut across customer segments as cricket is universal in India,” he said.

HMIL, which sold a total of 6 lakh units in 2010 is targetting sales of 6.3 lakh units this year, he added.

Commenting on its sports utility vehicle Santa Fe , he said the company has closed bookings for the vehicle and may re-open them by March-end or April beginning. “We have bookings for 600 units and will be delivered by May,” he added.

On the export front, Saxena said last year the company had clocked 2.47 lakh units. “With Europe, our biggest market, yet to recover we expect similar export numbers this year,” he said, adding the company is not exploring new markets as it is already present in over 115 countries.

Source: Economic times

A unique lecture, titled, ‘Alternative presents and speculative futures’ was recently held at MCCIA, Pune. It was conducted by James Auger (Royal College of Art, UK) and Jimmy Loizeau (Goldsmiths College, UK), who demonstrated their creation: carnivorous robots in the context of consumers and users of technology.

The DYPDC Communications team was there to have a chat about design and technology.

Their main aim, through such lectures, is to create products that evolve from their technological research and development and become a part of our domestic lives. For the purposes of this project the product/technology to be investigated is robots, exploring the roles they may play in mediating, modifying, controlling and augmenting our existence, both today and in the future.

“Through the development and dissemination of speculative and critical products and services we hope to instigate a broader analysis of what it means to exist in a technology rich environment both today and in the near future.” –James and Jimmy.

At MCCIA, they demonstrated ‘Flypaper combined with Robotic clock’

To learn more about James and Jimmy, kindly visit – http://www.auger-loizeau.com/

Philippe Starck is a superstar in a world where design increasingly decides the saleability of anything from mobile handsets to 5-star suites to social networks. Perhaps the most famous living designer, the 61-year-old bearded Parisian expects Indian creativity to play a big role in the new civilization.

“I expect something completely new from India,” he told ET at the site of yoopune, his first project in the country, this weekend. The designer, who started his climb to stardom by redoing popular Paris night-clubs and decorating then French president Francois Mitterand’s private apartments in the Elysee Palace, has designed hotels, airbuses, yachts, cars, bicycles, streetlamps, toothbrushes, juicers, furniture, shoes, external hard drive, underwear … you name it. As a child, he spent hours under the drawing boards of his father, an aircraft designer.

A preacher of “democratic design” that tries to kill elitism in design by reworking everyday object and making quality products affordable to the masses, Starck says he is currently creating possibly the best project of his life—he has brought together some scientists to create the first laboratory of fundamental research on creativity. “The idea is to boost creativity and see if there is a way to teach creativity, because it is the only thing that differentiates us as humans,” he says.

Starck was in Pune on a 24-hour visit for the launch of yoopune, a residential project by construction and real estate firm Panchshil Realty in partnership with London-based design firm yoo, promoted by Starck and property entrepreneur John Hitchcox. Spread over 17 acres, almost one-third rainforest, yoopune will offer 228 designed homes under two styles – nature and classic – that Starck feels best suit Indian sensibilities. The project will complete in 2014. The partners have also announced their second ‘yoo inspired by Starck’ project in Gurgaon. ET’s Nandini Raghavendra caught up with the star designer, dressed in bright green and yellow pants, for a 30-minute interview. Excerpts:

Design is increasingly becoming a crucial differentiator for products and services. Do you think big global corporates have given design its due in their businesses?

I fail to understand why big businesses have been so slow to understand the importance of design in their work. Only very stupid people today do not recognize that design is one of the most important parameters. Take the case of cars. Today they all have the same engine, the same platform, just the body changes and body is pure design. So if you prefer a BMW or a Peugeot it is because of the shape, since everything else is the same. Design is the only differentiator, that’s very clear. Take the fantastic example of the American car business—these people have understood nothing till they went bankrupt. It was the same thing with the big players of the music industry who did not see the coming of the Internet. And all of this was known to us more than ten years ago, so it’s even more astonishing and makes it very difficult to respect big companies because they are so blind. I feel sad because I love big companies. They have incredible know-how , incredible power of investment, of distribution, they are smart people, but blind. What I foresee is Indian creativity rising in the new architecture of civilization and I expect something completely new from India. It would be sad, if you are the new kings and you repeat our mistakes.

Can you please explain ‘the new architecture of civilization’?

The world has changed. The frontiers are now political, no longer human. Earlier, you would see India, Japan, Italy… but today , every country is made of the addition of many cultural tribes, so there is exactly the same tribe in India, in Japan and everywhere else. To try and please everybody is stupid and can never work. You please yourself, your family, your friends, and your tribes, which are now everywhere. In fact, there are enough of these tribes, which is why I do not have to adapt a building or a property to a country. Of course, we have to respect some professional facts like if it’s a cold or a warm country, people are taller or smaller, which is all normal. But I just speak to my tribe. Here, I speak to the Indian part of my tribe; tomorrow I am in California and I shall speak to the Californian part of my tribe. Before, people thought you have to make a unique product for your target consumer, which is absolutely ridiculous, which is how all the big companies have failed. One only has to be honest to oneself, because what you know best is yourself, why try and imagine what the others will love?

What is your design philosophy? Where is it rooted?

I am a very good professional. My father was an inventor and aeronautic engineer and he taught me that if I want to fly a plane I have to invent it, but if I do not want it to crash, then I have to be rigorous, which is why I am very inventive but very rigorous as well. I know I can make anything, but the product is not my end. I care about the effect that product will have on the people using it; if it’s space (that I create) then (I care about) who will be living in it. It’s always people before product and when you do that everything falls into place. I am not making a revolution. I invent different things because while the others are so driven and focused on product, marketing and business, I am always thinking about people and how I can help them. I make things to share. This creates a vision, which in turn creates an ethic. The ethic creates a concept and the concept creates a project or product. It’s always from the highest to the lowest, but never the contrary.

Even if it’s a chair. I use design as a political weapon, in a subversive and inventive way. What we need are more creators than artists. I am currently creating what’s possibly the best project of my life—the first laboratory of fundamental research on pure creativity. I have brought some scientists to try and understand why do we have ideas and why are we creative. The idea is to boost creativity and see if there is a way to teach creativity, because it is the only thing that differentiates us as humans.

How do you look at the global economic crisis? How has it changed lifestyles?

This is not a crisis. This is part of normal change that comes in civilizations, the movement in civilizations. There was the Roman and the Egyptian civilizations, which were born and died. It is our turn now. It is like the friction caused when big glaciers move and scratches the rock. Today we suffer because the glaciers move from one place of the world to another. What we have to see it as is a fantastic opportunity to reinvent ourselves. We have lost our values. All of us are victims of the wild capitalism of Ms Thatcher, Mr Reagan and Mr Bush. We have to fix all of that and reinvent ourselves . I have never worked for revolution, but a permanent control of evolution. And I hope the young sees this as the opportunity that it is.

The above is an excerpt from an interview that came in the economic times. To read the whole piece go to,

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/Indian-creativity-to-play-big-role-in-new-civilization-Philippe-Starck/articleshow/7102847.cms