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Ajanta Sen

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Selected writings:
- Design Education
- Design, Technology and Culture
- Designing for Children
- Design in India
- Interaction Design
- People
- Retail and Identity Systems
- Commissioned articles



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  Design Education:
  • Ravi Poovaiah and Ajanta Sen, Mapping the design mindset at IDC, IITB - in line with a country finding its foothold in a gradually industrializing market: 1969-present . MSR Faculty Summit, Redmond, 2006
    (pdf)...
  • Ravi Poovaiah and Ajanta Sen, A blueprint for design education and practice: using emerging technologies and traditional knowledge systems to widen design's constituency in India - paper at ICSID Educational Conference at Hanover 5-7 Sept. 2003
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Does smart designing make smart business sense? Reflections on IDC's designing in its silver year of 1994
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Mickey Patel's conflicts with design: IDC as a metaphor for an artist - designer interface
    (pdf)...

 
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Design, Technology and Culture:
  • Ajanta Sen and Ravi Poovaiah, Innovation as a matter of ‘cultural losses’ in a globalised world: the need for a framework for preservation – the case of India - paper at Cumulus Design Research Conference, Paris, France, May 2011
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Sustainability as a Cultural Construct in the context of India - the symbolisms of the ‘sacred grove’ as a basis for best practices - paper at Cumulus Design Research Conference, St Etienne, France (2008)
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen and Ravi Poovaiah, New technologies for underserved communities: proposing a cultural frameworkdriven process for constructing
    interactive social spaces (multicultural)
    - paper at ICSID Congress, San Francisco, June 2007
    (pdf)...
  • Ravi Poovaiah and Ajanta Sen, Design by People within Culturally-rooted Idioms – the new ‘cool’ in a globalised world: - paper at ICSID Educational Conference at Copenhagen, Sept. 2005
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "The Metaphors of New Technology - where do we fit in the concept of cross-cultural collaborative leaning?", keynote address at Computer Aided Design in Education (CADE) Postgraduate Conference, Falmouth College of Arts, Falmouth, UK, July, 2000
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "Ethnography – definition, evolution and method", - the FAQs of ethnography by the design community in terms of its why, what, when, where, how, etc. 2007
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "Crossing Borders in a Connected World - exploring an idiom of translation defined by sensory technology- media convergences in an emerging networked landscape", UGC National Seminar: ‘Transcending Borders and Cultures: Translation and Interdisciplinary Studies’, Baselius College, Kottayam, Kerala, 26-27 Mar ’07
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "The interlocking Paradigms of design and development experiences from Italy"
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen: “Hiroshima my love - to live or to die?"
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Colonisation of culture: African cinema's dilemma in resonance with ours - part 1
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Colonisation of culture: a "take-off' from African cinema -- towards potential comparative categories for India- part 2
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, (a) the irony of shifting levels of powerplay (b)
    shifting levels of powerplay make the winner a loser (c) Colonisation of culture and shifting levels of powerplay: no permanent winners here
    - part 3
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Through the Looking Glass: from architecture deserted to architecture revived ‐ industrial architecture's passage across time
    (pdf)...
 
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Designing for Children - Collaborative environments:
  • Ajanta Sen, and Ravi Poovaiah, Into a world of the "really not real": leveraging a child's make-belief abilities for design clues to build a cross-cultural collaborative environment on the Internet - paper at ICSID Educational Conference at Hanover 5-7 Sept. 2003
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, and Ravi Poovaiah, "Analysis of Games as a point of reference for building a learning driven environment for children" - as part of KidLearn Project
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, and Ravi Poovaiah, A technology-non-technology alliance: does it really work towards learning? Invited paper at the 4th National annual conference for academic education covering New Technologies and Methodologies in Arts, Media & Design around the topic "Teaching - learning and research for the creative professions" held at Bangkok, Thailand, 27-29 November, 2001
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Ravi Poovaiah and Robert Pulley, Across the Web: the Colors of India as a cross-cultural collaborative initiative for learning
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen and Robert Pulley, Carnivals, cultures and daisy-chains: Project Solar Eclipse as a case study for sustainable use of new media
    (pdf)...
 
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Designing in India:
  • Ajanta Sen, Design in India: in its paradigmatic or pre-paradigmatic state? An Indian response.
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Design-writing as a clue to informing a country’s design paradigm and practice.
    (pdf)...
 
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Interaction Design:
  • Ravi Poovaiah and Ajanta Sen, "New technologies for underserved communities: proposing a cultural framework driven process for constructing interactive social spaces (multicultural)" - paper at ICSID Educational Conference at San Francisco, November. 2007
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, and Ravi Poovaiah, "New technology's New Home -- Internet within India’s cultural paradigm" - Keynote paper as part of the theme Design, Knowledge and Technologies - presented at Fiera De Santana, Bahia, Brazil, as part of the 2nd International Congress of Graphic Engineering in Arts and in Design, and the 13th national Symposium on Descriptive Geometry and Technical Design, 14-18 Sept, 1998
    (pdf)...
  • Ravi Poovaiah and Ajanta Sen, A paradigm-shift towards user-centred methodology in interaction design: the case of an icon-driven interface product, Invited paper presented at International Conference on Multi-Media, held at Delhi, January 1998
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, From Human Experience to XP Design, Invited paper presented at UMO Conference, February 2007
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Defining Usability, Lecture notes - 2007
    (pdf)...
 
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People:
  • Ajanta Sen, Another sun, eclipsed, on Gangubai Hangal, July 2009
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Modernism’s Twisted Rectangular Volumes - The Sculpture of Clement Meadmore, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 11 (9), Mumbai, May 1998
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen: “Poetry in Concrete" - a journey into the world of Charles Correa deciphering  the vision that forges his work, Dec, 1994
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "Reflections on design through a letter from a Japanese to a Japanese"
    (pdf)...
  • Sen, Ajanta: "Silk sands and rivers: Gautam Ghose's intrepid quests."
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen: “Bengal Tiger” (on designer Deborani Duttagupta’s typography), 'Going Global', The I.D. Forty - Trekking Design's Frontiers, The International Design Magazine, New York City, Jan-Feb 1998
    (pdf)...
 
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Retail and Identity Systems:
  • Ajanta Sen, and Ravi Poovaiah, Petroleum retail outlets as the mother of all POP’s – the case study of BPCL:
    (pdf)...
  • Ajanta Sen, Designing Corporate Cultures and the next big wave – cultural branding as a local tool for a global market:
    (pdf)...
 
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Commissioned articles:
  • Sen, Ajanta: "Through the Looking Glass" - from architecture deserted to architecture revived: industrial architecture's passage across time, Vol 15 (11), Aug, 2002

  • Sen, Ajanta: "E-Space - Technology Updates and Insights" Vol 15 (08), May, 2002

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Vending smiles", POP Today - India's first magazine on point-of-purchase advertising, 1st Anniversary Issue, Vol 2, Issue 1, Bangalore, Dec 2001-Jan 2002

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Waiting to Thaw" - Anniversary Focus on ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) in Architecture, 14th Anniversary Issue, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 14 (10), Oct, 2000

  • Sen, Ajanta: "The Soup Can as Sex Symbol" - manipulating used materials or deification of trash: has a culture become cynical or is it a new paradigm in creativity? Indian Architect and Builder, 12th Anniversary Issue, Vol 12(1), Sept, 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Where the doors lead" - doorknobs by Ricardo Bofill, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 11(12), Aug 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Fuel's Paradise" - a vibrant new corporate communication package for the hitherto faceless Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Indian Architect and Builder, Vol 11 (11), July 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Nuclear yet Universal" - a letter from Miyake to Noguchi over their anguish over Hiroshima, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 11 (10), June 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: "The Bionic Bug" - insects inspiring a slew of zany designs, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 11 (9), May 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: "The importance of being Clement Meadmore" - Clement Meadmore's Modernist interpretation with a twist, Indian Architect and Builder, Vol. 11 (9), Mumbai, May 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: “Bengal Tiger” (on designer Deborani Duttagupta’s typography), 'Going Global', The I.D. Forty - Trekking Design's Frontiers, The International Design Magazine, New York City, Jan-Feb 1998

  • Sen, Ajanta: ‘Ajanta’s Column’ - a design column for Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Bombay's newsletter (1997-98):
    ‘About myself’(Oct’97)
    ‘Between the designer and the user’ (Nov’97)
    ‘At the end of the tunnel’ (Dec’97),
    ‘The speed with a different high’ (Jan’98),
    ‘Here comes the Sun’ (Feb’98),
    ‘Weaving Dreams’ (Mar’98) and
    ‘Inventing the future’ (April’98)

  • Sen, Ajanta: "Design and Business Sense", Guest Column, Business India, Dec19 1994-Jan11995

  • Sen, Ajanta: “A Trifle Reductionist” - a critique on innovations made by young designers in India, ‘Design’ (weekly column), Economic Times, July 28, 1994

  • Across other media publications:
    - Sen, Ajanta: “Poetry in Concrete" - a journey into the world of Charles Correa deciphering the vision that forges his work, Dec, 1994

  • Sen, Ajanta: “The Friendly Savage” - a profile of the late cartoonist Mickey Patel, Oct-Nov,1994

  • Sen, Ajanta: “Whitewashing African Cinema”- a critique on how African film makers work on films for the Western market in the absence of an audience for African cinema within Africa, September, 1994

  • Sen, Ajanta: “Silk, Sands and River" - exploring film-maker Gautam Ghosh’s intrepid quests, July,1994

 
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