Designers with a difference

VADODARA, May 19: Design has certain unsavoury connotations today for graduates whose alma mater was the National Institute of Design rather...

VADODARA, May 19: Design has certain unsavoury connotations today for graduates whose alma mater was the National Institute of Design rather than the National Institute of Fashion Technology. As a popular columnist said recently, introduction as a designer inevitably provokes the question 8220;salwar-kameez?8221;

Straddling the fine line between salwar-kameez and aesthetics is no mean feat, yet that is what Pradeep and Mala Sinha have been doing for almost 16 years now.

Pradeep, a product designing graduate from NID and Mala, a textile designing graduate, also from NID, together operate a textile design and printing studio-workshop at GIDC, Makarpura in Vadodara and also offer design services in textile, product design, furniture design, design of exhibition systems and interiors.

Pamp;MS works mostly on cottons, emphasising entirely on the textural effect and technical excellence to produce non-bleeding material.

Pradeep, who has won a number of awards with his designs for water purifiers, renewable energy units and the like, says, 8220;We are located in an industrial estate with over 1000 small-scale engineering and plastic product design, prototyping and modeling available within a radius of a few kilometers.8221;

He continues, 8220;Isolation from the traditional centres of textile processing and the lack of traditionally skilled craftsmen shaped our design idiom as well as our textile processing skills.8221;

Realising the lack of technical knowledge and ignorance of chemical processes among traditional printers and dyers 8212; especially those from Kutch 8212; Pamp;MS also conduct workshops for traditional printers.

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But in order to reach a wider audience, Pamp;MS are now hosting a seven-day design awareness workshop involving faculty from the top-notch design schools. Targeted at those 8220;seriously interested in pursuing a career in design8221; as well as those genuinely interested in understanding the process of design, the workshop, they hope, will help the participant break away from conditional ways of thinking, and free the mind to explore and experiment creatively.