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These are good times at DYPDC Center for Automotive Research and Studies. A lot is happening and it is happening quickly. It’s only been a fortnight since the undergraduate and postgraduate program in automobile design began and we’ve already had some of the best in the field of design interacting with our students.
First up was Prof. Mahendra Patel, who spent two days with our students teaching Visual Order. He covered topics like Harmony, Rhythm, Balance and Contrast. The time he spent with the students helped them immensely in understanding visual order and its extremely important role in design. A little about him : Prof. Patel is one of the finest teachers of Design today. He has been a faculty with National institute of Design, Ahmedabad for the past 39 years. He also conducts workshops and training programs at Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda; Srishti College of Arts and Design, Bangalore, Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, Industrial Design Center, IIT Mumbai, and Indian Institute of Crafts, Jaipur. He has also taught at Rhode Island School of Design, USA, Nova Scotia College of Arts, Canada, Christchurch College of Arts, New Zealand and Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture, Pakistan. Presently, he is serving as adjunct faculty member at the Symbiosis Institute of Design (SID) and MIT Institute of Design, both of which are in Pune. He recently won the Gutenberg International Award for his contribution in font designing for Indian scripts, and map design and signage design for Indian cities.
We also have on our campus Mr. Patrick Roupin and Mr. Nicola Crea.
Mr. Patrick Roupin is an award winning Belgium designer. He holds a Masters degree in product engineering design from the ISD – Supinfocom Group, Valenciennes / Pune. He won the Designer for Real World – Victor PAPANECK Prize in 2004. Patrick formerly worked as a usability specialist for one of the world’s leading usability companies in India. He has also worked as a product designer with companies such as Decathlon and Faurecia in France. He’s doing some very interesting workshops with our students, which are mainly focused on social experiments.
Mr. Nicola Crea is a design manager and consultant for product development, who has worked with great automobile companies like Pininfarina Concept Institute, Fiat, Mercedes-Benz cars and Giannini. In 1992, he ventured into designing of boats and motorcycles and started his own consultancy, “Victory design”, which is an engineering studio devoted to yacht design. From 2006 to 2008, he headed CISME (Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi sulla Mobilità Ecosostenibile), research center of studies on sustainable mobility. He is also the coordinator for all design activities for Tulton, a company that specializes in development of new products. He is a professor at the University of Chieti, and regularly collaborates with the Politecnico di Milano and University of Genoa.
To be among such luminaries has truly been exhilarating for our students, who have eagerly absorbed all that these greats had to offer. Rest assured, it is only going to get bigger, better, and brighter from this point on.