Design Education Talks Ep. 69 - Shalini Prasad

Shalini Prasad is an educator, integrative designer, brand consultant, and graphic artist. She runs her own design practice under DeSha Consulting and teaches visual communication and typography at the College of Art and Design at Lesley University. In addition to her professional and academic roles, she is a classical trained dancer, and actor. She loves traversing the many modalities of the creative arts along with the performing arts and believes that each informs the other, fuelling her overall nebulous, no man's lands, trans-disciplinary artistic ideology (that she has finally made peace with! :)

Shalini’s collaborative and inclusive methodology enable her to seamlessly grasp, traverse, and interpret various modalities of design in both two and three dimensions, while fearlessly dismissing conventional boundaries, whether she is designing a brand,  a space, or a curriculum. With over twenty years of diverse experience, an interdisciplinary education in architecture, graphic design and art, she demonstrates a deep passion for storytelling and an innate artistic and analytical sensibility, whether she is studying the minutiae of typography with her students or designing larger movements of design in space for her clients.

Shalini moved to the US twenty years ago from India, having lived in 15 cities including England, the Middle East, and the US, with Boston as her home for the past three. You can find her in a happy trance doing the following: improv cooking, singing, home decorating, doing word games, running, playing the guitar, solving math riddles and reading memoirs.

https://www.de.shacreative.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaliniprasadatdesha/

Transcript

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:10

Hello, and welcome to design education talks from the new art school. Our guest today is Shahadi Prasad. Welcome Shahadi.

Shalini Prasad: 0:18

Hi, I'm happy to be here. It's so great to have you here. Thank you. Lefteris.

Lefteris Heretakis: 0:24

So tell us about you.

Shalini Prasad: 0:27

Oh, gosh, that's a loaded question. Well, my name is Shalini Prasad, I am, I'll tell you what I do web and we'll put some names and terminologies to it. I'm, I'm a designer, I create for the purposes of visual communication, storytelling, self expression, in both the two dimensional and three dimensional realm. And I also create environments for collective learning. So in other words, I'm an integrative designer, a brand consultant, a mixed media artist, and foremost an educator. I have a background in architecture, fine arts and graphic design. And I love being in no man's land. I love not belonging, and I love to have my tambien many times. So that's really my little my background, I teach. Yeah, I run my own shop called Disha. Creative. And I'm a professor at Lesley University here in Cambridge, Boston, teaching typography and visual communication. Fantastic, fantastic. So tell us about your latest work. Oh, lovely. So so because, you know, I'm in both industry and academia. And I have to say, each one sort of, there's this lovely symbiotic relationship between the two, I wouldn't forsake one for the other, it really sort of completes my repertoire. As a designer, I have, you know, my industry projects going on, and my research and my teaching, and I'll sort of give you a little sort of preview of what's going on in my little world. So my work spans, I sort of don't think about medium per se. So I will find myself working on print pieces, publication, and even space. So right now I'm an I love creating sort of messaging and stories for clients. So I'm working with biotechs, and also appear to company to rebrand, you know, their, their whole sort of their story. And that brand can extend from print to web, and to that final space. So at the end of the day, you have this cohesive brand language. And that's sort of my forte, you know, bringing my architecture and design skills into it. I'm also, you know, I have two commissioned pieces of art, I have Canvas staring in my studio, that I've yet to start, and it's brewing. And I also am designing somebody's tattoo. And I'm working on a journey map for somebody's life. So I really am interested in an information design, you know, how do you visualise somebody's story, you know, and sort of make sense of it have those little sparks come together, sounds all over the place. But for me, it's all very much holistic design. In terms of research, I don't teach in the summer, but I'm working. I was fortunate to get an innovation grant as part of Lesley University, and I'm working to create for the fall a sort of charrette a workshop for the students, which is multidisciplinary, which is really the basis of my pedagogy, where we can look at a space and sort of redesign it, and have many transmedial aspects of design come to be to create an experience. It's still a bit esoteric, I haven't yet formulated the syllabus, but I'm working on creating that it's very exciting that we got the grant and we're just gonna kind of get our boots on the ground and figure out what is it that we want the students to get out of this experience? It's always I've everything I do will always have this underlying tone of integrated design transdisciplinary design, because that's really where, you know, my whole thought process stems from. I'm also sort of fortunate enough to be a part of a collaborative team working on this wonderful project called the locker of memories, which is it's we're trying to tell the story of the younger half concentration camp, which was the first Latvian concentration camp and how do we how do we tell a story and I'm sort of the design liaison responsible for how do you express something respectfully, poignantly, elegantly, you know, something that is so provocative, so delicate, so tenuous, so I just through the language of the design elements, right, what kind of colour palette would you choose for the 3d tour? You know that so The simple the brass tacks of that really enjoying working with the historians with the researchers with the, with the AI unit guys doing the video stuff, it's all very exciting that it's where so many heads coming together trying to, you know, sort of convey the story that ought to be told. So that's brewing. I have some papers to write a barrel blanks sitting on my chair, but you have the time. I don't know. I don't know how, but please don't get me wrong, you will find me sitting on the couch staring into space, or running back to my kitchen and cooking up a meal. Because that's therapeutic for me. Yeah. So yeah, so it is. But you know, if I have to really think about it, i, and this is something I like to bring to the classroom, which is probably you know, what would be of interest to getting towards the notion of, I don't see them as compartmentalised. If I'm designing somebody's tattoo, or I'm creating a brand, and I'm creating a cover for the book, I feel that I'm applying the same creative principles. Of course, you know, every, although it's the medium that gets changed. I'm not going to stifle myself worrying, oh, I've never done that medium before. But rather think that at the end of the day, those tenets of design, you know, which, at the very basic level has that negative space, and contrast and tension and depth, everything needs it, you know, even in architecture, you look at the elevation of a building or a floor plan, you using those same principles. So, really, that's where my pedagogy stems from. And I like, sort of talking to the students about that, you know, you're telling me, you're a photographer, and you're separating that from the fact that you're an illustrator and a graphic designer, but they're all really, of course, just fine. Right? Of course, they're, I mean, by using the rule of thirds and everything, you know, whether using the composition and all those aspects, and I'm, I noticed that with students, they're very quick to get siloed into things.

Lefteris Heretakis: 7:12

Because it's because we modularized design education a long time ago, and actually, we did we did this to them, instead of keeping the studio culture. Yeah, we modularize their education. So now they see this fragmented, because that's what we showed them.

Shalini Prasad: 7:26

That's what they showed them and I I really wish baby steps right? How do we how do we unlearn that? How are we okay, you know, be not belonging, right? How do and I have to tell you Lefteris, I studied architecture in India 20 odd years ago, and I studied in Delhi, I worked in Bangalore, I still have some houses standing. So that's a good thing. I did residential architecture, and then I came here, but all all along as a kid, I've always done finance. So somewhere for me, I, I loved Fine Arts, and I loved math. And I still do and I thought, oh, architecture is lovely confluence of the two, somewhere down the line interested in typography and design, which brought me to do a master's here. But nobody, it was more. I fell into it through gut. Nobody mentored me. And I was always made to believe I'm switching fields, switching from architecture to design and it was only recently maybe only five as early as five, seven years ago that I felt comfortable that no why it's really holistic, right? It's got so much design, my architecture in really informs my the way I create composition, you know, that sense of structure. The fine artist, to me, informs the fluidity that I bring in. So I came I came to that happy place only recently. And that's what I feel I I've had to go through this chronology and figure it out. And I just want to bring that empowerment to the classroom. You know what? It's okay. It's you're not all over the place. It's a beautiful space to be. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, carry on. I have.

Lefteris Heretakis: 9:19

No so tell us about how you got into teaching.

Shalini Prasad: 9:23

That's lovely. It was fairly serendipitous. Lefteris I've always wanted to it was always this bubbling brewing thing in me that never quite happened and that I'm lo and behold, moved to Boston. And you know, Boston is like this melting pot of institutions and educational institutions. I loved the university setting at Lesley, I was there, just sort of in a jewellery mentoring, looking at portfolios, and it was a very natural course that I just struck up a conversation expressed my interest with the chair and lo and behold, My soft corner is always typography will always be typography. It's I'm always like this, I want to like this drill sergeant making sure students realise the power of it. And I was given the chance to teach typography and, and this was four years ago, you know, and since then it's that's where I got in and I love, you know, the university environment that I'm in the people I work with, the professors I collaborate with, and more importantly, you know, the students that come in hardworking, sincere breed, and I realised, wow, this really does sort of complete my repertoire as a designer. And I'm also reminded Lefteris, I come from a paddock pedigree family of philosophers and teachers, and professors, you know, so I know my grandfather and my great grandfather, who was like the teacher to the king in Mysore. And my grandfather, who was a unit Professor Philip philosophy in Mysore university, they be kind of proud of me that I am in this and I, I love being in it. And I love that I can, I can teach and I can practice and have each one sort of really sort of, you know, play with the other. That's great. Yeah, yeah.

Lefteris Heretakis: 11:16

So what are the opportunities for for students and graduates to enter into into the market interoperability in this very complicated world? And what would you say, you know, we have the smoothest way to transition them to that, Oh,

Shalini Prasad: 11:32

gosh. This, I have a deep, soft corner for what I teach, which is graphic design, because I feel there's a Omni presence of graphic designers, graphic designers everywhere. Everything needs storytelling, everything can be interpreted as a visual story. So our role as designers is pretty much in every industry in every discipline. So when not sort of sequestered, and we only have to look in a very sort of, sort of myopic way of, I'm trying to look for a job in a design agency or a marketing firm, if you have an interest, and I tell these to the students say you're, you're a skateboarder, go look at a company that does that. And you will find a role for yourself to market for them, you know, to storytel. So, in other words, that empowerment of the relevance and the pertinence of design, and it's, it's always going to be there. My fear is the sense that students have that if they learn tools, they become designers. So that's that thing that I'm constantly balanced with, I am all for tools as a weapon. You know, I'm always trying to sharpen my software skills. But before that, they have to really do the work, you know, get down, roll up their sleeves, and really get you we have to learn how to see, you know, learn how to really have a sense, build your sensibility. So that is the struggles and the challenges. How do we balance that off? Right? The I don't think that just understanding your software skills will make you anything. In design, we're really learning how to see we're learning how to value and we're trying to build sensitivity, and that takes time. And that takes iterations, the challenges every we live in this ephemeral world where we're so quick to move on to the next thing, right? Our attention span is so low, how do we get the students to keep doing, keep making and if we can build in an environment where they can just make mistakes, be messy, you know, we'll get it we're so quick to want to fall in love and get to that finish line. Right? So these are the things in the studio, I always I feel the challenge. And I'm not I don't know the answer yet. But these are in the forefront of what I you know, I do want to talk about what I like to sort of bring to the classroom in visual communication and typography. It's this, my this belonging, or not, belonging is something I'm very eager to bring, because not belonging instantly sort of feeds into the notion of holistic design. So if the students can come in and realise that, you know, what, as, as I just mentioned before, that I can use the same principles and the same creative process, and it's just varying different mediums. You know, it could be a product, it could be a print, it could be a web, but I'm using those same 10 So design that opens their mind to be more holistic be more, you know, inclusive and welcoming of different compartments of design. The other thing is, I'm interested in, I'm always intrigued by graphic design students, the fear to go beyond print, you know, beyond thinking in two dimensions I'm very interested in I sort of brought to my practice and understanding of anthropometry human scale. You know, the minute you put a little figurine next to an object, it's wisdom, right? I understand how tall that is, or how small that is, unbeknownst to them. They're realising the power of the human scale of movement. So like a booziest, modular book on anthropometry. So I like introducing that to them. And they all get a little bit of it. There's a little bit of math involved. How do we scale things? And you know, it's not that they have to go out and turn into an architect. It's not that but today's world has more transdisciplinary companies like pentagram, for example. Right? They read they do everything there. Yeah. So I don't need to do it. But if I am discerning enough to understand it, I can collaborate better. Absolutely. Right. That's the whole notion like let me understand it. It may not be your interest. I might be a staunch publication designer. If you would have asked me, you

Lefteris Heretakis: 16:25

know, you mentioned something about, you know, wanted to get to the finish line before. So do you feel that we've over commercialised design education?

Shalini Prasad: 16:33

Yes. Yes. Over commercialised so quick, and it scares it also. How do we compete with what's out there? Right. I was, I was talking to some people the other day, and there's this software called Canva, that everybody can go on and build things on. And I think it's a beautiful thing makes it a little more accessible. But at the same time, where do we fit in? Right? I vehemently do not want to use that tool. And I because

Lefteris Heretakis: 17:06

Canva Canva is not designed? It's not designed? Surface buttons. Exactly. Exactly. So she's pretty patterns.

Shalini Prasad: 17:15

Yeah. So how do we say it's not that you dig deeper in design? It's, it's your creative, it's your thinking. So, yes, and that's, that's an example of commercialization, right? How do we bring it back? How do we talk about design theory? And I remember when I did my masters, you know, I studied visual anthropology and material culture. And design has such a role in that. How do we go back? And you know, look at that elite, esoteric, yes. But that balance, right, of the purity of design design principles, but also the tactical aspects that will make you a better designer? What is the end result of this? I wonder? It's a question. That's a debate. What are we trying to make?

Lefteris Heretakis: 18:07

Because you think, to just have the time to play

Shalini Prasad: 18:11

the Wii, I think in our classes in our studio, we ought to give them time to play and make a mess, right? Because in the real world, it's unforgiving. Everything is monetized based on time, right. And the value add is there. The value is not in, I tried, I explored, I faltered, I made a mess. And so in the classroom, if we can create an environment that's safe, and non judgmental, which also brings me to another aspect of what I like bringing to the classroom, I spoke about the holism of design, but also transdisciplinary of two dimension and three dimension. The third aspect that this brings me to is, I'm very interested in identity and biography in the sense that sometimes we feel we should wash ourselves and design in a sterile sterile way sterile, sterile British in the sterile liquid in a sterilised way. But what but I feel strongly that I do because I am. And I need to understand myself better my identity and my biography. And if I know myself better, I will design better. So in the classroom environment, you know, bringing the students to really engage with self, their own ethos, their own biographies. Tell me about you. Tell me about the things you like. And also tell me about what's not so good. So in Buddha's Some you have what is pleasant, what is painful and what is neutral? Suppose we create a space where I'm open to really investigating myself, where I also delve into the things that are not so pretty, right? It could be what I've lost, what I grieve, keeping that, how do we turn that into a visual interpretation? So this is something this is an experiment I did with my visual indication, three, so you're gonna say something left?

Lefteris Heretakis: 20:32

Please go and go.

Shalini Prasad: 20:35

Yeah, it was, it was challenging because it becomes provocative, right? Oh, my God, I don't want to be vulnerable in this space. But how are you emboldening your students? This is what we how am I going to embolden the students to embrace who they are? And then we started with creating door skins, you know, because at the end of the day, you need a tactical medium, like, what do we really create? So tell me, it's your biography, that's going to get translated on this door. And tell me the things about you. It's your your family, your pensions, your predilections, what you like what your activities are. But also tell me your so called misadventures, or the things that have happened in your life, because always remember who you are today, is not just because of the lovely things that have happened in life, it's also because of the not so pretty things, right? I am, who I am today for all the wrong things that I have done. So how do you bring that into the picture, and it was very cathartic. Lefteris. For some, it was not easy. It's not always easy. We all have our personalities. And, you know, there's, but we just attempted to create the space. And I have to tell you, it's it's sort of, you know, brings a lump to my throat, some students won't have to express the loss of a family member, or they're expressed anxiety and stress. And they express that visually, whether it was a crumpled photograph of it scratched out, or avoid, avoid in the layout, you know, so that was a lovely space to be. I don't know, from my end, it was successful. But I still think it's an experiment. Because where else in the real world? Are they going to be allowed this? Right? Yeah, but how can I divorce myself? From who I am? In what I do? Yeah. So So we tried to create that. So that's interesting. And I still want to the more I investigate, and I, I really want to bring that out, and they were kicking and screaming at the onset. By the end of it. There were successes and not so much. But I really think that's a very interesting space to be, bring out your biography. All the good, the bad, the ugly. And let us give it a visual voice. Because beauty what is beauty beauty is also the not so pretty, you know, it's like this whole debate on what is aesthetic sensibility, you know, so that was very interesting. Some of the works, they produced, you know, they sort of they designed a door, a web skin, and then we move that same story of self, to a shoe, and a space. So like that I'm bringing in a little bit of transmedial design going from two dimension to three dimensional, but also tapping into self tapping into identity. That was exciting.

Lefteris Heretakis: 23:31

You mentioned Buddhism earlier desires, or is the obstacle and the fuel at the same time. Right?

Shalini Prasad: 23:39

It's the obstacle and the fuel. Wow. And, you know, maybe Lefteris, we only realised that in hindsight, in retrospect, right? At the moment, it's devastating. Right? It's easy for us to see, but only in when we think in retrospect, do we realise that, that informs who you are. And now we look at us getting all philosophical, but I, but I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that conversation so much, you know, I and I think about myself too, you know, these different parts I've taken been all over the place and trying to come to my happy place and also realising that everything I do informs why, you know, why, you know, that sort of a notion.

Lefteris Heretakis: 24:22

So what are the obstacles that you are facing? And if you could change something magically, like like that tomorrow in your in your education in this educational, what would you change?

Shalini Prasad: 24:33

I do feel so the lovely thing is I was given the, the this wonderful image and it was fairly emancipating to be given the ability to recreate syllabus and experiment. But I think the obstacle there is, as you said, we're still fighting with a very parochial compartmentalised system. I would love to work with you. No, I'm walking to I classroom and I'm passing through and looking at the art studio and looking at the collages they're making, and I would love a more open dialogue and say, Hey, can my graphic design students and your art students get together and do a project together? And forget us in the just the College of Art and Design? I would move one step further and say, what about you liberal arts students studying philosophy in history? Are you writing a paper that you feel you need that represented? Visually? Can we collaborate? Do you need an information designed to illustrate your, your historic research or your philosophy? But you see, I want graphic design to creep in to every aspect because I feel there's a place for it. But it is the challenge. This is all me theorising and saying, Ah, in cloud cuckoo land, I would love this. But how do we make work right? How do I collaborate? Because even in my own College of Art and Design, we work in silos. It's it doesn't the system doesn't lend itself to that fluidity of conversation. What if we mandate group discussions, and then we opened it up to the liberal arts college and then the engineering college and everybody realises, again, this system stemming from my bias that graphic design is pervasive and omnipresent. I can see myself working with everybody here. Everybody needs a good sense of typography, or composition, or understanding of negative space. So the challenge today is the silos but the exciting thing is the doors are slightly opening. And I'm still a neophyte educator. But that also helps because I feel I'm brave, I am going to try, you know, I'm not yet completely sort of, what's the word Lefteris. I'm not scarred and, you know, just doing my thing, I want to investigate more, I want to investigate what it means to truly be transdisciplinary. And I feel we as designers, as an graphic designers have a nice sort of sort of foundation to sort of push that through, you know, so I'd like to see that happening. I don't know how, but baby steps, perhaps, you know, it's interesting, you know, I gave a talk on to architecture students in India a couple of years ago, on the power of graphic design and presentation, you know, and for them, it was also fairly cathartic to the other people don't think think about, wow, I never realised that type has such character and can evoke so much emotion. You know, it's always treated as this stepsister that i is an afterthought. But it can really hold the voice, the way I lay something out on a page can really affect my end user, you might have amazing content. But if that's not presented, intuitively, it's lost. Right? So again, it's me hopping about visual communication and visual storytelling, right? So it's, it's lovely that I would love the students to realise that have that empowerment, you know, that wow, yeah, this is a really sucky place

Lefteris Heretakis: 28:33

to be if we can bring back the studio culture that we used to have, then you can do all these things. Yes. But as long as things are modular, right, and even more in silos, right, we actually teach students that these are silos. As I said, before, we're teaching them that things are separate, because we actually have we took this idea from from other disciplines of modularization. In what we're doing, is studio culture unifies everything. So if, if a greater studio culture could be established, right, right, then then all these things you're talking about art and philosophy. Now these go into studio culture, it doesn't matter because you're you're pulling, you're pulling things as you need them. You're not something you're doing typography, you're not doing illustration or doing graphics. You're in the studio. Just to brief,

Shalini Prasad: 29:22

absolutely, and it becomes inclusive, and is it and I feel first year students should not be allowed to pick any, any major. You should just come being a creative artist. And give yourself time, how do we you know change that that paradigm, right? In our own pedagogy? How do we say you you're here because you love design and art and let's explore all these different aspects of it and don't make we're so quick to define and put terminologies, right? We feel when we put a term on something, it becomes formula Even for me, you know, 15 1015 years ago, I sold my first piece of art. And then I said, Oh, am I an artist now? The what you don't. So it's and then older, suddenly I get this validation, right? But so were in love with terminologies and language to things right? So say you just come here and we will come up with a new term as a creative just, you're just a maker of things. And let's just do but what what are the logistics of that? Lefteris? How do we start that sort of that school of thought, literally and metaphorically? I don't know the answer to that. But more conversations like this more dialogues like this is only so enriching you know, I It's really excites me, you know, the prospects of it here.

Lefteris Heretakis: 30:50

Look at our viewers find you.

Shalini Prasad: 30:53

And listen, I It's right now it's on LinkedIn, and my Instagram account, and website and my email. And I have to tell you, I just took down my older website, and my new one is under construction. So it's on bisha, d dot sharp creative.net. I'm not sure Lefteris if you have I can send it Yes, of course. Yeah, I'll absolutely send it to you. But it's my Gmail account, too. And on LinkedIn, for sure. And I, I this is full disclosure on me, as much as I love working for everybody else. Anytime it's for me that I have to create my own stuff. I'm always running and not wanting to touch it with a bargepole. So I take time to put my own things together. But I'd love to share my work with whoever, you know, reaches out and just have a conversation. And I at least send case studies on the burying, you know, the varying sort of design projects that I'm working on. It'll be lovely. Yeah. Lovely to share that. Yeah.

Lefteris Heretakis: 31:54

What advice would you like to leave us with?

Shalini Prasad: 31:57

Oh, gosh, can you make me sound like I'm worthy of giving advice? That's lovely, thank you. I am going back to I'll say this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna first quote somebody that it's it's stuck with me this year, the Oscars this year, the infamous Oscars that happened early and yet not. The one thing I take away is not what Will Smith did. But this Emma, this is a Pakistani born British actor. And he came up to receive an award for a documentary. And I don't know, I don't, I won't quote him verbatim. But he said something like, for all those who don't belong. For all those stuck in no man's land. We'll meet you there. That's where the future is. And I just loved that it was very empowering for me. And I want to tell students this that, as you and I have just discussed, were trying to garner and foster an environment where you don't have to belong to one. What does that mean for you, it could be your own identity. It could be your interests in, in design, in design fields, allow yourself to embrace at all. That's one. The other thing I'd say is, I am and therefore I do. So I'm very intrigued by you all, embracing who you are, and your identity and your sense of self. As we talked about the good, the bad, the ugly. And see that how how that informs your design, anything that you produce will always have a piece of fuel. So you might as well delve, and then just embrace and discover yourself further. That's really a beautiful space to be. And I'll also say this, don't take yourself too seriously. I love of course, philosophising. You know, but it's always a sense of humour is a beautiful thing. And treat typography with as much respect as you do image making. It is the poet in your work, and it will elevate your work. And if you can do me a favour and acquaint yourself with pikers and use them whenever you're designing a layout that will be really beneficial. And that's my little Tilbury bits for tactical design and philosophising design.

Lefteris Heretakis: 34:25

Thank you so much for coming, Shirley. Thank you. Thank you. Great to have you.

Shalini Prasad: 34:29

Thank you lifted so much. Thank you. Bye