fonts

I have always believed that fonts are important in wherever you use them. They communicate a lot by themselves. They are extremely important; more so in their use in number plates. India is one place where they have still not standardised the number plates. You have all sorts of fonts in all sorts of languages being used. The road traffic guys came up with a norm that you must use only English and that you can’t have any other stickers or embellishments on the same. A lot of this is being flouted in any case with political patronage being shown to religious affiliation. Worst is the fonts being used. I hated the rounded font that came in with my i-ten. Really crappy.
My wife and I must have knocked the car around a few times and the number plate in front had cracked. Once we got the thing precariously handing by one screw after giving the car at a shop valet service. We are not too fussy about car looks. So just cellotaped the dam plate back in and carried on as usual.
This monsoon the rains washed away the cellotape and voila one day the number plate had vanished. Now to get a new plate. Finally. So go to the place and chosoe for a plate. He shows a few designs but my eye goes on a specific one. It’s the international standard kind of design. He says that this is a radio chip plate that will become compulsory in a years time. The government has just allowed for introduction right now before they clamp down on all the plates. Both of us did not really care for the story. We just thought it looked really nice. The numbers were clear and the plate somehow was just right. That’s the things with fonts. Sometimes they just seem .. right.

Now I have been roaming around with this number plate pretty proud. They cost 5 times as the simple plastic ones. Today Jispa saw the number plate and remarked “you know dad. This number plate looks good.” “ya? What about it?” “The number look clear and somehow the number plate by itself looks good. I like it”
Even an eight year old can see the difference that fonts can make. It is that perceptible.

Here are a few number plates that the Delhi traffic website has put up as wrong designs. These are still better than some of the others that are on the road. In between the fad was to put a silhouette of the maratha king shivaji on it. I don’t know how that meant to be a mark of respect. That the muddy part of your car that you normally don’t even want to touch. Some how the worst offenders are always the right winged political leaners.

job blues

Today is a bloody irritating day. There is a simple task. We have to prepare for the annual report. There is a three line to do – meeting to finalise design route, date on which agency gives design, send to print. But no, we want to complicate the dam thing so we decide to break them down into chotu chotu components. Small small very small.. so the thing now runs into 44 rows on an excel sheet with roles and responsibilities assigned. I spent a gopod solid two hours figuring what all components will be there in all this. Graph design approach, Graphs with dummy data, graph with actual data, are actual entries in the dam thing. Wow. Talk about stupid stuff.
The trouble is because we don’t give simple responsibility and hold people accountable for work. But the flip today was on another thing. People don’t want to be accountable for work. I am tired of telling people not to keep me involved. This red line is right or should I remove it? what on earth. Do what you think is right, you bloody dim wit. Can I change some of the copy you have done? Minor correction..??? OFCOURSE . DO IT.
“Jaimit, I have one question.” “please don’t disturb me now, I am busy.. is it important?” “yes” “then tell it fast”. “I was speaking to x and telling him that we need to send this and then he told me that we can only send one option, but then we require two so I was telling that we need two, but he said that since we have one we need to confirm, so I was thinking which” “shut up and tell me fast. Have you learnt précis writing?” “Should we go with the red design or the plain design”. Oh god.. “is this important? Please go away”
I understand if your boss is a control freak. I understand if he hauls you over coals for taking decisions without his help, but I am driving everyone crazy telling them not to come to me. Come to me if you have screwed up. Come to me, if you don’t understand. Don’t come to me if you don’t have an opinion. Don’t come with a problem, please come with solution and spit it out fast. Bak bak bak…I have told them clearly… if want to rated as a manager then behave like one. If you want me to take your calls and your job is to just ask questions, then you will be rated as such. Here I am trying to build a team that thinks on its own and people just don’t want to take responsibility.
In continuation with today’s bad string of affairs, I had to make the design for eth quarterly announcement. Our CEO talks of equanimity and the need to be stable within the volatile economic environment. I decided to draw an image that best represents this. Taking inspiration from Jessica Hagy who does some outstanding illustrations on her site http://thisisindexed.com/, I tried my little feeble attempt. People did not get it. Its not that people have failed, I as a creative have failed. Of course it’s ok. I am not supposed to be the smart creative but I thought this was very cool and was proud of this, but I guess not.

gilt edged?

A building I went to was pretty hep. How do I know? Look at the lift.

People will go to any length to feel hep. In this case luxurious opulent and wasteful as well. This lift had claustrophobically dark mahogany paneling with gold trimmings. GOLD!??!! The last time I saw such décor it was in a seventies Amitabh flick where such sets were used to denote the villain’s den. In those days if you were rich you were the villain - period. Sure the times have changed and you have outrageously rich heroes being accepted. But this lift was a symbol of …. of something heinous I guess. I expected Ajit to walk in at the next floor wearing white shoes and a white top hat. Even the mirror had a golden sheen making the whole thing very dark and yellow? It made me feel that the whole thing will slowly start to push in and crush me alive. Hahahhaha (that’s the villain laughing). A remnant of another heinous torture chamber used by Amjad Khan (I think) in another one of that eighties Amitabh flicks.
Ok I am over reacting. So I hate gold. By all means use it on yourself, in your houses, in your bedroom and fulfill all your kitsch. But please spare us the lift. Excuse the ugly use of the pun but I can’t help saying - Thodi si lift kara de.

'spaced out' offices

Farms, cubicle farms… the other day I had the opportunity to go visit our brand new office building at goregaon. At the very edge of Goregaon. Beyond which you spit into Borivili national park. I had heard that the place is huge with very large floor plates, but I still was a bit overwhelmed by the size when I saw it first hand. I had first joined the company when we might have been less than two thousand odd employees (we are now 15,000). So seeing so many heads was quite a different experience.
But the lack of imagination in designing the floor plan was of another order altogether. I really don’t know why there is absolute lack of imagination when putting people together to work. We tend to think that when the scale is large - think poultry farming. Is it because we still have not lost our farming instincts over all these years? The standard massive cubicle farms in the middle with cabins at the side. Chicken in the middle with cow shed on the sides.
An absolute lack of design and thought. Who do you blame, the architect? What about the philistines who commissioned it. If you ask for garbage you will get it. The poor admin guys have no poetry. If they had any would they wouldn’t be happy doing an admin job. Their brief will also be straightforward. Get me a modern office that seats x number of people in y amount of space. Where does the buck stop? Assumedly the creative of the firm resides in the marketing section. Aren’t they supposed to be thinking? But they are busy farting and walking around with an obnoxious looking oversized creative chip on both their shoulders. Looking at all this, the architect decides to chuck it and give what ever suits the straight and narrow. Least common denominator thinking. It hits us all the time.
Opulence is used to give the lobby height, paste granite on the walls and affix buff steel bars. The opulence and lack of imagination goes hand in hand with opulence substituting for the brain. And then add the glass finish on the outside and you have corporate buildings. They are all the same. I think they bully the employee into submission. With so many cabins and cubicles it is not surprising that ego wars happen on size. There is nothing else to differentiate. Ugliness assumes newer proportions. Colors are sorely missed. Then you will have people praising it. Wah wah!
But of course the work is still under way. The office still has finishing touches left. It will be fun and exciting to work in after you put the trimmings. Sure. I believe you. SCREW YOU.
It will be good fun to be the sole dissenting voice when we discuss the office in meetings. I HATE IT.

While on the topic of offices here is my favorite scene from the movie office space. It shows three average Joes totally smash up an office printer. Absolutely awesome scene. The printer is the ultimate symbol of everything an office is and shouldn’t be. Why –
It symbolizes the network admin who power corrupt
Personal printers are given once you reach a certain level!!!
The guys who believe their information is sensitive gets personal printers as well
The paper always jams
There are tons of uncollected print outs
Only the marketing guys get the color printer access. YOU PIECE OF SHIT!
The larger the office the larger the printer
The cartridge runs out only when you have an important print out to make
You put the letterhead and run to give the command only to find that the other guy gave the command before and printed his GM diet on your letterhead
No one understands or uses tray two for letter heads
No one understands or uses the double sided printing
No one has the courtesy to put in paper when their print outs empty the tray
The network guys sell the empty cartridge for side money.
They take forever to initialize in the morning when you are running for a meeting
They are singularly responsible for destroying the Amazon.

train tickets, anyone?

Yesterday there were scores of ticket checkers at VT station in the morning and then again in the evening. As I was standing on the platform waiting for the train I could see a large number of guys being hauled into TC’s cabin on the first platform. Chatting up with one of the TC’s I learnt quite a bit. Here are some insights into a TC’s life.
They have targets per month of collecting fines. They have to collect at least Rs. 50,000 per month as fines. That translates to at least 8 people a day. Hmmm. Interesting. The concept of a target is definitely good but it also shows the confidence of the railway authorities in the honesty of the Indian Public. They obviously believe that a TC would definitely get that amount. This leads a ticket checker to get all sorts of people. He says that there are guys who make honest mistakes and enter through the ticket holders gate and then proceed towards buying the ticket. That is also a finable offense and people get caught. He also realizes that this is probably wrong but, what to do. Rules are rules and they apply equally.
He said that this is a drive that could be on for a couple of days. Drives like these help in increasing ticket sales. The mere presence of a man in uniform will drive the person to the ticket counter. According to him the best deterrence is a couple of TC’s in uniform at the dates. That’s enough. Also when there are so many TC’s together the fine is generally paid faster. Otherwise the argument / pleading of the traveler go on and on.
Another thing was that they get more people traveling ticketless in mornings and evenings than in the middle of the day. His reason was that people are in a hurry and tend to skip the long lines at the ticket counter during rush hour and take a risk. Interesting one that. It means that the people are generally not dishonest but there is a barrier to honesty in the system. Man is honest to a point. Beyond which he is tempted to cross. The risk existed before he saw the long line at the ticket counter itself, yet he went towards it, saw it, saw his watch and then decided to take the plunge. The solution is not more TC’s but more ticket counter open at peak hours. Is a ticket checker more of value checking tickets at rush hour is he of more of value manning one more ticket counter. I think an idea on dispensing tickets faster might have greater ROI than more ticket checkers. What say?
Here is another interesting tidbit. When they catch people traveling without tickets they take them to the cabin for the fine collecting and other formalities. To ensure that these guys don’t give the slip, the TC puts his hand on the shoulder and escorts him there. This any Mumbai train traveler will tell you are a common sight. The TC was saying that such an act is very insulting for the traveler. He does not want to be seen being escorted by the TC such. What if his friends see him? He typically pleads with the TC to release the shoulder, promising that he will come along. The TC also has no option. “They run away all the time. I have to put the hand on the shoulder. That stops him. If he was so honest as to walk properly he should have been honest enough to buy the ticket in the first place. If he is dishonest with the ticket, why should I trust him not to run now?” Good counter point.
Indian railways take pride in saying that they somehow against the odds take millions of people from one corner to another against all the odds. Sure I love these engineers who quietly keep the trains running, efficiently. But one thing we miss is human design. How do we have deep understanding of the average traveler so that we make small changes and design stations so that travelers feel the clean neat well designed stations and behave well. The broken windows theory comes to mind. I think its there is some of my earlier blogs. You could look it up on Google as well. A little bit of common sense thinking a la Paco Underhill (brilliant book ‘why we buy’) might be a good idea.