Meet NID’s other designers

In keeping with the adage ‘He that walketh with wise men shall be wise’, staffers of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, are turning into designers.

These staff members, who have been with NID for many years, are now coming up with their own creations and devices. Their long association with designers of the premier institute and exposure to an environment such as it affords them, have moulded their creativity in the direction of design.

Kanjibhai Dasaridia, a 21-year veteran of NID, recently designed a multipurpose stool. The two-foot-tall contraption becomes a table and chair set when folded out, apt for young students. For adults, it is a stool with a leg support. The set was so designed as to be portable so that it can be used as a firm ladder, with two steps, for reaching household items kept at a height.

“Considering the variety in furniture used in households and the space issues, I thought of designing a piece of furniture that will serve multiple purposes. It took me around six months of research and development to build the stool as I could only work during my spare time,” said Dasaridia, who does not have formal education in design. He had graduated from an ITI course after his matriculation.

“In these many years with the institute, I have changed so much and have learnt so much about design. This association has brought about a yearning in my heart to come up with my own design,” he said. “I am so happy to see my own design and have decided to come up with more such furniture.”

While Dasaridia is middle-aged and has just come up with his first independent design, another staff member of the institute, Mahendra Gajjar, who is around 60 years old, has been involved with NID for more than 40 years and has submitted several designs meant to solve day-to-day problems.

Gajjar’s formal education extended only till class IV in a Gujarati medium school. He has designed a helmet that lets the perspiration inside dry up as one drives. Another one of his creations is that of a transparent stripe with measurement marks for motorcycle fuel tanks, so that level of fuel can be read and its amount can be calculated so that there is no cheating.

Addressing the issue of accidents, injuries and deaths caused by dangling threads at the time of Uttarayan, he has designed a protective device that is to be mounted on the handlebars of two-wheelers. “The design has become very popular and was widely used in the city during Uttarayan,” he said.

Gajjar joined the institute’s staff when he was only 17 and his experience with NID has been so long that his thinking is oriented entirely towards design. “I keep thinking about design intervention for day-to-day problems,” he said.