Unwritten rules that we follow at Centroid;
1. Start from ground zero – We don’t know anything about the project- start like a kid – curiosity approach to question every obvious questions.
2. Learn to Unlearn – With our experience we carry lots of excess baggage, which might not be relevant with the changing scenarios. So we learn to unlearn and look at the scenario from the customers perspective. Understand the world they live in their shoes.
3. Comfortable art is Design – There is a fine line dividing art and design, Art is expression – individual taste, Design is comfortable art – when the art is made comfortable for a third person – so he can use it appreciate it that is design. As designers we are concerned about the end user.
4. Take risks, Make mistakes earlier – The culture is after in depth research in an area, if we come up with a hypothesis – we go head and take the risk in making them. We have made a number of mistakes, but learn from them faster and keep going towards the unexplored zone, which makes us unique in terms of conceptualisation and gaining business sense to our products that sells in the Indian market.
5. Flexible – The environment is constantly changing – bend along with that. Make statements and be bold in communicating, but when there is a hole in that accept it and with the expertise we have blind the hole faster.
6. Agile – Constantly check and work along with the customer, make prototypes early on in the design stage – don’t keep waiting for the perfect, its a journey in Design. You attain one level, the perfection targets at that level is way to go – so keep moving faster.

7. Experience – As a designer – we don’t live a 9 – 5 job, and our experience is our age. Every single movement and interaction is an experience – which we take in as inputs. Our surroundings, culture, environment – we move around it constantly sends to our sub conscious messages.
8. Frameworks – Develop frame works to context – when doing that the missing links are easily filled in and it also helps others to participate and bring in team work in to the project.
9. Emotionally connect – Every user in different, segments , Culture, Country – Vary. As a designer we need to get in to the subconscious mind of the user and design for them, what they like – what will make their life easier, what fits in their environment – These are best conveyed through stories associating to the context.
10. Design as story telling : Design is not only conceptualisation – it is understanding of various areas like customer, technology, configuration, usability, safety, trends etc., Its like writing a book – there are various characters in the novel – we need to tie them up carefully so each of them makes sense, there would be one lead role – but along with him multiple characters are required for bringing the full essence of the story.
11. Design at different levels : Top level – design strategy – aligning with the business – look at the relevance of the product in context – all interactions at this are with positioning, customer segmentation, what life they live etc. Second Level – Problem identification, what they do now, character of the customer, mindsets, technology mapping, trend mapping – conceptualisation. Evaluating, questioning the questions used for evaluation – getting deeper in the design. Third level – Formal values, cues that emotionally connect, story between the final product form and the context, concept to cost the customer is willing to pay, concept to manufacturing easiness, Concept to serviceability easiness – all final practical aspects of the design. We can still break it up further to multiple levels.
12. No Compromises – In design at any stage making compromises hits us else where at sales or service points.