Context
We were approached by a team funded by Salzburg Global Seminar and Japan-India Transformative Technology Network to work on the strategy for a pilot project.
Empathic Cities provides a concise strategy that allows rural communities to address contemporary challenges of urbanization and co-create actions that provide a future for all community members. It deploys an empathic design strategy which puts the concerns of local communities and real challenges on the ground at the centre of its action framework rather than providing pre-cast (technology) solutions. Thus, the design and deployment choices of targeted solutions to assist the population as a whole, are put in the hands of their final users rather than in those of political instances. Such an approach ensures that the benefit of city investments is shared inclusively for the community members and will lead to better equality and perennity.
This project comprised of a logo, a website, video and a platform with the clear objective running a pilot to help cities solve problems using the design thinking approach.
Logos
We started by creating a few renditions of what this logo might represent and then shortlisted one.
Stage 1 Initial sketches
Stage 2 Shortlisted Logos
Stage 3 Final Logo
The Platform
The platform itself was designed to help bring this design thinking philosophy to practical use. Users or citizens could register on this platform, meet new citizens, participate in polls and events, connect and discuss problems with fellow citizens; while the admins could use it as a tool to gather quick feedback, detailed responses and float new initiatives.
The Video
An explainer video on the website itself was needed to communicate what this initiative is, who it is for and how it can help. Our team wrote the script, storyboard and executed it within a couple of weeks.
The Website
The website again was a simple story telling website which communicated to all stakeholders how an initiative like Empathic Cities can be taken further to solve problems in multiple declining cities of the world.