Quicksand is a leading design research and innovation consultancy in India, recognized globally for their expertise in user-centered innovations for emerging markets. Their work spans both for-profit and not-for-profit sectors helping organizations envision innovative new programs, products and services that are future facing and rooted in principles of user centered design.
Quicksand's work has contributed to a global discourse on human-centered design and design thinking — a new approach to creating solutions that are sensitive and relevant to the end user while driving business and social impact. They make this possible through their expertise in learning from the field — distilling meaning from the lives of people, communities and cultures - and applying this knowledge in building solutions that are at the intersection of business, technology, and design.
Philisophy:
In the past 10 years, Quicksand has presented a key perspective on the practice of a contemporary Indian studio- within a culture that embraces plurality, changemakers should act in equally plural ways.
This idea, in turn, manifests itself in myriad ways within their studio, while retaining a continuous state of exploration. On this journey, they have made the following observations that will help you know them better -
-People are the heart of their practice and they build creative partnerships with them as friends, colleagues, partners, clients, and stakeholders.
-They value craftsmanship and the role it plays in establishing coherent, desirable manifests for strategic design thinking.
-They build a spirit of interconnectedness within their studio; acknowledging the inherent tensions of an interdisciplinary group composed of highly creative, autonomous individuals.
-Positioned as a hybrid between design studio and business consultancy, their group has unique competencies in mediating the dialogue between people and organizations.
-They champion the role of design strategies in non-traditional settings; shaping new expectations and responsibilities that are incumbent on a progressive studio.
Professional Agenda:
Quicksand is globally recognized for it's expertise in user-centered innovations for emerging markets. Their work supports organizations in envisioning programs, products and services that are future facing, disruptive, and yet rooted in principles of user centered design.
Their agenda for expanding the scope for design thinking has embedded them in varied sectors as finance, water and sanitation, consumer goods, education, new media and technology. Through their successes in seemingly disparate paradigms, they have demonstrated the transformative power of design thinking.
They have been commissioned by organizations in North America, Europe (UK, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland) and Asia (Singapore, India, South Korea, Japan, Cambodia), while their research studies have been located in emerging markets throughout the Global South.
