Foreword
The ninth edition of Kyoorius Design is now in your hands and we’re hoping you’ll be flipping these pages in between sessions at Kyoorius DesignYatra 2011 in Goa. Producing this edition has been insightful and educative in equal parts. In this issue, we speak to seven promising professionals who reflect back on their design and art education. Talking to these former design/ art school graduates was educating for us and the best compliment we got was in the form of an email from one of them, Shagun Singh, who runs the very informative Designwala blog (www.designwala.org) who said answering the questions helped her put things in perspective. Our main focus in this issue is our special feature on Destination Branding, where we spoke to place branding experts from around the world in a bid to understand what goes into the making of a destination brand, what are the challenges agencies face and what constitutes a good place brand. We also bring you six key place branding case studies from around the world. In the showcase section, we bring you the work of talented illustrator Lokesh Karekar and the equally talented Mitali Shah whose Pen & Ink series we have featured in this issue. Also have a peek into winning work from this year’s d&ad Awards across categories like Graphic Design, Illustration, Typography and Press Advertising. This issue also brings you the second part of the Cabinet of Curiosities feature, which we began in the last issue. This time around, the Cabinet of Curiosities is themed around the idea of Paradox. As we put this issue to bed, what was interesting for us to note, as far as
communication design is concerned, was the overlap in the work being done by design and advertising agencies. As old agency models of the past give way to newer, nimbler, more collaborative structures — advertising agencies especially the independent ones are working on the regular stuff that was thought to be the forte of design agencies in the past- packaging and magazine design. They are creating brand experiences in some cases, and in some cases, they are venturing into brand identity programmes. Stuff that would make the design school-educated professional turn up his nose at what he perceives as a slap-dash approach to all the things he holds sacred- design thinking and process. That’s not to say design agencies aren’t reinventing old models themselves — they are turning the typical client-agency relationships on their head and developing deeper relationships with the C-suite — an equation that most advertising agencies vie to cultivate but usually can only dream of having. They are advising clients on new business streams, researching and publishing papers on subjects close to their heart. Design agencies find the process of collaborative working much more intuitively natural to grasp than their advertising counterparts. This is not to say one is better than the other — its only to reiterate the truism that competition is here to stay and tomorrow the agency that competes with you for that piece of business could well be a new hybrid agency model that you have not encountered in the past. Collaboration and developing a culture of innovation can be the key differentiator. This magazine is an attempt to create a continuous dialogue between the communication agencies and the corporate community. The vast pool of design and communication agencies today is ever expanding and we hope to be the platform that can reach out and showcase the burgeoning talent that this country has to offer, not just in India but also abroad. A heart felt thank you to all the contributors who have made this issue possible. Share what you liked and didn’t like in the issue by dropping me a mail at the id below. We would love to know what you would like to see more of within these pages. Regards,
Bindu Nair Maitra bindu@kyoorius.com
Editorial Chief Editor & Publisher Rajesh Kejriwal rajesh@kyoorius.com Editor Bindu Nair Maitra bindu@kyoorius.com Editorial Submissions editor@kyoorius.com Creative Creative Director Kay H Khoo kkhoo@kyoorius.com Design SuehLi Tan / Faye Phua / Hooi Wan Ling contributors Pooja Shah Jo De Baerdemaeker Brian Elliott Steve Zelle Michael Wolff Karthi Marshan Vineeta Nair Support Typography Fedra Sans Alt Std Fedra Sans Display Greta Text, Greta Sans www.typotheque.com www.indiantypefoundry.com additional typeface Callie Display, page 86–108 SuehLi Tan, www.suehlitan.com Paper Papers by Kyoorius paper@kyoorius.com papers.kyoorius.com Printer Silverpoint Press Ptd Ltd www.silverpointindia.com Publishing main co-ordinator Sameeya Murad sameeya@kyoorius.com Advertising & Marketing Vaibhav Kapur vaibhav@kyoorius.com Phone +91 96194 72555 published by Kyoorius Exchange Kohinoor Estate, 2nd Floor, No 165 Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013, India Phone +91 22 4236 3636 www.kyoorius.com
disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed or implied in Kyoorius Magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Kyoorius Exchange. Unsolicited articles and transparencies are sent at owner’s risk and the publisher accepts no liability for loss or damage. Materials in this publication may not be reproduced, whether in part or in whole, without the consent of Kyoorius Exchange.
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Issue 9 Special Report Destination Branding: Where does your brand want to go? Featuring works from Kesselskramer, Wolff Olins, Interbrand, Landor and Saffron Brand Consultants with case studies on Amsterdam, New York, Brisbane, Melbourne, London and Bengal. — P55
Studio Profiles
Illustrator
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80 Locopopo
Collective Craft Impprintz Graphic Design Studio No Nasties
New Work — advertising
D&AD 2011: The Winners
— P33
18 Taproot 24 Lowe Lintas & Partners Creative news
27 Design Temple 28 Sameer Kulavoor 29 Vikram Dinubhai Feature Interview
30 Obataimu The India Design Mark (I-Mark)
— P73
Corrigendum: In the last issue of Kyoorius Design Magazine, we incorrectly referred to Milan Jain, the winner of the Grand prize (national category) at the India- Future of Change competition, as a man. Milan Jain is a woman and we sincerely apologise for the mistake.
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d&ad
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D&AD 2011
the cabinet of curiosities
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Amrit Kumar & Mriga Kapidiya Vandana Jain Mithun Jayaram Ambreen Butt Shailesh Khanderparkar Chintan Upadhyay Waswo X Waswo Somapala Pothupitye Acharige Bhajju Shyam Nipa Doshi & Jonathan Levien
typography
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Indian Type Foundry: Typography column 2 When writing becomes typography
Special Report
education
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112 Looking back on a design education
Destination Branding: Where does your brand want to go?
Columnists Spotlight
73 I-Mark 76 Mitali Shah 109 The birth of an Indian Hero
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Brian Elliott Steve Zelle Michael Wolff Karthi Marshan Vineeta Nair
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INGREDIENTS STEP 1
THE INDIA TUBE
A W+K EXPERIMENT
+ + +
COMBINE + DISTILL DIFFERENT ELEMENTS OF POP CULTURE
STEP 2
MIX WELL WITH BRAND STRATEGY
Add brand and business objectives
BY-PRODUCT
Socially useful projects Global and regional influences of all kinds
Interesting blend of pop culture
HEAT 500 0C Magazine on subcultures motherland.com Rich, meaningful experiences and content that make consumers love corporations
Online insider’s guide to India indiatube.com Multi-disciplinary teams wkdelhiblog.com Product Design wkdelhiblog.com/indigo Contemporary art wkexp.com Interesting people doing interesting projects handpaintedtype.com wkdelhiblog.com/dodo
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studio profiles
COLLECTIVE CRAFT Collective Craft works towards engaging traditional handicrafts in contemporary product, space and communication design. The collaborative currently works towards securing rural livelihoods by generating work opportunities for artisans through interventions and innovation in design and technical processes. The project was conceived by Sibanand Bhol, an architect from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Bhol wanted to engage traditional crafts skills in contemporary design, primarily in architecture. He traveled widely in Orissa living and working with artisans in remote villages – observing, learning, exchanging ideas and inspiring artisans to perceive their work from different dimensions. He works towards creating environmentally responsible design
solutions. Designing products with crafts is the inception where the larger issues of a sustainable environment and livelihoods begin to get addressed. Much of the studio’s current work is, therefore, focused on product design. The studio also works with other Architects and Designers to design and produce customized craft products, installations and spaces. Shweta Mohapatra, co-designer in the studio, is a visual artist and a graduate of National Institute of Design. Shweta was drawn towards traditional art techniques like Pattachitra and Madhubani and their potential use as a medium of storytelling. Collective Craft has a design studio in New Delhi and a workshop in Orissa. The studio works with individual artisans and artisan groups in different locations.
01–03 Jiyo: Ways of Looking and Valuing. An exhibition of Handcrafted products by the Asian Heritage Foundation, New Delhi held at the Religare Arts Gallery, in New Delhi
Collective Craft address Collective Craft, 1789, B-1, Vasant Kunj New Delhi 110070 phone +91 11460 25973 email contact@collectivecraft.com website www.collectivecraft.blogspot.com/
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04–09 Children’s book These illustrations were inspired by Madhubani storytelling and painting traditions. Story by Kaveri Chatterjiee, Published by Katha in both English and Hindi.
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Entirely hand carved from locally available soft stone in Odisha. Each block of stone is carefully handpicked and sorted for texture and colour. Natural surface aberrations are retained to enhance the beauty of the product.
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24 Addis Ababa Exhibition by ICCR on Indian Crafts at Addis Ababa, India–Africa Summit, 2011
25–27 Residence in Gurgaon Hand painted Interiors by Pattachitra Artisans from Orissa.
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28–32 Seed to Silver A curated exhibition of handcrafted jewellery, held in New Delhi by the World Crafts Council
33–38 Pattachitra Pattachitra painting is one of the oldest and most popular art forms of Orissa. Products are hand painted by Chitrakars in the Heritage village of Raghurajpur using natural colours.
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studio profiles
IMPPRINTZ GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO Creating an impact, making it important; Impprintz graphic design studio provides refreshing, tailor-made design solutions. Ethical, aesthetic, relevant and progressive design is their belief. One cannot miss the presence of Impprintz while in Pondicherry; the tourist cityguide, social initiatives, artisanal cafĂŠs, and concept boutiques, are all being shaped by their creative vision. Clients from all walks of life; be it French, Tamil, German, or English, constantly drive the multi-faceted studio to tackle briefs beyond language and cultural barriers, with a world perspective. The young and enthusiastic studio designs for all possible domains. Their distinctive
conceptions span a variety of media including illustration, graphics, and photography, among others. Although recent by set-up, their work has been featured in many electronic and printed media both national and international. With considerable support from family and friends, Impprintz was initiated by young entrepreneur Rahul Sureka in 2010. Nurtured in the unique education system of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Rahul found his interests in drawing and sculpting at an early age. This led to 4 years of visual exploration and understanding at the Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune. Here he joined his first entrepreneurial project, Samas Media Lab, an extensive collaborative of emerging artists,
musicians, and designers. Later, in 2009 he came on board at &Then in Mumbai, an experimental team doing interactive and graphic projects. Becoming a part of the visual art circuit, he performed with several acclaimed electronic musicians. In January 2010, a wandering 3000+ km ride through western India on his Activa, brought him back home. Today Impprintz has become a hub for creative expression, with print, web, production and publicity support. They have started a line of products, street exhibitions and stemmed collaboration with a variety of projects. A constant lookout for inspiration in all forms, makes this a very exciting ship to sail on.
Impprintz Graphic Design Studio address 1st Floor, No.21, Rue De La Compagnie, Pondicherry 01. email mail@impprintz.in website www.impprintz.in
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02 02–07 CHOCO Là Choco-Là is Pondicherry’s very own artisanal chocolate boutique. The concept for the branding started at the very beginning while the delicate chocolates were being hand-crafted by the young entrepreneur himself. After much learning and tasting of the niche chocolate industry, an oldschool stamp logo with Pondicherry’s
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landmark monument within it was created. This immediately gave a clear direction for the brand. Packaging and promotions were soon followed by the flagship boutique, all reflecting a strong origin. 05
07 01 City Direct As the creative partner of Pondicherry’s monthly guide, CityDirect, Impprintz designs with a keen knowledge of the quaint town’s mixed culture. The publication cover and articles are conceptualized with memorable themes rooted in the spirit and heart of Pondicherry.
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09 08–13 Voila Pondicherry’s very own art initiative where artists of all sorts are welcome to collaborate and share their unique expressions. With two street exhibitions, a video art soirée, and an event featuring traditional artists, Voila has found the interest of the young and creative. Initiated by Impprintz, the event is informal and co- created.
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14–15 Prosody Paper Plane is a singles compilation of lyrical, melodic, blue rock by Prosody. On listening to the album, and thinking of a paper plane’s journey through a young man’s life, the two colour illustrations were created to capture the mood. Using interesting materials, this unique hand-made product, had thrilling results. This is going to be further extended on exciting band merchandise as well.
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16–18 Postcards Vibrant photo illustrated, screenprinted postcards, with faces from Facebook, were sent to friends all over the world as greetings for the new decade. This was an initiative to revive the exchange of wonderful messages on beautiful postcards.
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19–21 Fat Fakir Bold and colourful graphic illustrations inspired from the rustic Indian. FAT FAKIR Tees have become the new expression for all those looking for a fun, rooted and modern expression.
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22–24 Flints Flints is where one can find funky graphic and hand made products. This is the studio’s creative outburst with an essence of a fleeting spontaneity. The first line of paper stationery products features ‘DigitalKonG’ – an urban monkey; while there’s lot more in the pipeline. The anti-mass production, handy and positive products are eye catching and useful too. Available in select concept boutiques around India.
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28–33 LIVING ART lifestyles An ethnic, bohemian and hippy-chic lifestyle brand, developing products with the highly skilled Indian craftsmen, for today’s market. A minimal logo was created for Living Art, with a stylized mnemonic; while maintaining an earthy but yet contemporary colour palette. The bar on the ‘g’ builds a resonance in the word ‘living’. Taking inspiration from the traditional Kolam, patterns were formed using the mnemonic. The store graphics, stationery, packaging and promotions showcase the company’s artistic philosophy and designer products.
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25–27 Neelamayil Neelamayil publications make children’s illustrated story-books, and educational toys. This Tamil-English illustrated educational memory game has been designed as an interesting aid for the English speaking Tamil children of today to come in contact with their language. Realistic illustrations help give a vivid visual as they memorize. The educational aspects of the game are being researched for final inputs on the design.
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NO NASTIES
NO NASTIES email yes@nonasties.in website www.nonasties.in Take NO For An Answer! No farmer suicides. No child labour. No GM seeds. No toxic pesticides. No carcinogenic dyes. No “Go Green” or “Save Mother Earth” slogans. Nope, nah, no sir! Only 100% organic, 100% fair trade, 100% designer t-shirts. Say hello to No Nasties and their ‘guilt-free, green tees’. Started by Apurva Kothari and Diti Kotecha earlier this year, this new clothing brand aims to increase consumer awareness of the farmer suicides (one every 30 minutes!), the number of child labourers in India (nearly 60 million!) and the heavy use of toxic pesticides in cotton farming (25% of all farm usage). At the same
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time, they give consumers an easy way to make a difference by simply purchasing a t-shirt. Many others in the industry have gone down this path before, however the approach taken by No Nasties is quite different. They don’t want you to make a donation. They don’t want to change your lifestyle or your wardrobe either. Instead, they sell t-shirts that you’d actually love to wear by using super soft fabric, a sexy fit and above all, cool designer prints created with the help of their community of graphic designers, artists and photographers. In return, these designers get credit as well as royalties on each and
every t-shirt that No Nasties sells. The only rule given to the designers while creating these prints is ‘No Preaching’ – everything else is kosher! And the diversity in their existing designs reflects just that. Ranging from an illustration picked out of a Central America travelogue to a map of Mumbai showing the city’s latitude & longitude; from a life-size sketch of a boy & girl to a thin line drawing of yoga poses... it’s all there. They are constantly seeking out new designers to be part of their community as well, so if you’re interested, reach out and help more people look good, feel good and do no nasty!
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New Work
TAPROOT
New work— Advertising advertising.indd 18
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New Work
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ONLY BENGAL Creative Director Agnello Dias Santosh Padhi Art Santosh Padhi Ashish Kalpund Copy Chintan Ruparel Agnello Dias Account Executive Mandar Sawant
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TIMES OF INDIA A Day In The Life of India Creative Director Santosh Padhi Agnello Dias art Pranav Bhida Santosh Padhi copy Chintan Ruparel Account executive Mandar Sawant
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New Work
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CONDE NAST Creative Director Santosh Padhi Agnello Dias Copywriter Agnello Dias Art Director Santosh Padhi Pranav Bhide Retouching Expert Rohan More Photographer Stock images Client Servicing Manan Mehta
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New Work
THE TIMES CHENNAI FESTIVAL Creative Director Santosh Padhi Agnello Dias art Ajinkya Bane Santosh Padhi Illustrator Ajinkya Bane copy Kaushik Iyer Account executive Mandar Sawant
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PEPSI Change The Game Creative Director Agnello Dias Santosh Padhi art Santosh Padhi Durvesh Gaikar Ashish Kalpund copy Agnello Dias Account executive Manah Mehta Kaushal Dhokker
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LOWE LINTAS & PARTNERS CREATIVE
SUZLON Creative R.Balki Amer Jaleel Shriram Iyer Garima Khandelwal Arjun Balasubramanian Ameya Gokhale Planning Suraja Kishore
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Business Anaheeta Goenka Vandana Joshi Darrell Fernandes Neville Katrak Producer Flying Pigs Director Bharat Sikka
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TANISHQ Photographer Radhakrishnan Nair Production House Déjà vu, Dubai National creative director Arun Iyer Branch Creative director Rajesh Ramaswamy Creative Director (Art) Rexina Devraj Creative (Copy) Indrasheesh Mukherjee Planning Client Servicing Vikram Satyanath VP Sudhir Rajasekharan Brand services manager Sonakshi Maheshwari
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NEWS
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news wrap-up
Design Temple launches Flagship Store D.Caf The middle of June saw Design Temple launch its flagship store in Mumbai’s Colaba area called D.Caf. Spread across 900 square feet of space, D.Caf retails Design Temple’s popular line of merchandise including the First Vaid Box (First-Aid box), archival prints and the handy Aujar box (tool-box) among others. D.Caf will also stock Animania- Design Temple’s recent animal-themed collection. The store also includes a café area with Internet access. For more details, visit www.designtemple.com
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news wrap-up
Sameer Kulavoor launches Zeroxwallah zine Illustrator Sameer Kulavoor, who was recently featured within these pages in a previous edition, has launched his limited-edition zine called Zeroxwallah. Talking about the inspiration behind Zeroxwallah, Kulavoor tells Kyoorius, “Zerox shops in Mumbai are omnipresent and easily spottable due to their distinct yellow black ‘identity’. They are usually chaotic and haphazard with signboards that could give a type-designer a headache (and heart ache). The interiors are equally bold and chaotic, if not more. But they are indispensable for the numerous students and office-goers who frequent them. The overall mishmash of everything around and inside the Zeroxwallah shop makes it visually quirky and interesting. The smell of the toner combined with the sound (noise of papers and people) of a bustling tiny shop can be a heavy dose to all your senses. Frequenting the Zeroxwallahs during my art/design school at
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the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art intrigued me and the zine is a way to translate my experiences into a tangible product. The use of photocopy for the book was an obvious choice. And the dash of yellow screenprint over photocopy gives it the quintessential ‘Zerox’ character and feel. A limited edition zine was the best way to bring out the spontaneity of the Zeroxwallahs of Bombay.” Kulavoor says the zine is one of the many parallel personal projects that helps him keep his work fresh and inspired. ‘Zeroxwallah,’ he says, is the first of many more to come. Zeroxwallah zine will soon be available at select stores in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai. The zine is available at Motto Bookstore in Berlin and will be shortly available at La Central Bookstore, macba (Museum of contemporary Art) in Barcelona. You can view Kulavoor’s work at www.sameerkulavoor.com.
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NEWS
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NID’s Vikram Dinubhai Panchal wins in Product/ Equipment category at Core77 for Load Carrier. Indian designer Vikram Dinubhai Panchal’s design for a load carrier, commissioned by nid, has won in the Product/ Equipment category at the prestigious Core77 competition. The load carrier was designed with the objective of improving the working conditions of labourers and workers at construction sites, ports and factories, in an attempt to prevent occupational hazards that might occur to them at their place of work while carrying heavy loads. The Load Carrier allows for three lifting methods. One is above the head, another is on the back (for medium loads), and the third is by pushing and pulling (for heavy loads). The Load Carrier costs approximately Rs 300. Core77 Products/ Equipment jury member Rama Choprash says on the winning entry, “It’s refreshing to see design working towards supporting a higher standard of living for those who critically need it. (Jury member) Julie (Lasky) did a quick calculation and the 300 rupee cost is approximately $6.70! Designed to be made by local craftsman throughout India, the system bypasses commercialization by setting-up an open-source
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Jury member Rama Choprash: Industrial designer and director of Product design at Parson’s The New School of Design.
blueprint for change. The lightweight yellow metal hardware details juxtaposed against the ‘natural’ canning convey both base functionality and contextually appropriate form. Although beautiful enough to display on a wall, the “Load Carrier for Labor” is probably happiest doing work.”
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feature interview
Obataimu: Bespoke to perfection 02
By the time you read this article, Obataimu, the store, would have shut shop and moved to a temporary virtual location before launching as an online store. Obataimu is the brain-child of Noorie Sadarangani, who along with her partners graphic designer Rein Steger and Akshay Narvekar, started the store in the heart of Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda area. Obataimu, meaning ‘overtime’ in Japanese, is a fitting reference to the store’s philosophy of bringing old world pleasures to new world living, as Sadarangani likes to put it.
Kyoorius spoke to Sadarangani on the core philosophy behind setting up Obataimu and life after the Pop-Up store.
Kyoorius: What was the objective behind setting up Obataimu? Noorie: The idea was to start an inventive lab where one could explore making different things. Two and a half years ago, I moved back to India and started experimenting with furniture design in my parent’s garage. I wanted to connect what I had learnt abroad with what I love about India. Obataimu stylistically is meant to be a fusion of Bombay’s old school charm, New York’s individualism, and Tokyo’s alternative universe. We make stuff ranging from multipurpose clothing to concept furniture. Kyoorius: What got you interested in reviving the work of old craftsmen? Noorie: For the most part, we don’t work with old craftsmen. We find industrially skilled workers with an interest in furthering their artistic side and then invite them to either our small tailoring or artisan school. I studied urbanism and have a huge interest in the
01 01 Dressing room Stage The Peep Box changing room with black and white bathroom tiles and soft black velvet drapes. The dressing room often transformed into a stage for musicians, speakers or collaborative installations.
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02 Retrospective The store makes vintage looking trunks the old-fashioned way. One can customize the color of the leather, the size, customize the initials with one’s name, or have them hand-painted on the top or interior of the trunk. Obataimu also collects modernist typewriters, turns them into funky desk lights, or uses the keys to create personalized initial cufflinks or pendants in one’s choice of silver or gold.
potential of untapped informal talent in Mumbai. Everybody moves here with a dream, so many lose that dream in harsh realities. Obataimu’s dream is to, however small a way, encourage dreaming, empowering workers to keep learning and elevate themselves to artisans. For instance, hand-dyeing is a fairly common industry in India still, unlike other parts of the world. Hand-dyeing as compared to machine dyeing is really an art with infinite possibilities and secrets in the trade. Unfortunately most hand-dyeing in India is done without the use of effluent plants (because they are so expensive) which makes this process highly environmentally unfriendly. So we tested a group of hand-dyers in Dharavi and then offered to formalize and re-locate four of them to a space that we have hooked up to a running effluent plant in Gujarat. This way we use eco-friendly handdye and on the flip side, we can offer our customers bespoke colors options. Kyoorius: Under the purview of Obataimu, you have installation design, graphic design, furniture design and fashion design objects. How do all these various design disciplines amalgamate with Obataimu’s core philosophy? Noorie: We don’t see ourselves as an interior design studio or a fashion house. Everything we do should serve a purpose and provide delight. At a creative level, the principle is we start with a problem statement, we build models to attack the problem and in the process of drafts we come up with something we like that is unique. It is more about the process than a particular product. Things, regardless of what they are, with a face and a story should hold more meaning than something generic. We make belongings not just fashion, or furniture or anything else. We hope.
03 The gentleman’s den within the Peep Box comprises of an oversized hand-polished teak wood backgammon table that doubles up as a coffee table and the pieces double up as coasters. An indoor yoganomic chez, a shabby chic telephone chandelier, and a slick black leather boss chair.
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Kyoorius: Could you take us through a typical product idea that was then executed and brought to life, using the Obataimu philosophy? Noorie: Sleep inspired dress-wear that is comfortable enough to fall asleep in, but chic enough to accessorize, recreate in your
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personal style and wear anywhere is an example. Another example is our yoga-nomic collection. We fuse yoga and ergonomics to try to come up with new ways of sitting that fuses principles from both. All our products start with a problem that lead to an idea, that leads to many failed models until we make something we fall in love with. Then it becomes an Obataimu product. Kyoorius: What about life after the Pop-up Store? Noorie: It really wasn’t a pop-up store, it was a peep box. The reason that we really wanted to make that distinction was because we don’t see ourselves as a brand or as a store. We see ourselves really as an idea factory. In the 30s, peep boxes were a very popular form of entertainment, you would pay a penny for the opportunity to peer into someone else’s imagination. Also, if you go back to the 30s, many designers tailor-made things for their clients–spending much time with the artisans or making things themselves to suit their creative spurts but also the character of the client. There was a lot more personal interaction between the artist and the commissioner. Obataimu is nostalgic for the way many design studios or ateliers worked in the 30s. Kyoorius: You are involved with the revival of the Polaroid project. Could you share some details on that front with us? Noorie: We are collaborating with the Impossible Project in India. The Impossible Project is a mission to ‘save the Polaroid.’ When Polaroid officially shut down their factories, over two years ago now, a community of old soul Polaroid enthusiasts were heart broken. The thought that such a brilliant form of instant gratification and creative expression would be lost forever was depressing. An Austrian entrepreneur, Florian Kapps, approached Polaroid with a plan to re-invent the brand for a niche market before they closed down. Their response to him was, “It’s impossible” and so he founded the Impossible Project together with a few renegade exPolaroid workers. They not only re-invented the process of making Polaroid film the oldfashioned way but they also collect and repair vintage cameras. To buy new Polaroid film, made the oldfashioned way or to buy a repaired vintage Polaroid camera in India, you can contact us on impossible@ obataimu.com
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04 Hand-Made Ties Obataimu has a series of hand woven and patchworked ties. The idea is to move away from the quirky printed silk tie trend and bring in more subtle yet laborious detail into a man’s work-day. 05 Art tees Ex-billboard artist (many of whom were out of a job with the entry of digital printing in India), now
working at Obataimu, making specially commissioned handpainted tees at an underground jazz night they hosted together with Belvedere at the Peep Box at Kala Ghoda Café. 06 Fish Leather Hip Flasks Obataimu makes their own fish leather (similar to python or crocodile in its feel) but made totally out of waste (they don’t kill the fish). They use this ubercool material in bright colors for a variety of products such as hip flasks, sneakers, wallets, bags, special commission jackets and trunks and more.
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D&ad showcase
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D&AD D&AD has announced its winners for 2011, across all categories. The London headquartered organization has recently introduced the White Pencil which will be awarded to a creative idea that changes the world for the better; an idea that demonstrates the ability to influence real and positive change in the world. Launched in 2011, the first competition will bear fruit in 2012. In the next few pages, Kyoorius brings you a showcase of all Yellow Pencil Winners and nominations from this year in categories like Art Direction, Book Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Magazine and Newspaper design, Packaging, Press advertising, Typography and Writing for Design.
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Art direction
Art Direction for Poster Advertising Keep the Far Right, Right Out Nomination Art Director: Ajab Samrai Designer: Ajab Samrai, Roger Kennedy Copywriter: Ajab Samrai, David Fowle, John Pallant Illustrator: Noma Bar Typographer: Roger Kennedy Creative Director: Ajab Samrai Advertising Agency: Team Saatchi Account Handler: Gemma Morris, Tom Rudge, Sophie Hooper Brand Manager: Bobby Syed
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Graphic Design Applied Print Graphics King James Bible Two Pound Coin nomination designer: Luke Alexander, Rich Lyons Creative Director: Paul Stafford , Ben Wright Design Studio: DesignStudio Client Head of Historical Services: Dr Kevin Clancy
Calendars Almost Extinct Yellow Pencil designer: Chris Challinor, Rebecca Low, Dulcie Cowling, Adam Cartwright Creative Director: Oliver Maltby Design Company: The Chase
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Applied Print Graphics Top Lapel Pin Nomination designer: Yoshihiro Yagi, Yo Kimura, Ai Ishimatsu, Yoichi Takigami, Kana Nakao art Director: Yoshihiro Yagi creative Director: Kuranari Hidetoshi Copywriter: Haruko Tsutsui Producer: Tadashi Nakamura, Kana Koyama, Nadja Kirillova Account Handler: Oshio Masami Advertising Agency: Dentsu Tokyo Marketing Manager: Takeshi Hikihara
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Catalogues & Brochures Moormann in Simple Terms Yellow Pencil designer: Regina Jäger, Olaf Jäger Design Group: Jäger & Jäger Marketing Manager: Nicole Christof
Catalogues & Brochures This Year I Will Try Not to Nomination designer: Christopher Doyle, Elliott Scott Typographer: Christopher Doyle Photographer: Elliott Scott, Christopher Doyle Copywriter: Christopher Doyle, Elliott Scott Image Manipulator: Elliott Scott
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Wayfinding & Environmental Graphics Signage, Wayfinding & Furniture for the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Yellow Pencil designer:
Ian Cartlidge, Ben Tibbs, Melissa Price, Matt Busher Design Director:
Ian Cartlidge Design Studio: Cartlidge Levene
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Book Design
Entire book Drawings from the Gulag Nomination designer: Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell Publisher: Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell Illustrator: Danzig Baldaev Editor: Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell Design Group: Murray & Sorrell FUEL
Entire Book The Geometry of Pasta Nomination Art Director: Caz Hildebrand Designer: Caz Hildebrand Publisher: Jon Butler Illustrator: Lisa Vandy Author: Jacob Kenedy Design Group: Here Design
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Illustration Illustration for Design; Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising
Minds / Nostrils / Plasticine / Playtime Nomination Illustrator: Mick Marston Art Director: Mark Fairbanks Copywriter: Mark Fairbanks print producer: Kirstie Johnstone Creative Director: Mark Fairbanks Executive Creative Director: Paul Brazier Advertising Agency: AMV BBDO Account Handler: James Drummond Project Manager: Linda Carlos marketing Manager: Joanna Bolitho
Illustration for Design ICA Good Life Nomination Illustrator: Klas FahlĂŠn Art Director: Helena Bielke Assistant Art Director: Eddie Ă…hgren Copywriter: Hedvig Bruckner Creative Director: Jonas Yrlid Production Manager: Catharina Erlandsson Advertising Agency: KING Account Handler: Mattias Bohlin Head of Account Management: Sunit Mehrotra Brand Manager: Teddy Falkenek
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Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising Self Portrait / Girl with a Pearl Earring / Mona Lisa Yellow pencil Illustration: Cue Art Art Director: Fajar Kurnia, Chan Hwee Chong, Eric Yeo Copywriter: Jeremy Chia Creative Director: Eric Yeo Executive Creative Director: Robert Gaxiola Image Manipulation: Pro Colour Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Singapore Account Handler: Jamie Tang
Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising Apocalypse Nomination Illustrator: Eduardo Torassa Art Director: Demian Veleda Copywriter: Demian Veleda, Matias Varise Image Manipulator: Daniel Romanos Print Producer: Fernando Costanza Creative Director: Demian Veleda Executive Creative Director: Martin Mercado Advertising Agency: Young & Rubicam Buenos Aires Account Handler: Gabriela Zecchi
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Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising Dwarf Depression Nomination Illustrator: Shailesh Khandeparkar Art Director: Shailesh Khandeparkar designer: Shailesh Khandeparkar Copywriter: Shailesh Khandeparkar Creative Director: Bobby Pawar, KB Vinod Advertising Agency: Mudra Communication Brand Manager: Mera Baboji Rao
Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising Tastebuddies Nomination Illustrator: Parra Art Director: Maria Fridman Designer: Ville Kovanen Copywriter: Valtteri V채kev채 Typographer: Parra Producer: Peggy Petrell Creative Director: Antero Jokinen, Erkki Izarra Advertising Agency: 358 Helsinki Account Handler: Sami Alppiranta Brand Manager: Ossi Ahto
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Illustration for Press & Poster Advertising Unbearably Sour Nomination Illustrator: Deelip Khomane Art Director: Ashish Naik Designer: Ashish Naik Copywriter: Anupama Sirsalewal, Anurag Agnihotri Typographer: Ashish Naik Creative Director: Anurag Agnihotri, Ashish Naik National Creative Director: Abhijit Avasthi, Rajiv Rao Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai Account Handler: Antara Suri Marketing Manager: Namita Gupta
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Magazine & Newspaper Design Entire Magazines 2010 Year in Review Yellow Pencil Creative Director: Richard Turley Design Director: Cynthia Hoffman Art Director: Robert Vargas Designer: Evan Applegate, Jennifer Daniel, Patricia Kim, Gina Maniscalco, Maayan Pearl, Kenton Powell, Lee Wilson Typographer: Ashish Naik Photo Editor: Tania Pirozzi, Diana Suryakusuma, Donna Cohen, Emily Keegin, Myles Little Director of Photography: David Carthas Senior Photo Editor: Karen Frank Editor in Chief: Josh Tyrangiel Redesign Consultant: Mark Leeds Art Manager: Emily Anton
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Entire Magazines Spring & Fall Fashion Issues Yellow Pencil Art Director: Randy Minor associate Art Director: Josef Reyes Deputy Art Director: Hitomi Sato Design Director: Chris Dixon Designer: Hilary Fitzgibbons, Raul Aguila Publisher: Larry Burstein Photographer: Marco Grob, Lauren Greenfield, Hannah Whitaker Photography Director: Jody Quon Photo Editor: Caroline Smith, Lea Golis Editor in Chief: Adam Moss Publishers: New York Media
Entire Magazines The Neighborhoods Issue Nomination Art Director: Randy Minor associate Art Director: Josef Reyes Deputy Art Director: Hitomi Sato Design Director: Chris Dixon Designer: Hilary Fitzgibbons Publisher: Larry Burstein Photographer: Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Hannah Whitaker Photography Director: Jody Quon Editor in Chief: Adam Moss Publishers: New York Media
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Magazine Front Covers Wallpaper* Custom Covers Yellow Pencil Art Director: Meirion Pritchard Designer: Matt Wade Illustrator: Anthony Burrill, Hort, James Joyce, Nigel Robinson, Kam Tang Editor in Chief: Tony Chambers Interactive Design & Programming: Kin
Newspaper Supplements Eureka Nomination Art Director: Matt Curtis Designer: Fraser Lyness Picture Editor: Madeleine Penny Publishers: Times Newspapers
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Packaging Design Clever Little Bag Yellow Pencil
PUMA Phone Packaging Nomination Designer: Russell Saunders, Phil King, Jacob Vanderkar Design Director: Peter Hale Creative Director: Jason Gregory, Mark Bonner, Peter Hale Copywriter: Peter Hale, Russell Saunders design studio: GBH Brand Manager: Antonio Bertone, Nina Wolf Director of Marketing & User Experience: Jerome Nadel
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Graphic Designer: Sophie Paynter, Jacob Vanderkar Graphic Design Director: Jason Gregory Structural Designer: Josh Morenstein, Nick Cronan, Seth Murray Structural Chief Designer: Yves Behar Creative Director: Jason Gregory, Mark Bonner, Peter Hale Graphic Design Studio: GBH Structural Design Studio: fuseproject Brand Manager: Antonio Bertone
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Press Advertising
A Bad Part Affects the Entire System Nomination Art Director: Bruno Prosperi Copywriter: Renato Simões Typographer: José Roberto Bezerra Creative Director: Luiz Sanches Advertising Agency: AlmapBBDO Planner: Cintia Gonçalves, Fernanda Barone, Renata Bonilha Marketing Manager: Herlander Zola
Campaigns Life Lost Yellow Pencil Art Director: Adrian Rossi, Victoria Daltrey, Mark Reddy Copywriter: Alex Grieve, Will Bingham Photographer: Nadav Kander Typographer: Dave Wakefield Designer: Rich Kennedy Creative Director: Alex Grieve, Adrian Rossi Retoucher: Antony Crossfield, Gary Meade Print Producer: Sarah Pascoe Advertising Agency: BBH London Account Planner: Jude Lowson Account Handler: Lou Addley, Mehdi Benali Art Buyer: Sarah Pascoe Brand Manager: Scott Jacobson
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Campaigns Music. See What it’s Made of Yellow Pencil Art Director: Marcos Medeiros, Danilo Boer, Marcos Kothlar Copywriter: Andre Kassu Typographer: José Roberto Bezerra Illustrator: Marcos Medeiros, Marcos Kothlar Creative Director: Luiz Sanches, Dulcidio Caldeira Advertising Agency: AlmapBBDO Marketing Manager: Antonio Camarotti
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Campaigns For Any Business Nomination Art Director: Jennifer MacFarlane Copywriter: Cuanan Cronwright photographer: Guy Neveling Creative Director: Chris Gotz Advertising Agency: Ogilvy Cape Town Account Handler: Greg Tebbutt Marketing Manager: Graeme Birch
Campaigns Drops of Sweat Nomination Art Director: Andre Gola Copywriter: Pernil photographer: Hugo Treu Typographer: JosÊ Roberto Bezerra Creative Director: Luiz Sanches Advertising Agency: AlmapBBDO Planner: Cintia Gonçalves, Valter Bombonato Marketing Manager: Gustavo Siemsen
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Typography
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Typefaces Art Out Yellow Pencil Typographer: Carles Rodrigo Design Director: Pablo Juncadella Creative Director: Marc Català, Pablo Juncadella, Tilman Solé Design Group: Mucho Print Production: Leicrom
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Typography for Design Elephant Magazine, Issue 5 Nomination Typographer: Matt Willey Designer: Matt Willey illustrator: Valero Doval Design studio: Studio8 Design Publisher: Peter Huiberts Editor in Chief : Marc Valli
Typography for Press & Poster Advertising Reflection — The BMW Light Wall Nomination Typographer: Andreas Schriewer graphic Designer: Savina Mokreva art director: Roman Becker Manuel Wolff creative director: Maik Kaehler, Christoph Nann Chief Creative Officer: Alexander Schill Advertising Agency: Serviceplan Gruppe Account Handler: Michael Falkensteiner Marketing Manager: Manfred Braeunl
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Writing for design A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words Yellow Pencil Copywriter: Nick Asbury Typographer: Lionel Hatch, Harry Heptonstall, Peter Richardson Artworker: Rachel Pratt Creative Director: Ben Casey, Peter Richardson Design Company: The Chase Account Handler: Paul Waters
This Year I Will Try Not to Nomination Copywriter: Christopher Doyle, Elliott Scott Art Director: Elliott Scott, Christopher Doyle Designer: Christopher Doyle, Elliott Scott Typographer: Christopher Doyle Image Manipulator: Elliott Scott
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Hoxton Street Monster Supplies Nomination Copywriter: Mikey Bennett,Joe Dunthorne, Alistair Hall, Martin Jackson, Tom Raphael Eaves, Alex Myers designer: Alistair Hall, Matt Roden Creative Director: Alistair Hall Design Group: We Made This Client Director: Lucy Macnab Ben Payne
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Destination Branding: Where does your brand want to go? Text: Bindu Nair Maitra
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SPECIAL REPORT
Why place branding?
©andy doro / creative commons
© Futurebrand
Wally Olins, Chairman, Saffron Brand Consultants
For many people, the term ‘New York’ means Times Square or the logo ‘I ♥ New York’ emblazoned across mugs and t-shirts. For many others, London used to mean the Big Ben tower or the London Eye or London’s red doubledecker buses. These two cities have the advantage of history and time over which they have built a certain association in the minds of its residents as well as the hordes of tourists who visit both these cities every year. Destinations have meanings and associations attached to themassociations that have been many years in the making, influenced by people’s environments and their upbringing. So what would you make of Peru? Or Burundi? Or Quebec? Or Angola? What are the associations that you can think of, when someone mentions these countries? At the risk of generalizing, we might safely assume that you would have none. Then there are cities/ nations like Istanbul, Riga and Vietnam that have emerged as go-to destinations, both from a commerce as well as travel perspective over the last few years. It is this understanding of the commercial imperatives of branding places/ nations that has prompted city councils and governments to spend increasing amounts of time and money in crafting a positioning and a branding strategy for their destinations brands. Because increasingly, destinations are being treated like brands competing for people’s time and money. These destinations are competing with each other to host big-ticket sports and cultural events, in an attempt to boost inward investment local businesses and build a favourable perception. It is this competition that has led to cities/ nations investing in the concept of place branding. Place branding: A good starting point
Fiona Gilmore, Founder and Chairman, Acanchi
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So what’s the most crucial question to ask in a place branding assignment? Wally Olins, chairman, Saffron Brand Consultants, believes it’s to understand what the client is trying to do. “Are you trying to attract visitors? Are you trying to attract investment? Are you trying to attract tourism? Are you trying to make the products that come from that place/ nation more attractive? Are you trying to attract more students?,” says Olins. Fiona Gilmore, founder and chairman, Acanchi believes it is critical
to ask a client at the start of any project about their commitment to the mid and long term. “These projects need a client team, resources and commitment beyond the first year. Quick wins are viable, but the real gains are in the longer term,” she observes. Olins echoes that sentiment, “It takes a very long time to work and governments are not around for very long. They are there for three or four or five years and they need to try and explain what they are doing to the people who vote them in.” Olins should know. Saffron was appointed by the CPI(M) government to rebrand the state of West Bengal. “We made it very clear that what we were going to do would take five to ten years to work. We made it clear that this is not a political project — that if they were thinking in terms of the next election then this was not going to help them. What happened is what frequently happens — the government agreed with the program and then the government changed,” he recalls. According to place branding consultant Jeremy Hildreth, a good starting point is to ask what do you want to be known for and what are you doing to earn those associations, to make that name for yourself. Andy Wright, general manager, Interbrand Australia & New Zealand, says that a good starting point is usually to ask what are the best ways to understand what makes that city/place so great. “Usually that is a question that is not necessarily for the client but for the people of that city. That’s what we want to try and find out because otherwise we run the risk of creating a brand that sets up a promise that is not necessarily delivered by the people, the residents and the businesses of that destination. That’s often where place branding can go wrong. We give you a perception of something that you can expect and sometimes your expectations are not met because not everyone is engaged or on board. Place branding especially needs to be about the here and now,” explains Wright. Engin Celikbas, CEO, Kesselskramer says a realistic brief is a good starting point. He explains, “Its good to be ambitious, however clients (cities) sometimes forget that the limitations in the product and/or budget are not always easy to overcome. Next to realism, patience is also good. Good brands develop over time. It takes nurturing and love to make it bloom. Rome wasn’t built in a day either.”
Andy Wright, General Manager, Interbrand Australia & New Zealand
Engin Celikbas CEO, Kesselskramer
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Place Branding & the Big Idea
© KesselsKramer
Jason Little, Creative Director, Landor
Karl Heiselman, CEO, Wolff Olins
kbas skramer
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Clearly then, for most place branding assignments, it’s about understanding what the city is all about; the central premise on which its culture is basedthat forms the basis of the exploration into that place’s identity. It’s about finding that one unifying thought that best articulates what that place stands for. When Kesselskramer won the mandate to brand Amsterdam, one of the challenges they faced was the seeming lack of architectural landmarks that they could use to talk up the city. Explains Celikbas, “If you look at any other city in the world, there is usually always at least one visually compelling legacy — whether it’s the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Statue of Liberty in New York. That was missing in a city like Amsterdam. We felt that the biggest advantage that Amsterdam had was its diversity in population. It has almost 170 listed nationalities. That’s where we started from — the idea behind the tagline — “Iamsterdam” was to allow tourists, city inhabitants and the business investor community to identify themselves with the city of Amsterdam in their own way. The most interesting part of the idea was the simplicity with which we could implement it across every conceivable platform.” Jason Little, creative director, Landor, Paris says destinations are brands which are all competing with each other for people’s time. “What you do for a city needs to help investment for that city — it needs to encourage visitors; by creating a brand for a city — it is creating a positive shortcut for that place. When you think of a city — usually the first thing that comes to mind is an architectural icon. Often cities can rely on large scale icons to instill a sense of pride and place and attract tourism but then you also need to build other associations within the city- what the culture is; its about driving more recognition of that city.” Karl Heiselman, CEO, Wolff Olins says, “In a rebranding exercise, one looks for that one unifying thought that brings the character of a city together. We realized that with New York, it was not possible to have one single idea of what New York stood for — it was too diverse and each New Yorker has his/ her own interpretation of their city and they are passionate about their part of the city.” Saffron worked on the rebranding for the city of London, which was based around the idea of London being a selfconfident city.
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Elaborates Olins, “It was intended to show how London is a kind of selfconfident, rather self-deprecating city which has got an enormous amount to offer in terms of culture, finance, academia and everything else. What we are attempting to do is that, while we are encouraging each of these separate initiatives like Visit London, Financial London, University London to develop, we are trying to get a coherent tone of voice. That’s the key. It will take some time before it comes through.” Place branding, cynicism & the taxpayer Public cynicism with place branding projects is a common occurrence. It is an exercise largely financed with taxpayer money, so when the project is finally unveiled to the public and the media, there is usually a fair amount of criticism that comes its way. ‘Why so much?’, ‘How does this represent my city?’, ‘How will this new positioning add value to my city’s public perception?’, ‘How will it ensure more investment?’; These are typically some of the questions one gets to hear. The internet is rife with examples of place branding campaigns being minutely dissected online by folks with an opinion. The problem usually arises when there is a lack of communication regarding the positioning and scale of the project and the extent to which the new program impacts its citizens. Fiona Gilmore agrees. “I’ve seen this first-hand. The public and the media have been led to believe that the logo or strap line is ‘the job’. So, it is not surprising that there is huge cynicism all over the world towards any project like this. The communications have been poor by the government or the city councils. The word that we should be using is not branding but brand building because we are really creating goodwill between different stakeholder groups. If you use the word, ‘branding’, it tends to mean logos and straplines and that’s a problem. You don’t want people to say that it was a ridiculous amount of money for ‘that logo.’ It’s in everyone’s interest to communicate very clearly that the logo and the strapline may be 10% of the project but the project is much more than that. Those other aspects of the rebranding project are hugely important but they are less visible. We have to work hard to make those other aspects of a rebranding project more visible,” she explains. Olins believes what is key is to get all the programs to operate in such a way that they are mutually supportive
© Saffron Brand Consultants
© Acanchi
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amsterdam
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Engin Celikbas, CEO, Kesselskramer We felt that the biggest advantage that Amsterdam had was its diversity in population. It has almost 170 listed nationalities. That’s where we started fromthe idea behind the tagline“Iamsterdam” was to allow tourists, city inhabitants and the business investor community to identify themselves with the city of Amsterdam in their own way. The most interesting part of the idea was the simplicity with which we could implement it across every conceivable platform. The I Amsterdam brand is a realistic brand. It’s a supportive one and that’s probably the reason it has been so successful. It feeds on what other institutions in the city do (museums, airport, harbor, city transportation, etc.). After the launch, the awareness levels of the I Amsterdam campaign were very good. In 2007, 63% of visitors were aware of the city’s motto. 81% thought it fitted Amsterdam really well. 86% of the people of Amsterdam knew the motto, which is quite high too. The approval rates of Amsterdam residents are climbing. From 62% at the start of the project to well over 75% a year later is a very good number. In 2005 and 2006, Amsterdam ranked 6 out of 30 cities to start a business according to the Anholt City Brands Index. On the list of number of congresses organized in the city (2005), Amsterdam grew from the 26th spot to 10th place. In 2006 they improved and ended up in the 6th place (Source: Union of International Associations). These positive developments are also visible in the site traffic on IAmsterdam.com. In 2005, the site’s traffic was a mere 400,000. In 2006, it went up to 740,000 and in 2007 it was 1,640,000. The merchandising figures are also very promising. In 2005, the total turnover was 350,000 euro, in 2006 it went up to 560,000 euro. The previous city motto (‘Amsterdam has it...) never had a turnover over 50,000 euro.
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since most place branding projects require various government bodies to work together towards a common goal, instead of in silos as they are naturally prone to functioning. He elaborates, “What you are really trying to do is to get an idea across about what that city or place represents and express that in every form that the place uses. The logo is simply an expression of that coherence. It can work if you are prepared to understand that these things take time. People have a perception of a place which may be rooted in what they learnt at school or what their family believes and changing those perceptions takes time.” Commercial imperatives to place branding
© Chirag D. Shah / Creative Commons
“Branding takes a very long time to work and governments are not around for very long.” – Wally Olins
Branding Bengal © Saffron Brand Consultants
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Neither the concept of nation branding nor place branding is new, says Olins although many people mistakenly believe this to be so. “What is new is that today there is a commercial imperative. If you are a country like the United States and if you write ‘Made in USA’ on a product, chances are that you will be able to sell it for more money. It will be commercially more effective than let’s say if you had ‘Made in India’ or ‘Made in Turkey’ on it. That is the way things are right now. There is a commercial imperative to create an idea or image around, say, Made in India, which is extremely significant because it earns you more money,” says Olins. “If you unite all of those activities that a nation is engaged in, so that you are talking about tourism or direct investment or exports and you unite them in a way that each supports the other; then you are going to be much more effective than if you do it alone,” he adds. The problem, Olins points out, is that one usually doesn’t know who is in charge. “Is it the government? Is it private industry? Is it the tourism ministry? Or is it part of direct investment? That is a huge issue. The second thing is that it takes a very long time to work and governments are not around for very long. They are there for three or four or five years and they need to try and explain what they are doing to the people who vote them in. This is not something that they can easily explain and gets them many votes. So quite a lot of organization is required to make it work properly. For the most part, in many countries, it doesn’t work very well for these reasons,” explains Olins.
Jeremy Hildreth believes place branding assignments need to be treated more like change programmes. And change is hard, which is why, he says, 99% of them have relatively little impact. He explains, “I try to help clients by simplifying change into three components: stop, continue, and start. In other words, what are you doing now that you will stop doing, what are you doing that is good and you want to continue to do, and what have you not been doing that you will start doing. If you do not create and execute these three lists, deliberately or by accident, change will not occur.” Key challenges in place branding A place branding project usually involves a large number of stakeholders and getting each of them on board with a unified agenda can be a mammoth task. It’s probably one of the top challenges involved in place branding. Jason Little, creative director at Landor’s Paris office says the biggest challenge is to get people to buy-in from all different levels. “With a city, everyone’s interpretation of the place is different — it’s made up of hundreds of different experiences. When you do a city, it has to be everything to everybody. You need to be relevant and reflect all the different demographics of age. They have to reflect the seriousness of the organization which is running everything about that city and display a responsibility for urban planning.” Gilmore has a different perspective on the challenges facing agencies embarking on a place branding project. She founded and headed a design firm Springpoint before selling the firm to FutureBrands in 2003. In the same year, she founded a place branding consultancy Acanchi which advises governments on issues of place branding, besides managing relationships across various stakeholders involved in such a project. She explains, “We are responsible for creating a positioning strategy for a city or a country so the issues that we face are a little bit different to those faced by design companies that we might eventually choose to employ. We manage and coordinate overall programs.” She further adds, “Our frustrations may be that it takes five years for a contract to be won and signed. Very often, we have to wait a very long time between the first meeting and the time that we are awarded a project through a competitive pitch.”
“With a city, everyone’s interpretation of the place is different — it’s made up of hundreds of different experiences. When you do a city, it has to be everything to everybody.” — Jason Little
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On the challenges facing design agencies in particular, Gilmore adds, “Firstly, many of the clients in city councils may not have had experience in the area of brand-building. Therefore, when they set up their steering committees, they need to ensure that there are people on those committees who have relevant experience to help them make the right decisions. This is very important. There was one place where we were working where they had a steering committee of about 50 people. It was very difficult to get those people to be in one room at one time, to make a decision. We finally did manage it. But it can take a long time.” “When one is working with councils and governments, we try to set up systems to reduce the frustrations faced by design companies, PR and advertising agencies concerned. We now know what to recommend to ensure that there is a quick decision- making process so that it is on- time and onbudget. We also have to ensure that the creative brief is inspirational, and is not a straight-jacket. That’s important for the designers. We also have to ensure that the process is fair and reasonable,” she concludes. The curious case of Singapore, Dubai & the middle east
© Reto Fetz / Creative Commons
“It is quite puzzling that Singapore is still aspiring to be world class, when it has exceeded worldclass standards in many areas.” – Kishore Mahbubani
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Singapore and Dubai make a compelling case for discussion here. That’s because these two nation states didn’t start out with many advantages. In the case of Singapore, much of the credit for the nation state’s success as far as branding itself is concerned, goes to the Singapore government’s vision of turning the nation state into a destination hub, for tourists as well as for inward investments. It has had one of the most stable governments, without the spectre of instability that a lot of Asian nations have to deal with. Former UN general secretary Kofi Annan has said of Singapore that it is one of the few to go from third world to first world in the space of one generation. Kishore Mahbubani, dean and professor in the Practice of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, has an interesting viewpoint on why Asian states need to approach the concept of nation/ place branding differently from the gold standard that has been set in the past, which is more suited to a western context. In a paper that he has shared online on ‘Creating the Singapore brand for the international stage,’ he writes, “This is the great paradox about the Singapore brand. Singapore has consistently
aspired to be world-class. Yet, in many areas, those who are supposed to be “world class” have slipped. By contrast, Singapore’s performance has exceeded previous world- class standards. Hence, it is quite puzzling that Singapore is still aspiring to be world class, when it has exceeded world-class standards in many areas.” Wally Olins believes Singapore and Dubai have both utilized their location as hubs to their advantage. “Singapore was an old, British imperial naval dockyard without much money so it’s amazing what they have achieved. Dubai had a lot of money but didn’t have a base from which to operate. If you compare Dubai and Singapore to, let’s say, London or New York both of which are very well known and have a huge cultural and historical basis from which to operate, these are remarkable place branding achievements,” he observes. Fiona Gilmore observes that in some respects Dubai is a dysfunctional citysomething that is its strength as well as its weakness. She explains, “Its strength is that it brought together very quickly people from many different cultures. In cities like Mumbai and London, people have also come in but over hundreds of years. In Dubai, it happened very fast, which meant that the local people of Dubai never had a chance to share their values with the people who were coming in to Dubai to build a bigger community. The people came in ignorance not really knowing what to expect. The state had never actually explored the values of Dubai. We were looking at the barriers between each of the resident communities. What does the local Dubai community feel about the Indian and western community? In turn, what does the Indian or western community think of the local community in Dubai?” Gilmore says the project concerned grassroots communications, rather than a one-off logo / strapline. Her agency developed a Code of behavior book for Dubai, which would be handed out to visitors when they landed at the airport. It is a trend that she believes the world traveler is likely to see more of, in other countries. “One of the outcomes of our project was the ‘code of behaviour’ book. When you arrive in Dubai, you receive guidelines on what those values are whether it’s about how to dress at a mall or how to behave in a restaurant. Many western people find it very strange but actually they are going to get used to it, because more and more countries will do things like this. Why should western expats think
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© Patrick Donovan / Creative Commons
“The local people of Dubai never had a chance to share their values with the people who were coming in to Dubai to build a bigger community” — Fiona Gilmore
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new york
Karl Heiselman, CEO, Wolff Olins, New York Most people saw New York the city as the definition of New York, without realizing that it actually consists of five different boroughs, which are a big part of the identity of the New York State. People identified New York only with New York city which is a very small part of New York. Our brief was to unify the thought of New York city from a tourism perspective and from the point of view of opportunities for merchandising. Wolff Olins conducted a detailed global study in an attempt to understand how ‘New York’— the brand was perceived by tourists and residents. The study revealed that most tourists identified historical monuments like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building with their idea of New York. But there was so much more to do and explore in the five boroughs of New York that tourists had not much idea about. It was off the beaten path. There were so many more opportunities for storytelling, as far as the five boroughs were concerned.
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Wolff Olins came to the conclusion that with New York, it was not possible to have one single idea of what the state stood for — it was too diverse and each New Yorker had his/ her own interpretation of their city and they are passionate about that part of their city. The new identity for New York state was launched based on the idea that there’s only one New York City. Within that city, there are five different boroughs, approximately 191 neighbourhoods, each with their own unique perspective and identity. There is no one symbol, no one logo or brand that means New York City to everyone. Wolff Olins made sturdy letterforms that are thick, rugged – a little on the tough side – just like a New Yorker. The mark is durable and will represent New York for a long time. And the mark functions as a window into infinite complexity. Like a window this symbol can reveal images of every culture, profession and activity of this city. The NYC brand is a transparent pane of glass that offers a view of real New Yorkers and real NYC neighborhoods. It’s a venue for the very ideas that make NYC strong – 8 million brands. Since the brand launch in 2007, NYC tourism has increased by 5% and tourism spending by 13.31%.
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that anywhere in the world, they can behave like they do in London or Paris. So I think there has to be, in this world, a growing respect between people, respect for their own cultures and traditions.” she says. The Middle East offers an interesting range of places that have looked at developing a brand aggressively over the last few years. Abu Dhabi has been in the news, of late, as has Qatar. Wally Olins believes Qatar has a very interesting view of place branding, adding, “They take a cultural, sporting and artistic view in a very broad sense. Al Jazeera, for example, which is Qatari, has a very profound impact on the way people see that place. I am not suggesting that the others are not doing well either because in some cases they are.” Place branding in times of crisis
Interbrand Japan survey specifics Target countries (cities): United States (New York), United Kingdom (London), China (Shanghai) Respondents: General public, men and women age 20 to 50 Sample size: United States (New York): n=108, United Kingdom (London): n=109, China (Shanghai): n=109 Target industries: Automotive, consumer electronics, cosmetics and toiletries, food and beverages, apparel Survey method: Web survey (extraction from online panels of affiliated survey companies) Survey volume: Approx. 10 minutes Survey time period: April 29 through May 5, 2011
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A natural calamity, political instability, civil unrest- there are a number of circumstances which can precipitate the need for a brand to respond quickly and in a suitable fashion to maintain what it stands for. Andy Wright, general manager, Interbrand Australia and Melbourne recalls their work on Brisbane Marketing’s call for action after the Queensland floods. He says, “When you are responding to an unplanned event, you have to be pretty quick. The strategy had to be about managing the balance between tending to the situation at hand and rebuilding while at the same time saying, ‘Everything is ok, keep visiting.” In the aftermath of the Japan earthquake, there have been a number of studies conducted to look at the impact of the catastrophe on Brand Japan. Interbrand Japan conducted one such survey* to understand the changes in the way ‘Brand Japan’ was perceived overseas. The survey* looked at changes in perceptions before and after the disaster among consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. The survey focused on changes in the five brand image attributes associated with “Japanese brands,” namely reliability, safety, quality, style and approachability. Among the topline findings, it was observed that: Overall perceptions of “Brand Japan”fell 12 percentage points. In China there is a strong perception that “Japanese products are contaminated with radioactive materials,” and
as a result perceptions dropped 22 percentage points. There was significant impact on overall perceptions of Japanese food and beverages (down 20 pp) and Japanese cosmetics and toiletries (down 13 pp). Perceptions of “safety”and “reliability,” usually considered pillars of strength for Japanese brands, were damaged (down 17 pp and 14 pp, respectively). The effects of the disaster on perceptions differ greatly by country and by category. More detailed findings on the survey can be accessed on Interbrand’s website. Interbrand however has eight suggestions for maintaining and improving brand strength during a crisis: Think holistically: Consider how your brand touches local communities, other businesses and the wider nation. Now is the time to be the best citizen you can be. Restate your purpose and your vision: Make sure that you are addressing the strategic picture, not just tactical issues. Start with your people: How you treat them will have a huge effect into the future. Focus on the future: Show optimism and hope. Give clear plans for recovery. Get social: Communicate constantly and be transparent. Good stories as well as bad stories can quickly gain traction. Communicate clearly and simply: People are hungry for information, make sure you engage them in a meaningful way. Focus on the customer experience: Customers helped now are likely to remain loyal for life. Check, check and check again: Make sure your products and services are safe. Incredible India: The opportunity So what about India? A country that has such diverse cultures within it and so many cities would, logically speaking, have enough commercial imperatives to brand its many cultural capitals. Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennaithese four metros themselves present a huge opportunity for place branding. Fiona Gilmore believes that although India has captured the world’s imagination especially in the last few years, that has not translated into the world at large being made aware of what the country has achieved in the last few years.
“Indian cities are growing so rapidly that most of the general public in the rest of the world are completely out of touch and have no idea of the different positioning of the various cities in India.” – Fiona Gilmore
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© McKay Savage / Creative Commons
“The key issue is, when you have perceptions that are decades out of date, you need to change them.” – Wally Olins
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She explains, “Indian cities are growing so rapidly that most of the general public in the rest of the world are completely out of touch and have no idea of the different positioning of the various cities in India apart from, say, Bangalore. My belief is that if one were strategic, one would probably be looking at how each of the cities should be positioned in the world. For each city in India, there is a chance to tell their story more clearly and more imaginatively in a professional way. I cannot say that I know India well enough to pick one or two but Mumbai should really be leading the way because it’s the financial heart of India in many respects and Mumbaikars are leading the way as innovators in so many fields.” Olins says a common problem with place branding initiatives is the attempt to create an identity around that destination’s tourist operations. It’s a problem he associates with India, as well. He points out, “If you look at Incredible India, that’s very good but it doesn’t represent the whole of India, it represents tourism. It’s an advertising campaign and it’s directed externally. And this is one of the reasons that these exercises are very difficult to manage.” Having said that, Olins believes a state in India that is emerging rapidly and will soon be different from the rest of India is Gujarat. Although he concedes that the state has no recognition outside of India, he believes that will change. “I think Gujarat is not very well known and of course, there is that terrible blot because of the massacres a few years ago. But if you are looking at organization, if you are looking at inward investment, the way in which the state manages to promote itself, Gujarat is probably a good example of that at work. There are plenty of things right with it, and there are plenty of things wrong with it, too,” he adds. Olins believes there are many places in India where there are enormous opportunities but those places have to build their infrastructure first. “Many of the places in India that you could work on, have to have an infrastructure to get there, first of all. They have to have adequate accommodation available in such places. You have to develop an infrastructure that works. The key issue is, when you have perceptions that are decades out of date, you need to change them. If the perceptions are not out of
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date and are aligned with reality, or if you are trying to pretend that you are something that you are not, then don’t start because it won’t work. The issue about place branding is projecting what you are and what you are becoming and getting rid of ideas around what people thought you were when they first heard of you, decades ago. The issue is not changing the reality, it is making the change in reality perceived by the people who deal with you,” he observes. On enduring place brands So how long before place brands like IAmsterdam, and Incredible India need an overhaul? In other words, how long can place brands endure? And can they even hope to do so, as circumstances and ever-changing political and social changes make the evolution of such brands, necessary? Wally Olins believes place brands can endure forever if one gets it right. “What you have to do, when you get it right is to modulate it from time to time. There has to be continuity in the tone of voice and in the way that the nation manages itself to sustain it for a very long time,” he adds. Interbrand’s Andy Wright has a different take. “We used to say that brands are built to last and I believe the mantra now is that brands are built to change. That’s really key. We spend all our time at the end of a project coming up with rules and regulations to say here’s what you can’t do with your brand. Actually what we should be doing is to say what you can do with your brand,” he says. He explains, “Coke is probably a good example of that. It has recognizable equity in the shape of the bottle and the red and white. But they have a lot of fun taking that further, and evolving it constantly. They are able to constantly add new equity into the identity of that brand. It’s trying to see brands as a pattern, that can evolve and change over time. It’s the difference between seeing something which is more sequential and linear versus something which is more like an ecosystem of nodes of things that branch off each other. Sequential and linear was fine for a world that was relatively stable and static. Now we’re in a world of constant change. Applying that understanding to place branding would be a valuable way to create an enduring place brand.”
Branding Bengal © Saffron Brand Consultants
© Stupid Pony / Creative Commons
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brisbane
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Andy Wright General manager, Interbrand Australia & New Zealand The campaign in focus here was the one we worked on, after the Queensland Floods. We had done a considerable amount of work for Brisbane Marketing in the past in helping them to define what was unique about Brisbane. When the floods happened, we felt quite passionate about pitching in. We approached Brisbane Marketing and offered to help. Their question to us was- ‘How does our brand recover from the floods, how does our brand respond?’ The creative idea was driven by the idea Together Brisbane, based on the spirit of community that was so actively in display in the aftermath of the floods. Folks were trying to get into the city to help those who had been affected. The Together Brisbane Campaign was carried out in three phases. The first part of the messaging was ‘Back to Business.’ These were quick, functional messages to say that a certain event was still on or public transport was working, the airport was still open- messages like that. Those came in very quickly. The second phase was when we wanted to get into a more emotive message which was about ‘Together Brisbane.’ It was about showing how this brand was made up of community spirit and the achievement of the people within it. The final phase was about reinforcing the idea of Australia’s new world city and saying that we are better than before. This was when the re-building would have been completed and businesses would be better off. There were large parts of the city that weren’t affected at all but the world wasn’t aware of this. It’s the second phase for which we did most of the work.
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melbourne
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Jason Little Creative director, Landor, Paris Since doing their identity fifteen years ago, the city of Melbourne had undergone massive changes. The city of Melbourne runs everything but its logo was only familiar to its residents through their parking tickets. In the end what they had was 30 to 40 individual council logos, and no one knew that it was coming from the city of Melbourne. So the brand equity was being driven away from the core brand. When they came to us, the first question they asked was what do we do? They needed the exercise to be cost-effective since they had 40 different identities. Also, they wanted to know — ‘How do we build equity — how do we get the world and every stakeholder to understand that Melbourne is this progressive city?’ We did a massive research that included detailed interviews with every kind of stakeholder from councilors, key people from the community of Melbourne, to CEOs who had moved to the city — to figure out the best course of action for them. So it was research, interviews and building on a strategy. The core idea came well before logo work, and there was a constant back and forth between strategy and design. The diversity of Melbourne became a sacred concept. We celebrated this in the identity through colour, forms, facets, and structures. We realized that if we got it right it would allow Melbourne to flex, grow, and evolve along with a growing and changing population and connect dynamically with future opportunities.
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london
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Wally Olins, Founder Chairman, Saffron Brand Consultants The rebranding was intended to show how London is a kind of selfconfident, rather self-deprecating city which has an enormous amount to offer in terms of culture, finance, academia and everything else. What we are attempting to do, while encouraging each of the separate initiatives like Visit London, Financial London, University London to develop, we are trying to get a coherent tone of voice. That’s the key.
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bengal
Wally Olins, Founder Chairman, Saffron Brand Consultants Saffron was hired by the CPI(M) government to rebrand the state of West Bengal. We carried out a massive research programme, where constituents at all levels were interviewed — urban, rural, rich, poor, old and young. Saffron looked at every aspect of West Bengal’s life and after numerous discussions and presentations, arrived at the core idea of the positioning - ‘Everyone’s Bengal’. A significant part of the proposal was to go back to the old name, Bengal – and drop the West. The new programme was intended to be a long- term investment for the state. We made it very clear that what we were going to do would take five to ten years to work. We made it clear that this is not a political project – that if they were thinking in terms of the next election then this was not going to help them. The government agreed with the program and then the government changed.
With a new government in place, Saffron’s proposal was ostensibly shelved although the present Bengal government has now commissioned Taproot and The Times of India to come up with a new campaign that looks at renaming the state as Bengal instead of West Bengal, an idea originally mooted by Saffron. The new campaign, created by Taproot, can be viewed on Page 18 of this issue.
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feature interview
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The big deal about the I-Mark It’s a telling sign that the website of the India Design Council seems strangely oblivious to the heated controversy that built up online over the last few weeks over the selection of the India Design Mark (I-Mark) logo by the Indian design community at large.
The I-Mark from the first competition (left) and the new I-Mark (right)
“We listened to what designers said when IDC selected a logo the first time round and established a process that we believe was transparent, clear and consistent with international practice for such competitions. We published this process on the IDC web-site, and made the criteria very clear… So far as I’m concerned, the train has left the station.” Dr. Naushad Forbes, Chairman, Jury Panel
For those who came in late, the I-Mark logo was an initiative “One can only by the India Design Council (a government body) which wonder how a would help the industry benchmark good design. Earlier process can go this year, the idc (and that abbreviation is in itself under wrong twice.” fire since it conflicts with the Industrial Design Centre Shreyas R Krishnan which has been around for a longer time) came up with a competition which asked designers to conceptualize a logo for good design that would help “make entrepreneurs aware of ways in which design is integral to business planning.” This was along the lines of the G mark awarded in Japan and the Red Dot Design Award prevalent in Germany. Entries were called in for review, a panel of jury members was created to pick a winner from across the country and when one was finally announced, it was criticized for seeming bias, limited time given to participants to submit their entries and for the general quality of the winning logo, namely that the bindi in the selected entry fed stereotypes and was not representative of the country at large. There was also criticism of the lack of transparency over the selection of the final winning entry. It was a vociferous online debate that was significant enough to make the idc announce a withdrawal of the winning entry and promise a second round of competitions with more transparency and a longer time period for participants to send in entries. The second round, however, has garnered even more criticism. We have brought together the diverse points of view from the Indian design fraternity regarding the I-Mark controversy which have been posted online in various discussion forums.
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Uday Dandavate on Yahoo DesignIndia Group
There is no doubt that after pleading for years, getting the government to agree to set a National Design Council in place is a good beginning. There is definitely a need to start working towards securing autonomy and funding for the Design Council from the government and to put in place an executive leadership that can work independent of existing “Power Structures” within the design field. Designers often tend to be possessive and emotional about their ideas, decisions and creative outputs. Subjecting their thinking to an audit is not a part of the intuitive process most designers feel more comfortable with. Even leadership of design institutes have never had public exposure where their actions would be questioned by general public, by their peers and by the press. Social media has definitely brought a level of vulnerability to decision makers in every sector including design. Especially to those who are more used to operating away from public glare and scrutiny. The bottomline is — a business owner has to subject his/her balance sheet to audit; a politician has to face public scrutiny of his actions by media and his/her constituents; A public sector manager is accountable to public accounts committee. I would advise members of this forum from brushing aside procedural concerns expressed by some of the members. If we want design to have greater exposure and role in nation building, we need to be prepared for our actions to be questioned. Regardless of whether the new logo is pursued or not, the questions raised by the members of this forum need clarification. My recommendation would be to be prepared for similar scrutiny of Design Council’s actions in future and to ensure that the executive leadership of the council has the training and the mindset to respond positively to the audit of his/her actions.
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Sumit Patel, Leaf Design, Mumbai on Yahoo DesignIndia Group
“I believe it’s a “It’s unreasonable to classic case of expect people (the eating the apple design community) before planting the to buy into a name tree. We seem to be (‘I-Mark’), a logo in a hurry to reach (whatever was the finish line, with selected), a process a physical proof of (the selection, a ‘mark’ that stands competition, etc) for… well nobody without first is too sure about having them buy that. Because the into the vision and rest of the world the intent behind seems to have a it. Clearly not much mark, India needs it effort was put too. Is that the only into this.” justification for Soumitra Bhat its birth?” Syed (Blog comment)
“Conceptually, visually, colourwise they have uncanny similarity when juxtaposed. It made the whole exercise of the second competition look farcical.” Sagarmoy Paul
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“Both the previous and the new I-Mark identities have proved once again that even today, you put a red dot even on cow dung; it (the dot) can successfully sell it (the logo) as a brand identity for anything that is Indian.” Subroto Bhowmick
Not Again! There are bigger concerns and opportunities to be addressed beyond the I-Mark identity. It’s application and usage, integration within industry, awareness program, award guidelines if any, et al. Let’s not run it down. Raising a voice and an opinion is good and it should be heard if communicated well but not without trust. Please do not forget the credibility and the amount of effort each participant must have put in outside their regular work and to meet the submission deadline. It does not sound fair to even talk of extension or re-conducting it, for the only reason it could have been managed better. For that matter, there is always a different or better way, with new learning. I would like to believe, idc has put in their best with the second time considering all parameters, post learning from the previous exercise. Guidelines are made to be followed, and when it comes to terms and regulations it’s tough to make everyone agree to it or happy for that matter. Though I agree with few, that they could have been more simpler to follow. But then how much more does it take, all we had to do was to read it twice or correspond with them to clarify. And in our case we had to reconfirm on point no 2, as Mahendra bhai was part of the jury and also as chief mentor at Leaf. Am thankful to him that he decided to opt out of the jury to avoid any disappointment. And thank you Sundar for that clarification in your mail. I believe, someone has to lead on the new initiative front, give them that room to improve it along, let it grow first, there are enough opportunities for all to improve upon and contribute down the line in their own capacity.
Shreyas R Krishnan www.littledesignbook.com
I would love to spend time pointing out how selecting this I-Mark is like making a joke of the entire re-selection process. Or that the designers of the now-scrapped I-Mark could make an ipr issue of this. Or that the finalists continue to obsess with red dots/bindis. Or that the only graphic designers on the jury had either stepped down or were absent due to different reasons. Or that we still don’t know the jury’s reasoning for selecting this over the rest (what happened to all the transparency?). However, flawed or not, the selection process is an issue of short term consequences. The questions that we should be asking need to go beyond the ones being raised right now. The last time that I wrote about the I-Mark, I had raised a question- Does this I-Mark qualify for an I-Mark? The question has been repeated a few times, but honestly, does anyone (idc included) really know yet? A logo or a mark is always part of a larger system involving clear articulation of aims, intentions, aspirations and applications. All we know right now is that the I-Mark will be a benchmark for good design. But how? What is the idc’s definition for good design? Is it driven by a focus on aesthetics, function, impact on community, or something else? What are the standards set by the idc for such a designed product, service or strategy to qualify for the mark? How will these standards accommodate the different natures of design outputs? What will be the procedure for allotting the I-Mark? What is the I-Mark expected to do for design in India? What will this mark mean to a lay person? Clarity on these issues is essential for the idc to gain the confidence of the design community in this venture. As long as we are not clear about how the larger plan falls into place, we will constantly be stuck in an unproductive us-and-them stand off.
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Sagarmoy Paul, Communication designer, Thoughtscape, New Delhi on Yahoo DesignIndia Group
Dear Dr. Naushad Forbes
“The creation of I-Mark was empowered to a group representing a wider sub set of design fraternity. This group designed a process and went about the task in a transparent and democratic manner. To start questioning, after details of the process has been put forth, by a rightfully selected group of people, in an upfront and transparent manner appears sadistic. These arguments are indeed regrettable… We are losing sight of the larger benefit of the I-Mark. Where is the spirit? The spirit of saying , let’s go ahead and do it! We may fail, we may not be 100% correct but we will learn and may even correct ourselves in the future. By creating a verbal debate intending to hit volunteers below the belt, we are exposing the inherent weakness of the design fraternity in India of being loose bonded with self centered aims.” Ashish Deshpande
It may be a tall order, but worth addressing these to ourselves: 1. Does the chosen ‘I-Mark’ represent our great country – conceptually, visually? Tomorrow, it will be in the same level with our other revered national symbols. Is it in tune? Does it gel with similar international ‘Marks’? 2. It is not just ANY logo; but one representative of the ability of the design community of India, which wants to assert itself in home and abroad. Does the chosen logo visually enhance equity of Indian design? 3. Most importantly, as a quality mark to be assigned to ‘good design’, is the selected I-Mark good enough to get an “I-Mark” itself? With apologies to the person who created it, the answer is an emphatic NO. We wish to get a Mark we should be proud of, as Indians, as designers, and as general practitioners of quality. If the search takes longer, let’s give it a try. Why compromise? The stakes are too high. For the sake of a larger audience, please let me explain why: 1. On cognitive level, logos work on associations, experiences, established social norms, stereotypes and even prejudices. India is a complex country, with tensions and pulls of identity on all levels. In this situation, is it prudent to select a logo which conjures up the obvious associations with ‘Bindi’, the connotations of which are completely irrelevant here? Going by the response, this is no stretch of imagination. A neutral nationwide poll will verify the apprehensions. The chosen logo may be graphically nice, but it is inappropriate for the purpose? 2. We are in double jeopardy. It is a logo that REPRESENTS Indian design in a nutshell. Hence, the designer’s logo must live up to its own reputation first. Does it enhance its image through this chosen logo? 3. Honestly, if we are saying that this logo itself is worthy of receiving “I-Mark” for itself, then we have lowered the bar for our profession. Following are some of the issues about the second version of the competition and its outcome: Like/dislike — personal preference vs objectivity: No matter who designs and how good the chosen logos are, it can never satisfy everyone. That’s a given. But it is worth hearing people’s views to see whether they are just subjective or reasonable. If the
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murmur becomes a crescendo, it shows there is something worth finding out. Efficiency & validity of the rules: I personally believe the competition rules could have been more inclusive and simpler. But I agree, it should have been brought to the notice in the initial stages. I’m willing to live with it, as all of us are learning. ‘Design bureaucracy’ is a valid point though: We ignore it at our own peril. Transparency & “hidden agenda: This is the most contentious issue. People are unanimous in their opinion across social media, and are outraged at the mockery of selecting a symbol which is so similar to last time — with only minor cosmetic changes done. Conceptually, visually, colour-wise they have uncanny similarity when juxtaposed. It made the whole exercise of the second competition look farcical. What made it worse is the secrecy of not announcing the name of the designer. Longer it takes to announce, the credibility will deplete further. It would have also helped if the details of how many entries received, how many disqualified etc. were shared. There is a complete lack of transparency. The perception is that the old logo reappeared through the back door. Ethics of selection: The selection of this carbon copy completely overrules public sentiment. Why announce a second competition then? In Delhi a prize winning design of the National Police Memorial, which was already installed with crores of public money, was dismantled after an outrage on its aesthetics was raised by people and Delhi Urban Arts Society. Yes, that also happens in India. It didn’t lower the honor of Police Memorial, which is now being redesigned. There is a lesson to be learnt here. The I-Mark is not an event logo, it will remain stuck forever. It deserves to be of an enduring quality and wide acceptance. I’m yet to read a single praise for the Mark. Freedom to cancel the whole results: If we have not found what we were looking for, the results of the competition should be cancelled. India doesn’t deserve the best amongst the worst choices available. That’s not how we do business. Meek surrendering to mediocrity will do no good for the Indian quality mark in the long run. Maybe we have learnt by now that crowd-sourcing is not the best way to get a professional symbol designed. Maybe hiring professional design agencies is a better idea. Worth giving it a try a third time. Finally the results should be visible to the world, not the drudgery of efforts. Let excellence prevail. This is a historic call idc needs to take.
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spotlight
Pen & Ink series:
Mitali Shah पेन एवं स्याही शृंखला
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spotlight
After a degree in Painting, from M.S. University, Baroda in 2009, Mitali Shah became interested in mixed media while completing her Masters in Visual Arts. This period, Shah says, led her to assert her own individual style, which she experimented with, during the course of her post-graduate programme. “A lot of my recent work has grown out of past work, it’s been pretty organic. My experiments have led to a process of constant transformation, inspired by a renewed sense as my ideas continue to develop with a focal point on the ‘urban city’,” she says. Shah says she tends to outgrow a particular medium after a period of time. “This itself leads to several new beginnings, though related to the previous work or attitude, revealing new dimensions and possibilities in my work. I prefer to work on multiple projects and media simultaneously and this helps in giving me a renewed continuity from one project to another,” she adds.
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Shah says she loves the fact that her work is a continuous journey and she thoroughly enjoys every bit of the process. “The inevitable question of “what next” becomes the last stage of each body of work and the beginning of the next. The Pen & Ink work came about purely as a need to express. The series was about approaching the question of urban growth from an oblique angle, with cellular forms woven in shades of black and brown and lines that twist around each other, overlapping to create patterns and drawing the viewer’s gaze into an otherworldly landscape,” she explains. Shah says in the Pen & Ink series, delicate yet strong lines, which are stark along with prominent empty spaces and soft, yet assertive use of black or brown create a flurry of excitement and activity. Shah says several elements are responsible for the significance of these drawings. “More than the need to find a new language, this work is a part of a natural progression of my creative thought process. Though at first glance, these appear to be minimalist, there is a sense of pattern and movement. Chaotic as they may seem sometimes, if one looks closely, there is a possibility of flowing spaces amid this type of a formation. I negotiate the boundaries of the actual and unknown to create spaces and routes, which identify with the abstract language of linear constructions which draws upon the changing face of the urban city with restless energy.”
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spotlight
Shah says her work reflects her fascination for urban landscapes. “The vastness of architecture and the extreme pace of urban cities have always fascinated me. My drawings engage in an intimate debate that change is but inevitable for the participants of present day society. I aim to achieve a certain disorientation in the lines, with formations huddled together and perspectives not unlike a frenetic amusement park ride,” she explains, adding, “Much of these drawings come about from experience of visuals around the city of clustered houses connected by electric wires and cables.” On developing her working style, Shah says, “I was painting little narratives with map formations and aerial views of cities. As I started thinking more consciously about urban settings, the formations and drawings were getting more and more mutated. It wasn’t a conscious move, but I think I was dealing with wrapping my mind around these ideas of gradual and constant change in the growth of cities for a while. Around this time, I wanted my compositions to take on a more urban flavour with narratives of cities as chaotic entities that would pretty much fold into themselves. With this Pen & Ink series, I went beyond the older pieces, where my artwork was mainly about easily recognizable patterns through the exploration of maps.”
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Shah says her theme incorporates urban and suburban structures. “I capture the sense of urban planning that seems clustered and shifting. These narratives aim to exemplify the jumbled chaos of the contemporary urban world. I explore the growing complexity and congestion that the inevitable progress of expanding cities represents, its random evolution and transformation through time as they grapple with unplanned urbanization,” she explains. The layered composition, Shah says, reflects the confusion and saturation that characterizes contemporary life. The Pen & Ink on Paper series, according to Shah, explores city formations as evolving forms and structures, based on the multiplicity and constant transformation of urban cities as organic forms. “The organisms lie both in the biotic energy of the transformations and also in the man-made ‘units’ that make up a city such as buildings,” she adds. “My work is also centered on the concept of human habitation in urban clusters. I have worked with visual similes, poetic metaphors and multiple media to bring out the layered meanings in my chosen area. Besides painting, I have explored photography with installations to extend the reach of my focus in the final year of my MVA course,” Shah adds.
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Illustrator
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LOCOPOPO Lokesh Karekar (b.1984) is a visual artist specializing in illustration and design. After graduating from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai, he initially worked for design firms like Grandmother India and Alok Nanda Company. In 2007 he started his independent illustration studio Locopopo. Locopopo works on selective illustration and design projects. Lokesh’s brand of contemporary graphics inspired by Indian culture and tradition has attracted several projects from national and international agencies like o&m, anc, Design Temple, Brand Union Singapore and tbwa Dubai. As a studio, Locopopo has worked for brands like Vodafone, Asian Paints, Conde Nast India, Lodha, Chemistry, Bungalow Eight etc. His line of self-styled illustrative products is fueled by his unique aesthetic sense and combination of local culture and wit. Notable among his products are the ticket badges and set of coasters, besides limited edition silk screen prints. www.locopopo.com
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01 BLACKBUCK for Design Temple 2011 planner/ Animania Where 7 international illustrators contributed their depictions of animals in Indian mythology. Animals which are known as vehicles (vahanas) of Indian gods. and the idea was to depict any of the attributes /characteristics of the gods. Blackbuck is vehicle of god — ‘Moon’. Moon is god of fertility and peace. The intent was to create a composition which was peaceful, soothing with graphic trees and moon behind. All illustration pieces were exhibited at BMB Gallery Mumbai and Lodhi Gardens Delhi as a collective exhibition.
02 ‘Indian Cuckoo’ contributed for THE ARK PROJECT An illustrated animal bible/ book, where artists around the world were invited to contribute one illustration of an animal from their country. Published by IDN 03 Ticket Badges New, cool handmade badges using tickets, cello-tapes and screen prints available in khaki, white and vibrant shades of fluorescent. Size: 2 x 2 inches
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04 LOCOPOPO CARD Self promotional card. 05 Personal Illustration Personal work. 06 South Mumbai Posters Limited edition silk screen posters printed on brown paper.
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07–09 Conde Nast India Editorial Illustrations for GQ. 10–11 CHAITIME Graphic wall and series of brand illustrations created for CHAITIME expressing chai culture in India Agency: Alok Nanda and Company
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12–13 Posters For Exhibit NH7 Screen printed posters designed to celebrate the spirit of music at the NH7 Weekender Music festival. 14–15 Lodha Bellissimo Series of lifestyle Illustrations created for Lodha Bellissimo (luxury apartments) advertising campaign Agency: Alok Nanda and Company 14
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the cabinet of curiosities
The Cabinet of Curiosities II text: pooja shah + www.theinkpot.in
The Cabinet of Curiosities is a curios shop of extraordinary things, mined from the depths of the creative world. This carefully curated knick knackery is set aside for your inspiration. Every COC feature begins with an India-centric theme. The design objects are selected according to the chosen theme. The idea is to look at a single concept from a broad range of Indian design perspectives. Typically, the selection will encompass fashion design, fine art, photography, product and packaging design, graphic design, architecture, new media design and so on - all linked by a shared association with the theme and representing an Indian ethos.
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In the second installment of the Cabinet of Curiosities feature, we focus on the theme of Paradox.
Paradoxical or Schizophrenic India India is a place to expect the unexpected – a land of contradictions. The old joke about our country is that anything you say about it, the contrary is also true. One of the most vivid and prevalent visuals, depicting this incongruity is that of a sacred cow feigning disinterest in the middle of a chaotic traffic intersection. India is a country where the world’s richest millionaires live amongst the world’s poorest of poor. It is the land of a thriving economy, but also where millions starve and live without basic amenities. We subscribe to the highest ideals of universal brotherhood and non-violence here, but at the same time have invented one of the worst forms of discrimination – the caste system. It is the mystical land of Buddha, Mahavira and other peace preachers and saints but is also the land whose freedom has been born in blood. It is the land of Shushruta, Charaka, Aryabhatta and Bhaskara – the embodiments of the highest, most ancient, scientific knowledge and is also the land of blind superstitions like human sacrifice, child marriage and widow burning. We have given the world the oldest treatise on pleasure – the Kamasutra but still broach the subject of sex in hushed whispers. We are an ancient civilization as well as a young republic. Tradition and modernity live side by side here. In the land of paradoxes, things always move paradoxically. Things become better and worse at the same time. Contemporary Indian design too, reflects this conflict in it’s various avatars. The following selection has been made, keeping this recurrent theme in mind. In this edition of The COC, you will design selections that reflect duality in theme, concept, medium, context, and presentation and sometimes in the designers themselves. All images link to their original source and are copyrighted to their original owner.
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Amrit Kumar &Mriga Kapidiya nor black nor white
Print and embellishments on fabric Textile and Fashion Design www.norblacknorwhite.com
Traditional
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The Toronto based textile-designer duo through their contemporary fusion brand, NorBlack NorWhite blend modern design with regional textiles and crafts and make the world aware of their rich Indian heritage. NorBlack NorWhite is a journey to explore India and its history through textiles, art and adventures. While learning about these art trades, regions and people, the designers get inspired to create designs and share the knowledge of the ancient practices that they have discovered on their exploits. Their project falls into a grey space of part anthropology, part art, part fashion. Each collection explores selected regions that they
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Modern want to discover further. SpringSummer2011 is created based on the Kutch region of Gujarat. They have focused on bandhani (ancient tie-dye practice) as the heart of this season, working with a Khatri family. This collection also highlights the beauty in appliquĂŠ and embroidery created by the Rabari women of Kutch. The pair met in 2004, when both of them were pursuing fashion designing and styling. They initially gravitated towards one another after noticing the lovely shawls that the other was wearing. Their sources of inspiration are the stories, people and culture of the regions that they travel to within the Indian subcontinent. They have
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always admired and respected the classic, traditional Indian aesthetics, however seeing them in daily action and learning their histories brings a new light. Living in India they get to learn and see a range of current styles, from the village region specific styles, to the Bombay city styles, east to west, north to south, everyone carries their own aesthetic and story. Waking up in India is what really fuels their creativity. Their current work is an interesting conversation between contemporary fashion and traditional Indian aesthetics as is their wonderfully kitschy website.
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Vandana Jain logo mandalas and the tangram series Mixed Media Branding
www.artcodex.org/vandana_jain/
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Vandana Jain is a Brooklyn based, conceptual artist whose work recontextualizes renowned corporate logos to create new interpretations of these well-known signs. She uses various elements of consumer culture such as corporate logos, slogans and product wrappers to create pattern-based artwork. She likes to set the symbology of corporate culture against the iconography of more traditional belief systems, often using traditional or labor-intensive imagemaking methods to offset the mass-produced nature of the imagery. She places the logos and related paraphernalia into quasi-religious contexts, arranging logos into mandalas, tangram puzzles or creates ritualistic spaces based on ad campaigns. Unsurprisingly, she collects logos to the point of
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Corporate obsession. Containers full of salvaged logos both ubiquitous and obscure fill the shelves and drawers of her Brooklyn studio. Through her work, she is interested in examining the deep influence of corporate and consumer culture on modern life, through a contrast of hand and machine; individual and conglomerate. Since her work is based on the appropriation and recontextualization of corporate branding, she has been free to cultivate diverse styles and media, and strive for the perfect coupling of an idea and its embodiment. This calls for a wideranging studio practice that includes painting, embroidery, architectural models and installation. She often uses labor-intensive and handmade art practices that will contrast with the mechanical aesthetic of the corporate logo, and that stand in for the laborer/producer.
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More recently, she has been exploring the ideas of the privatization of personal and public space through architectural models for fantastic structures. What if the AT&T logo was used as the starting point for a mammoth housing complex? Or if cave dwellings were juxtaposed onto the architecture of water bottles? What if highway overpasses were shaped into logos, channeling drivers through the GE loop on the way home? These irrational, implausible structures seem impossible to imagine, yet in her opinion, serve as routes of inquiry into the complexity of the human/corporate relationship. Vandana’s transformation of popular logos into devotional icons is simple yet fascinatingly deep and thought provoking.
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Mithun Jayaram a room full of old ladies clattering their fingernails / the feeling bubble of forgetting / the sixth summer’s monsoon Everyday, utilitarian objects Installation / Performance Experiments mithunjayaram.blogspot.com
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Artist Mithun Jayaram likes to work with expendable objects. The humble pencil, the charmless eraser, the square yellow post-it clones - all exalted by the ambitions, he sees for them. From everyday utilitarian objects, he builds several little universes. All much more magnificent than anyone ever thought they would be. He carries out this task purposefully -sharpening, shaving, rolling, tearing and building inch by inch in full view of a skeptical audience. Whilst some stay out of curiosity, others watch out of amusement. Through his work, Mithun captures every awkward nuance of the journey of creating his installation, in a space not conventionally used to showcase art. This can be revealing in its demystification or completely fascinating in it’s deliberate progression. To Mithun, the end does
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Mundane not matter. He works in public spaces to include an audience interaction, keeping the element of chance in space, turning it into a ‘playground of ideas’. He hopes to make people ‘re-look’ at their waste. While the actual materials used in his installations are everyday, ordinary things, his installations help re-look at common materials while exposing the process to the public. While this is not a re-cycling project, Mithun never throws away the materials, hoping to reuse them and the traces of their essence in a different context or arrangement, next time. While these little universes take shape, Mithun gains from the thoughts and conversations fueled by his creation. Transience, decay and an object’s frailty have always been subjects that have inspired and intrigued this artist.
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Ambreen Butt dirty pretty
Silk screen prints/Six plate color etching, aquatint, and spit-bite aquatint with chine collé / Water based pigments, white gouache, text, thread and gold leaf on layers of Mylar and tea stained paper Painting www.ambreenbutt.com
Empowerment / Opression
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Ambreen Butt is a Boston based Pakistani American artist. Trained in miniature painting at the National College of Arts, Lahore, Butt has lived and worked in the United States since the mid-1990s. Her work stems from the traditions of Persian and Indian miniature paintings with a western modernist abstraction and engagement with contemporary themes. Her paintings are rooted in her bi-cultural identity and retain the intricate, decorative patterning that characterizes Persian and Indian miniature painting. She has updated the medium’s painstaking technique with new materials, such as PET film, thread and collage. Her work discards the traditionally patronizing representation of women in the genre of miniature painting and re-defines the female identity through the gaze of a female artist. The protagonists in her work are modern
day heroines celebrated for their courage in the face of horrendous conditions. Butt attributes aesthetic inspiration and spiritual nourishment to several sources including the works of two Sufi poets-the celebrated Rumi (13th century) and the sentiments of tolerance and peaceful co-existence of the less familiar Bulleh Shah (17th century). She also cites the contemporary Pakistani poet and human rights activist Kishwar Naheed, and the “selfless generosity and compassion” of her grandmother who was widowed at the age of 23 during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Susan L.Stoops in her critique of the artist states that, “With the brush as her “weapon” and beauty as a foil for fear or anger, Butt protests against silence as indecision and with these intimate images, in her very own way, declares a “war against the madness around her.”
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Shailesh Khanderparkar wwf series of ads
Black and white and acrylic illustrations Communication design khandeparkarshailesh.blogspot.com
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Indian Shailesh Khandeparker is an international award-winning illustrator and designer, residing in India. He has worked on projects for Vodafone, WWF, Principal Financial Group, Cadbury, Unilever, Huggies, The Economist and so on. He prefers to work on styles that fall into an Indian-Urban genre. His signature style mixes classical Indian style with modern techniques. He likes the starkness of black and white and color acrylic style.
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Urban He has been curated under this theme because he uses traditional arts in an unconventional medium and a commercial format to often create a double-meaning illustration in communication design. His visual presentation of his work, often carries a paradox within itself and lures the reader to take a second look to decipher its true meaning.
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Chintan Upadhyay smart aleck babies
Fibre Glass with hand painted exterior Sculpture
Innocence
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Renowned contemporary artist and sculptor, Chintan Upadhyay grew up in Rajasthan and studied at the MS University in Vadodhra. Most of his acrylic paintings and fiberglass sculptures have the recurrent theme of babies through which he comments on social issues. His works have a streamlined perfection that signifies mechanical reproduction. Colors can be garish and while his artworks often appear playful they nevertheless have disturbing undercurrents. The artist focuses on particular motifs and includes fragmented references to local Indian culture. The affect is typically one of a brash visual overload, like advertising imagery that makes explicit an otherwise implicit vulgarity.
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Vulgarity Upadhyay is concerned with the nature of the designed: contemporary technologies of replication. The image of the baby or infant is an appropriate symbol. It can represent innocence and is understood as typifying the natural. In Upadhyay’s terms, both these states have become obsolete in our age of globalized values and because of a pervasive sense of the simulacra. In a word, we are divorced from the realm of the real or authentic. Rajasthani miniature art, visual advertising metaphors, hologram and laser images, Bollywood imagery and pornography (often borrowed from the Kamasutra) lurk voluptuously on the bodies of his works. These tattoos suggest that history and identity are markers that are consciously worn.
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That is, cultural and social understandings are claimed as not emerging inevitably or naturally. Upadhyay’s art, however, is not one of a crisis of contemporary values. And he is certainly not concerned with nostalgia for more authentic times. Rather, and like much of the best of international contemporary art, his artworks serve a critical prompt about the world we live in. Given the obvious lack of a single thread that binds Upadhyay’s work, it is easy to talk about him and his work in hyperbole and paradoxes —overtly sensational and larger-than-life, irreverent and original, playful yet disturbing, simplistic yet complex and innocent yet vulgar whichever way you look at it.
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Waswo X Waswo a studio in rajasthan
Hand-colored portraits and chemical process sepia toned photographs Photography www.waswoxwaswo.net
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New Richard John Waswo, professionally known as Waswo X. Waswo, is an artist and writer most commonly associated with his chemical process sepia-toned photographs of India, and also hand-colored portraits made at the artist’s studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Waswo was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A and after extensive worldwide travels he settled in India in 2001, where he organized an exhibition of his Indian landscapes and portraits. Waswo’s sepia work has been compared to early 20th century photographers such as Edward Curtis, but his inclusion of self-portraiture sometimes draws analogies to post-modernists such as Cindy Sherman. Waswo’s work has encouraged debate on the ethical questions of photography, especially the question of a westerner’s role in photographing a foreign land. The Indian writer and cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote makes a strong defense of Waswo’s work in the foreword to Waswo’s India Poems, but also included in
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Old the book is an essay by Bangalore-based artist Pushpamala N. titled “Photographing the Natives” which claims that Waswo follows in a long tradition of hegemonic and largely negative western depictions of the East. Since India Poems, Waswo has created a series of studio portraits at his home in Udaipur, Rajasthan, following the tradition of Indian studio portraitists such as those done by Lala Deen Dayal. Waswo has collaborated with Rajesh Soni, a local craftsman who hand-paints Waswo’s digital prints. A portion of this new body of work has been published as the book, Men of Rajasthan by Serindia Contemporary in Chicago. Waswo also has collaborated with the miniaturist painter Rakesh Vijay to create an autobiographical picture-story of his life in India and the accompanying emotions of both alienation and the sense of western privilege. Waswo’s collaborations with Rajesh Soni and R. Vijay are collectively titled “A Studio in Rajasthan”. His earlier work was
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shot with a Rolleiflex and printed in sepiatones on silver gelatin paper. More recently, he has been exploring the digital print. His father served in India during World War II. He was stationed in Bombay, and later in Karachi. He had an album from his days in India, which Waswo loved to browse, and he would never tire of his father’s tales of Indian lands, thus his fascination for the country was born. He draws much of his inspiration from vintage photography, although he then modifies the pictorial aesthetic with hints of surrealism and postmodernist tactics. His work is intriguing because he doesn’t capture the rich, fast cars and city life that are indicative of the contemporary global culture, instead he goes for the rural, the consequently more poor and finds beauty in the old and traditional. His pictures are of a seductive, beautiful primal India from an outsider’s point of view.
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Somapala Pothupitye Acharige ancestral dress
Common, everyday kitsch material Decorative Art & Craft
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Sri Lankan artist Somapala Pothupitya Acharige belongs to a traditional dancer-family. Pothupitya’s art is decorative and exotic. His works, though they are composed of very common and everyday kitsch materials, are completed visual entities, which present a sense of being recherché. This changing play of visualities is what makes his works ‘work’. On one hand, they look like the headgear of ancient and traditional dancers, but close-up they are made up of everyday kitsch and gewgaw. And, when these contradictory and competing visual metaphors are placed in a backdrop made of images of lions – as found in the national identity cards of the citizens of Sri Lanka – the entire visual text transforms itself into a comment/ critique on modernity, modernization and being modern; or rather on the dilemma of being mod-
Contemporary ern in Sri Lanka. Thus, in a rather confrontational manner, his current works touch upon a very sensitive social tradition, which most modernized Sri Lankans would want to deny any contemporary existence of: the traditional caste system that repressed members of certain castes as low and inferior. Thus conceptually, his work addresses the issues pertaining to identity and personality of individuals such as himself, who are caught in a social space that is defined by the anxieties of traditional to modern transition. Ancestral Dress, a recent series of his work explores a number of interpretations and conflicts on identity within a discourse of ancestry, tradition, authenticity, urbanity and the dynamics of contemporary art practices.
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Bhajju Shyam the london jungle book Gond Tribal Art Publishing Design www.tarabooks.com
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Bhajju Shyam was born in 1971 in the Gond tribal village of Patangarh, in the forests of central India. He never set out to be an artist, his mother painted the walls of his home, as is their tradition, and she would ask him to help her paint the parts she couldn’t reach. However, Bhajju toiled his way up and soon enough his work began to be known throughout India, and his first international exposure came in 1998 when he was part of a group exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and since then he has never looked back. The Gonds, or Gondi, are people of central India. They consider art a form of prayer, and their songs, dances, myths, folk tales and rituals all reflect a close bond with nature. The cow dung plastered walls of Gond houses are beauti-
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Urban fully hand decorated with a traditional geometric pattern and a composition of animal leaves and flowers, during weddings and other festivities. The Gond artist starts with an outline, which is then filled with flat colors, left to dry, and finally covered with elaborate patterning. Originally, the colors were produced with four different colored mud collected by women in the forest. In 2001, Bhajju was commissioned to paint the interiors of a chic Indian restaurant in London. After his return to India, Sirish Rao and Gita Wolf, the publishers at Tara books, encouraged and helped him to turn his travel experiences into an illustrated book – The London Jungle. Before his trip, Bhajju had very little knowledge of English language and culture, and his observations of city life are innocent, humorous, full of won-
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der, and totally unconventional. His beautiful visual diary turns London into an exotic bestiary inhabited by many gigantic creatures: elephant-airplanes, eagle-airports, dog-buses, earthworm-underground trains, bat-Londoners and a Big Ben-rooster. There’s even Bhajju’s take on Damien Hirst’s dissected cow. This insightful tribal perspective on Western modern life is published in six languages, including English. It is rare to encounter a truly original vision that is capable of startling us into re-looking at familiar sights. Through this book, Bhajju breathes the ancient spirit of wonder back into the act of travel, showing you a London you have never encountered before.
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Nipa Doshi &Jonathan Levien doshi levien Product Design
www.doshilevien.com
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Doshi Levien’s work is strongly informed by their distinct but complementary backgrounds. Indian-born furniture designer Nipa Doshi met English industrial designer Jonathan Levien while they were students at the Royal College of Art. They set up Doshi Levien in London in 2000 and have since been designing domestic products for commercial clients worldwide. Nipa’s Indian heritage provides the very tactile and refined visual direction of their designs — she recalls exploring the textiles and traditional handicrafts at the markets within the walls of the old city during her early years of study at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Jonathon’s precision and tenacity as an industrial designer (with experience working under
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Exotic iconic designer Ross Lovegrove for three years) is what adds a very urban, forward-thinking slant to their impressive body of work. Thus their work celebrates the hybrid and explores the coming together of cultures, technology, story-telling, industrial design and fine craftsmanship. Their cross cultural style of product design relies heavily on color, pattern and carefully crafted detailing, They work across disciplines and industries and they make their own rules that are based on extracting as much richness as possible out of an idea. The studio gives expert advice to global brands on cultural and social insights, leading to design opportunities. They work for a broad range of clients including Intel, Swarovski,
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Nokia, Authentics, Moroso and Cappellini. For instance, their Charpoy bench seats for Moroso amalgamate the fine handwork from Gujarat, India, with industrial production in Italy. Nipa draws inspiration from the friction and incongruity inherent in every aspect of Indian life and they constantly fuel her work and her determination to escape definition. Jonathan, on the other hand, gets inspired through exciting project briefs or a visit to a factory. The defining character of Doshi Levien is, as they term it, a ‘union of opposites’ that has resulted in the creation of an edgy, modern exotic style that is making waves globally.
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Amrit Kumar & Mriga Kapidiya www.norblacknorwhite.com
Ambreen Butt www.ambreenbutt.com
Vandana Jain www.artcodex.org/vandana_jain/
Shailesh Khanderparkar khandeparkarshailesh.blogspot.com
Somapala Pothupitye Acharige
design resources book — Black and White By Steven Guarnaccia and Susan Hochbaum Whats black and white and read all over? Black & White is a visually exciting compendium that explores all things untouched by color. Though black and white lie beyond the color spectrum, they are utterly essential to visualize the world we live in. They symbolize the tension and harmony of opposites: good and evil, positive and negative, life and death. Black & White collects amazing images and examples from mother nature and man-made
Mithun Jayaram mithunjayaram.blogspot.com
Chintan Upadhyay
Bhajju Shyam www.tarabooks.com
Waswo X Waswo www.waswoxwaswo.net
Nipa Doshi & Jonathan Levien www.doshilevien.com
culture. Featuring hundreds of photographs, clever commentary, and a chic design, this gorgeous gift book and graphic essay explores a world that’s too cool for color. website — http://www.booooooom.com Vancouver artist Jeff Hamada created Booooooom with the hopes of creating a community of creativity. He now has the most successful art blog on the internet and regularly sets creative challenges for the hundreds of thousands of followers he has acquired. If you’re looking to be inspired by art, then Booooooom is an absolute must.
event — Kyoorius Designyatra A conference that celebrates design excellence, provides insights into the future of brand and visual communications while simultaneously bringing together the design and corporate community in India. The conference has been attended by a cumulative audience of more than 8500 people from all over India and around the world. Kyoorius Design Yatra is a forum initiated by Kyoorius and guided by top designers and creative heads.
pooja shah is a design researcher, writer and art connoisseur based in Mumbai. In 2010, she founded a unique publishing consultancy, The Ink Pot (www.theinkpot.in) that provides bespoke design and editorial services to the self-publisher. She has studied Design Management and Indian Aesthetics and helped create wondrous illustrated books on Indian film, popular culture, history, design, art, poetry and has also dabbled in the nonillustrated fiction genre. She can be reached at pooja@theinkpot.in.
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The birth of an Indian Hero I recently had the pleasure of seeing Pawan Munjal dance in public. The normally low profile MD of Hero MotoCorp had jumped onto the stage of the 02 Arena in London to join Shahrukh Khan, Boris Becker, A.R. Rahman and Akon as they swayed to the music of Akon’s recent hit “Chammak Challo”. You will have to imagine the reaction of the large crowd of Hero dealers, specially flown across from India and now rising to their feet. My only regret in writing this article is that the photos I snapped on my Blackberry were too grainy to be worthy of inclusion in this edition. Otherwise you could have seen their emotions. The occasion of such exuberant jollity was the Hero launch on 9th August 2011. A launch to announce not just a new logo, but also a new brand ambassador (Ranbir Kapoor), a new anthem (by A.R. Rahman) and two new models (Impulse and Maestro). Quite a morning. Well worth a small dance, you might think. To put Mr Munjal’s joy into context, you need to go back eight months when he announced the separation of Hero from Honda. A bold move after nearly three decades of a successful collaboration. A collaboration, which had made Hero Honda the largest manufacturer of two-wheelers in the world, by volume. This is the true significance of 9th August 2011. It was a remarkable statement of confidence. Hero does not need Honda. Hero can go alone. Hero can go international. The newly independent Hero needed a new brand. Of course. Enter Wolff Olins. We were asked to define Hero’s new positioning, the relationship between Hero MotoCorp and other parts of the group and between Hero and its product brands. Last but not least, we had to design a new identity. The irony for us is that this assignment marks the separation of an Indian and a Japanese couple whereas our last successful output in India celebrated a new Indo-Japanese marriage — Tata Docomo. The new Hero brand had to signal both continuity and change. Continuity through the name and colours and change in most of the other identity elements. As importantly, the
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new brand had to sit comfortably alongside the powerful product brands on a two-wheeler’s tank or fairing. And also stand out in a crowded street when it appears on a dealership signage. The results you see in these pictures. The reaction you can’t see: the audience of dealers applauding the new signs. Practical men with businesses to run, whose customers are the ordinary men and women of India not those of us who are lucky enough to hang out at my friend Arish’s restaurant, 212 in Bombay. At the risk of seeming falsely modest, I would suggest that to focus on the new identity is to miss the point. Re-branding is a business issue not an aesthetic exercise. I say this for two reasons. First, in an automotive company the brand is chiefly the product. Which is why Hero was careful to launch two new models at the O2 Arena. Hero will continue to succeed as long as its products appeal to young, aspiring Indians — and in the future their counterparts in South America or Africa. This leads to the second, more important point. The products will appeal not merely because they are more reliable or stylish and so forth, but because they have the power to transform the circumstances of the two wheeler’s owner. In the jargon of our positioning, we called this the “catapult”. A.R. Rahman and Hero’s advertising agency, Law & Kenneth, then translated this thought into the much more eloquent “Hum Mein Hai Hero”. A brand strategy you can sing along to. Now there’s a thought. Charles Wright, Director Wolff Olins www.wolffolinsblog.com
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typography
TYPOGRAPHY COLUMN2 When writing becomes typography This second column on typography aims to clarify some of the general terminology used in the (typo)graphic designer’s jargon. by Jo De Baerdemaeker
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Sinhalese writing, carved with the tip of a metal stylus in a palmleaf (undated) at the archives of the Serampore College (Hooghly Disctrict, West Bengal)
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Sanskrit calligraphy in a manuscript (undated) of The Museum & Art Gallery from the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata
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In today’s profusion of visual information in digital and printed form, texts are produced by different means. Very often graphic design students and design practitioners have difficulty distinguishing the manner in which a text is represented and refer to all lettering as being typography. When asked to communicate about what they see, read or design, they are often confused about when to use the proper term for the different forms of visual text representation. material on which written. Scribes who are apprenticed in this discipline of ‘beautiful writing’ were given the task to manufacture or copy manuscripts, as well as special, important or valuable documents (such as invitations, acts, decrees, certificates or treaties) in this manner. Each period in time and each geographical area came with its own specific fashions and, regardless the writing system, throughout history different calligraphy styles arose. Often each of these styles was The majority of us learn how to form used for texts that serve a specific purpose. the strokes and the proportions of the char Gerrit Noordzij, Dutch typeface acters of the writing system we use to repre- designer, lecturer, author and specialist in sent the sounds of the words of the language handwriting, explains that if we refer to we speak at a very young age. Whether this is constructing letters with single strokes as writing, lettering could be defined as building with chalk on a blackboard, with a finger or up the elements of the letters with several a stick in the sand or with a pen or brush in a notebook, the skeleton and structure of the strokes. Noordzij also defines stone-cutting, punch-cutting and copperplate engraving as characters we practice evolve into our own unique handwriting, which we continue to use lettering techniques allowing shapes that are dependent from the tool.1 for the rest of our lives. Texts written in a decorative style We can see lettering most frequently in which consistently follow a particular model public spaces in the form of signage, inscripor hand are referred to as calligraphy. The tions, advertising or publicity. The main shape of the strokes, the proportion of the characteristic of lettering is that the individcharacters and the modulation of the strokes ual letterforms (i.e. characters created by the are dependent on the writing tool, the preshuman hand) are each unique in shape and sure and movement of the hand, and the or proportion. Letterforms can be painted,
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typography
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Bengali lettering on a street sign in Kolkata
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enced the design and the production of type: mechanical typesetting, photo-composition and digital typesetting. While in the early days of printing all type material was produced by hand with tangible material (type punches were cut out of steel, the matrices were struck into copper, and metal sorts were cast in an alloy of lead, tin and antimony), today’s typeface design process mainly occurs in the world of pixels and digital vectors. Whatever the process drawn, sprayed or written on signboards, may be, the typeface designer has to create glass, bricks, wood or paper; and even carved, all of the required characters of a given typecut or constructed in three-dimensional face, determine their spacing and kerning, shapes as part of an architectural construcand develop the possible OpenType features, tion to communicate the commercial or before a typographer or graphic designer can public purpose of the building to the public. use this typeface (either as fount or font) to Projects in which words are created from set text in a page layout. 2 This implies that, regardless of the tangible material (such as pebbles, flower petals, piles of sand, cars, light bulbs, etcetera, style of the typeface, the visual representato give but a few examples) are also regarded tion of the individual characters is identical in texts set in the same typeface (all the as lettering. Typography, however, is different from कs, तs, चs… have the same proportions and writing and lettering. Typography initially outlines, etcetera), whereas this varies in relates to the page that is printed with prehandwriting, calligraphy and lettering. 3 We can conclude by saying that typogdesigned, movable type. However, with the raphy is both the creation of typeforms as advent of digital technology and desktop computing, typography also became possible well as the automated arrangement of typefaces into visible language, or in the words of on display screens of electronic devices. Noordzij: ‘typography is writing with prefabWhere type was a tangible piece of lead in ricated characters’. 4 1 Noordzij, Gerrit, 1982, The stroke of the pen, The Hague: Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, p. 8 2 The character set of a typeface varies from project to project, is pre-defined by the purpose of the typeface’s use. A typeface used for the body text of a newspaper that covers three different languages, for instance, comprises a much larger character set than that of a typeface that is used only for displaying English text on the walls of a museum. The word ‘fount’ was used to indicate a metal printing type, whereas font refers to a digital typeface.
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Tibetan typography In the forest of faded wisdom: 104 poems by Gendun Chopel (Donald S Lopez Jr, 2009, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press). Set in the typeface: Lungta.
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3 Unless the typeface designer has included alternative designs for contextual settings.
the days of metal text composition, the term nowadays covers a wider range of multiplying (or reproducing) visual texts as an automated process. Since the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, three major technological developments influ-
4 Noordzij, Gerrit, 2000, Letterletter, Point Roberts: Hartley & Marks Publishers Inc, p. 30
This column is curated by the Indian Type Foundry (ITF), a font development company based in Ahmedabad. ITF invites experts in the field of typography to contribute to this column. www.indiantypefoundry.com/articles
Jo De Baerdemaeker is a multilingual & non-Latin typeface designer and researcher based in Antwerp, Belgium. www.typojo.com
All images copyright: Jo De Baerdemaeker
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Education
Looking back on a design education “What I think is important for people is to continue the idea of learning after they get out of school so the idea of continued development becomes integrated into their brain.” – Milton Glaser That’s Milton Glaser in an interview to Design Informer in the context of the importance of education. It’s a truism that is more relevant today than ever as the world speeds past with new technology, complexities and challenges everyday. Kyoorius spoke to a number of professionals in India and abroad, who had a minimum work experience of five years, with the objective of understanding how one’s education formed a solid foundation for that experience and what it means to be a design professional today. On failure and having a curious mind Developing a mindset that allows for experimentation would be a huge step forward, says New York based Interaction designer Shagun Singh who believes that education in India celebrates excellence but looks down on failure. She explains, “Not being able to fail does not allow for rapid prototyping, quick explorations and thwarts creativity. Design schools in the west are a lot more forgiving and there is room to experiment. There is exposure to new technologies and sustainable design solutions. Indian design schools are getting there but there needs to be a big change in the design mindset — more experimentation, prototyping, building and playing around. Students need to understand that becoming a designer is not about being able to sketch well, its about having a curious mind. I think we don’t do a great job of connecting the dots. The emphasis is always on creation of a product, a sign or a space, it’s not about solving or identifying a problem. We have to move from a purely skillbased education system to one
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where our students can ask more questions and hence solve more problems.” Singh also believes design schools don’t give students the bigger picture, adding, “They give you the tools to design with and the rest is for you to figure out. Working in the design field is not just about design, its about being able to talk about your design, being able to sell your vision and being able to manage people to create that vision. Designers are not artists, they are answerable to people they design for and they are answerable to themselves in order to keep their ideals in the right place.” Mayuri Nikumbh, who graduated from the Industrial Design Centre at IIT, Mumbai in 2002, believes what design schools need to cultivate is a mindset that looks for more than one possible solution to a given problem. She says, “In the real world, you always have to create more than one option. You go back with at least two to three ideas. In design school an assignment is given and you take one route and run with it, and you believe that is the best that could have been done. This needs to be imbibed in our design schools that there should be many renditions to a design solution.” Nikumbh says she has always wondered why design schools look down upon software knowledge. “Students should be taught software. Design schools fixate on the ‘ideation’ part, the software had to be learnt on the field. That is a drawback when you start your job, and then spend six months learning the software,” she adds. Ritwik Dey, currently working as an Interaction Designer at New York based
Shagun Singh
Designers are not artists, they are answerable to people they design for and they are answerable to themselves in order to keep their ideals in the right place.
Images from a community design project that Singh worked on, in collaboration with the Urban Arts Program of Department of Transportation, Bronx Museum of Arts and Architecture for Humanity. It is called ARTfarm, a public space/garden created out of recycled dresser drawers and carpet rollers.
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Education
Ritwik Dey
Mayuri Nikumbh
Anab Jain “The idea is always key, and a designer’s role is to visually elevate an idea, making it more powerful and memorable.”
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agency R/GA, believes not enough time is spent in problem solving. Dey’s background is a Bachelor’s in Engineering, Information Technology from University of Mumbai, followed by a degree in Master of Fine Arts, Design & Technology from Parsons School of Design. He explains, “We never spent any time trying to come up with different ways to solve the same problem. We never exercised or developed our problem solving abilities. In college, I was surrounded by popular design trends but had little time to study or absorb them. I learnt to apply the ‘lens’ trend when I started work. In school, I focused on getting the problems solved. Now I can solve it in five different ways depending on whom I am talking to.”
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Anab Jain believes it is important to reflect back on the global economic uncertainty that plagues our times and focus on India’s role in that context. “I sense a need for deep reflection and subsequently, designing strategies that will lead to the creation of new institutions which take into account global economic uncertainty and climate change, and India’s emergent role in these conditions. At the end of the day, designers either on their own, or through different organisations, are going to increasingly face these challenges, and our education needs to prepare us better for this,” she adds.
Song of the Machine is a short film and installation produced by Jain’s company Superflux for HUMAN+, Science Gallery Dublin’s flagship exhibition for 2011. Building on an existing collaborative relationship with Dr Patrick Degenaar, senior lecturer in neuroprostheses at Newcastle University, the film represents an extrapolation from current research into optogenetic retinal prostheses. This technology uses a virus to deliver a genetic construct containing a specific promoter and photo-sensitive gene to the brain, allowing neuroscientists to manipulate individual nerve cells with light.
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Managing real-world expectations
an important transition, and if you have the resilience, then you can go through it, building conviction and determination to Managing expectations after carve your own journey. I have graduation is usually a time for a been playing with that for years, reality check for many. and have no regrets. Quite often Dan Berkowitz, who expectations are met, sometimes graduated with a three year they are not, but with each project degree in art direction and you learn and grow as a designer, graphic design from Red and and are ready to take on bigger Yellow School of Advertising challenges.” in South Africa, is currently employed with Wieden + Kennedy, In July 2009, Jain founded Delhi. He says, “We all thought Superflux, which she says sits at advertising was about coming the intersection of several design up with crazy ideas, acting like disciplines including interaction/ rock stars and redefining the strategy/ service/ product design. boundaries of what a wild party Simrit Brar passed out from could be. The biggest wake up call nid in 1994 and got recruited by came with the reality of waking Ray+Kesavan on campus. For the up the night after that wild party, next nine years, Brar worked at and every day after that, to a blank agencies like Ray+Kesavan, Vyas piece of paper needing to be filled Giannetti Creative, Enterprise up consistently with good work at Lowe, Contract Advertising and a fast pace.” as a consultant for Bollywood projects before deciding to pursue Berkowitz says his reality a Masters in Design & Technology check came with the realization from New York’s Parsons The New that being a designer wasn’t School for Design. about owning ideas or gaining recognition as a graphic artist. After nine years of working “The idea is always key, and a at breakneck speed, Brar says she designer’s role is to visually felt the need to take a break. elevate an idea, making it more “I wanted a change from four powerful and memorable. If you crazy years of Bollywood, I wanted focus on that, the recognition will to live and work in New York and take care of itself,” he reasons. I was hiring designers who knew more about new media than I Anab Jain, who passed out did. I also felt like I needed to let of nid in 2000 and then went my brain ‘breathe’ again and be on to graduate from the Royal inspired away from the reality of College of Art (uk) in 2005 says client work. I think I achieved all its not so much a reality check my goals. What I did not expect as a steep learning curve. “After was class mates ten years younger graduating from nid, I was doing to me giving me a run for my a lot of freelance work in graphic money when it came to learning design while trying to get film things like programming/ coding projects, apply for funding. It’s
at rapid speeds,” elaborates Brar. For Brar, New York was an important stepping-stone in her professional journey. She recalls, “It wasn’t enough to have design skills and work experience in India. The world of design was also about knowing how and where people shop, how and what they consume, what and where they read, what they watch in theaters and on TV. The US is such a big market in itself that they don’t care too much about the rest of the world. India was inconsequential when I started working in New York. Only a couple of years later, the socalled boom in China and India started to put India’s one billion consumers on the map and people’s perception of me as an Indian designer changed a bit.” A year back, Brar founded her own agency Flying Squirrel, based out of California. Karishma Dorai, who studied at College of Fine Arts and Chitrakala Parishad in Bangalore and currently works at Grandmother India as creative group head, says the first reality check for most graduates is in wrestling with their personal view on design and that of the client and adds, “Students like to think that what they do is the best way to go forward. So there is a difference between your personal view of design and the professional view. That is a sort of a war within yourself to understand, that you cannot really disrespect what the client wants even if you think that you have a good idea and that is the
Dan Berkowitz “The idea is always key, and a designer’s role is to visually elevate an idea, making it more powerful and memorable.”
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way to go forward. Its just where you get your hands dirty and learn, you have to go out there and there is no shortcut to turning a student into a professional.” Says Ritwik Dey, “I used to be one of those designers that preferred to stay away from the business side of things. I learned quickly that working with a client means understanding the inner workings of their organization, their motivations and dreams. It isn’t the most pleasant experience, but it is essential. Any designer who fails to see this or is arrogant enough to turn their nose up at it, is doing their clients a disservice.” Managing a business: What Design School didn’t teach you A common grouse that graduates have about where design school fell short is in the understanding of managing a business. Brar explains, “Knowing how to charge and make a business profitable is not something I learnt in design school. US design consultancies spend a lot more time and money on managing their own brand and are careful in how they create a distinct niche for themselves. Indian design firms could learn from that. I didn’t learn that in design school, I learnt that on the job.” Anab Jain also feels that schools don’t get into the nittygritties of teaching students how to manage a business but offers a different take on the subject, “As the role of the designer shifts, its important for him/her to not be territorial but explore
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What would you tell your young graduate self if you were to meet him/ her today?
Shagun Singh: When I was in
school, all I wanted to do was to join a fancy schamcy design office to become a real practicing designer. I would tell myself that becoming an experienced designer is not about working in offices, its about solving real problems around you. I would also tell myself to not wait for an opportunity to show up but to create opportunities by identifying what could work better around me. Some of the finest design solutions around the world have come about because people looked around themselves and found a real problem to solve.
Ritwik Dey: I would have said ‘take a vacation, go someplace and relax.’ I didn’t take a break. I was at the office within 10 days of graduation. And those days were spent preparing for the job. Mayuri Nikumbh: One thing I
would say is that I should have taken design a lot more seriously than I did back then. A lot of small design things that I could have taken more seriously, paid more attention to and given more detail to. I should also have explored and researched a little more for my projects.
Simrit Brar: Take more risks. Anab Jain: Follow your dreams.
With passion, and adequate doses of wit and humour. Everything else will follow.
Karishma Dorai: Do everything just the way you’re doing it.
Dan Berkowitz: I’d tell myself
to enjoy having hair because it wasn’t going to last much longer and then I’d give myself a piece of paper with these words by Ira Glass. “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece. It’s only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just gotta fight your way through it.”
“The “Leave Home’ campaign for Royal Enfield Thunderbird is built on the insight that in India, some young men miss out on an exciting life by staying at home for too long. It’s a great platform to keep creating fresh work that isn’t tied down by rules.”
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the implications of the change, and present the world with new, unseen opportunities. I think these are things I have found my own way around. I don’t think they can really be ‘taught’. I guess design schools can teach you to be curious and aware, rest is for you to follow through.” India Vs the Rest of the world: A view on design education Berkowitz credits the way his college functioned for his exposure to a real work ethic even before they graduated. “My college was run more like an agency than a school. We handled live briefs in teams with servicing students from year one, so it felt more like interning in an agency than working on hypothetical student projects. This made the transition into producing work to solve a business problem and to a tight deadline much easier. We also didn’t touch computers for the first year of study, learning the foundations of typography, design and layout the old fashioned way with pens, markers, tape, glue and the photocopy machine. This approach was vital in getting a tactile understanding of the finer aspects of craft that a student will never get sitting behind a monitor with a Wacom pad,” he explains. Shagun Singh studied Interior Architecture at cept (Center for Environmental Planning and Technology), Ahmedabad and graduated in 2002. She went to grad school at New York University to an experimental arts and technology program called the Interactive Telecommunication Program. Today she works as an Interaction Designer for NY based global innovation firm Frog Design. “cept is a modernist school inspired by the design and work methods of architects like Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe etc. What was actually missing was a strong national perspective to design versus international,” she recalls. Singh says it was at her grad school where she enrolled in the Interactive Telecommunication Program in NYU that exposed her to different skill sets and experiences.
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“It was a really humbling experience and opened my eyes to different ways of thinking and designing. It also helped me understand how culture plays such a distinct role when it comes to designing products for an international user base. I was also exposed to open source design at that time, which is based upon communal value and trust. If you take, you give and create a sustainable ecosystem of creativity where there is enough to go around. I am still playing with some of those ideas to see how it can apply to the developing nations.” Anab Jain, who has studied design at various levels in India, London and Vienna feels her education at Vienna was the most organic. “The courses were less structured, students seemingly had a lot more freedom to pursue their own interests and the student-tutor exchange was minimal. At the rca, it was still very structured, but the students had to take a lot more responsibility for their work, and it felt less like school. The first year was intense in the level of learning and we were required to do, lot of short courses alongside regular guest speakers and workshops. In the second year, whilst the speakers continued to come, we were left with our individual tutors to develop our area of interest, think critically, do significant research in the area, seek out experts, do a lot of prototyping and produce cutting edge work. I guess we did that at nid too, but in a masters program, the student is perhaps much more responsible for his/ her work, and needs to have the confidence to shape it, and then defend it,” she recalls.
Simrit Brar “It wasn’t enough to have design skills and work experience in India. The world of design was also about knowing how and where people shop, how and what they consume, what and where they read, what they watch in theaters and on TV.
The designer as changemaker In an insightful post on his column on Designweek.co.uk, design commentator Adrian Shaughnessy, writing about visual design students today, was of the view that they were behaving more and more like journalists, publishing reports and researching on subjects/ causes that interested them personally.
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Education
His view, although, focused on students of graphic design will ring true for the new generation of students from across design disciplines. And we observed this more than ever in our conversations with young designers who are increasingly seeing their own role as change-makers besides their regular day jobs. Shagun Singh, Interaction designer at Frog Design, started a blog Designwala to investigate what she terms as design thinking in developing nations. “I started it primarily to understand design thinking from various perspectives, especially from the lens of the developing nations where the design market is increasing ten folds everyday. We’ve been creating interviews, telling stories, organising events and competitions to create a conversation space. For the future, I would like Designwala to not only be a think-tank for alternate design thinking methods but would also like to be involved in the process of researching, prototyping and executing interesting design solutions. Solutions that don’t necessarily solve real problems but could, in turn, create a commentary on how creativity can alter human experience,” she explains. Ritwik Dey has been involved with EMcounter and Mumbai Voices, both of them being initiatives that look into ways in which design could enable social change. “As an Indian abroad, you are constantly nagged by the fact that you left your home country behind, that you owe something back. So when my friend Dr Satchit Balsari came to me looking for design help on EMcounter and then Mumbai Voices, I jumped in. Both these are ongoing projects, especially EMcounter. With Mumbai Voices, we have established a template that can be reused as soon as disaster hits. Its been used as a tool for data collection by the UN in Haiti, and more recently, it is being used right now in connection with the blasts in Mumbai,” he elaborates.
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Updates in Design Education So what are the elements that these design alumni believe need to be added on to the design syllabus today? Mayuri Nikumbh says, “Execution skills and technique are as important as a student’s conceptualization and strategy skills. Also, software if not a huge part of design education, should at least be a small plug-in. Maybe an international trend module could be added, where students identify an international trend, study it and present it. Having guest/foreign faculty would be very nice as well.” Adds Shagun Singh, “Systems thinking, interdisciplinary design, different approach to failure and growth; I believe these are additional elements that would help. I feel our education system is a bit one-dimensional. Design is evolving and design as a career will not be about designing one thing. It will be about designing integrated systems with components of product, type, environments and people. We need to get students to think like that while still letting them dig deep into their field of expertise.” Simrit Brar feels it is imperative for professionals to go back and educate the next generation of design students. “Allow more free-spirited thinkers and a variety of individuals to teach, to expose students to different ways of thinking and have more design workshops. Travel. Designers are not people who are just good at the Adobe Creative suite. They’re people who understand the consumer, take risks, question the problem they’re given, are not afraid to ask questions, have the ability to be good craftsmen too, and ‘live’ life,” she quips. Says Karishma Dorai, “I think the details of design are taught rather well in India. What really needs to be worked upon is how the student communicates his/her designs or ideas to a third party. The area where design schools are lacking in is that they don’t necessarily refresh themselves.” By Bindu Nair Maitra, with inputs from Shruti Manian
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Columnists
Cannes Lions 2011: And the Winning Trend Is …
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now use their mobile phones to point and shoot at a two-dimensional display of their groceries, adding them to digital shopping carts for delivery once they’re home. Now technology’s not just friendly and fast—as of this year, it’s literally the hand that’s now feeding us. So what is the headline in technology and advertising? How do we know that it’s taken off its coat—and is certainly here to stay? Attending the event made it plain that technology’s as pervasive in advertising as it is in life. And what we can do technologically extends far, far beyond mere social media. Not just for getting a message out there, technology’s all about making connections, connectivity with brands and experiences. Forget digital fads: we’re now using technology in all of its multi-faceted glory.
Trend #1: Technology is Our New BFF
Just as technology’s taken a great leap forward, so has the reality of where advertising takes place. In the old days (i.e. as recently as last year or so), you had to travel to New York or London to join the ad party. Some would have said that this was where all the action was—and the ad industry’s bottlenecks, of a sort. Now, in contrast, the party has spread beyond these two mega-cities. No longer are other cities, others countries, other regions sitting at the kids’ table, facing the wall. Agencies from Shanghai to Mumbai, Toronto to Amsterdam, are winning well-deserved business for their excellent work. Clients are going for great advertising — from wherever it springs. And there’s a knock-on effect: London agencies see that their current competition comes from around the whole world, the evidence of this being fewer British winners at Cannes for this year. It was almost as if a thought balloon floated above London agencies at Cannes. And the text inside read: “Where did we go wrong?” It’s not that the Brits are losing creative edge—it’s all about London now having much more competition. Worlds are converging. Technology is traveling. And so clients have greater—and more global—alternatives. It’s a shift we all have to get used to… it’s healthy. More competition keeps us all edgier, inventive. So what if it makes us work harder, as well? Like in all industries, the emergence of new powerhouse economies is not a zero-sum game. Shanghai’s gain is not London’s loss.
The ad world got over its fear of technology this year. Not only is “that Internet thing” no longer an object of dread—technology has been mainstreamed, made part of our lives. Virtually everyone at Cannes talked about technology-related issues. One speaker, for example, “outed” all of us in the audience, forcing us to admit that we’re more intimate with our mobile phones than we are with our bed partners. Who knew that, this year, technology would replace sex? One winning entry took our intimacy with mobile phones a great step further, designing supermarket displays that let customers go grocery shopping—without ever setting foot in a Tesco, or any bricks-and-mortar supermarket, for that matter. Thanks to an advertising concept, the lucky South Koreans
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Honestly, sometimes a trend is self-evident, staring us in the face like a hungry basset hound waiting for dinner. Take the U.S. political trend, circa 1992: definitely self-evident. Bill Clinton’s campaign summed it all up, plastering the message on T-shirts that read, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Fast forward to now. This much we know: the economy wasn’t the trend at this year’s Cannes Lions festival. But the Big Ideas of 2011 were similarly self-evident. Too often, de-briefs about Cannes overlook trends to focus on industry stars, as if we were all showing up at the Cannes’ Film Festival. The de-briefs deconstruct the creatives—and agencies—who took home the trophies. But here what we’re talking about isn’t the players. And we’re not just considering clients, results, and website hits, either. What we’re talking about is, as they say, bigger than that.
Homeplus Subway Virtual Store for Tesco by Cheil Worldwide Seoul, Korea
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Trend #2: Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore (or London, or NY... )
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What we have here is simply a rediscovery of a more natural balance. Releasing creativity around the world can only be good news. Which leads us to our next point. Trend #3: Brands Have Real Mobility
The historical argument within the industry and marketing circles of local vs global should be put to bed once and for all. All brandsfrom the moment they create their first website, Facebook page or Twitter account —are global. Whether they choose to be or not. So the only question that really matters is: are these brands doing something genuinely worth talking about? If you pass that bar then often you will have earned friends from around the world, even if you aren’t selling to them (yet). Ultimately, this can be nothing but a huge asset to any brand. At Amsterdam Worldwide, our recent work for Intel, the ‘Visual Life’ campaign — too late for Cannes this year — has received over nine million views in just over one month. That’s not bad for a short film about the revolution in wedding photography in China.
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Trend #4: All Formats Are Relevant
What’s so fascinating about the trends is the compatibility between them. Yes, technology’s here to stay—but there’s still room for traditional formats like outdoor and print. Take the Cannes Grand Prix winner from Shanghai—the Samsonite ad. Its brilliance as a concept makes you forget about format. You don’t feel like you’re looking at a print ad or billboard; what you experience is connection, and it’s seamless. There’s nothing old-school about it—the medium isn’t the message. It just goes to show: formats like print and outdoor are not only relevant—when used innovatively, they add depth, breadth, and texture to advertising today. We are dedicated to the craft and craftsmanship in all areas of creativity. That’s why we are delighted to see a beautiful piece of work like this one for Samsonite gain its rightful recognition. The death of traditional media? Not when there’s excellence like this out there. Trend #5: You Gotta Have Soul
Soul matters. Specifically, all of the winning work this year has soul. As we saw, Tesco bared its soul by sympathizing with exhausted South Koreans—the second most hardworking people on the planet—and giving them phones as a fun way to grocery-shop without setting foot in an overcrowded store. All this shows us that advertising is personal. It celebrates people. Campaigns that work help people solve problems, fulfill fantasies. So from that perspective, it’s very human work. In a promo for Cannes, Patti Smith talks about rock ‘n roll as “a movement for the people.” She goes on to say, “It’s about freedom. It’s all-inclusive. Anyone can be a part of it… it’s a humanistic movement.” And that’s exactly how I’d describe the biggest trend at Cannes. Every shop that took home an award “gets it”—“it” being the fact that advertising is about people. About freedom. It’s all-inclusive. Anyone can be part of it. Creativity is a humanistic movement. And that’s why you’ve gotta have soul to win at it.
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Heaven And Hell for Samsonite by JWT Shanghai, China
Brian Elliott
Brian Elliott is the founder and CEO of Amsterdam Worldwide.
Kitty & Lala Amsterdam Worldwide’s Visual Life series featured a day in the life of successful Chinese wedding photographers Kitty & Lala.
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Armed with a purpose
Steve Zelle
Steve Zelle is idApostle (http:// www.idapostle.com), a logo and brand identity designer based in Ottawa, Canada. He also runs Processed Identity (http://www. processedidentity.com), a blog exploring the creative process of brand identity design.
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Logo designers are popping up by the thousands. Spurred on by crowd sourcing contests, cattle calls for spec work, and Tweets asking for someone to design a logo for $25, now anyone can be a logo designer. While it can be fairly straightforward to craft a graphic with aesthetic appeal, it’s quite another thing to design a logo that has strategic merit and that plays a fundamental role in a company’s identity and branding. The tool seemingly ignored by many of the thousands throwing their hats into the ring of logo design, happens to be one of enormous value to the creative process, and to the client. It’s a tool that, when used properly, ensures a logo is being developed as part of an identity, and not an isolated graphic to be placed everywhere as if using a roll of stickers. Without this tool, designers are engaged in a purely aesthetic exercise, providing no more than window dressing for clients and in the process are ignoring the “commercial” aspect of commercial arts. Because of this, they are missing purpose. That tool is a shovel.
If the necessary research is not completed, designers are taking a shot in the dark when designing a solution. Without deep understanding, designers can end up producing a square peg their clients will forever be trying to fit into a round hole.
Sifting Through the Findings Good designers are often also exceptional editors. Collecting information comes with the responsibility of managing it properly. It must be carefully edited. Often, the range of opinions, answers, surveys, audits, interviews and other information collected can initially seem to provide anything but clarity for a project. Editing requires a designer to organize and prioritize information, manage conflicting opinions and make critical decisions. It requires a designer to be aware of potential prejudices that can turn a project into a personal art piece. Editing means designers often have to take on the skills of a debater— convincing clients that recommendations are based on sound reasoning. Editing enables a designer to clearly define a direction for their clients. This allows buyBelow the Surface Responsible graphic designers get their hands in and feedback from everyone involved in dirty. They dig for information and inspiration. the project at an early stage in the process. It strengthens accountability and focus, and They get past the thin surface crust of their assures the process is based on strategic client and reach for the authentic core. They merit and not on personal tastes. It provides search for the company’s purpose, and for a compelling reason for an audience to care that valuable context. the company exists. They collect information to communicate the client’s purpose to a Designing a Deeper Meaning select group of people and to encourage a Without taking the time to dig for meaningful connection. The information is information and successfully managing essential in understanding context, how it that knowledge, it’s difficult for a designer relates to the company, their offering, clients, to provide a client with anything more than and competition. A responsible designer a purely visual response to what should be addresses the development of a logo within defined as a far greater business problem— the context of the overall identity and brand. “Can you help us develop an identity that is When a designer chooses only to collect credible, authentic, and compelling to our information from the surface, i.e. “What’s audience?” your favorite color?” or simply manipulates The tools that make a logo or identity a graphic to represent the item or service designer a valuable asset to their clients have their client sells, they are minimizing the never been the software, or hardware they use. power that information has in transforming It hasn’t been a designer’s ability to merely a graphic into a credible brand asset. It’s craft a graphic. It is their skill in acquiring and not enough to simply design a logo to transforming information into a targeted and look different from the competition—logo cohesive communication vehicle. and identity design should also establish The thousands of new ‘designers’ and connections with customers, employees, clients engaging in logo design cattle calls and stakeholders and inspire loyalty, while with little disclosure, research, and client increasing the company’s bottom line. interaction, are involved in a shallow exercise, Designers and clients should approach logo and are missing a great business opportunity. and identity design as a business exercise, one that demands intimate knowledge.
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A letter from Michael Wolff Dear Reader, Why singular? Because, if I could, I’d enjoy a conversation with anyone interested enough to read my letters. If you’re reading this one now, it’s literally written to you. It’s a Sunday afternoon in London. One minute the sky is an astonishing blue, a vista into outer space, and the next a ceiling of clouds in a range of dark greys, with the sound and smell, and feel of heavy rain. Forget Pantone as a means of finding colours, just look at nature.Tomorrow I’m flying to Siberia.Although I’m often in Russia, this will be a new experience and I’m excited. Russian people have endured decades of propaganda, and so their reactions to the tones of voice of marketing and advertising have a healthy scepticism.That’s useful for me because I have to challenge any assumptions I make about what will work because it worked before. It probably won’t.And so my mind has to be aware about the habits of thinking and even of creating concepts that being a designer can ingrain. Sometimes my mind’s reasonable tidy and my thoughts relatively orderly. Today it’s untidy, racing and jumping from one thing to another, too fast. That’s how I am today so why pretend otherwise. It’s just jumped as I’m writing now. Thinking and speaking don’t always happen simultaneously, and writing too sometimes has to wait for a thought. Here’s one that’s just occurred to me. Many years ago Marshal McLuhan wrote “the medium is the message” I never forgot this. He sent people who enjoyed his mind the Marshal McLuhan Dew-Line newsletter. It arrived at irregular intervals and in very different forms— it was always a provocative surprise, even a shock. Sometimes a pack of cards arrived and sometimes a CD. It’s always stayed in my mind as a warning against ‘sameness’. It reminds me to notice that so much of graphic design and design in general has a ‘samey’ look—a look that can only have been created by designers. Why does music have so much more diversity than design? Unlike my last letter this one is short. I thought I’d connect you, or reconnect you, with some fragments that have made deep impressions on me. Possibly, like me, you enjoy finding things to share with new friends and especially when you find that you have that enjoyment in common. It’s part of the process of making friends, and that’s what I’m doing now. Here then, are some diverse fragments which I hope will bring some of you inspirations and others a sense of connection. The first was written many years ago. It’s called The Cluetrain Manefesto. There are 95 ‘Theses’ in it, a nod to Martin Luther who wrote his 95 Theses in 1517. I think each one of these new ones is a valuable gem. And all of them have been, and continue to be, useful to me. If you don’t know them, I hope they’ll be useful to you too. You will find them all on www.cluetrain.com. The second is a link to a site that might help you review your perspective about the world around you. It’s http://www.miniature-earth.com/ Next, three powerful quotes by EE Cummings, the American poet, writer and, in my view, typographer whose work always wakes my mind up. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. “Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.” “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” Finally two pieces of music that makes my spine tingle and inspire me to admire what human beings are capable of creating. I hope you enjoy them and that, if you do, they will live with you much longer than this letter.
Michael Wolff
Recognised as one of the world’s most experienced practitioners in establishing corporate identities, Michael’s body of work has spanned more than 30 years. He enjoys encountering situations where he doesn’t know what to do or think. That’s when he needs, and so far, can count on, his creativity. Most of all, he enjoys old friends and new ideas.
Mozart http://youtu.be/wd5nFd3utLg Miles Davis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMPHMu7LVhQ With my best wishes,
Michael Wolff
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What I love and hate about design Karthi Marshan
Karthi Marshan’s day job is peddling financial services, but he has a deep fascination in the design of everything. He will be venting regularly in these columns, so if you want to have your say as well, write him at karthi@marshan.com
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Babies’ eyes, women’s hips and the smell of roses. What is common to these three things? As I am sure you all know, babies’ eyes are designed by nature to look cute & vulnerable so that parents and other adults are compelled (read guilted) into nurturing them through childhood at least. The shape of women’s hips have been designed to convey a message about their ability to bear healthy babies, thus programming men’s brains to find a particular type of figure attractive, mate-worthy even. And elementary school biology taught us how flowers have been designed to seduce insects with their fragrance and colour, so that the insects can carry and spread the floral seed and thus perpetuate the plant species. While little of what I have reported here may be news to you, I’d like to draw your attention to the emphasis on design. Purpose oriented design. And this is at the heart of my viewpoint on design, which is not necessarily a creative person’s primary take on design, and hence hopefully is a divergent perspective that may add some value to the rich discussions on the pages of this publication. Grab bars in hotel bathrooms. Subtitling of English movies in Indian cinemas and on TV channels. Sloping airline passenger ramps. What is common to these three situations? Usable Design. That’s probably obvious. But the epiphany for me was, that all three design innovations were not originally done for regular folks, they were all created to assist the disabled or the elderly. It just so happens that they are equally useful even to folks in their prime, and in full control of their faculties. At the risk of labouring the point, allow me to elaborate briefly. While most of you who are sub-40 might not deliberately seek out and install handrails in your bathrooms, I’ll wager that you are very likely to grab one while getting in and out of the tub, if it’s already there. Have you not done this in hotel bathrooms at least? I certainly have. Closed captioning for movies (the process of describing both dialogue as well as the action) began as an aid for the hearing impaired. Then, film-makers discovered that they could access foreign markets by the simple device of sub-titling dialogue in foreign languages. Recently, a lot of the English language TV channels beaming into India began sub-titling their soaps, serials and movies. If I am not mistaken, Zee Café was the first, and the rest quickly followed suit. I am speculating here, but I think their goal was to reach a wider non-English speaking audience with the content. While that may well have happened, I certainly now find it a lot easier to follow the dialogues spoken in a wide range of American, Australian and European accents I have had no prior acquaintance with. Similarly, Indigo (the airline) probably installed their sloping ramps to aid the speedy boarding and alighting of the disabled passengers (a very welcome, and dignified
innovation, I might add—we all empathise with any disabled person who has to be carried en-wheelchair by 3– 4 airline staff up and down the stairs, praying all the time that the event is completed without incident). But we can all see the immediate corollary benefit to the airline and its abled passengers… not only can we walk faster up and down these sloping ramps than we could on the stairway ones, we are also relieved of having to exert our wasted biceps on lifting our carry-on bags… now we are wheeling them every step (pun not intended) of the way. To quote just one more example, the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (iahp.org) founded to help in rehabilitating brain-damaged children, invented the truly disruptive flashcard system of learning as one of the many tools they used to help their wards. But they soon stumbled on the insight that the same learning tools would benefit normal kids as much or more, leading to an incredible explosion in opportunities for them and the world at large. Today they have a substantial following among parents of able babies too. Quite likely if you are a parent, you have used the flashcard system to teach your children words and numbers. Now you know who to thank for it. When you work on design solutions that address special needs of a specific segment, and it turns out to be something all people want/find equally useful, don’t you feel really great? This is one of the things I truly love about the discipline of design. On the other hand… All design must create beauty. Of that I am in no doubt. However, I do take up cudgels when beauty supersedes purpose, or to put it in more clichéd terms, form smothers substance. In my opinion, beauty’s purpose, ergo design’s very purpose is informed by the purpose of the object, space or element that is being designed. At the risk of making some enemies among the readers of these pages already, let me share some minor peeves. Interior designers who design offices and homes that can only look beautiful until the day the inhabitants occupy them. (Including tucking away the switchboard console under the desk so that the desk can look uncluttered, forcing the user to crawl awkwardly under the desk every time she needs to unplug her laptop.) Advertising designers who unabashedly reverse photographs of their models on billboards to cover up for the fact that they were not meticulous enough to shoot the model from both left and right orientations in the first place. (Keep an eye out for the next billboard where someone’s button strips on shirt or T-shirt looks off, or sari pallu is on the wrong shoulder). In this column, over time, I’d like us to discuss all that is good and perhaps not so good about design. I hope we will hear the voices of designers, clients, consumers, et al here. What are your pet loves or peeves about design? Do write me at karthi@marshan.com.
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Blogger Diaries: Vineeta Nair Where it all began I will begin from the point when things began to change for me. I have always been a net junkie. The internet was a lot of things to me, it was information, it was entertainment. Above all, I was amazed by its generosity. Here was one place from which I could take and take & still there was so much left. I had just discovered the world of design and decor bloggers, and I was smitten. I read blogs, commented, got responses back… the whole interaction, being able to participate as a reader and the fact that there was someone somewhere in the world whose sensibilities matched and fed my own was extremely intriguing. After a month of reading international blogs that wrote about the art and decor scene in their part of the world, I was really thirsting for a similar design blog experience from India. And I didn’t find any. A friend who knew how taken I was by this whole concept of design blogging, told me, “If you can’t find an Indian design blog, why don’t you start one?” And that was that, once I started, there was no looking back. Blogging changed my life. From being a spectator, I became a participant, in a simple and natural way. It felt like a safe, nonjudgemental space, where I could say my bit and there were people who were listening. Suddenly there was a space to share the millions of photographs I was anyway taking. A space to share all the information I was anyway seeing. The other big thing that was changing in me without my knowing was the power of possibility. I was seeing bloggers (interior designers, home-makers, bankers) sharing things they were creating with their own two hands, DIY was big and ‘Handmade’ was the order of the day. And here I was not using anything other than the internet to create my designs. My creativity was confined in the computer after my college days. What I was seeing internationally got me thinking & itching to create in real life, 3D & something that I could touch and feel and create with my own hands. Before I knew it, I had hand-painted a tray that was lying at home. And a friend who was holding an exhibition asked me if I wanted to have a stall, I said yes before thinking & if I had to fill a stall full of products in the span of a month, there was no way I could sit and hand-paint each product. That’s how I knew it had to be decoupage.
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Vineeta Nair
Vineeta Nair is a former advertising art director who quit the world of advertising to explore the world of design blogging and today has her own accessories business under the label Artnlight. You can shop for her products at www.shopo.in
The Process
If I were to sit down and consciously break down my creative process—its always easiest for me to start with what I love. In this case, it is a photograph, or typography. If it is something that I love in the 1st place, then I’m willing to go the distance with it. For instance in the Bombay series, I knew I wanted to create a series around Bombay. Bombay is the city I grew up in, it is where I learnt all that I know, it is constant inspiration and it is home. Its people, its commitment to work, its enterprise, its opportunity and its idiosyncrasies is what makes this series. This was the beginning of my ongoing tribute to the city that fuels a million dreams and is the pride of this country. My tribute to a city that respects its women & gave them a huge
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canvas and more importantly the freedom to play in it. It’s funny how charged I can become when I think of something that’s really close to my heart. My years as an art director in advertising definitely informs my methods. The practice, the process, is the same as what I have always used. A blank screen or canvas is no different than a blank product. Working in advertising is actually great training for the creative mind. You are required to have a detached objective view of your subject & yet to create you must love. It’s a great practice for your mind to shift between these two polarities to come up with something that works. The other important influence advertising still has on my work is the need to reflect with as much authenticity as possible the inherent character of the subject at hand & not to impose my personal aesthetic on it. So the Rajasthan series will look like where it comes from & the Bombay series will definitely look like another animal & stylistically there will be no overlaps. I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad, it just is the way I work now, it may not be the case in the future. In that sense, right now as an artist, I’m more of a reflector than a creator.
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The Bombay series
I have been photographing this city every now and then, at the Kala Ghoda, generally when I travel the city, so dipping into those archives was natural. So while one design was about Kalaghoda, another is about the buses, the travel. It is a city that had one of the most effective public transport facilities in this country. When one thinks of Bombay, one doesn’t think of monuments or architecture, one thinks of the crowd, of the trains, of the buses. The aesthetic of this city is very functional & yet the point of this city is its spirit. Which is why the colours I used in this series are saturated, bright, bold. Adding a few lines of songs that I was invariably humming when thinking of this city was natural. Making a piece of art about Bombay without its idiosyncratic language and typical words was not an option. So words like ‘Pandu — the omnipresent policeman on the streets’ ‘Cutting — the elixir which this city runs on’ just had to be a part of the design. The “I am Mumbai” series is eventually the celebration of a city high on spirit, high on design and high on eccentricities.
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