ISSUE 29 NOvember 2012
Rajesh Dahiya Photographed by Abhijith KR
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UNITED ART FAIR 06 / Aksharit 12 / Dina 18 / Prabha 24 / Geetika 50 / Nuru 58 / Narendra 68 / Padmaja 74 / CAGRI 79
Editor in Chief | sudhir@indidesign.in
November 2012 | # 29
Sudhir at Frankfurt Book fair 2012. POOL had its own stand at hall 4.1
Look Back It is normal to plan ahead...think of the future and do things. But, we know that dots don’t always join going forward. Things may not happen as we plan. Many people mistakenly believe that Design is about thinking ahead and planning for the future. They think it is about imagining steps to reach a better future. That’s wrong. Here is the trick to be a good designer: you think of a better scenario, product, place, environment, picture, visual...like a snapshot. And then imagine yourself in that scenario. Now plan your way back from there to where you are now. Which is easy. The past is so easy to look at for us as normal human beings.
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Designindia was founded in 2002. It was started as a platform for interaction for the design community in India and abroad. Over the years it has grown into a forum spread over many social and professional networking domains, linking design professionals into an active, interactive and thought leading community.
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/designindia International Design Media Network Participant
So, the trick is to figure out that scenario, that picture. Finding the way back to today is easy. Now, turn it around and you have a way of going forward! Most of us get too caught up in today and the past while imagining that scenario. You have to leave the past behind. Be fearless and take a leap. A good designer will then document the way to reach that scenario, and it will look so easy. In most cases the normal reaction to such a path is ‘Oh, I could have done it too!’ I believe that a very good designer is one with the ability to make things look simple and easy in hindsight. This is a simple principle of ‘backcasting’, which is used by the car industry to create futuristic cars. It can also be used to create businesses, services, and environments. It is not yet a part of design education but expect it soon!
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art fair
UNITED ART FAIR www.unitedartfair.com
New Delhi recently played host to the United Art Fair (UAF), India’s premier art fair showcasing modern and contemporary art forms by a large number of artists. Held at the Pragati Maidan from September 27-30, the four-day exhibition featured paintings, photography, interactive installations, seminars, video programs, book launches, artists’ studio visits, curated walks, and art workshops. More than 2,000 Indian and international artists participated in the first edition of this mega event. For many emerging artists, the UAF offered a great platform for wider exposure. Among the participating artists were Vincent Pallissery, Neeraj Rawal, Suresh Buddha, Devyani Jain, Ashish Verma, Nikhil Patel, Deepak John Mathew, Vikas Khatri, Durga Kainthola and Pallavi Barooah. Photo and text credit : Sneha Trivedi 6 POOL #29
art fair
United Art Fair (UAF) at the Pragati Maidan, New Delhi
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art fair
‘Bronze’ by Durga Kainthola
‘Joy riders’ by Neeraj Rawal
Installation
Photography Exhibition by Deepak John Mathew
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art fair
Painting and concave cylinders on it by Vincent Pallissery
Photography - ‘Cyanotype’ by Nikhil Patel
‘Earth Songs’ by Suresh Buddha www.poolmagazine.in 9
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game design
CONNECTING GENERATIONS Aksharit, the world’s first ever Hindi word game, was developed by Manuj Dhariwal, Rajat Dhariwal and Madhumita Halder of Bangalore-based MadRat Games Pvt. Ltd. and even they are amazed at the response to it! www.madratgames.com
How did Aksharit come into being? MRM: Aksharit started as a college project by Manuj while he was doing his under graduation in Design at IIT-Guwahati. We had all spent a significant chunk of our childhood playing games, especially with our grandparents. As grown-ups in college we wanted to create a game which could connect the first and third generations and thus create more opportunities for experiences like we all cherished in our childhood for this generation of kids. Making a Hindi language word game seemed like the obvious choice as the elders are very comfortable with Hindi and are always on the lookout for more and more opportunities to interact with kids, who being in a language learning stage, have to master both their mother tongue and the English language. 12 POOL #29
game design Having seen the tremendous popularity of English word games and surprised by the almost nil existence of the word game genre for any of the Indian languages, we got serious about this idea. One of the main issues in creating a Hindi crossword game was that unlike the 26-letter set of English, Hindi has more than 40 aksharas and 15 matras, thus having more than 600 unique combinations of possible characters. Thus, if a Scrabble-like game is made as it is in Hindi there would be more than 4,000 tiles and the game board would be bigger than the size of a double bed! Aksharit overcame these and other peculiarities of the Hindi language, and after more than 1,200 play
testing sessions and refinements that followed after each, we had a fun Indian game in our hands! How did the team come together? MRM: Right after college in 2009, Manuj entered Aksharit into IIM-Calcutta’s annual Business Plan Competition i2I. And to our surprise a board game idea went ahead to win the competition amongst 400 other teams. The jury quoted Aksharit as having the potential to become the game of the masses in India. This instilled a lot of confidence in us. Soon Rajat and Madhumita joined in and we formally started the company. After completing their Bachelor’s in Computer Science from IIT-Bombay, Rajat and Madhumita were not very satisfied with the software world as it only put into use their analytical sides. Having a deep interest in education and working with kids, they took up teaching middle school children at Rishi Valley School for four years. To take their alternate ideas of teaching and learning (focusing on the importance of play) to a larger number of kids, they left Rishi Valley and together the trio started MadRat Games.
‘Aksharit’, the world’s first Hindi board game www.poolmagazine.in 13
game design How has the journey been so far? MRM: Aksharit has been adopted by more than 3,000 schools till date. The first pilot was done with the help of UNICEF in 1,000 schools of Chattisgarh; thereafter it was adopted by other states like Rajasthan, Bengal, MP, UP, etc. with a very positive response from the teachers. All the teachers reported an increase in interest in learning the language amongst students using Aksharit. The game has also been adopted by a number of leading educational organizations like Eklavya, Digantar, Vidya Bhawan Society, and Azim Premji Foundation; in addition to schools in Dubai and Singapore; and institutes like American Institute of Indian Studies. Aksharit’s mobile version was launched in collaboration with Nokia on 5 lakh touch phones and its desktop version is being launched with Intel on their Appup Store. Aksharit has received wide coverage in publications like The Week, Education World, Entrepreneur, DARE, Inc India magazines and dailies like Mint, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Economic Times, etc. It has won several awards such as National Entrepreneurship Challenge 2009, and the Southeast Asian Manthan Digital Award 2011. Tell us more about Aksharit. MRM: Aksharit has two levels - one for language beginners and one for those who have a vocabulary. Chotu Aksharit requires 2-8 players, and is intended for language beginners over the age of four years. There are two games with colorful picture crosswords on them on which the letters have to be placed. One game has words without matras (vowels) and the other game has words with matras 14 POOL #29
and between them the entire Hindi alphabet is covered. Each word has a corresponding picture to help children remember the word meaning. Aksharit is a word building game for adults and children above 10 years. Players can form words from seven letter tiles and matra (vowel) tiles. It’s the ideal family game for a lazy Sunday afternoon! Aksharit is a fine example of the application of Design Thinking. In your opinion, how can Design Thinking be used to overcome problems in India’s education system? MRM: Design based problem solving is a subject much studied and applied in the West. For instance, design has been used to change behavior such as the famous experiment of children consuming healthier food by merely rearranging the order in which dishes are laid out. In education it can be applied at several levels. To a large extent the design of the whole grading system determines what schools and parents focus on. The design of the reward system in terms of what teachers / schools or even peers acknowledge and reward as desirable behavior, shapes students’ responses and inclinations. Hence, in a school like Rishi Valley, where you don’t have any tests or marks, suddenly there is no incentive for rote learning merely to score well. The emphasis is on insights, own explorations, presentations and hence children soon get incentivized towards actual understanding of the subject matter and discovering something special. Our own work has centered on Game Based Learning. It is a completely design oriented solution where you
game design ‘My Toy Factory’, an eco-friendly concept where children make their own play area and play environment using everyday material
apply the principles of Game Mechanics to structure the rewards in line with the conceptual difficulty. It’s inherently fun and can achieve a perfect balance with learning if designed well – an example is a unit on Nutrition for Class 7 where the entire classroom is organized as a marketplace where the commodity to exchange is information and students form groups doing self-learning and peer-learning.
What challenges did you come up against? MRM: Initially we were focused on designing games, but soon realized that running a business is a totally different ball-game, and had to switch roles from creating games to creating a market for our games. Investors were not very fond of our business strategy initially. They had difficulty placing us in their existing molds. It was not easy for them to understand how we were running a business based on orders from the government, how we were surviving on a product like Aksharit - a Hindi game, when everyone is going after English. Then we were handling multiple channels at the same time – the government, private schools, digital and retail - but we did find some people who were in line with our vision and talks are on with them. In retail, with few products to start with, not many channel partners were on board. Even before the customer decided, whether they wanted to buy the product, we had to convince the www.poolmagazine.in 15
game design retailers to stock our products. Once placed the response was good, but initially it took a lot of convincing. We have now partnered with online retail partners like flipkart and are getting an excellent response from them. The first stock they picked up from us got sold in the first month itself. We are present on other e-commerce portals like infibeam, indiaplaza, and skoolshop for Indian customers, and Amazon for US customers. Tell us something about your ‘Science Based Toy Making Kit’. MRM: My Toy Factory Worker Kit is an entertaining and eco-friendly concept where children make their own play area and play environment using everyday material like straws, ice-cream sticks, newspapers, etc. and then break these toys to understand how they work! Children open the kit and get an appointment letter to become workers in their own Toy Factory. They make tickly whistles out of ice cream sticks, swooshing jet cars from bottles and balloons along with ten more exciting toys using their toy kit. We are soon launching the Trainee version of My Toy Factory for younger kids over the age of four. What’s in the future for MadRat Games? MRM: We want to add one hour of laughter and joy in every Indian’s life through our games! Currently, we are focusing on expanding in the retail market and would be in more than 300 stores by end of 2012. Apart from Aksharit and My Toy Factory, we will be launching 15 other games in different segments for the age group 4 to 14, and a few family games as well. We believe in making games that have some value (educational value, bonding
‘Gatory’, story games to help children learn the English language
time with the family, health awareness, etc.) and are not just like fillers. This December we are also launching a few interesting games based on some very popular licensed characters. We are also developing a few Facebook and iPad Apps that will be launched by March. What is your advice for those who want to initiate something similar? MRM: ‘Games in Learning’ is a difficult field, especially in India. It’s largely perceived as a nice-to-have rather than must-have, and the learning quality of the available ‘educational games’ hasn’t helped that image either. We decided to explore this path right after college and rather than opening a company, we joined a school as teachers to understand the problem first hand. Those four years of teaching have become the very foundation of our work and we would recommend anyone wanting to seriously foray into the education field to go through a rigorous teaching experience firsthand. www.poolmagazine.in 17
ethnography
THE FUTURE OF {INSIGHTS} Excerpts from a talk made by Dina Mehta at the India Social Summit 2012
One of my early assignments as a researcher was going off into the interiors of Uttar Pradesh to get insights that would make villagers use soap to have a bath. In those days, we went to different zones; we selected villages, we studied users vs. non-users, we ensured we covered caste groups to avoid bias and met with aanganwadi workers and teachers, recruited as influencers. On the field, we did a few interviews with a few focus groups, looked around the village for 20 or 30 minutes, and left feeling we had many new insights. We got back to the office and did content analysis and fed some of the data into a larger quantitative study for measuring our insights. Although our training was to look for inconsistencies, our innate desire to find patterns in the data made us ignore them. I now realize our process then almost forced us to flow away from the person – it was more about extrapolation from linearity and measurement – no marketing decisions were made without these. I remember ‘insight’ for us in those days was more like an interpretation, a ‘reading’ of a given belief, situation or behavior. The attempt was to explain the situation in a new or different way.
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Today, the internet, mobile and social computing and media are reframing what ‘insights’ mean. Particularly when you focus on insights that help us understand our customers and their preferences, on insights that help us ‘market’ better and solve problems. In this article, I present some of my observations. Hopefully they’ll provide a different lens through which you glimpse insight!
ethnography
Research carried out in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh to get an insight that would make villagers use soap for bathing
1. Data is everywhere. The traditional business of data collection as the starting point for insights is changing. It’s everywhere. It’s cheap. Everyone has it. Look at Census data for example - it’s an awesome body of work that the government has collected, and could be in direct competition with data gathered by market research agencies. Governments can link all this data to every individual (and not a demographic or psychographic like research companies do). So can Google, or Facebook or telcos or Apps providers. No one’s ever had a bigger, wider, deeper, playground of data to play in, as insight has today!! And this data isn’t static – it has flow. The issue today is not so much about capturing, processing, and sharing data but about managing, analyzing and extracting value from the data.
2. Social media allows people to negotiate culture and context differently. Increasingly, people live in a networked world where they communicate with other people through social media. Contextualizing our lives happens not only by geography or ethnicity or linguistically - but also through the culture embedded in our social networks. Insight is embedded in people and cultures and social media is increasingly becoming a platform where it’s expressed. And it’s not just about being quick and accessible – our networks actually bring meaning to our lives and decisions in new ways. They also fill the time in-between which can bring forth new ideas! 3. The third thought is around negotiation and purchase. We’ve never been afraid to wheel and deal and constantly ask - is this the best price you can give me? Today, however we can check, we have all of this at our fingertips. We make our phones earn their keep. We look www.poolmagazine.in www.poolmagazine.in 19 19
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ethnography for coupons and offers online - often they are pushed to us even as an SMS. We seduce our social networks into working for us. But when we go to buy a microwave at a retail store, we negotiate in a whole different way. And yet, the data and analytics industry runs offline purchase panels without integrating purchase habits online into them! We will miss insight, if we aren’t careful! 4. Insight will reveal itself when we think convergence in the context of media consumption. Currently, for print there’s IRS; for TV, there is TAM. Radio has its own RAM and WAM for Web Audience Measurement. For each medium, you work out reach – return, etc. The reality however is that the same person is actually ‘consuming’ all this media and in different and unique ways. As an insights industry, we’re not factoring this into our audience measurement systems. 5. For insight to be relevant it must belong somewhere. Earlier we had very clear demarcations and definitions of our Target Group, Expert, Influencer, etc. and how to contextualize them. Today it is all blurring and new power equations are forging new definitions of TG. Who do you interview or study when you want to develop a campaign for prescription drugs? Traditionally, we went to doctors. Is that enough today, when the patient increasingly becomes the doctor? 6. Communities are at your fingertips. There is a shift from an intrusive, interrogatory research framework to more listening-based
and interactive research. The key is listening and learning to listen with all your senses tuned in. For that you need to be a part of the community - as a designer or manager how wonderful it would be to get 250 people at your fingertips all helping you uncover insight! Building and having an ongoing relationship with the community often help insights bubble up organically and from within. 7. Over the last 10 years, there have been key shifts in approaches to marketing. From one-to-many, and now, what seems to be the future, is designing and marketing manyto-one. Data is being collected on you every second. When you can target every single person in the population, insight takes on new forms and can come from any one in that population, with a virtual blueprint of their whole lives. There are dangers with regards to privacy and coercion and censorship and ethics but it is happening. Where once, research agencies and market researchers were places people sought to uncover insights, today we question whether a traditional market research agency is the future at all. Research is morphing, and along with it, so does our practice. We will benefit by putting the byte into the offline and the human back into the online! (Dina Mehta is Co-Founder of Convo, and Managing Director of Mosoci, where she leads the qualitative research and ethnography team and practice. She has a Master’s Degree in Sociology and a background in anthropology and psychology.) www.poolmagazine.in www.poolmagazine.in 21 21
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illustrator
PERPETUAL MOTION
Illustrator Prabha Mallya’s advice to budding artists is to draw and draw and draw! She proves how it can only get better, in all possible ways!
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What led you to doing illustrations? PM: In a word - books! Growing up, I was always surrounded by books of all kinds children’s books, atlases, old encyclopedias, history books, and so much more. I read and re-read lots of stuff; and drawings inspired by what I was reading soon followed. I began to make up my own stories and poetry and illustrate and design characters for them. When I found myself drawing all over my mechanical engineering notebooks, I decided illustration was the thing I’d rather be doing! I went on to study design and illustration, and to do what I do today. A little background… PM: I’m a freelance illustrator, writer, and comic-strip maker based in Stanford, California. Currently I am engaged in illustrating for print media: book covers, story illustrations, graphic novels, posters; writing for Brainwave magazine and The Small Picture (Mint/Manta Ray); and art directing for Manta Ray Comics. I studied 24 POOL #29
illustrator
Summer of the Crows (from The Wildings) www.poolmagazine.in  25
Pencil Sauce in Bangalore. They’re smart and fast and curious and get into all sorts of adventures. They can also be supremely indifferent to very important goings-on in the human world. What mediums do you work with? PM: I work with a chaotic mix of pencils, cut paper, found objects, pen-and-ink, water colors, acrylic paints, and Photoshop. I have a special leaning for anything that makes a good line. I am now revisiting the mechanical pencil with an enthusiasm that closely resembles my love for it back in the Std XII biology diagramdrawing days!
‘The F-Word’ - (Cover design & interior illustrations | Publisher: HarperCollins | Author: Mita Kapur)
engineering at BITS Pilani and went on to do M Des (Visual Communication) from IIT Kanpur, followed by MA (Illustration) from Savannah College of Art and Design. What inspires you? PM: Books and words. Everything to do with classic rock. Interesting posters and other printed ephemera grabbed from unexpected places. Crowded streets. Wild nature. Cats, dogs, people and the peculiar things they do. Your work features a lot of cats! PM: Cats have managed to walk into and purr all over my work, thanks to watching a feisty orange kitten grow and play and sleep peacefully on laps, computers and shelves at my workplace, 26 POOL #29
How would you describe your illustration style? PM: It’s hard to really name it! I would describe it as what an old children’s book might look like if it was swapped at birth, dropped on its head soon after, drank tea for most of its life and if read backwards, could sound like Led Zeppelin! Do you follow a specific process? PM: There really isn’t one, but familiar patterns include (and aren’t limited to) numerous cups of tea, analyzing the project to find the best way to visually solve the problem it poses, and making very rough drawings of my ideas. The choice of what particular mixed media to use depends on the look I need the finished piece to have - which is determined by the project specifics. Most of the time, I script out stories in paneled form, with guides to the pictures needed for each panel. But there have also been very interesting cases where really strong visual ideas simply took the words by the scruff of the neck and led them around.
‘The Wildings’ - (Cover design & interior illustrations | Publisher: Aleph Book Company | Author: Nilanjana Roy)
Do you have a favorite project? PM: Illustrating for The Wildings (written by Nilanjana Roy and published by the Aleph Book Company) has been really rewarding, right from process to endproduct. The book is most simply described as a ‘book about cats’, though it also oozes winding streets, tangled undergrowth, birds, mongooses and all the related goodness of the urban wild that I had absolutely been waiting to draw. The story demanded that the illustrations break free of the standard ‘cute-fuzzy’ convention of kids’ books - it is dark, dangerous and drawn very vividly from reality. I also had an inspiring writer and an exciting, experimental design and editorial team to work with. What do you love most about your work? PM: It’s the part where I read up tons of bizarre information in the process of project or problem research, and put it all together in a brainbox lab to make unexpected connections to power an illustration or a story. www.poolmagazine.in 27
illustrator Illustrators you admire... There are so many to love in the graphic novels community - the Dave McKean-Neil Gaiman team, Marjane Satrapi, Gipi, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, Amruta Patil, and Rafael Grampa. There are those beautifully illustrated children’s books by Roald Dahl, Ernest Shepard and Arthur Rackham. And the number of talented illustrators that I’ve found through their blogs and as real-life friends is growing and growing!
Purrpetual Motion (Personal work)
What does the future hold? I’ll soon be starting work writing and illustrating my very first children’s book, as well as illustrating the first book of Manta Ray Comics’ upcoming series ‘Twelve’.
Last Day Here (from The Wildings) www.poolmagazine.in 29
cover story
BRAND NEW! Rajesh Dahiya is a hands-on designer and creative director as much as a dog walker and in-house technician for Apple products for his New Delhi-based design firm, Codesign Brand Consultants Pvt. Ltd. He talks to POOL about the lure of interaction design... www.codesign.in | www.unboxfestival.com
What fascinates you about interaction design? RD: I like the new possibilities that interaction design opens up in product design, service design and information design. Interaction design explores the new ways we will interact with each other and our environment using communications, networks and information technology. It is a new discipline: a fusion of esthetics and culture, technology and the human sciences. It concerns the design both of the services these technologies might offer, and the quality of our experience of interacting with them. Our lives are increasingly connected through telecommunications networks and filled with intangible things: music, films, TV and other information sources. These services are as important as the hardware through which we access 34  POOL #29
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‘Dekho’ - Documentation of inspirational communication design in India www.poolmagazine.in 35
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them: the phone, pads or TV set-top box. Our experience of them depends on both the architecture of the service itself and how we interact with the device. So interaction design involves the design of intangible as well as tangible things.
GERMAN YEAR IN INDIA Client: Goethe Institut Title: Identity for German Year in India 2011-12 Year: 2010 Codesign was commissioned to create the visual identity and tagline for the upcoming German Year in India, from a nation-wide pitch involving 21 design studios from India. I wanted to create an iconic visual that would convey the spirit of this partnership in an easy to understand symbol. The designed visual identity for the German Year in India symbolizes the seamless, sustainable and endless partnership between the two countries, resulting in infinite opportunities for both nations. 36  POOL #29
Interactive technologies need a new kind of design, a fusion of rich media, graphic and product design, and time-based narrative. Developing this new kind of design requires a new esthetic: one of use and experience as well as of form. How did you get into design? RD: There was no dramatic turn in my life to make me realize I needed to be a designer. It was also not accidental. In 1992 I joined National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad to study Communication Design. One of my seniors from school had told me about NID while I was aspiring to join a professional course in Architecture.
cover story I missed one year as NID’s entrance examination was already over when I applied for admissions. During that year I attended Delhi University’s BA course and within two weeks, realized I was not cut out for ‘chilling out’ and opted out to stay at home and prepare for NID. How did Codesign happen? RD: Codesign was formed because I got a project query that required a small team of designers. I asked a few friends from NID if they wanted to work on this project, and they agreed - but we did not have any computers or even studio space. In 2003, I had returned from Italy after finishing my Master’s in Interaction Design at IDI Ivrea. I worked on developing a brochure for NID and refreshing its undergrad graphic design curriculum. Once these assignments were over, I returned to Delhi. I was not sure what I wanted to do and did not have the money to think about starting on my own. When this project query came, I was supported by a NID senior, Amardeep Behl, who generously lent us a furnished office set up with computers and the internet. We added some nice curtains and plants and made it our studio for the next three years. Apart from me, the team comprised Mohor, Dev, Bikram, Mayank and Pallab. We worked together for a few projects and then everyone moved on during the next two years. Mohor stayed back and is now my partner at Codesign. She has played an important part in shaping the studio to its present form. What has been your favorite project till date? RD: There are many but I will pick the latest one. After almost three years of work, beginning in 2007, and including three design revisions and multiple
NYOLI Client: CHIRAG (Central Himalayan Rural Action Group) Title: Identity & Packaging Design Year: 2011 The Nyoli Women’s Farmers Company is a notfor-profit cooperative for the management and organized sale of agricultural produce and products from the villages of Kumaun, Uttarakhand, India. Led and managed by local women farmers, it aims to empower the largely women driven small-scale agriculture sector in the region, and enable them to enhance livelihoods for their community and families. Over years of interaction with CHIRAG (parent organization launching Nyoli), we have had a chance to understand the dynamics of livelihood generation and community development, and the role of design in sustaining efforts for both. www.poolmagazine.in 37
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conversations across the country, Codesign is ready with its first book, Dekho (which means ‘to see’ in Hindi). With a total of 272 pages, Dekho is an anthology of inspirational conversations with designers in India, probing their stories for cues to the development of design in India, and highlighting approaches that are unique to designing for India. The conversational format of Dekho stems from the latent richness that is at the core of conversations, as opposed to a commentary or report. Conversations have the innate quality to break boundaries, meander through seemingly unrelated territories and 38 POOL #29
converge at astonishing points of relevance, and most importantly, open up ideas for interpretation. Dekho has a rich visual narrative that creates an experience of the unique context of each person, their work and their ideology. The book is designed to not just be read from start-to-finish, but with multiple layers of image + text, it is meant to be experienced anew, with each new story and each new page. At the outset, Dekho is a simple word, as is the intention behind the project - to build context for design in India not by imposing a set of characteristics or rules,
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Title: Dekho (Means: To See) Client: Self Description: Documentation of inspirational communication design in India Year: 2011–12 Dekho is an attempt to document inspirational examples of visual communication with roots in the Indian context. The need for this project stemmed from the lack of awareness pertaining to visual communication design in India, by Indians. The knowledge of meaningful design in India can help young designers understand the fine connections between tradition, culture, modernization and design, and in the long run inspire an ‘Indian’ way of design. The title ‘Dekho’ in Hindi means— To see with an observant eye. www.poolmagazine.in 39
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Aaj Tak Font Design Client: TV Today Group Title: Devnagari Typeface Design for Hindi News Channel—Aaj Tak Year: 2009-10 A devanagari font design for TV channels faces a difficult challenge... while the medium demands a lineale stroke for better readability in small sizes, the emotional attachment of Indians to the traditional broad nib based thick and thin letterforms is very strong. The other functional challenge was to make the font readable on small CRT based TV sets as majority of my client’s viewers are in small towns and rural India. This project was done in collaboration with Indian Type Foundry. 40 POOL #29
cover story but simply by sharing real, personal experiences of designing for/in India. The book will be available at the Codesign website and selected outlets during the first week of November. Who has been your major inspiration/influence? RD: All dogs and very few humans have influenced me! There are three people who come to my mind: Itu Chaudhuri, Casey Reas, and Wolfgang Weingart. More than their work, their way of thinking continues to inspire and influence me as a person, and hence my work. Itu Chaudhuri’s systems thinking and attention to details; Casey’s new media work by embracing technology; and Weingart’s quest to create powerful visual language have helped shape my thinking. What kind of graphics appeal to you? RD: Meaningful, new and experimental work that adds value to communicate an idea! Like any other profession, a designer’s role is to design for today while keeping the future in mind. We don’t design for the past and therefore I hate ‘retro design’. I came across this new term last week – Skeuomorphism. It’s the idea that new designs retain ornamental elements of past iterations no longer necessary to the current objects’ functions. What direction is graphic design in India taking today? RD: I am never sure about answering such macro-level questions. India is too diverse and large to have a simple answer for this and someone like me who spends most of the day staring at his computer may not be competent enough to gauge a design direction. Here are a few broad observations, however: Most designers are trying to ape the latest international visual style/trends. They can make a cheap Bollywood thriller poster look like a bad James Bond movie poster. There are designers who stopped designing long back but they seem to know exactly how and when design is going to save the world. There are also a handful of designers who delve deep into the content, have empathy for their audience and in the process of all this do not forget to deploy the finest craftsmanship in their output. What is the role of ‘design thinking’ in an organization based in India? Design thinking can only be practiced by designers who think. There is a clear need for this process in Indian organizations that offer their services or manufacture products suitable for the Indian context. Let’s take an example of kitchen appliances. Unless a thorough probe is carried out to understand the specific needs of an Indian kitchen, companies will continue to offer products that are suitable for a Western kitchen. In communication design, we still see European signage systems at Indian www.poolmagazine.in 41
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Client: Zorba Description: Identity Design for a fine dining experience, with live music performances Year: 2011 Zorba brings back the romance of performance and consumption, through a curated experience of music, food and wine in New Delhi, India. Programming directions at Zorba strive to bring exceptional Indian and international artistes for live performances, and showcase the finest of multiple musical genres—from Jazz and Electronica to Sufi and World Music. Music, like food, is a sensorial symphony of harmony, contrast, balance and textures. Designing for Zorba, we wanted to celebrate the raw spirit and the complex symphony of elements in live musical performances.
railway stations. A fork and knife cannot represent Masala Dosa and Chole Puri! It is simple to apply design thinking in any organization. You cannot innovate sitting in your office/studio. Everyone should be encouraged to get out and investigate a problem/opportunity in the field. We are currently working with Quicksand Design Studio on a field 42 POOL #29
workbook on design research/thinking. It is specifically being designed for design students interested in research and design thinking. How do you think international designers react to Indian designs? RD: I think Indian graphic designers are still expected to match their visual language to cliché - auto rickshaw art,
WASH YATRA (Nirmal Bharat Yatra) Client: Wash United, Germany Title: Nirmal Bharat Wash Yatra Description: Identity and Communication Design Year: 2012 Nearly 500,000 Indians die every year because of preventable diarrhoea. There is an urgent need to address basic sanitation and hygiene needs to prevent these deaths. This project is planned as a traveling carnival across 5 states in India to educate people on hand washing with soap and discourage open defecation. The messaging on hygiene is communicated through games, films and interactive shows. Communication strategy takes inspiration from cultural paradigms, and symbols that have proven extremely effective in creating excitement among Indian people. Example: Bollywood, Music and Cricket.
truck graphics, Bollywood kitsch. In fact, it was this perception that convinced me to investigate what comprises ‘Indian Design’. Dekho is an outcome of that investigation. I have learnt an important thing from the current international design scenario. Everyone is trying to achieve a bold, unique visual style. I would prefer to take on bolder and more unique design problems. What’s in the pipeline for Codesign? RD: The Dekho Launch. Preparing for UnBox 2013. Designing vernacular identity, signage, and communication material for community toilets. Preparing vernacular design solutions to communicate the use of soap for hygiene and sanitation. www.poolmagazine.in 43
cover story
Title: The UnBox Festival Client: Self
Description: India’s first festival on design-thinking & inter-disciplinary collaboration Year: 2011 onwards
Tell us more about the UnBox Festival. RD: In 2009, Codesign co-located with Quicksand Design Studio to a new office in Gurgaon. Interesting outcomes are bound to happen when two creative groups come together - UnBox is just one of them. Avinash, one of Quicksand’s founders, is known to implant mad ideas in everyone’s head, and he did just that! It started with ‘let’s do something’ and ended with the UnBox Festival. We wanted to create this platform for ourselves…to do things that we love to do but are unable to find time and opportunity to do in a typical professional practice. At UnBox we do not focus specifically on design. It’s a place where people from various disciplines can come together, share their ideas and build things together. UnBox manifests itself as a blend of different events including fellowships, conference, workshops, exhibitions and performances designed in sync with one another, to stimulate thought, debate and action.
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cover story The idea for the UnBox Festival emerged as a reaction to the common perception of design in India as an isolated, cosmetic level of intervention. Part of the misconception is due to the lack of interaction between design and other disciplines, to understand the true power of design thinking and its ability to be applied in multiple contexts. As a step forward, UnBox celebrates action at the intersections of multiple disciplines. The festival brings together people from the worlds of design, governance, activism, entrepreneurship & the arts for a festival of ideas, exchange and inspiration. The first UnBox Festival was hosted in New Delhi in February 2011, and witnessed active participation from many notable leaders of innovation from India and the world through a curated mix of lectures, panel discussions, hands-on workshops, cultural events and performances. Codesign is one of the cofounders of UnBox festival along with Quicksand Design Studio and BLOT.
We anticipated the usual challenges such as financial support, manpower bandwidth and finishing everything on time. The real challenges were to learn how to work in larger teams and respect everyone’s contribution. Proof of a good idea lies in its outcome…we are aiming to produce tangible examples of multi-disciplinary thoughts and actions. What would be your advice to future designers? RD: Think hard. Work hard. Work hard. Work hard. If you had a wish list, what would feature on it? RD: To fly a fighter jet. My Amazon wish list. To have a dozen dogs. To win an Olympic gold in javelin throw, tennis, long jump and boxing (my lucky number is 4). To have 70 crore rupees in my bank account (my other lucky number is 7). To go to Italy every month and enjoy Torta900 cake in Ivrea. To star in a James Bond movie as James Bond. To hug Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. To own iPhone7 (it’s my lucky number). I really, really want to own a gun. www.poolmagazine.in 45
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR THE ANNUAL I DESIGN AWARDS FOR PRODUCT DESIGN 2012
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graphic design
A LADY OF LETTERS
London-based Geetika Alok, an independent graphic designer and typographer, is intrigued by the abstract identity of the alphabet and its ability to embrace culture through type design
How did you get interested in design? GA: My father was an artist and a big influence in my life. As a kid in Rourkela (Orissa), I’d draw and paint a lot sitting next to my father. I used to be involved in his art school’s activities. It was very exciting for me to be part of groups preparing for street exhibitions and annual art exhibitions. Due to small budgets, we would hand-paint each poster and large-sized banners and put them up all over town. I was always encouraged to move into arts. A few of my father’s students went to National Institute of Design and inspired me to pursue studies in design. I joined the design school and really liked graphic design and its purpose to communicate while being creative. What kind of graphics appeal to you? GA: Design that comes from the heart…it is honest and clear in its intentions.
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How does technology intersect with your work and how does it open up new and intelligent expressions? GA: At present, technology is a tool for me to use when my ideas need it. It has the ability to open up new possibilities of
graphic design
Reborn in India, Wallpaper* magazine, Issue June 2011. In collaboration with Henrik Kubel, A2/SW/HK
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graphic design
interaction and let the work itself become a part of people, rather than limiting itself as an ‘object to be viewed’. Hence, it helps design to be camouflaged in people’s lives with its purpose to serve. What has been your major influence? GA: The work of my friends, tutors and my father has always been very inspiring. I love books on vintage typography, arts, culture, nature and anything that passes my eye. I am not sure how it appears in my work but it helps in the process of my work. Which projects are you really proud of? GA: ‘Englishes’, my final project at London’s Royal College of Art (where I did a MA in Communication, Art & Design) is the most satisfying project till date. It is about English as a language in the present context of India. I had the opportunity to design, experiment, play, research, reflect, travel, interact and work with local people, which was very fulfilling for me. The India typeface for Wallpaper* magazine is another fulfilling project. 52 POOL #29
graphic design
How was the time you spent working with international brand consultants Wolff Olins? GA: It was a great experience working at Wolff Olins in London! It was good learning – they were brilliant people passionate about creating responsible design. ‘People’ are at the heart of design there. Among many other projects, I thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative effort for the ‘Happy’ project. That truly brings up the spirit of design – it’s not a client’s job but design for the sheer love of it.
(L-R) 1. Happy An installation & video. Wolff Olins, 2011 2. U Ok No, 2010 A collaborative project with Indian women writing with rice powder on mud ground. Inspired by ‘Kolam’, an art of making patterns outside Indian houses to ward off evil and welcome guests.
What excites you about the future of design in India? GA: It’s all very exciting! Designers and illustrators are actively involved in new, collaborative works and typography is gradually being acknowledged. Clients, art directors, filmmakers and others are slowly understanding the value of good typography but it’s just the beginning. We’ll surely be able to see good typography on our streets one day! What do you find fascinating about Indian typography and design? GA: The relationship between Indian culture and typography is very fascinating. Typography has a very strong social grounding. For instance, in North India, Shri Guru Granth Sahib is the sacred book for every Sikh and literally means ‘The Revered Book that is my Master’. In Eastern India, the festival of Saraswati Puja is celebrated every year when Saraswati, Goddess of all Learning and the Arts, is worshipped. Books, musical instruments, inkpots, and pens are placed before the goddess in expectation of her blessings. Not every manuscript or book is subject to worship in India, nor incense sticks www.poolmagazine.in 53
graphic design Geetika’s workspace
offered to each book, but somehow the written word still demands some amount of reverence. Even today, rarely does one see anyone touch a book with his or her feet in India. The cultural aspect of writing and books explains that neither typography nor people ever existed in isolation within Indian culture, and such is the relationship between culture and history and typography and graphic design. I cannot 54 POOL #29
Peter & Pamy, 2010
graphic design
Lolita Book cover, 2012
imagine how one can design without understanding the culture and history of a place. To make design relevant to people, one has to understand people, which comes through understanding their culture and context. How do international designers view Indian design? GA: Designers are aware about India’s booming designscape; they are watching Indian design gradually forming its own identity. They are intrigued by how Indian designers use the opportunity of being Indian and work in the local context with local problems. It’s been a great learning curve working in London. The design industry is very diverse and energetic and one can learn to be faster and professional. Good work and the highest quality are highly crucial and I put the best into each job. Compromise hardly exists, whether it’s in ideas or the finish of a product. What can we now look forward to from you? GA: Self-initiated typeface, identity design for Farida’s Kitchen (well known Asian wedding caterers), and event graphics for Insights, an event at Crompton Greaves. www.poolmagazine.in 55
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architecture
CONTEMPORARY & CONTEXTUAL Nuru Karim, Principal Architect and Founder of NU.DE, creates striking experiential spaces that help to connect people and places
What is it about architecture that fascinates you? NK: The decision was primarily a subconscious cerebral act. I was drawn to architecture almost hypnotically, intoxicated by the drama and play of space, both physical and psychological. The decision was taken fairly early on during high school years and although there were no instances of architects within the family, the hypnotic drag of the discipline was too strong to resist. I went on to receive a Master’s in Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association, London, United Kingdom in 2006. I worked with Zaha Hadid Architects in London for a while and have also taught architecture. Tell us more about NU.DE. NK: NU.DE is a Mumbai-based international collaborative design practice comprising architects, designers, artists, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. We have been doing work ranging from urban design, and architecture, to interior, product design, and public art. It was initiated to explore and ‘build’ Design Research
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architecture
Award-winning futuristic version of Mahatma’s ‘Charkha’ (Spinning Wheel) at the Cross Maidan, South Mumbai courtesy the OVAL Trust Foundation. Standing 36 feet tall, the Charkha weighs 22 tonnes and is made out of Galvanised PU coated Steel.
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architecture
‘BMB GALLERY’ The Project houses Gallery Spaces for Art, Installations, Video Installations, Sculpture, etc. and also includes a book store, cafe and ancillary facilities. A crucial design construct was “painting layers of opacity” into the project and the control of visibility across the porous material threshold of the system.
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methodologies, raising several questions as to the methodology by which design projects are conceptualized, processed and documented. In most contemporary practices these have largely been modeled with various kinds of artificial languages, software tools, code based and scripted digital routines. Architecture is being profoundly transformed by these digitally driven technological changes, compared to the initial methods based on traditional mechanical ruled drafting tools guiding the delineation of graphic space. These changes are proving to be a means to re-conceptualize space and technology and our understanding of details with respect to fabrication, assembly and production. How does a collaborative design practice work? NK: It looks at a multi disciplinary approach. I would love to collaborate with a philosopher at some point for a project or even perhaps a poet, rather than just structural engineers, and MEP consultants.
architecture What artistic, visual and practical aspects do you take into consideration when you begin a new project? NK: Nature is a huge source of inspiration. Jane Benyus, in her book Biomimicry (1997) argues for using nature as mentor, model, and measure, “because animals, plants and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found out what works, what fits in and what lasts here on Earth. After 3.8 billion years of R&D, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.” Which project are you proudest of? NK: That would be ‘Charkha: Monument for Contemporary India’. Winning the competition for an ‘Architectural, Engineering Monument for Contemporary India’ was an important milestone. The competition was a three-stage competition (travelled to four major cities) and has been implemented recently. The clients TATA Steel envisioned an
architectural, engineering monument for contemporary India. The Master Jury had commented, “As Indians sitting in the midst of an emerging India, for us the story of this spinning wheel holds immense significance - from a form that transpires from the Ashok Chakra to the Charkha and that, which had imploded earlier, has now exploded with vigor and vivacity to capture the dynamism of the momentum of India with the material of the future.” Mahatma Gandhi promoted khadi, hand spun cloth, for self-sustainability. His vision was that everyone, rich or poor, should have access to food, shelter and clothing in a self reliant way. That was the Mahatma’s ideology - decentralized units of self-sustaining ecologies; simple, long-lasting and corruption free. Conceptually the spiral trajectory of the proposed ‘monument’ is analogous of the spirit and philosophical intent of the ‘Spinning Wheel’ and is in alignment
‘Charkha’
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architecture
Kochi-Muziris Biennale Foundation Office, Mumbai, India Kerala, is famous for its “backwaters”, hence the office design explores “water droplet” skin/ screen formations. These screens articulate the larger “quad clusterwork space” organization.
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with the nation’s incredible spectrum of social and cultural dimensions, echoing ideologies such as ‘unity in diversity’ (no two frames are identical and share the same co-ordinates), and a self-confident resurgent nation - balancing high end cuttingtechnology with a rich art-cultural heritage. How has architecture evolved or changed over the past few decades? NK: Each age was marked with the evolution of technology and materials; Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc. Centuries of experimentation were necessary and the progress in the use
architecture
of technology was slow. Never before the 20th century has the evolution of technological usage been so accelerated. While the Industrial Revolution produced tools to augment the body (steam engine, automobile), the Information Revolution is producing tools to extend the ‘intellect’. It is in this space that we define the growth of international culture devoid of geographical boundaries. Architecture shall need to address and adapt to new challenges driven by innovation. What will influence the design of architecture in India in the future? NK: The United Nations estimates that about 180,000 people are being added
to the urban population every day. Developing nations are shouldering the vast majority of this burden, leaving them struggling to cope with the huge influx of people into urban areas. The populations of some cities are 40 times larger than they were in 1950. Millions of people migrated from rural to urban areas to fill the jobs generated by the economic explosion. UN-Habitat says the ‘urbanization of poverty’ has been overlooked. India faces similar issues - lack of housing, lack of infrastructural services, lack of property rights, air pollution, traffic and a serious lack of urban governance. There is a need to strengthen urban governance, and the promotion of equity amongst the poor. www.poolmagazine.in 63
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architecture
Residence of singer, Shaan and wife, Radhika in Mumbai It explores the relationship between Music and Architecture. A lyrical dynamic striated skin envelopes the staircase anchored within the 20 feet high internal atrium. Soft bodied forms are sited throughout the duplex penthouse.
What is your understanding of the term ‘innovation’ with respect to architecture? NK: Innovation needs to be viewed as an iterative design process driven by ideological, philosophical positions. Darwin’s theories on natural selection, ‘survival of the fittest’, shall be driven by innovation in the years to come. What would you tell a budding architect? NK: Reading, writing and researching about architectural design, theory and philosophy are as critical as designing and production of architectural spaces. www.poolmagazine.in 65
STONE CRAFT
THE UNDYING LANGUAGE OF STONE Young artisan Narendra Kumar Verma keeps the ancient art of stone craft alive
“I like the language of stone - every rock has something inside but somebody needs to find it,” says Narendra Kumar Verma, an Agra-based artisan who creates wonders out of stone. He comes from a traditional family of craftsmen, and is in fact the fifth generation to be engaged in intricate craft. Narendra’s great grandfather and his father before that were both metal craftsmen; it was Narendra’s grandfather who switched to working with silver, while his sons opted for stone craft. “Eventually my father L.C. Verma moved to glass craft, because he couldn’t find a market to sell his products,” says Narendra. As a child Narendra was surrounded by family engaged in some sort of craft. He learnt glass craft when he was in standard ten but it was stone craft that really captivated him, and he opted to learn jali work from Pandit Narpat Lal. “Stone craft is very old; in Agra it dates back to before the Mughal period. I think it is perhaps the oldest craft in the world, from the stone era (pashan kaal), when people used stone pots, stone weapons and stone for everything!”
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In time, stone began to be used for different purposes. “In the Aryan era they used stone to make palaces and forts. Now, stone carving is used to make home decor items and gifts. While there is work for the stone carver, not much has changed – the artisan was poor then and continues to stay poor now,” says Narendra, whose own family has always had a modest income.
STOne craft
(Clockwise) Using ‘jali’ technique Aroma Lamps, Coasters and Tall Lamps
Lack of funds did not stop this young man from pursuing his passion however. He discontinued formal education after standard ten but found other avenues to learn. In 2003-4, Craft Council of India (CCI) organized a design workshop, where Narendra was one of 35 artisans from all over the country. “The CCI invited a Mr. Hamish, an artisan, designer and tutor from London, to attend the workshop,” recalls Narendra. “He invited two artisans to London for a 45-day diploma course in Advance Power Tools Technology, and I was one of them!” Thanks to the Craft Council of India, DC Handicraft and the British Council, Narendra was able to hone his talents abroad. When he returned home, he participated in workshops organized by the CCI and taught the new technique he had learnt to more than 100 artisans from across the country. Narendra, who won the UNESCO Seal of Excellence in Handicraft in the years 2006, 2008 and 2012, today runs his own company called Verma Overseas. He is the secretary of a small self help group called Shree Bala ji Self Help Group, and works as an artisan with many NGOs. He delights in his work, creating masterpieces in stone in an age where such traditional crafts are in danger of dying out. www.poolmagazine.in 69
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STOne craft
“Do your best, the customer will decide whether it is good or bad!” “I like doing jali work in stone,” he admits. “We are doing unique work of high quality. In India you can see jali work on ancient monuments like the Taj Mahal and those at Fatehpur Sikri, and old ornaments. We use an ancient craft to make modern products such as tea light holders and aroma lamps but marketing is a big challenge for us. We sell the products through some designers, craft shops, showrooms and exporters.”
(Top to bottom) 1. Narendra at work 2. Aroma Lamp
His inspiration has always been his grandfather who said, “Do your best, the customer will decide whether it is good or bad!” Narendra is a patient man and that is a quality he urges other artisans to develop. “There may not be money in this field but you can get plenty of self satisfaction!” Meanwhile, he hopes to one day reveal the truth about this ancient Indian craft to the international market. The stone age never really ended for him and his artisan brothers! www.poolmagazine.in 71
textile
NOT JUST IN PASSING Padmaja Krishnan of Mumbai-based Transit Design has a dream - to continue creating cutting edge clothing through ecological processes that her great granddaughter will be proud of!
Why do you prefer to call yourself a ‘fashion and textile artist’? PK: The term ‘designer’ is a little overused and I do not really understand how a designer is different from an artist or a craftsman; and what distinguishes each of them. I draft my patterns, draw my khakas, compose my textures, dye my cloth and sometimes even sew my garment. It’s a matter of how one perceives her work and herself. A person who sings may call herself a singer, a vocalist, a musician, an artist or anything else...what really matters is the music she creates. What interests you about textiles? PK: Everything about textiles excites me – its tactile nature, its texture, its stretch, its form, its color, and its function. The fact that a piece of textile is always with us, at birth, at death, and at almost all times in between establishes the fascinating connect it has with human life. I find the anthropological aspect of textiles, the way it reflects, enriches and sometimes even robs a society, culture, politics and the economy, an amazing study.
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When did you start your own label? PK: I did a Diploma in Fashion at National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in New Delhi. After three years at NIFT, I worked as a design consultant in Delhi for three more years and at the end of 2005, packed my bags and returned to
textile Near zero waste skirt made by joining bias strips of cotton and silk leftovers from cutting churidars
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textile Kolkata (where I was born and brought up). I had no concrete plans other than to reconnect with my roots. A few months passed by and I realized the city did not have an exciting job for me and back then I never believed I was the kind to start my own label. I always loved ‘making clothes’ and couldn’t spend too long not doing that. So one day I took out my mother’s old sewing machine, bought some paper, tools and some fabric and started making clothes. ‘That’ was my big leap into starting my own label. A few months later I won a grant for fashion entrepreneurship that was sufficient motivation for me to hire a studio and tailors, buy machines and set the ball rolling. What inspires your creations? PK: The unexpected inspires me and so does the ordinary, everyday and inconspicuous. What attitude does your collection convey? PK: Eclectic, understated, elegant, mischievous, sometimes even foolish…but then again, it’s never the same. Who identifies with your collection? PK: Nina, Carolina, Maya, Meeta, Misti, Naomi, Jayashree, Aparna, Roopa, Sonali, Eleanor, Garima, Yoshiko…eccentric, creative, constructive, progressive people from anywhere in the world! What kind of fabrics do you work with? PK: I work with natural fabrics only as they are pleasing to the eye and feel great to touch. And when they are hand spunhand woven (what in India is referred to as khadi) they have a beautiful, natural human touch to them. I never have a scheme. My choices in color, form or texture are random, intuitive and impulsive, though our intuitions and impulses can often be attributed to things we have been exposed to as a child. I was brought up in Kolkata of the 1980s and back then I remember there was a great influence of khadi and natural colors in what people wore; the city had a remarkable sense of simplicity and quiet artistic elegance in its sense of clothing and living, which has left an undeniable impression on me. I still source fabrics for my collection from the little khadi shops in Kolkata which I used to visit with my mother even as an eight-year-old. Are you trying to revive Indian textiles through your collection? PK: I am a student of Indian handicrafts and textiles. The textile tradition of India is timeless, fascinating, inspiring, soulful and most importantly, sustainable. The craft communities are 76 POOL #29
Near zero waste bolero khadi silk jacket created out of bias strips
actually the backbone and life support of the Indian fashion/textile industry, and yet, a profit driven economy like ours has little respect for the communities that kept these traditions alive. I wish to have a mutually enriching long term relationship with the craft communities I work with so that there can be true development of the craft and the community at an economic as well as socio-cultural level. How are buyers responding to your collection? PK: I haven’t sold through buyers so far. I sell through trunk shows and personal exhibitions. Currently I retail only through Grasshopper in Bangalore.
I enjoy connecting with my end customers directly. I make clothes that are stylish, elegant and contemporary, but they also have an unpretentious simplicity about them. Hence, there are many who immediately connect with them and there are also others who just cannot understand why I make them! What is the reaction to your collection internationally? PK: Internationally, people see my look as an alternative and contemporary interpretation of Indian fashion. They find it quirky, clever and artistic. I do not design differently for the international market, but have had exhibitions in www.poolmagazine.in  77
textile
Hundreds of little scraps of silk were patched and sewn together to create this textured jacket
London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and America. It delights me that the pieces I create for my local customers in Mumbai and Kolkata are the same ones I send to Tokyo or London and interestingly, the people there connect with the same silhouettes. Even someone with an eclectic taste such as Eleanor Coppola chose to customize a classic Indian khadi kurta with a grunge twist from my studio in Kolkata for her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s birthday. Presently, there is an ‘India’ buzz in all fields, internationally. The fashion industry in India has been growing rapidly the last decade. India has a fantastic textile heritage and has a huge population of very skilled craftsmen. India also has a versatile population that wears the most diverse and wide range of colors, textures, forms and silhouettes in fashion – from sarees to denims, churidars, short skirts, khadi, micro fabrics, leather, knits, and lehengas. From ochres, reds and purples to mints and peaches; and pastels to black and white monochromes, you have it all. 78 POOL #29
The irony is that while the West seems to be looking at us for inspiration, we want to continue to ape the West and distil our cultural wealth. What is your understanding of the term ‘innovation’ in relation to fashion? PK: True innovation is precious and timeless and hence not easy to achieve. There is more innovation in relation to fashion than is needed. Some introspection could precede innovation. Fashion that changes too fast only fosters greed, consumption and exploitation. Innovation is desirable but there is also something calming, attractive and sustainable about ‘continuity’. Is functionality in fashion as important as style and substance? PK: There is no one way to look at anything. Fashion, like everything else, is an interpretation. There can be fashion for style, for substance, for suspense, for sensation, for gimmick, for horror, for decadence, for anything. It takes all kinds to make this world interesting.
designer on the road Hello from Colombo, Sri Lanka! I’m doing great here among some lovely people, and working as an art director with McCann Erickson, one of the most well known advertising agencies in the world. The 55-yearold Colombo branch is probably one of the oldest agencies here. I work for a client called Etisalat, a gsm company. I am also helping other teams with ideas and concepts for various projects, such as a non profit project for disabled people.
colombo, sri lanka Designer on the Road, Cagri Cankaya does work in Sri Lanka that touches his heart! www.designerontheroad.com
Sri Lanka has a law for disabled people - if you have a company, you have to hire one disabled person for every 24 employees on the staff. While this is a good thing, nobody is actually doing this! We wanted to work on a campaign - my creative director Alyna told me that we could do anything and use any media. So, instead of making one of those usual print ads for disabled people that say ‘They are no different’, I wanted to say the opposite. I said ‘They are different’ and this is what makes them so special and worth employing. I recommended creating a human recources application for disabled people, where they can upload their information, and resume and employers can search for the right disabled people to hire. There will be catagories for different kinds of disabled people and we will use well known disabled people, such as Ray Charles or Beethoven, as icons for each catagory. I also worked on packaging for tea and two different calendar projects for Etisalat. They asked us for a simple desk calendar but they wanted to change their communication, which was serious and maybe a little bit boring so far, in a creative and smart way. I didn’t want to create just another desk calendar, so I came up with a time box idea. The idea is simple - it’s a cube box with a roller. Inside the box we have 10 calendar years printed on rolled up paper. There are also two small pens at the back of the box, one green and one red. At the end of every day you fill in the days with these colors - red means you have had a bad day and green means you have had a nice day! Sri Lanka has lots of important days and festivals. For the second calendar, I planned special images for specific days for each month. On every card, there are around 30 numbers and every day you connect one dot to another; at the end of the month you draw a picture about that month’s special day! The box can turn into a stand for the cards when folded, and can be used as a desk calendar too. An important thing about Sri Lanka is that they use three languages for everything - Singhalese, Tamil and English. It’s a tough situation – even advertising is done in different languages and every revision from the client has to be made thrice! If you can work in advertising in Sri Lanka I think you can survive anywhere! For more about Colombo take a look at my blog and watch my videos about the city. Cheers! www.poolmagazine.in 79
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