POOL October

October 2010 | # 04 Indian edition

Supported by

IMARK, recognizing good design practices in the country India

Dalton Maag lives with one single design ethic, Quality

Behind the scenes of Peepli live, Snigdha Karmahe

To them, having fun in every project that they do is important

Japan Delegation 03

Bruno Maag 10

Peepli Live 17

Remedios 22

India’s First International Design Magazine D E S I G N • I N N OVAT I O N • C R E AT I V I T Y

Service Design Priti Rao 09

Raring to go Kangan Arora 14

Rising Star Kriti Monga 24

Bimal Patel photographed for POOL by Niki Shah

Umbrella Design Bhupal Ramnathkar 30 Blogger designisin.com 09

Virtual family @limeice 06

Maestros

Craft | Fashion | Textiles

Sachin Sebastian 26

Amit Aggarwal 28

Advisors Some of the planet’s foremost thinkers and influencers act as a sounding board and conscience for the Pool magazine

Abhijit Bansod Studio ABD, India

Adil Darukhanawala Editor, Economic Times, Zigwheels, India

Dr. Inyoung Albert Choi Professor, Hanyang University, Korea

Anaezi Modu Rebrand, USA

Prof. Anil Sinha Head, Visual Communications, NID, India

Anna Muoio Principal, Social Innovation, Continuum, US

Anuj Sharma Designer, India

Aradhana Goel Designer / Strategist, Ideo, USA

Craig Branigan Chairperson, Landor, CEO, B to D Group, USA

Christopher Charles Benninger Architect, Studio CCBA, India

David Berman David Berman Communications, Canada

Deepika Jindal Managing Director, Artdinox, India

Essam Abu Awad MIDAS, Jordan

Hrridaysh Deshpande Innoastra, India

Jos Oberdof NPK Design, Netherlands

Julia Chiu Executive Director, JIDPO, Japan

Kieu Pham Haki Brand, Vietnam

Kigge Hevid CEO, Index Awards, Denmark

Kishor Singh Business Editor, India

Kohei Nishiyama Founder, Elephant Design, Japan

Madhukar Kamath Managing Director and CEO, Mudra Group, India

M P Ranjan Professor, NID, India

Prasoon Pandey Corcoise Films, India

Rajesh Kejriwal Kyoorius Exchange, India

Rodney Fitch CEO, Fitch, UK

Shilpa Das Head, Publications, NID, India

Dr Soumitra R Pathare Psychiatrist, India

Shrikant Nivasarkar Founder, Nivasarkar Consultants, India

Subrata Bhowmik Subrata Bhowmik Design, India

Sudhir Sharma Designindia, India

Suresh Venkat CNBC, India

Uday Dandawate Sonicrim, USA

Umesh Shukla Auryn, LA, USA

William Drentell Winterhouse, USA

William Herald Wong WHW Design, Malaysia

October 2010 | # 04 Indian Edition

CONGRATULATIONS Sudhir Sharma, editor in chief of Pool magazine, is the first Indian to be invited to be a member on the Icograda board.

(International Council Of Graphic Design Associations) www.icograda.org, sudhir@indidesign.in

Editor in Chief Sudhir Sharma sudhir@indidesign.in Executive Editor Gina Krishnan

October will start on a mixed note for us. After reading ad nauseum about the Commonwealth Games debacle, I think most of us will secretly breathe a sigh of relief if they pass off incident free. Hopefully though, the agenda for us as citizens and designers should be to remember the lessons. And not to forget them in the excitement driven by the ideal of mediocrity “that the Games passed off well, there was no major catastrophe”.

Copy Editor Ashvina Vakil Editorial Coordinator Sonalee Tomar sonalee@poolmagazine.in Research & Design Coordinator Preethi Bayya Layout & Production Pradeep Arora Subscription & Logistics Seema Sharma subscribe@poolmagazine.in Finance Kuldeep Harit Art & Design Pradeep Goswami, Prashant Agashe, Shraddha Trivedi Illustrator Santosh Waragade Assistants Anil Burte, Yamanappa Dodamani Publisher INDI Design Pvt Ltd www.indidesign.in Address India C/o India House, 53, Sopan Baug, Balewadi, Pune - 411045, India Phone: +91 20 6510 6407 www.poolmagazine.in Vietnam C/o Haki Advertising Ltd, 142 Le Duan Street, Hanoi, Vietnam www.haki.vn Icograda International Design Media Network Participant http://www.icograda.org/media/IDMN.htm

We however celebrate excellence and that should be our ideal. To me the coming out party is when Indians, as individuals continue to excel on the world stage. Be it Abhijit Bansod or Sandip Paul who make us proud winning internationally respected awards, or when ‘Peepli Live’ enters the Oscars or even while Amit Aggarwal is making his presence felt in the world of haute couture internationally.

This issue is a mixed bag, as we continue to chronicle the work of designers, photographers and architects who are driven by the fire to excel. Another interesting feature is an interview with Bruno Maag of Dalton & Maag, an international type design agency which works in creating typefaces. They are interested in setting up office in India, the opportunity for type design being huge in Devanagari and vernacular scripts. With the Indian government commissioning the Rupee symbol, maybe typography will gain significance in brand building in India.

Read also about Satya, who has set up the Indian Type Foundry.

In the meantime enjoy Navratri, Garba and the beginning of the festive season.

We have much to celebrate.

Gina Krishnan Editor gina@poolmagazine.in

Oops We would like to clarify that professional photographers Shraddha Borawake and Anjali Bhargava, both based in NY are responsible for the beautiful pictures on the donotshoeme.blogspot.com (3rd Issue - Blogger - Prutha Raithatha - Page 16 - 17)

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 almost 6,000 professionals into an active, interactive and thought leading community. http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/designindia

Be a part of pool We believe creative people have a huge potential to inspire one another. You too can contribute to POOL

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JAPAN DELEGATION - IMARK

As a part of a delegation of sixteen people, I visited Japan in August to interact with the team of specialists from various agencies who were involved in processing the G-Mark in Japan. G-Mark stands for ‘Good Design’ Mark, which certifies the high design standards and quality of products in Japan.

This orientation program was held to sensitize us, and aid the Indian team in setting out on a path to establishing a symbol for the system of good design selection in India.

Going back to history, after the crushing defeat of Japan in World War II. Japan’s revival and subsequent position as a global economic power was supported by the Design movement. It is laudable that it was made possible by the combined efforts of enlightened policy makers at the highest level in Government and Business leaders with a global vision.

Design Community rallied to the cause under such patronage and devoted their passions, combined with finely honed skill sets and addressed many challenges successfully. This tripartite partnership walked the talk of the Design vision. It is indeed inspirational!

The intensive exposure to Japan’s G-Mark process, its history, and its impact were exhaustive. Delegates also visited the site of Good Design Expo and saw the judging

process live Via interactions JIDPO and METI organizations we met several Japanese officials as well as Past Winners and industry, we were introduced and exposed to the entire process of Good Design selection system in Japan through G-Mark, which has existed for over fifty years. The confluence of Industry, Public Policy and of course Design, are at the root of the success of the G-Mark.

The aim of the India Design Council is to foster a culture of responsible and value-centric design in India. The belief that there should be a focus on improving the quality of life of society through thoughtful design interventions is the main objective behind setting up this council. In this regard, one of the major agendas we have taken is to recognize good design practices in the country through launching the IMARK (India Mark) in the coming year. Now a team is busy preparing a plan of action to be presented to the India Design Council in October.

Hopefully we would have our own design Mark soon.

IMARK is a proposed marking (symbol) that the India Design Council plans to confer on certain products, services, objects and works that conform to the processes and standards that are set by it, to help define good in the concept of good design.

Objectives: To raise the profile of Indian design: Increasing general awareness of design will increase interest of students to study new design programmes. This award will also make entrepreneurs aware of ways in which design is integral to business planning. Publicity campaigns related to IMARK will also create substantially high levels of general awareness.

To encourage and demonstrate the use of design: IMARK will bring to fore projects of social and economic value that have benefited from good design processes, thereby encouraging other stakeholders to emulate their success.

To give broader recognition to the value of design: As of now the value of design is understood only in academic circles. Value of design needs to be recognized in wider circles for design to become useful to society, industry and government.

To document case studies of successful design: IMARK is a good method for the India Design Council to recognize and document case studies.

—Sudhir Sharma Chief Executive Editor, Pool Magazine sudhir@indidesign.in

@AngryPaulRand Some of you kids are excited about being a designer, instead of excited about

making great design. Big difference.

www.poolmagazine.in 3

Reviewed Just 140 Characters and that’s amazing! Twitter’s UI design is minimalist and extremely simple.

Everything works around the concept of ‘Tweet – updates from your account’, ‘Followers – people who are following you’ and ‘Following – people whom you follow’. Twitter has changed the face of micro-blogging and social networking by introducing a very unique, powerful and intelligent way for the users to communicate with their audience (followers).

All of a sudden you start realizing that the whole world is so much closer to you and everything you need is just a ‘search away’ and anything you consume is considered Real Time.

If you rewind to 2006-2007 you will find yourself in the sphere of ‘Social Sharing’ as the buzzword.

With the amount of information shared online it was just impossible to access everything available. Thousands of blog posts every day and millions of readers accessing it via different mediums.

It was then that micro-blogging was the need and Twitter came into the light. It is today the most successful and proven platform to share and receive content by millions of micro-bloggers. With its 140-character limit and with the intelligence of URL shortening, the meaning of information sharing has tremendously changed.

followers intact else they will stop following you. Keep updating tweets which are relevant and take part in the conversations.

Twitter helps to connect and network with creative professionals across the globe. One can find and follow interesting people from different creative backgrounds. One can even start following lists dedicated to creative updates. Some of these lists are started by famous design blogs and others by individuals.

The most important aspect of Twitter is that it works as a great Personal Branding tool for an individual or even for a organization or group. Not only does it give you the freedom to share your thoughts by tweeting your ideas but it also provides a nice way to portray yourself by customizing the background image and tweak the theme according to your requirements. Many do not use this feature but I would suggest people do so. It adds that extra mileage to your Twitter profile which leads to new people following and interacting with you.

• It may become an addictive platform but remember this is not a chat platform • When you start following thousands of people it becomes difficult to keep track of hundreds of tweets–it bounces back on your timeline

She’s frivolous, light, cheap and absolutely unpredictable.

You can flirt with her, fall in love or just borrow for a day, no issues! She’s all about not following rules. Born in Hong Kong, this toy camera has come a long way since 1982, still holding a niche among the digital goons.

She transforms ordinary clicks into extraordinary low-tech works of art. A classic!

For any creative professional Twitter is ‘the hottest place’ to be in. It gives a complete new dimension to the social network phenomenon with round the clock information, be it about advertising, photography, web and graphic design, marketing and branding, fine arts or beyond. Be here for inspiration to yourself and to others. Twitter surely opens up doors to your creative freedom, so just tweet it.

The Holga 120CFN comes with a modest f/8 aperture behind a 60mm plastic lens mounted on a plastic body with endless possibilities of modification.

Has a fancy inbuilt flash with four color options, lets you paint moods to the moment. She’s humble and open to ideas, you can let your creativity loose, try several tricks and experiment lots! A wide range of accessories are available for her, like lenses [macro, fisheye, tele, etc] instant photo back, filters, cable trigger, etc. She’s meant for the professional 120mm film but with a little effort creates magic with the regular 35mm.

Known for its light leaks, vignettes, soft focus and the Holga effect.

Twitter opens up room for design business, ideas-exchange, freelance contacts, portfolio showcase, events and meet-ups and also creates a job marketplace which in fact caters to the whole community. The possibilities are just endless here.

If you are new on Twitter then you may not like the way it works; you will not find yourself engaged enough with the system.

You joined Twitter because your friends are on Twitter. You got the inspiration from a few followers you came across. In the first few days or maybe weeks you might not find it very useful because you may not have enough followers with whom you can interact and exchange your ideas. If you are serious about micro-blogging then stick to this tool. Start consuming tweets which are relevant to you, retweet them if you like.

On a scale of 5 Aesthetics & Design Features - 5 Compatibility Usability - 4 Value for time invested - 4 User / Handling experience - 4 Comparisons with peer group - 5

It takes a little time to get hooked on Twitter, one needs to be regular on twitter to keep your

Weaknesses • It may be a distraction during work

Strengths • Short messaging is the biggest strength • Great tool for Personal Branding • Quickest way to search for relevant information which is real time • Flexibility to use via different applications and on the move • Helps build new contacts

Hitesh Mehta is a User Experience Design and Usability specialist from Mumbai. Currently heads design team of a leading internet portal from India. Hitesh’s work has won notable national and international design awards, including the Webby Awards. He specializes in User Interface Design and has keen interest in logo and branding design. His diversified portfolio of portals includes Matrimony, Real Estate, Jobs/Career, Automobile, Finance, Healthcare, Social Networking, Business Classifieds, Blog Engine and more. www.twitter.com/HiteshMehta http://www.linkedin.com/in/hiteshmehta

@meetdharam Kareena is the modern day Draupadi. In the Sony Vaio advertisement

she keeps peeling off her clothes endlessly

4 POOL | 10.10 | #4

Holga

With the bulb mode you can try multiple exposures, overlapped exposures, long exposures, masked exposures, panoramic exposures and you are the limit.

You can even operate on the cheap plastic body with your craft knife to customize to your fancies.

Not very expensive to own but pretty pricey to use. None of it is

Headlines Apple website and you become aware of how it can alter the experience in retail spaces.

easily available in India, you’ll have to go online and swipe your card, or ask a friend to bring it back from a foreign land. The Holga Starter Kit is all you need for a successful start in the world of plastic lens.

–Abhinav Shaw abhinavshaw@gmail.com

iphone did a million things, I have seen people using apps to play and make their work more efficient. It has altered the mobile phone landscape, it has given a real true alternative to navigation on screen. Facetime should soon be a mobile video talk activity...

Beach Bellow It’s never a great idea to carry those heavy chairs to the beach, so the Beach Bellow by Chetan Sorab looks to be a smart alternative. This brightly coloured, collapsible beach chair, lets you lounge in style and comfort. Made of silicon rubber and supported by

iwatch Just when I was wondering what next for Apple, here comes ipod Nano in a new avatar.

And it gets me very excited. Not because there is a new music device but something else that Apple seems to have mastered now.

Every launch of Apple has been a focussed product with specific utility and the product excels in that, for me as a designer Apple products are about possibilities.

Years back when Apple launched ipod with picture capability, I started using it to carry pictures and use it as a presentation device on the go. In flights and meeting just take it out and show something quickly.

The video capability made that even better. The iPad though a internet tablet will is quickly gaining ground as interface for menus at restaurants and banks and airports. ipad in my view should revolutionise the devices are used in group situation. Of course it is marketed as a personal equipment, but have a look at the

in a wifi environment..it has taken you out of your chair and make you see and converse for business and pleasure.

I saw the new iPod nano at Bangkok airport within days of its release and just couldn’t resist picking up a piece. I picked up a graphite colour 16 GB option, and transferred all my music on it at the lounge. It was ready to go within minutes. First thing it is smaller and lighter than the watch I wear. It carries all my music, a few select pictures and has option of downloading apps. The front face is a square touch screen, and just like ipod touch you can roll your fingers and play with it.

Sound is as good as other ipods.

What excited me was that is perhaps the smallest touch screen device that you can clip to your shirt or your belt (I am sure wrist belts are coming soon)... it has a watch... it replaces your watch..

Has a radio built in... what you can do with it is limited to your imagination. I am excited with the business applications that such a micro device may have. Best it hangs from my Bose headphones, weightless. Right now I am using it to listen to “Dabang” in Istanbul Design Week –Sudhir Sharma sudhir@indidesign.in content@poolmagazine.in

spring steel members, its design is inspired by a regular bellow and is easy to carry, store and use. The Bellow can be used for either lying down or sitting by using its two sides.

will provide Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. with global brand power, technology, and an expanded product line-up, aiming to become a full-line auto maker. Launching the new sedan “SUNNY” (Chinese name :Yang Guang) in China.

Peter Alwin, wins of the Electrolux Design Lab Contest 2010 Peter says, “In 2050, the world would have majority of its population in urban cities…

Living area becomes lesser… technology and lifestyle would be at its peak! The consumer would look for simplicity, compactness, portability and functionality in a fast moving life… power from variable natural sources would be common… hence my concept of the snail fits in perfectly! Now do you really need a kitchen in your home?”

Elkay launches userfriendly products

The Unbreakable Promo Tables

by Elkay Corporation have been designed for indoors as well as all kinds of outdoor needs keeping in mind the end user, flexibility and the constraint of space.

Peter’s Snail is a portable heating and cooking device based on magnetic induction processes.

The snail is stuck directly onto a pot or pan, which reduces the amount of space required for conventional cooking.

Suhasini Paul’s Pink Elefant

Nissan in China New design company, Pink Elephant, is all about challenging the obvious and bringing originality alongside creativity with “never seen before” kinda work!

Nissan Motor and Dongfeng Motor Company have established a new company “Dongfeng Motor Co. Ltd.” each having a 50% equity stake in the joint venture. Nissan

The founder Suhasini Paul also teaches design at NIFT, Delhi as a visiting faculty and is a guest speaker on the NDTV chat show, “Bringing up Baby”. content@poolmagazine.in

@abhishekghate Paint all escalators blue. They can make good urban waterfalls. www.poolmagazine.in 5

Virtual Family

While movies like ‘Nine Months’ show a mother screaming and abusing her partner and the clumsy doctor, Jalandhar based Gursimran may have been the first tweeter in the world to tweet while she was delivering her second daughter, Inayat. Her tweets from the labour room were the most followed in India that day.

You may well be mystified by why

she did that but to her it was natural.

Gursimran in her own words says that, she considers Twitter her virtual family that she can customize anytime. Her love for Twitter is not only because she meets people who interest her but also because she can interact with those who provoke her. She loves it for the constant human interaction it gives her. She feels

connected to varied people regardless of their locations, backgrounds, profiles or fields. The beep buzzes her day and gives her a continuous stream of interesting and interactive discussions.

She is a self taught web and graphic designer. www.gursimran.com http://twitter.com/LimeIce

Inayat, photograph by Gursimran Kaur http://www.flickr.com/photos/limeonrocks/

@Chakraviyuh The VW talking press ad is proof of India’s advertising woes - A decent idea ruined by

half assed execution.

6 POOL | 10.10 | #4

Service Design

A new territory What drives 60 million people each day from Paris to Panvel to say ‘I’m lovin’ it’? The burger. Of course. But there is something more. It is called Service Design. And the folks at McDonald’s have figured that out amply, considering they pay as much attention to how their customers are able to order their burger or entertain their child as they do to getting the right variety of potato.

So what is Service Design? As one designer said it is ‘designing the whole ride and not just the train’. In other words it is thinking about design in a systemic way - from getting information, to reserving the ticket, to arriving at the platform and way finding, to traveling in the train compartment and getting down at the final station. Service Design involves thinking about all the people, products and processes involved in a situation along with their dynamic interactions. The concept was used to design ‘Keep the Change’ for Bank of America, a service that rounded up your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transferred the difference into your savings account, resulting in a million savings accounts for the bank in less than one year.

activating their newly acquired broadband connection – these are services that frustrate other than delight.

Yet, this need not be so. Services can and should be designed to match customer needs to organization capacities, and Design has a role to play. This is Design in its more fundamental sense - as problem solving and not just styling, as a creative force synthesizing opposing needs to come up with radically new solutions. But designers in India even today are grossly under utilized when it comes to conscious design of largescale services. Most play only a peripheral role whereas the actual Service Design is done by people who are largely trained to think from a supplier other than an end user perspective. It is time that designers claim this territory so that the ordinary Indian gets the service he truly deserves.

Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju, graphic designers and ardent bloggers consider the blog their personal journal.

Graphic designers Sanjay Basavaraju and Armeen Kapadia run Avalokana, their design studio and are ardent bloggers. The designer duo conceived the blog while working on their diploma project with the objective of getting into the habit of writing a blog about design, trolling the web and interpreting what design means to them.

The idea behind this blog was to document issues related to design across the world.

Through writing the blog, they realized that they were also building their own philosophy of what they thought was good design. It was their journal. Basically through this blog they consider and evaluate what appeals to them, edit it, interpret it and put it in. If they find something is not effective, original, or appropriate, they don’t post it. They also don’t cover popular and mainstream cases. Social networking sites Twitter and Facebook helped them spread the message about the blog.

And it is not just the private sector which is using Service Design to deliver our burgers or savings accounts. The UK government is hiring design firms to redesign health services by the NHS, and revamp entire processes of registering a company in the UK. Denmark is using the power of design thinking to cut the number of sick days taken by public sector employees. Companies and governments world over are waking up to Service Design, not only as a way to cut costs and streamline delivery, but also to retain and expand their customer base.

India however has yet to wake up to the potential of Service Design. Even though last year the service sector contributed over 60 percent to the GDP. Why are we so far behind? True we have exemplars such as the dabbawallas in Mumbai or the Indian Railways, and the countless little informal services that deliver our daily newspaper or laundry; but how many companies or public departments can truly boast of a service innovation culture? For the vast majority of Indians getting a service is perhaps their worse nightmare – from filing taxes to accessing the Public Distribution System to

Blogger

To them blogging is about being articulate, open to dialogue, and disciplined. They count Michael Johnson’s Thought For The Week, which is part of the Johnson Banks website, as a favorite. They also admire Under Consideration, Design Observer, Design for India, and Little Design Book.

Priti Rao

Priti is a Design Researcher at Northumbria University, UK. She is currently writing her thesis on how design

thinking can help to deliver better services in emerging

economies. Previously she designed livelihood services

for farmers in India. She writes and speaks regularly at international conferences and has recently authored a chapter in the book titled ‘Inclusive value-chains –

Both write and edit the blog jointly after doing the research. For the duo, the blog is a repository of information for themselves; it is their own journal or resource on design. They do not want to commercialize it yet but plan to redesign it. If the design community finds value in what they write… all the better. www.designisin.com

A pathway out of poverty’. pritisr@gmail.com

www.poolmagazine.in 9

Beyond Borders

Bruno Maag

Dalton Maag This is Bruno Maag’s first visit to India and one week down he is considering buying a studio apartment here.

That is a leap for someone who self admittedly was prejudiced and never really looked for a visit to India. As far as he is concerned it might as well have been another planet. Though he loves the chaos and the space, he feels that India has a need. “I’ve seen a few examples, shop fronts and everything.

It’s tough! Typographically there is not that much here, is there?” says Maag.

Apprenticeship and serendipity: “At fifteen I was clueless on what I wanted to do in life. My father and grandfather were mechanical engineers so I thought that is what I would be. Therefore I decided to get some experience, so in 1978, I joined this world’s leading engineering firm and I felt that I had fallen into a hole the size of a football pitch. There were 350 people filing metal inside that hole.

And I was sure that I would never spend my life doing that. My mom said I should consider the printing industry. I thought it sounded interesting so my father got me an apprenticeship at a newspaper.”

At 16, Bruno Maag started his training and apprenticeship as a typesetter with the largest daily newspaper in Zurich, Switzerland. The whole world of printing and typesetting was around him 24 hours.

He fell in love with the vibe of the place,

Bruno Maag, founder of Dalton Maag, resisted the idea of India till he was introduced to Devanagri, and now he wants to live in Mumbai!!

he found the print job great. “This is where information comes from, it is holy ground.” It was a four year long apprenticeship. After that he went to Parsons School of Design where he studied one year of typography and three years of visual communication. That is where he was introduced to type design.

“I was awed with graphic design and filmmaking,” recalls Maag. He got his first job in England, to work for Monotype, which was set up in the 1880s. Monotype was actually the manufacturer of typesetting machines, and of course with the machines also comes the type.

Maag worked in with in the United States and recalls the time spent nostalgically.

The technology was nowhere near as advanced or developed as it is now, it was like working at the frontier of the industry. And then he returned to set up Dalton Maag. He regrets that he is running the company and not designing any more and ‘getting his hands dirty’.

The Burning Passion: Maag is passionate about shapes and forms; it’s a feeling that he gets when he is creating types. He is not interested in graphic design at all. “I am not interested in color. My world is black and white, its straight lines and its curves and serifs and not-serifs and shapes

and counter-shapes and proportions,” he says adamantly. He is even sure that he would be happy with a black and white vision. The simplicity of type attracts him. To him type setting is like drawing the cube, a letter has to be right. And if you don’t see it you cant do it. It’s about precision. To him it is important if it’s a tenth of a millimeter more or less. He says that is what he looks for in people – the kind of passion which borders on the obsessive!!

The process: “The Latin types are well known. Once the brief comes in from a client, they study the audience, look and feel of the product or service.

Is the font a serif or a sanserif, is it a traditional or a modern? This is a basic checklist before doing a few sketches.

Work begins with doing a lowercase N, lowercase H, lowercase O, lowercase G and then finally a capital H, these set of characters once designed define proportions of the entire alphabet.”

The difference between calligraphy and typography: “The typographer imagines the whole font while the calligrapher is reactive, he writes a letter and the next letter is a reaction to the previous letter. Type design is a proactive process. In type, every single letter and symbol needs to fit in with every other symbol and letter. You build the

@kvpops Volkswagen’s talking ad in Times Mumbai edition. Well we are ready for a video ad soon in print. Will this

expensive innovations save print?

10 POOL | 10.10 | #4

Font for

foundation, which is the proportions, the basic design feel, then you add layers of details and styles.

“For complex scripts, like Arabic, Chinese and Korean the process is more involved, as western designers have no idea and sensitivity of where the letter form has originated to learn about the construction of the legibility.”

Burj Dubai metro project,

Tone of voice: How the font communicates, the underlying message it gives out, the emotional response to the font. Bruno Maag lives with one single design ethic, Quality. Absolute quality on everything. Quality of work, product and

quality of service. Some of the work which Maag is proud of, is redesign of the Caslon font for Kings College, Burj Dubai metro project, British Telecom – telephone book, for which a change of font saved ten lines in a 300-page book with a print run of three million books.

Despite fears of copyright issues, Maag is excited about the fact that India will be a market for the future for his company even though he feels it is not a market economically ready for the kind of work he does.

www.daltonmaag.com

Bruno Maag for Vodafone

British Telecom – telephone book

r Kings College

@Setlur Information analysis - finding the most fascinating patterns and trends and leads.

Very addictive. www.poolmagazine.in 11

Satya Narayan Rajpurohit Satya Narayan Rajpurohit of Indian Type foundry shares his views on typesetting and experience in India.

Satya got the Vodafone project by default as Bruno Maag had been the designer for Vodafone in Europe. Even though the original work was done by Dalton Maag, it turned out to be too expensive for Vodafone since they would also have to go into vernacular scripts besides Devanagri. Satya too entered type design not by choice. He was inclined towards graphics and got his internship with Linotype in Germany. He ended up doing a very big project, designing a companion Devanagri typeface for Fruitiger! He spent three months doing that and he was also in touch with Peter Bilak in Netherlands. Bilak liked his work and asked him to design a Federa Hindi typeface. The project took two years.

And since releasing a Hindi font through Peter’s company was not a viable option, they started a new company, Indian Type Foundry (ITF) specializing in Indian scripts. Satya feels that the Indian business community is not sophisticated enough to understand the use of typefaces and the companies that design typefaces in India have no clue about type design either. Most of the work they do is incomplete. In good fonts the moment you blow up a letter you can see the quality. For creating good fonts you need

knowledge, but part of the process is also educating clients about it. If the typeface doesn’t have enough styles to maintain a typographic hierarchy, if it doesn’t have a complete character set, if it is not properly spaced, not drawn properly, you can put together fonts and teach your client what is wrong and what is right.

Satya feels in India it is the publishing houses who know and understand the value of good typefaces. If you are using cheap fonts in publication, you cannot compare your work with international standards. They care about quality and details unheard of here. All these things affect a user subconsciously. If you are reading a book and it’s a good typeface you will never notice it, but a bad typeface and you will put down the book.

Satya uses the universal process for developing a font. First the clients brief is taken, the purpose, usage is understood; if it is a text font to be used in books, or magazine, to be used in headlines or if it is a signage system font or a screen font, etc. “For each of these you need to apply a different principal. You need to be specific, there is no typeface which is perfect for all the different possible uses. So when you design a type, you make a size specific purpose as well. Like there are typefaces which you can only use below 14 pt size, and

there are ones where you only use in signage in large sizes. So once you have defined your purpose you know what you want and then you just go ahead with it. Then you come up with your visual look and visual quality,” he says.

“Generally when a font is born it has no value. It is a product that gains value over the years. The older the font the more value it has. It only grows over the years as it gains in popularity.” Satya thinks that in type design it is a kind of a mixture of design and technology. A combination of art and craft and technology and design. Handwriting and calligraphy are directly connected to type. Although it is mechanical and a computerized process, designing typeface its really all connected to what hands can do. “When you write something by hand, even though it is not well drawn, you can read it because there is rhythm and contrast and all these things have to be brought into the type design so if you are working on a new script you cannot work on it if you cannot write that script by hand.”

Satya uses writing as much as he can when designing the typefaces. “You have to know how to write each alphabet, what sort of stroke it takes to handwrite each symbol, character. How it forms when any two characters come together. What are the different conjuncts and you should

@RoycinD dont know much about nikons but another good camera is the lumix..the t21 canon is also good..

modelled on 7D

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‘Latin’ typeface for the Font ‘Kohinoor’

be able to do proper calligraphy, how the skeleton of the structure looks,” he says.

A good typeface is a good tool. “There is a very small lifespan for a brochure catalogue, but for a typeface it is a lifetime so maybe if you use Helvetica today you can use it in a project and make it red, later you may make it green and it may look fresh again. It’s how you use them. There are good typefaces that people are using really badly. But then someone will come along and make a wise decision on effects and colour and it will look great. Default settings are designed by a type designer, the spacing, the leading, the font actually, so if you use it as it is you could change the colors–that is fine. But more then that can ruin the concept of a typeface.”

Satya is passionate about preserving the Indian languages and beautiful scripts of our country. He fears the loss of Indian culture because of the strong western influence. www.indiantypefoundry.com

‘Devanagri’ typeface for the Font ‘Fedra’

@sapnabhavnani Save the Earth, it’s the only planet with Chocolate ... yummmmmm

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Raring to go

Meet Kangan Arora, a print, textile, home and lifestyle accessory designer. She has already made waves with her exhibition at Selvedges. And there is more to come.

@sniggisniggi I hope I make new mistakes this time...I ve already learnd how to repeat the same old ones

perfectly each time...

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Kangan Arora’s photography

As a final year student at Central Saint Martins, Kangan wanted to begin work as soon as she graduated. A trip to Kutch in her final year at NIFT in 2005 and a placement at Colours of Nature in Auroville in 2006 laid the foundations.

She loves Indian craft and wanted to combine contemporary design with traditional textile techniques. It was definitely ‘making the products’ and realizing her ideas from being just samples into actual tangible products that inspired her to begin. The deadlines of exploring a single idea in every shape, form and size; and then working towards a collection, making prototypes and finally exhibiting/selling the final product are what gets her excited. Being part of an online community also helps her immensely as she has learnt to network and share ideas with like minded people, learn from their experiences and most importantly find a platform to present her work. She has got critical and personal feedback from both professionals and friends. She finds it a challenge to manage her freelance work with a full time job.

Her big break came when she was contacted by Anne Marr, the head of textiles at CSM recently to showcase her work at the Victoria & Albert Museum in the ‘textile scrapbox’ exhibition. Citing another example, she says that she got a photography job while she was taking pictures of the event.

More freelance photography opportunities came to her with Future Cinema and Secret Cinema, including one at BAFTA. Her work is quirky and fun with colour being important, both in photography, textiles and lifestyle accessories.

She counts participating in fairs as a way to get feedback and ideas on customer needs after her experience at Selvedge. She also interacts and brainstorms with creative professionals to get involved in new projects.

She believes she was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. But it’s not just luck which will take her places, it’s her determination and grit. kanganarora@gmail.com

@aditimukherjee Dropbox, give me some sugar baby. http://db.tt/TBiEShF 12:09 PM Sep 8th www.poolmagazine.in 15

Behind the scenes was Aamir Khan was fun to Karmahe.

Her department had to source property needed for the movie and living in Bhopal she scoured every small shop, preparing sets in the sun.

Snigdha Karmahe, is an engineer, Interaction Designer, theatre actor, Bollywood, Art director, illustrator and Singer.

This young multi talented upstart is on a high as her debutant Bollywood projects, where she worked as an assistant art director “Peepli Live” (produced by Amir Khan) has been chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars. POOL gets first hand look into how a designer works in the Bollywood setup.

A theatre artist since childhood Karmahe trained as an interaction designer at National Institute of Design (NID) and

joined the Mumbai theatre scene. She has worked with in “Alchemist” by Sunil Shanbagh, “Khuda ke liye mat dekhna” and “Sambhog se sanyaas” by Pt Satyadev Dubey and she also worked as an illustrator and assistant art director for bollywood movies. And she also sings.

She recalls her project “Peepli Live” as rich and rewarding. Not only did she learnt the technicalities of work through the experience but also by interacting with people. The discipline in making a movie and especially when the producer

Her job required her to read through the script, detail out characterization, research on central India’s color schemes, the properties (things used) which would be found in the households. And then she had to do the required graphics that were needed in the film-logos for news channels, logos for elections, t-shirts, election banners, media stalls, OB vans.

She had to work on the budget, sketches of characters to define their look and the construction and propping up of the set. The props used had to be aged. The challenge of working on projects is the budget and time constraint. Differences of opinion had to be sorted and the end product is the successful “Peepli Live.” snigdha.karmahe@gmail.com

Cover Story

Bimal Patel Photographed for POOL

by Pravin Mishra HCP was set up in 1960 by your father. What change have you contributed?

BP: I did not want to work with my dad on projects that he was doing. On finishing architecture school, I started participating in design competitions that the office was invited to and the first project that we won was the Entrepreneurship Development Institute. I am also a qualified urban planner. So the work we do is actually between planning, urban design and architecture. Planning is very different from architecture.

How does Bimal Patel manage HCP? BP: Management is getting everyone to work as a team. So managing architectural urban design projects is not just about managing a team of designers, it is managing your contractors and

It seemed inevitable for Bimal Patel to become an architect since his father was a well known architect himself, though Bimal thinks he could have made a good physicist as well. Now, when he has taken the firm that his father set up to greater heights, he cycles around Ahmedabad, and spends time reading strange esoteric stuff. The man fascinated by evolutionary biology believes that the world is going through a transformation which is akin to the one that Galileo transformed. In an exclusive interview with Pool, he shares his views. Excerpts: consultants so that the project becomes the central most important thing. It is about accommodating a lot of different points of view.

Since when you joined HCP to now, how has the organization changed and how has the management changed?

BP: India has changed, in the mid’80s, India was a place isolated from the rest of the world because of the economic policies. There was no trade, no import and India had also developed a psyche where everybody was determined to be isolationist. The ’70s and the ’80s were about charting a different course.

Architects would say that we had to have a style of ‘Indian Architecture’ that was different, very specific from the West. We had yet to use appropriate technologies,

we were not going to splurge, not going to be consumerist like the West and suddenly in 1990 India decided to liberalize. Once the floodgates opened trade with the world, we decided we would not reinvent the wheel and copy what was there.

What does India really need now?

BP: I think we have to understand that our solutions have to be local even as we learn from the West. Today the world itself cannot live the way the western world has lived and still lives. It is ecologically and environmentally unsustainable. We need to find indigenous solutions or adopt existing solutions which make sense for us. And we need these fast. Evolution is happening at a far faster pace. I want to design the future. And as a designer I have to consider local conditions and come up with viable solutions.

@hiddenbutton First Phillips says the key is simplicity and then BOOM, manish arora clad models clomp down the runway in a show sponsored by them.

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New IIM campus

Where do we look for inspiration?

BP: Inspiration is all over. Take public spaces. If I look at cities, I find many cities in the world are places where we can get a lot of different inspiration from.

I think European cities are fantastic for the manner in which they create public space.

Paris and London are fantastic examples.

The creation of public realm goes with the creation of a public, of greater and greater democratization. Public space is where everybody meets as equals.

Private space is the opposite. A mall is not a public space because people don’t

“The best cities grow organically.

Planned cities are actually boring.

Chandigarh is sterile! ”

meet as equals there. People with more money have more power and those who do not have money won’t even walk in.

But a plaza, open street, where you do not spend money is public space. The definition of public space is a space in which people meet as equals. Indians are not equal as yet. We have great divisions.

We need to create a political space where we can all meet as equals. Although now I see demand for meaningful public space. However people are trying to solve that problem by creating private solutions, gated communities and malls which create divides.

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Arvind Mills

Cover Story One of the best examples of a modern city is Hong Kong. It is a fantastic city. People don’t own cars and public transport is the prime mode of transport. It is a compact city. In 200 sq km, they have managed to fit in more people then Ahmedabad fits into 300 sq km. That is what we need.

The best cities grow organically.

Planned cities are actually boring.

Chandigarh is sterile.

What is the future of urbanization for professional architects?

BP: All architects are also facing that same dilemma, how to invent something that truly makes sense in our local conditions. And I don’t think architects have got that. We never thought steel glass and prefabricated building was our problem. Now suddenly you have the onslaught of new technology and new types of building. Everybody wants their buildings to look like others anywhere in the world. We may now have to reinvent or at least re-examine what we did in the past to figure out relevant solutions. Most though are still just blindly copying.

In one of the buildings we have invented a whole louver system for the external face of the building. In the past the façades of buildings had to have some sort of shading for the windows. You have either weather shades or you articulate the wall back and forth to

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create weather shades because we have a harsh sun here and because of the high cost of real estate nobody wants to waste space on thick walls. Thin walls and glass buildings makes sense from the point of view of real estate but it also has to make sense from a temperature point of view, so we decided to put louvers on the external face of the building. Since we did not want to import expensive stuff we designed a louver system ourselves.

We will use it on a number of buildings we are working on now. We are trying to redefine what the façades are made of and what are the different materials that can be used.

What is your dream project?

BP: What I really want to do is write a book about making city planning work in India. I enjoy doing architectural projects, but I think the real challenge now is fixing our cities. We have many things wrong and our cities are a growing mess. This planning has to come from urban planners. We need to get our framework right so that our designers and architects can work in a sensible way. Architects have to follow building regulations when they build in cities and you will find that all architects complain about the sort of building regulations they face. They constrain what an architect can do and in a city like Mumbai where real estate pressures are very high, it is actually building

regulations that shape the city and its buildings. If we fix the regulations we can fix the cities. We get wretched cities because we have poor rules, and if we were to change the rules, we’d get better cities.

Where does the problem lie?

BP: I think we have got many things wrong and it is easy to find fault in hindsight, so I don’t want to complain about that. We just did not pay enough attention to how the rules are to be made.

We have to get the foundation right.

In the past 25 years I have operated at different levels. As a trained city planner I can look at the city from an abstract and very high sort of a level. It is like an eagle looking down at a city. I have also done interior design, sort of like an ant looking at it. And at different levels there are different issues, different opportunities and constraints. www.hcp.co.in

Photograph by Mickey Bardava

louvers systems

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Visualization of the Riverfront Project

Young talent

Gavin Remedios

Delwyn Remedios

Brothers Gavin and Delwyn Remedios pack a punch with their animation design studio, Remedios design even as they put in hours at full time work.

Searching for freedom of expression and the ability to pick and choose projects, brothers Gavin and Delwyn set up Remedios design to put their creative juices to work over the weekend. Pet projects include graffiti art, murals for homes and commercial establishments, illustrations and graphic novels, t-shirt designs, experimental animations and design opportunity mapping for small companies, anything with a quick turnover time. Projects vary from working with “small companies with big dreams” to doing bigger projects with clients who are willing to work with them on a certain time frame.

The defining word for every project is ‘fun’ but they are also commercial in nature. Besides that Gavin takes part in design competitions at Inkfruit just because he loves designing t-shirts. “We just did the PUMA Graffiti art thing for

fun. I think it is important to have fun in every project that we do, that’s the whole idea behind the studio,” says Gavin.

Clearly the fun quotient in every project is of prime importance.

The brothers have been freelancing since 2003 and have done everything from body painting to calligraphy and graffiti, but the most impactful project early on was the “Celebrate Bandra” mural done by Delwyn at the Reclamation Promenade, Bandra in 2005. Delwyn is an international award winning animation filmmaker and does the animation related work as that is his interest. He also enjoys the old fashioned technique of doing work with his hands rather than digitally. Gavin is interested in helping companies identify opportunities for effective use of design. He has experience working as an apparel and graphic designer and continues to enjoy designing t-shirts and shoes.

Gavin’s favourite project has been a line of 10 t-shirts he designed for an upcoming US retail company. The project gave him creative freedom. For Delwyn, it was his animation film “DELUGE”, a short story about a giant ship that emerges through the city to rescue two school boys from drowning during the 26th July, 2005 floods in Mumbai. The film has been recognized both nationally and internationally and has won awards at ASIFA, CG Tantra, Digicon (Japan) and Asian Youth Animation & Comic Contest (China) where he was awarded best Director.

Both count “Patience and Composure” as the two things which are very essential to deal with all the ups and downs that come with their profession. In the digital

@mohor The business of design is complicated by a complete lack of standard practices and ethics in India. Aargh!

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age, they count feedback on Facebook (from friends, colleagues and a whole lot of people they have never even met but connected with through work) that has motivated them and kept them going.

They set up the page in December 2009 and have generated a lot of interest through it. The number of people following it increases every day without them having to push it.

Both are clear that the partnership between the brothers is symbiotic and they may not have been running the same kind of studio if they were on their own. They believe that diversity in the nature of their projects is their main strength.

www.remediosdesigns.wordpress.com

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Rising Star

Kriti Monga, Turmeric Design, believes in handmade. She feels software has become too commonplace and graphic design too generic and boring. Where, she wonders, is the soul? She finds it in papers, paint, clay, drawing and hand lettering and all that she can touch, mold and feel.

Today she is a graphic designer and an illustrator. She finds spaces where

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she integrates her own expression with the functional requirements of design.

She gives ‘voice’ to every piece which passes through her design studio.

Hand lettering is a habit. Like Paula Scher describes her map-art, for her hand-lettering is a goofy fun thing she does to get away from the sterile-ness of using mouse and keyboard. One

evening, she drew a hand-lettered poster with the lyrics of a Pink Floyd song and people started wanting prints of it. From its popularity, she realized that she could use her handlettering more often; the poster actually became a turning point for her, something fun and personal that was loved by others so much. She gave a framed copy to David Gilmour,

Hand made with ‘Turmeric’—Kriti Monga makes hand lettering a highly coveted art with her travel diaries!!

Kriti Monga the US based multi media designer, which is now being auctioned as part of his loved memorabilia.

The Fish You Were Here poster was another interesting turning point.

She works consciously in lettering in different typographic styles, exploring her own flourishes and quirks that she adds to it, looking

at how different styles enhance the meaning of different written words.

Diaries that she kept during the Kyoorious Designyatra, have been used by Patrick Burgoyne to visually sum up the events in a way that photographs don’t; he decided to use them to illustrate his coverage of the event in Creative Review,

UK for two consecutive years.

Kriti believes that she has an intense sensory engagement with people and things when she travels, a horrible memory and a fear that she will forget everything she is experiencing or thinking. So she writes and draw feverishly in an attempt to document places and events for herself to be enjoyed later. That people appreciate it is thrilling.

Turmeric is the quintessential, modest, yet vital, very Indian ingredient. It means ‘deserving earth’ and evokes earthy Indian-ness, a unique colour and flavor, not as glamorous as saffron, yet on hand for various applications.

Kriti thinks of it as her pseudonym and what she aspires to be.

www.turmericdesign.com

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Paper Caper Sachin George Sebastion delights in turning paper into objects’d art as much as he enjoys making pop up books!

Population>Industrialization>Chaos

International Artist Residency at Khoj, Delhi How Long, How Far

Population>Industrialization>Chaos

@designersays When I’m standing in a lift with one other person, I stare at them intensely to see if they get off on the next floor. It works every time.

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Most of us love paper and mud but few will take it as far as Sachin George Sebastion did. For the25-year-old graphic designer, his love has translated into pop-up books and an art show purely based on his passion for turning paper into magic and telling a story. Take a look at his tryptch www.27sachin.blogspot.com.

Growing up he found paper to be most accessible as well as affordable. He would turn the flexible paper into temporary toys, a bit like Origami, the Japanese art of paper cutting.

Sachin loved to work with his hands more than sitting in front of a box (read computer) and create things. Paper as a medium came easily to his hand. Keeping the base material as paper, he tries to explore the material on both its structural as well as visual properties. To him paper creates magic when arranged in certain patterns. Maybe his love for geometry has something to do with it!!

Pop-up books came much later as he completed his graduation and came to Bangalore in search of a job. A pop-up book brought at a second hand book store and brought for him by his friend enthralled him to such an extent that he could not sleep for days. Mesmerized by the fact that when you open a page, the unexpected can happen; a story is told, a scenario is created in space, without even reading it!! For him everything seemed to fall into place, his love for geometry and paper came together. And those sleepless nights inspired his own pop-up book. So starting from scratch, putting aside his plans for a job, he started exploring paper engineering. He would freelance to make ends meet. After mastering the techniques of pop-ups, the exploration continued

beyond the pages of a book. He did not plan for his work to end up in an art show but is thrilled that his ideas and paper art which gave him pleasure have been received so well.

Sachin considers ideas like ‘eggs with wings’ and quickly translates them into self initiated projects instead of waiting to execute them later. Luckily for him his clients find him through happy serendipity.

Armed with scissors, a cutter and a cutting mat, this magician takes anything from a week to a few months to complete a project. However as this self taught paper engineer says, “A good understanding of geometry and a very good recollection of previous mistakes helps a lot in better and faster output.”

He derives his inspiration from nature and the disturbance caused by seeing how nature has been changed for “development” of humankind/nation, etc.

This gives him an idea for future projects.

Though he has no plans for the future, he will continue to go where inspiration leads him. www.27sachin.blogspot.com

How Long, How Far

@Sudhir_Indi Friedman: 2 rules of globalization. 1.) what can be done will be done.

Will it be done by you or to you?

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Craft Fashion Textile

MORPHE

by Amit Aggarwal Morphe is an apt name for the beautifully structured ensembles by designer Amit Aggarwal. A graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, class of 2002, Amit previously worked with Tarun Tahiliani. He also headed the design team of Creative Impex, a subsidiary of Creative Group, one of India’s most-reputed garment manufacturing companies, producing high-fashion clothes for brands like Alberta Ferretti, Moschino, Jean Paul Gaultier and Kenzo.

Morphe started in 2008, in collaboration with the Creative Group. The label is about the metamorphosis of raw influences, both fantastical and mundane, into clothes that are modern, eclectic and timeless.

Using the best of local skills and techniques, each piece speaks a language of continuity.

This debut runway show at the India Fashion Week was applauded

by Vogue as one of the best shows of the year, while Marie Claire and Elle both awarded Amit as the ‘Debutant’ of the year. Recently Amit was nominated as one of the finalists for the British Council’s ‘Young Creative Entrepreneur Award’ and was invited by the Dutch DFA to Amsterdam as part of a design delegation.

The brand saw instant recognition with stores like Bloomingdales, Galleries Lafayette and Al Ostoura taking up the line in its second season. Presently it sells in 11 countries around the world. It shows twice a year in Who’s Next (Paris + Dubai), Vision (Copenhagen Fashion Week), 080 (Barcelona Fashion Week), Pure (London) and the LivingRoom (Tokyo). amit@morphe.in

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Ads - 2010

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Ads - 2006

mbrella

season d

Bhupal Ramnathkar

Set up in 2004 by advertising veteran Bhupal Ramnathkar, Umbrella is a concept agency which works in the space of advertising as well as design.

Ramnathkar moved from Enterprise Nexus (Executive Creative Director) to set up the agency and it has been doing work for advertising agencies as well as clients in identity, retail, visual merchandising, packaging, etc.

One of its most visible campaigns has been for the Times of India for Ganesha Chaturthi for the past five years. The other festival specific advertising was for Dussehra and Diwali, both for Times of India. The ads not only celebrate the festivals but also carry a message. www.umbrelladesign.in

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