From the category archives:
Given that today marks the breaking of a month of fasting for Ramadan, I expect that knife sharpeners like this one in Mumbai will be doing a bustling trade as Muslims prepare to feast.
Check out more Random Specific images on Flickr
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Earlier this year I stumbled on this skilled spot of street art, tucked away on a stair well in Haus Khaz Village complex in Delhi. On reflection I mused – not only was it undeniably hip – but also drew relevantly on the prolific costumed capers and adaptive character of it’s inspiration: the iconic Air India maharajah.
I was transported back to airline’s posters which I’d been in awe of as a child travelling to India. Was there any location where the maharajah didn’t feel at ease? Wasn’t he a great host, buddy, traveller – with elegant charm and worldly wit? A bit of digging round proved him to be the brainchild of in-house commercial director Bobby Kooka and illustrator Umesh Rao of JWT in 1946, way back when Air India was Tata Airlines. Initially their character was merely destined for an inflight memo pad, though he clearly had his sights on riding more than paper planes. Impressively the maharajah did not remain grounded as a static image as many brand front-figures of the day – but jetted zealously round the globe in dynamic and debonair style.
The maharajah still continues to make appearances – though he doesn’t seem to get up to quite his old high-flying hijinks, he’s not looking bad for 65! Great to see that at the hands of Delhi street artists, he still manages to show folks that he can spin it grand style.
Related posts:
Indo-French Street Skills
Brand Polarities
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Foreign visitors to India are often startled by the prevalence of this symbol – featuring on temples to trucks, doorways to stairways, fabrics to food decoration and even electoral ballot papers. Many locals could enlighten them that the symbol is called svastika (स्वास्तिक). Some might add that it comes from the the Sanskrit word svasti – sv = well; asti = is – encompassing good fortune, luck and well-being. Others, noting a tourist’s repulsion, may offer that the symbol differs in rotation from the offending swastika by 45 degrees and mention that it’s local history predates Nazi Germany by over 5000 years.
It has been said that the svastika’s angled arms indicate that the path of our aspirations is seldom straight and takes unexpected turns. They also convey the indirect road to faith – in which intuition superceds intellect. Four dots are often included which symbolise North, South, East and West – or in Hindi: Uttar, Dakshin, Purab and Pachim. Reverence of the symbol is given by Hindus, Jains and Buddhists across the nation.
Travellers who pay attention to the widespread veneration for the svastika are likely to reassess their symbolic norms – and appreciate they’ve encountered a case of cross-cultural same-same-but-oh-so-very-different.
Related posts:
Same, Same but Different
Disrupting Typographic Transit Norms
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Less is More, set in unadorned typeface Helvetica (more for Helvetica fetishists)
We’re so used to global transport networks featuring unimbellished typography in their signage and way-finding systems. Fair enough given that commuters require information to be legible, especially at high-speed interchanges or at unfamiliar junctions where there maybe all manner of other distractions. Fonts in the context of transit tend to be of the less-is-more, non-decorative, minimalist variety.
Frutiger pops up on Swiss road signs, at London’s Heathrow airport, on the Dutch national railways, and more. Univers strikes signage on the Montreal Metro, San Francisco’s BART and the Frankfurt Airport. Helvetica graces the NYC Subway system, my former regular transits on Hong Kong’s MTR, the Madrid Metro and beyond. (Its unobstrusivenss promoted typographic creator and critic, Jonathan Hoefler, to quip on it’s elusiveness to being evaluated: “Its like being asked what you think about off-white paint?”) If you’re a transit-type nut – you can check out more wiki-liciousness yourself, while everyone else reads on.
“Dilli-Metro” hacked in typeface Shree 715 (thanks to local type-geek Ghate)
On my recent trip to Delhi I encountered more of the uniform minimalism associated with mass public transit signage. Though tracking down the typefaces used proved to be a much tougher journey. I started by consulting with my cluster of global type-recognition experts, who all drew frustrated and occasional blushing blanks. My obsessive typo-curiousity evetually led me to Mudra Max’s wayfinding consultant, Sanjeev Hajela, who had led the team which devised signage for the Delhi Metro. The Hindi is Shree 715. The English is Brunel (Positive). Again, if you’re type-obsessed, you can venture on to Brunel’s relative obscurity yet public prominence and leave everyone else to stay with my train of thought.
Finally getting to the point – what really sung out at me during my own stop-hopping Delhi Metro experience, in India’s crowded yet colorful capital, was this exuberent diversion from standardised norms. Guys – don’t you just feel like you’re missing out on the party?
Related posts:
Disrupting Urination Norms
Painted National Pride
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Last month I had a blast hosting the Typocentric: Bazaar workshop at Delhi’s UnBox Festival. We had global players join local folk to construct typographic forms from objects commonly found in Indian markets – buttons, bindis, decorative mirrors, candles, textile embellishments, match-boxes and more. I had initially proposed the workshop to run over three days which somehow got condensed to three hours – but much fun emerged on this insane time frame. Having graphic designers joined by those with backgrounds in anthropology, education and finance led to a random-specific blend of capacities which kept everyone typo-ventilating throughout.
I got a particular kick out of working alongside my gifted former student and pixel-pro, Abishek Ghate, who experimented with constructing typographic forms out of various elements to devise the intense workshop format.
We started out by having small groups create Hindi words in Devanagari script out of bindis. For those of you who are in the dark, bindis are the red or coloured forehead markings worn by many South Asian women – often but not always signifying marriage.
Bram Pitoyo, Digital Strategist at Weiden + Kennedy, collaborated with others to form Usha (उषा) meaning the first ray of light from the rising sun.
Another group took a different path to create the same word. And that’s the arm of Kriti Monga from Tumeric Design – a typographic doyenne – who wears it on her sleeve. Some of you may recall her superb visual journal from Design Yatra which featured in Creative Review.
Workings + resolutions for Sakhi (सखी) – an endearing term for a girl, a friend, a confidante.
Babe (बेब) – phonetically from English and peppered through Hindi conversations when hotties are on the radar.
We then switched to a smorgasbord of elements from local bazaars. The pressure mounted and creativity escalated as teams raced against the clock to follow typographic guidelines while exploring the limits and opportunities that their designated objects presented.
Decorative mirrors, often used for textile ornamentation, were used to artfully form the word Chhavi (छवि) which means reflection or image.
A team working with matchboxes experimented with multiple approaches to celebrate the name of our hosts: The UnBox Festival.
Impressive collaboration from those who worked with coloured buttons to create the name of our host city: Dilli/Delhi (दिल्ली)
Decorative flourishes from a group working with gotas – pleated fabric embellishments used to adorn sarees and other traditional clothing.
And pyromania ensued to give justice to the word Lau (लौ) or flame, built with candles.
Ghate and I were joined in energising participants by Codesign founder and UnBox spearhead, Rajesh Dahiya – who was a former colleague of mine at India’s National Institute of Design, where he continues to teach typography as adjunct faculty. My Design Observer co-contributor and by now close conference-buddy, John Thackara, had to put up with our fervored racket from his more earnest workshop which took place a just few paces away – luckily I made up for it the next day by swinging us a table at the ever popular dining spot Gunpowder. With it’s scenic view, this was a great vantage point to reflect on the UnBox Festival – where I had also presented as Community Manager on OpenIDEO. It had indeed lived up to it’s promise to encompass work and play across contexts and mediums plus “rethink and stretch design practice through imagination, provocation and stimulation for those interested in social and cultural change.” While many of the conference sessions were focused on more worthy pursuits, we’d like to think that Typocentric: Bazaar ignited a hankering for the handmade, a love of the local, a craving for collaboration – all within the alluring hype of type.
Related posts:
Typocentric Bazaar on Flickr
Overlap: Intersection of Desi & Diasporic
Viva Vernacular
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During my current trip to India I’ve been adding a collection of posts to the REculture blog where we feature the post-consumption economy of repair, reuse, repurpose and recycling in low-income contexts. I thought I’d add some of the highlights here – a wee taste of post-consumption creativity.
Siesta Sachets and Remnant REculture: Fabric scraps (lead image) and discarded foil sachets (above) are woven into rope to form bed bases.
Repurposed Beauty: Reusing advertising billboard canvases – at a construction site in Ahmedabad and a workshop in Mumbai.
Cigarettes and Spirituality: I stumbled on children down an alleyway at Dharavi who had made a makeshift temple out of old cigarette packets.
Material Efficiency: Nestled behind a lean-to stall in Mumbai were two ingenious guys fashioning lanterns out of scrap metal and glass. They cut the salvaged glass into small sections to create the lantern casing. Given that Diwali is just around the corner – they’re bound to make a killing with very low material costs. I wasn’t the only one fascinated by their street-side enterprise – a small fan-club had gathered round and were equally impressed with their lucrative venture.
Related posts:
Scarcity Sustaining
Mathare’s Micro Farms and Market Gardens
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Earlier this month I wrote about getting involved in the DREAM:IN initiative which is collecting India’s aspirations as a canvas for creative thinking. It intends to form a dynamic database of dreams gathered in cities, towns and villages across the country. These will be categorised, analysed and shared with business leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs, policymakers and designers to devise transformative and inclusive future scenarios. 101 student dreamcatchers were dispatched across India after training at the Bangalore headquarters. They were divided into 11 teams: Sindhoori (red), Hariyali (green), Asmani (blue), Chandni (silver), Sunheri (gold), Gulal (pink), Firozi (turquoise), Anguri (purple), Santili (orange), Kesar (saffron) and Sweth (white) who set out on colourful journeys by road and rail – capturing on video the dreams of a nation in transition.
The teams were provided with various tools to help them consider the search ahead, created by the good folk at Idiom Design. Encouragement was given to seek a range of respondents from migrants to merchants, learners to leaders, athletes to advertisers, drivers to domestic helpers. Within the teams, students were allocated with tasks of spotting, framing and writing to locate, film and record Indians reflecting on their dreams. Mitul Bhat (a usability specialist on Nokia’s MeeGo platform) and I had the task of briefing the Spotters on basic ethnographic techniques and some of the challenges of working in the field.
The journey itineraries were carefully planned to cover an expanse of rural and urban locations, covering 25, 000kms in just over a week. Army protection was sought for dreamcatchers travelling in less stable areas of the country. Accommodation was frequently in local guesthouses but also included places like a Jain ashram and sleep was often snatched on overnight train trips.
Images from the DREAM:IN blog
Alongside the footage of dreams pouring back into Bangalore, also came stories, photographs and sketches of life on the road. I was particularly excited to run into Team Gulal while they visited Ahmedabad during the Uttarayan Kite Festival. Just as they were enjoying a well deserved lunch break, I chanced upon them and dragged one team member off to the Old City to shoot photographs of her with festive kites. They spoke of capturing some great dreams during their trip – including those of a former silver smuggler who changed his ways and became a security guard. His dream: to protect and serve.
The editing team back in Bangalore now have the Herculean task of refining footage and categorising it ahead of the DREAM:IN Conclave next month. This will be supplemented by scenario building tools to assist professionals to translate the dream database into insights which can inform their future strategies. There’s much diversity which has been captured during the Dream Journey. Here’s a few of my favourites so far:
Related posts:
Where are We Dreaming? (Flickr)
DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest, I
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Pooja Saxena is an emerging communication designer based in New Delhi with a love for typographic form and an aligned fascination with language and linguistics. One to watch for her agility across forms and fonts.
Material explorations on Devanagari script
Electricals Ltd. is Pooja’s modular typeface based on a friend’s photo taken in Jaipur.
Related posts:
Overlap: Intersection of Desi and Diasporic
Indo-centric: Typo-centric
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© Patang – Kushi Productions
Many of you know I’ve been photographing the Uttarayan kite festival in India for a number of years now. While teaching at the National Institute of Design (NID) for a couple of years from 2005, I lived close to the action in Ahmedabad’s Old City. This week I was back there for the chaos, colour and celebration of the annual festival. My visit was made even more special as I attended a warmly hosted private screening of the superb film Patang which will officially premiere in at the Berlin Film Festival next month.
Patang (Hindi for ‘kite’) is set in the Old City where a family duels, spins and soars like the countless kites in the skies above. During it’s poetic journey, the film weaves together the stories of six people transformed by the energy of India’s largest kite festival. When a successful Delhi businessman takes his daughter on a trip back to his childhood home for the festival, an entire family has to confront its own fractured past and fragile dreams. With naturalistic performances from actors (Seema Biswas, Nowaz, Sugandha Garg) and non-actors alike – bold, lyrical editing, vibrant cinematography and a kinetic score – Patang enchants the senses and nourishes the spirit.
Patang features three interwoven stories. Image of kite-string paste by yours truly.
The seeds for Patang were planted in 2005, when script-writer and director Prashant Bhargava’s travels to Ahmedabad coincided with Uttarayan. “When I first witnessed the entire city on their rooftops, staring up at the sky, their kites dueling ferociously, dancing without inhibition, I had to make this film.” He returned for the next three years, documenting his experiences with over a hundred hours of video footage. Slowly immersing himself in the ways of the Old City, he became acquainted with its unwritten codes of conduct, its rhythms and secrets. Prashant would sit on street corners for hours at a stretch taking in the nuances of daily life. Over time he connected with shopkeepers and street kids, gangsters and grandmothers. This process formed the foundation for developing the characters and story. As he began writing, Prashant realised that capturing the spirit of the festival and the city – its beauty and flow, joy and strength – would require multiple narratives. And so Patang found its shape as three interwoven stories centering on a family that reunites for the kite festival. Patang’s message and cinematic style developed organically from the deep roots of life in the Old City. Prashant reflects: “The sense of poetry and aesthetics became less of an imposed view and more of one that emerged from the pride, the people, the place.”
One of my stills, shot in Ahmedabad’s Old City, from Patang’s opening sequence.
Some of my photographs were featured in the title sequence – but Prashant far surpasses my efforts to capture the flavour, festivities and texture of Uttarayan during the film. I was especially proud to hook up the production crew with my über-talented former student Satya Rajpurohit of the Indian Type Foundry, who’s multi-lingual typeface also features in the opening titles. I managed to join Patang’s crew, actors and friends on a fabulously located rooftop during Uttarayan this week as the sun set and the sky filled with kites followed by floating lanterns and fireworks. An upbeat track from the film ended up on high rotation and I’d pick that it will be a city-wide hit during the festival’s quintessential rooftop musical rivalry next year.
From the Patang rooftop this week. Photo by yours truly.
While the sun went down on yet another Uttarayan, my head was filled with rich memories from the Patang shoot, reflections on the film itself and thoughts of the Old City where my forefathers lived and loved.
Disclosure: I previously dated Prashant for 2 years, across 5 cities and 3 continents. Most likely that makes me a tad biased – though I’m sure those of you who manage to catch the film in upcoming months will surely appreciate his achievements.
Related posts:
Uttarayan Kite Festival (Flickr)
High Flyers of Gujarat (The Guardian)
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This week I find myself in Bangalore lending a hand in the flurry of activity leading up to the DREAM:IN Journey. Challenging the notion that future thinking should be informed by people’s needs – the DREAM:IN initiative seeks to explore what Indians are dreaming about. It intends to create a dynamic database of dreams gathered in cities, towns and villages across the country. These will be categorised, analysed and shared with business leaders, educators, social entrepreneurs, policymakers and designers to devise transformative and inclusive future scenarios. DREAM:IN intends to collide the dreams of a diverse India with the thoughts and actions of leaders across a range of sectors.
101 student dreamcatchers have been selected from over 20 Indian institutes of management, design, communication and film. Next week they will be dispatched in groups across 11 itineraries which traverse rural and urban India. Along the way they will be questioning locals about their dreams and aspirations – for family, work, recreation, products and services – and capturing these on video. They are expecting to collect thousands of dreams from across the country. Before heading off they will receive training from a team with various backgrounds including ethnography (I’m pitching in there), education, advertising and cinematography from across India plus Brazil, Italy and the US. This group features professionals from Nokia, Ogilvy & Mather and Parsons the New School for Design. The findings will be returned to the DREAM:IN headquarters in Bangalore to be collated and categorised.
In February the DREAM:IN Conclave is a summit which will bring together a selection of students, educators, policymakers, social entrepreneurs and professionals from sectors such as finance, IT, retail, telecommunications and energy. Participants include powerhouse retail entrepreneur, Kishore Biyani and Fast Company’s Bruce Nussbaum. Findings from the Dream Journey will be shared through a series of workshops. These will be used to inform future scenarios via a rigorous design-thinking methodology – with the view to devising concrete projects to effect fresh thinking around delivering products and services at scale.
From February onwards an open portal will be launched which allows users to upload and categorise dreams by sector – adding to those collected on the Dream Journey. These will be supplemented by scenario building tools to assist professionals to translate the dream database into insights which can inform their future strategies. Drawing on the larger canvas of dreams over needs is expected to fuel enhanced creative thinking.
So with dreamcatchers arriving tomorrow we’re hard at work finalising itineraries, naming teams, refining methodologies and editing presentations. Ironically – there’s little time for sleep – let alone to dream.
Related posts:
One Billion and Counting
DREAM:IN – Hunt to Harvest, II
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