I’m heading off on my annual pilgrimage to the motherland next week, so was delighted to receive an Indo-centric gift ahead of my departure – in the form of a deck of cards featuring designs inspired by Indian truck art. The pack was designed by my local buddy Anton Hart who started typo-ventilating over Indian signage a few years back while working in Mumbai.
Award winning designer & creative director, Anton Hart and Simon Hayward, have joined forces to launch Blow Horn Design. They’re planning a series of witty and whimsical products inspired by Indian street art and playing up local humor. The cards are one of their first products to reach limited shelves – mainly at Simon’s boutique Goan resort Vivenda Dos Palhacos and also at Tuk Tuk in Margao, Sacha’s Shop in Panjim and Rangeela in Calangute.
Like me, Anton, has been drawn to Indian vehicular graphics which celebrate uniqueness and honour the local. He has skillfully devised a palette of typographic elements which will feature in their upcoming range. Meanwhile I’ve been the lucky recipient of some of his prototypes – and will depart for India shortly with his Takes Notes OK notebook & I Love Bombay t-shirt. While you’re waiting for these and more to hit the shelves – check out some images of Indian signage which keep us inspired.
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Raja Remixed
Overlap: Intersections of the Desi and Diasporic
I’ve been feeling guilty of late, for neglecting posts to Random Specific – so it was heartening to be approached by CNN this month, who’ve created a gallery of images from my recent Quick-pic Tuesday posts. Here’s my original intro and a link through to the post on CNNGo:
Inventively Old School
Ingenuity runs rife across Mumbai – often flourishing at street level where stretched resources fuel efficient work-arounds. These lean business models frequently yield sustainable solutions based on conserving materials and energy. While the sky-line rises, engines rev and technology advances – lo-fi traders are seldom short on adaptive flair which pervades the city.
Check out some old school features of Mumbai’s street scene with fresh eyes.
Related links:
Post-consumption Creativity
Creative Plot to Blow Up Bombay
In the age of bulk buy and corporate over-packaging, I tend to enjoy street-food experiences on annual trips to the motherland. I’m particularly fond of offerings from roaming roasted peanut & lentil sellers in Mumbai – equipped for the micro-dose single-serve. Goods are freshly roasted and they’ll happily customise the additional spices to your liking. Plus it’s all wrapped up in the recycled goodness of yesterday’s news. Simplicity reigns.
Check out more Random Specific images on Flickr
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
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
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
