The latest Bollywood box-office hit 3 Idiots takes a light-hearted but relevant stab at stereotypical Indian attitudes of education, status and success. The endearing comedy has become the highest grossing national film to date while breaking records for an Indian cinema release in the US, Australia, South Africa and beyond. Noteworthy has been its sustained national marketing strategy which has included online gaming, social media engagement, collaboration with prominent retail chain Pantaloon and the use of its
All is Well theme song by insurance giant Reliance.
I was intrigued by the less lofty and more streetwise use of advertising space on the back of rickshaws across the country – in the form of a sticker which promoted the film while playfully affirming the taxis’ legal capacity of three passengers.
Those who have watched the film already will know that its lead trio are far from idiots. And neither were its marketers who had their workers apply the stickers at petrol pumps – the only place where rickshaws come together between serving the far reaches of urban locales. The drivers had no idea of the nature of the upcoming film but the one pictured above told me that when they mentioned it featured Amir Khan in a comic role that he knew it would be a winner.
Given its spirited celebration of improvised ingenuity, challenging authority and following one’s passions – all packaged in an accessible format for mainstream Indian audiences –
the film definitely fires at full capacity.
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I first photographed the work of French street artist C215 in Paris in 2007. This week here in Delhi I hit the streets of Karol Bagh to see if I could find any remaining examples of the works he produced in the vicinity late in 2008. It proved to be an ambitious task which led to many alley-way adventures.
Christian Guémy (aka C215: self portrait above in Delhi) resides in Paris where he has developed his distinctive street-art style. Armed with a Masters in Art History from Sorbonne and an arsenal of aerosols plus painting paraphernalia, he hits the streets with persistent zeal. He has taken his skills further afield to Casablanca, Dakar, Jerusalem, Sao Paulo and beyond, alongside gallery showings in Paris and London. He has collaborated with the Norwegian Children at Risk Foundation (CARF) to raise money for their projects in Brazil – where he also visited to give workshops to local youth and make his mark in surrounding favelas.
Back here in Delhi I located a handful of C215’s works which have survived. One old woman in a poor neighbourhood recalls “They brought so much energy to our area with children all crowding round to watch this strange foreign-type painting just for the love of it.”
Guémy gifted some works on paper to various locals plus stencilled t-shirts for young onlookers and boxes for shoe-shine boys. He fondly remembers one shy girl whom he gave a framed work – indeed she was too shy to be photographed by me with the piece but was happy to take it down from it’s proud perch in her tiny home and let me capture it being held by a neighbour.
Along the way I encountered frequent examples of Indian vernacular flair – from rickshaw decorations to juice stall signs – showing that creativity is alive and well in this crowded corner of Delhi… both local and imported.
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My partner in crime from Hong Kong days, Oriana Reich, has curated an exhibition Cultural Confectionery for the week long Detour festival. New York-raised Oriana is a creative visionary who works globally and is currently back in Hong Kong dishing up a wealth of delectable treats from graphic design to culinary arts. Her imminent show brings together such passions and exemplifies her multidisciplinary approach.
“Cultural Confectionery aims to convey the fundamental notion that food is a cultural expression. Through exploring the relationship of Chinese confectionery to identity and culture, our exhibit will include a classification of Chinese confectionery, highlighting types local to Hong Kong and those that are part of a confectionery diaspora. The exhibition is a record of sweet memories: the stories, memories and traditions that surround our relationship with sweets. A series of photographs by Grischa Rüschendorf will explore local bakery and cha chaan teng culture, sharing a vital part of Hong Kong’s urban landscape.”
Acknowledging the reliance of our food experiences on smell, Oriana has indulged in a spot of olfactory alchemy to enhance the sensory and nostalgic qualities of the exhibition. She sought the input of San Francisco-based scent sorceress, Julie Elliot who dispatched a selection of nine scents for Oriana to blend for the show.
Get it while it’s fresh – between November 27 and December 9, 2009.
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Wellington’s Blow Festival by the College of Creative Arts at Massey University hosted a Type-Walk this week on a blustery evening which lived up to the festival’s name. This didn’t deter the typo-centric amongst us who had turned up in numbers to the guided alphabetic amble. Highlighting the illicit alongside the historic – the walk encompassed character and characters from the Wellington cityscape.
Indicators of transitioning tenancy (above) were singled out on the Edwadian Baroque styled General Officer Commanding Building (1912) on the corner of Taranaki and Buckle Sts. It was originally built at the site of a former Maori settlement and is likely to be the country’s longest standing military administration building.
The Arthur St Boys Institute was built in 1906, in an interpretive Queen Anne style – which originally contained a gym, swimming pool and classrooms. More recently it has housed a printer and a musical institute and was moved 13 meters in 2005 to make way for the Inner City Bypass. It now attracts an abundant collection of street art.
Further down Cuba St was a coincidental sighting of Peaches & Cream set in Cooper Black – which had been referred to the day before in a public lecture by visiting Australian typographer Stephen Banham. He mentioned that he was initially so taken by the vibrant use of the 1920s typeface that he hadn’t realised that the sign (in a micro red-light zone) referred neither to seasonal produce nor dairy products!
Earlier this year Banham had devised his own urban tribute to type – Characters & Spaces: 1 City Block. 17 Stories. The comprehensive and highly successful initiative “takes one city block of Melbourne and peels back layers of graphic design. It tells stories we see in our visual environment, things we may pass every day… ”
Onwards on Cuba St we were directed to Catherine Griffiths typographic sculpture
A E I O U – 5 vowels in steel – launched earlier this year. Stitching together historic and contemporary buildings, the piece was commissioned by the local architects of the Cubana apartments (to the right of the sculpture). Catherine had been a significant driver of this year’s exceptional TypeShed 11 symposium at which I had the privlege of presenting.
At the corner of Cuba and Ghuznee the former Hallensteins Brothers store was showcased. The founder Bendix Hallenstein had arrived in New Zealand from Germany during the goldrush and set up a menswear factory in Dunedin. This building was one of their 36 national branches, opened in 1920, which now houses Ernesto’s Cafe.
The Type-Walk made notable mention of various sightings of street art including the emerging form of urban or guerilla-knitting / yarn-storming or bombing. Its occasional inclusion of typographic characters and icons was discussed and I returned to the area today to snap this example on Vivian St.
Our typo-active guides were media designer Gerbrand van Melle and graphic artist Sarah Maxey. Gerbrand currently lectures at Massey University – a far cry from his native Dutch shores. He produced almost two decades worth of posters for the renowned Tivoli music venue in Utrecht which are being exhibited later in the week at the Blow Festival event: One Night Out. “Tivoli provided a playground to experiment with typographic and visual language and the opportunity to delve into experimental printing techniques.”
Sarah Maxey’s work has appeared across a range of print media from literary book covers to the New York Times and more recently in her fine stationery range . A fondness for hand-lettering features in both her commercial and exhibited work which often champions the happy accident. Earlier in the week she presented an exquisite selection of work while discussing the notion of Unexpected Outcomes.
Upon winding up the Type-Walk some of us headed down to the Matterhorn off Cuba Mall. I fondly remembered working next door some 20 years back when it was a kitschly Continental cafe which had been set up by Swiss brothers in its modernist building in 1963. (I still reminisce over their other-wordly asparagus rolls) It was later transformed by our good friends into the much-loved dining institution and wine bar that it is today. In keeping with its stylistic evolution, the Matterhorn was given a typographic make-over by my old pal and ever-talented colleague, Simon Endres, who has since ditched us to establish a design studio in New York. The Matterhorn provided us with a fitting spot to raise our glasses – for a celebratory toast to Type.
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My jet-setting former student, Sagarika Sundaram, recently touched down in London long enough to complete a 3 month internship with multi-disciplinary design firm Pentagram – between stints in Zürich and Dubai.
While there she assisted Pentagram partner Harry Pearce on his project for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) which provided graphic training tools for the Russian police. Employing national abbreviations (GB, US, RU, etc) the folding posters presented comparative data surrounding drug abuse, intervention, therapy and health related consequences – as a way of clarifying various aspects of drug policy during training sessions. (English versions shown here, with Russian versions being used on the ground. More posters can be viewed via Pentagram)
Sagarika’s input involved exploration of the folding component of the posters – a realm in which she has developed skills through her previous work on dimensional projects. Above she experimented in typography composed from playing cards to transform her understanding of 2D-form during her time in Baltimore.
And of maps, Sagarika has a few observations based on her extensive global forays:
“In India maps are not prevalently used – I think due to the immediacy of existence. People will go as far as they know then just ask where to go next. And it works in that context. Elsewhere people like to know from the outset where they are heading. I find that in Europe, maps take on added significance due to the proximity of interacting countries. It seems that European nations, in part, are defined by who they are bordered by.” [I caught Sagarika in Berlin this morning on Skype]
When I met up with Harry Pearce recently in New Zealand he noted that Sagarika was definitely one to watch – although we both agreed it was hard to predict where in the world she would pop up next.
Commanding commuter attention in New Zealand’s capital city is the Go Wellington Graffiti Bus that was launched earlier this year as part of the vibrant Cuba Street Carnival. While graffiti is often viewed through the lens of vandalism, its defenders claim that it creates a sense of belonging and expertise while providing a vehicle for publicly expressing personal, social and political viewpoints.
A chance meeting in a Wellington alley-way brought together the Goethe Institute and Auckland-based aerosol artists Cut Collective. This evolved into a collaboration with German collective Via Grafik resulting in an exhibition and panel discussions at Wellington’s New Dowse gallery and a live event at the carnival during which the bus was given its street-wise makeover.
By showcasing planned, commissioned and intricate works, exhibited urban artforms are placed on a higher plane than vandalism but reference to public space still seems relevant. Carnival organiser Chris Morely-Hall supported the idea that street art be hailed both in and outside the gallery context. Last year’s Street Art show at London’s Tate Modern similarly acknowledged a need to present works by urban artists outdoors rather than merely confine them to gallery interiors.
With urban surfaces becoming increasingly corporatised the bus also raises issues around the dynamics of disruption and motivations for street art.
“We are bound by our own decision-making framework that is based on pretty robust ethical values. We are business owners and ratepayers, so we are respectful of others in that position. By the same token, being contributing members of society in that way, we also feel we have some right of reply within a public space dominated by advertising imagery and messages.”
– Cut Collective member Ross Liew (aka Trust Me) Source: Unlimited
Go Wellington were amazingly cooperative in meeting my request to pull the bus out of circulation so that I could shoot it. While waiting at the expansive Kilbirnie bus depot I came across a driver who had been at the wheel of the bus on a number of occasions. He mentioned that it certainly gets a lot of attention on the street – good, bad and bewildered. Wherever I’ve come across it I’ve noted that while many people smile as they view this creative contrast to the usual corporate bus advertising, others frown at the irreverent path its cuts through Wellington streets. If a key role of art is to pose questions the
Graffiti Bus certainly qualifies – as it drives debate and salutes skills through the city’s main arteries.
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Note: more imagery follows in the Comments Section.
Respect to all mentioned in the article plus Lisa Mönchmeyer from the Goethe Institute, Flox + Component of Cut Collective, Go Wellington’s Siobhan O’Donovan + Darek Koper and my main man and personal bus driver – Alan.
Although my interest in Indian hand-lettered typography is no secret – I was heartened to receive news of the launch of the Indian Type Foundry earlier this month. Especially as their premiere release is Fedra Hindi which was co-designed by my former typography student from India’s National Institute of Design – Satya Rajpurohit.
Fedra Hindi was a 2 year collaboration with esteemed Dutch typographer Peter Bi’lak of the Typotheque foundry. It is based on Bi’lak’s versatile Fedra font which is sought after for its contemporary elegance that confidently walks the typographic-tightrope between print and on-screen performance. Designed with acute sensitivity to structure and detail, Fedra has featured on postage stamps to corporate communications and has been developed further for non-Latin scripts, including Arabic.
Dutch Royal Mail stamps designed by Peter Bi’lak, employing the Fedra Serif font. Inspiration for the stamps came from aerial views of Dutch tulip and agricultural fields.
Bi’lak and Rajpurohit’s Indian Type Foundry signals a shrinking of the void in quality digitised Indic type design. They promise that this first Devanagari release will be followed by typefaces in the nine Indic scripts, including Gujarati, Bengali and Tamil. I await with keen interest in how the foundry’s typefaces will be used in India – by whom, in what contexts and for which audiences.
Local designers are not the only ones paying attention to this significant development. The Foundry and typeface were launched last week at Design Yatra in Mumbai. The event has been gathering momentum in fostering global participation with Indian studios for the past three years. Renowned typographer and presenter Erik Spiekermann mentioned that he now knew who to turn to for collaboration on Meta Hindi after seeing Rajpurohit present the results of their rigourous approach to Fedra Hindi.
Satya Rajpurohit interned at Linotype in Frankfurt and Dalton Maag in London (for our TypeShed 11 buddy, Bruno Maag). Initial contact with Peter Bi’lak led to research and the gathering of handwritten Indic script samples on his return India. This later developed into a productive online partnership tackling more ambitious endeavours, including Fedra which Rajpurohit had long admired. Although his native script is Devanagari (Hindi), he has grown to appreciate and admire different Indic scripts for their relative qualities.
“Bengali shines for me with its flow and rhythm, whereas in Tamil I find the joys of open forms and individualised letters.”
He goes on to note that a key role of the Indian Type Foundry is to create a platform for other designers of Indic scripts – with submissions welcome from both local and global typographers. And given a nation of over one billion that’s multilingual, multicultural and multi-layered – no matter which script you choose – it certainly spells exciting times ahead.
Typo-trivia: The logo of the National Institute of Design (where I taught Satya) was designed by Swiss type legend Adrian Frutiger.
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Opening image via Hindi Rinny
Taking inspiration from the other side of the globe, I recently implemented a weekly Learnings Initiative amongst the crew at Tardis Design & Advertising – where I consult from time to time. I’d come across the What I Learnt Last Week approach from the good folk at thinkpublic – a celebrated London agency that applies design to improving service experiences in the public sector.
Back here in the Antipodes we each present our learnings as part of weekly Tardis Time meetings. It’s our way of sharing and reflecting on the diversity of inspiration, skills, sightings and experiences that come through the office or touch our lives outside it.
A little something that honours the week that was… before launching into the one ahead.
Last week I received a box set of Drivers of Change cards from Arup’s Foresight and Innovation team in London. They are part of an on-going research programme exploring those issues most likely to have a major impact upon society. Some time back they had requested an image I had photographed to be included in the publication and its been great to view the entire package which is designed to ignite minds in our transitory times.
The box contains sets of cards on issues that drive change: energy, waste, climate change, water, demographics, urbanisation and poverty which are further divided into categories: social, technological, economic, environmental and political. Each card covers a single driver and presents a provocative question and image appended by a challenging fact and sub-issue. The reverse features further research, figures, maps and supporting detail – all coming together to prompt exploration of emerging trends in brainstorming sessions. The questions were derived from Arup’s own workshops with professionals on what is driving change in their sectors.
The cards have been used in a number of events by Arup to promote dialogue – always encouraging interactivity and often involving a sense of play. At a Tokyo Designers’ Week the cards were circulated round a sushi bar within the shipping container venue where visitors selected cards and wrote their responses to the drivers.
The image I took in Worli, Mumbai from the card featuring the sub-issue Livelihood Opportunity – posing the question “How do you make ends meet?”
Arup is a global engineering consultancy which has a history of employing a holistic multi-disciplined approach in engineering design. With a global staff of over 10, 000 Arup provides an array of services for the built environment sector including engineering, design, project management and consultancy. Notable projects include the Sydney Opera House, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, CCTV headquarters in Beijing, Casa da Música in Porto and 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) in London.
I feel the Drivers of Change cards are a relevant tool for curating conversations as are other sets such as the Method Cards by Ideo and the NextPlays card set from Moxie Design Group. By breaking groups out of linear thinking they engage minds in a participatory manner and are more likely to gather a brain storm of deep insights than a passing shower of shallow talk.
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Last week I became a contributing blogger over at Osocio – a website that aggregates
non-profit campaigns and social advertising from around the globe. Here’s a relevant bit
of cross-posting on a surprisingly simple yet highly effecive design strategy that playfully encourages behaviour change:
Scooping up a D&AD Yellow Pencil in this months awards is the brilliant Newspaper
to New Paper project from Dentsu, Tokyo. I feel D&AD are also to be applauded in acknowledging the great worth of this humble project. It signals that they are gauging quality not so much by the effort that is put into a design but more by the effect it has
on its audience.
Entry Rationale
BRIEF:
Design a package for a street vendor that sells farm-grown vegetables and fruits. The brief required somethig original, easy to use and low cost.
SOLUTION:
We focused on old newspaper used to wrap vegetables with. Newpaper was used for good reasons – for its moisture retention quality which helps keep vegetables fresh longer and for its reuse value. Under the “Newspaper for New Paper” project we utilised what was already there – the newspapers – and added an element of design that would be playful and make people smile… both those selling the vegetables and those buying them. By re-using old papers that would be thrown away, the project was friendly to the environment as well as to the budget. By simply adding colourful dots or stripes to the old paper we came up with a totally new package design.
RESULT:
Sales grew by 20%, as did the number of customers. There was more interaction with customers. Because they liked the design, people didn’t just throw away our New Paper but re-used it for something else. News of the low-cost, original design wrapping paper spread virally to other stores that used newspaper for wrapping. The New Paper project was not just a new design for wrapping paper but a pointer to a better lifestyle for us all.
