Design Icon David Carson calls out Lazy Design at the Kyoorius Designyatra 2019 In Goa

Living legend David Carson closed the first day of Kyoorius Designyatra 2019 with a riveting retrospective of his impressive career. Carson’s boundary-breaking typography in the 1990s, in Ray Gun magazine and other pop-cult books, broke the traditional sensibilities of what type on print demanded from a reader, and left the 1,050+ delegates inspired with his journey. Day 1 of India’s biggest…

MANSUKHBHAI PRAJAPATI & MITTICOOL

4 P's of Sustainability

Profits

Protests

Policies

Preservation

A true inspiration, Mansukhbhai Prajapati, hails from a village in  Gujarat from a family of potters. Post Machu Dam breakdown, his family lost everything and migrated to another village where his father took up a job as a mason. Mansukhbhai opened a chai- stall. It so happened that, his chai-stall was right in front of the factory of his wife-to-be. He felt the need to make a name for himself and do something big, because he did not want his wife to ever feel embarrassed of his profession. 

Once, his uncle visited him and offered him a job in a rooftop tile manufacturing unit. He closed his tea lorry and joined the factory. During his time there, he learnt all related work at the factory. 

He combined the traditional pottery knowledge with his experience at the factory and set up an enterprise called MITTICOOL (Read the whole story in detail here). He developed water filters with ceramic candles, refrigerators, cooker and non-stick tawa (pan)- all made from clay.

These products operate without electricity and have negligible maintenance costs. They are easy to produce, sustainable and serve their function well. They have improved the domestic lifestyles of people from so many small towns and villages.

Mansukhbhaai, discontinued his education in class 10. Without any educational expertise, he managed to succeed in Designing for the real problems that people face. 

Mansukhbhai's story really makes me question my own actions as a designer. We- designers- spend all our time trying to help brands of all kind sell better but does the world actually need all these brands, some of which sell really useless products? Are we really 'designing'? Are we really solving problems that need our attention? Is selling a new brand of toothpaste or designing a packaging for a bodywash, worth our time and effort? Will the world die without more brands and are these brands really making a difference in our lives? 

Many problems faced by the rural sector are untouched by designers. We can make a difference in their lives- give them a chance to live the same healthy lifestyle and fulfill their needs beyond the basic food, clothing and shelter. Attention to those problems really requires time and effort and it is worth it. Mansukhbhai has proved that.

Photocredits: Kanchan Dhankani

You guys know about DesignYatra? It is a brilliant conference for design community held annually by the Kyoorius team under the leadership of Rajesh Kejriwal.  Kyoorius is a not for profit organization initiated by Transasia Fine Papers, incepted to fuel a design movement in India. This was the 8th edition of the annual meetup of some of the best designers and ideators from the world. We were present there as one of the startups out there trying the change the way designers communicate with/about their design. If you want to get a glimpse of how intriguing and kyoorius the world of design, then you should come over to next year’s Design Yatra. We’ll be there as well and might as well be having a conversation of how this post made you attend the event! (and our beers would be on DesignYatra guys!) 

There have been many posts on the conference; so many creative designers were out there who were doodling their way through the 3 days of brilliant talks and conversations. This post by Anya Rangaswami outlines the 3 days of events in sketches and words. Designers are more creative and vibrant than business and startup guys; it is evident from the number of sketch notes and doodles people have made about the event, have a look at this one by Mrinalini Sardar and this one by Kruttika Susarla. Since, we at Framebench are so bullish on collaboration, so it’s better not to write another write-up on the talks again, we’d suggest you to go open up that link, you’d love them!

Here are a few pics from the event -

Goan roads present a pleasant relief from the Delhi traffic!

one of the many awesome talks 

and yes, the theme of the event was 'The Divide'  - this was the official banner of the event

One thing is for sure, Indian design with the support modern digital technology is going to explode now in the coming years. Till now, not many companies gave design and branding the respect it needed to thrive, but now things are changing and lot more people are getting excited about this change. People are now working from not just different blocks in the same city, but also from different countries, thus collaboration is the way to go. One of the many collaborative projects that caught our eye was the Nokia Pure typeface project being headed by Bruno Maag of the Dalton Maag agency. They are making the typeface for as many scripts as possible and this is how Devanagri, the official Indian script looks like in Nokia Pure Typeface library. 

The 3 Day Design Conference at Goa is over. 3 Days of utter brilliance. 3 Days of awe.  3 Days of inspiration. 3 Days of broadening of our horizon - of realizing there's no limit to possibilities. All we need is Imagination. All we need to do is to 'dream'. It's all so simple. Why do we complicate things and make them a nightmare for ourselves? 

Just Dream and then make it happen! Find a way to make it happen. 

The past three days have left me in a surreal kind of a mental space, given me a lot of food for thought and made me re-consider a lot of my actions and decisions!

On Saturday evening I decided I wanted to come to Goa for inspiration and on Monday the tickets & hotels were booked all thanks to my father (Papa, Im ever so grateful! I love you). Wednesday afternoon I landed in Goa!

It was a great decision to come here. Each of the nights that I spent here, I went to bed with a feeling of fulfillment & more wisdom & clarity. Even after sitting in the conference and following activities 9 to 9, there was this really new internal energy that I felt. The ideas that were shared by the speakers pumped me up.

My favourite speaker at Designyatra2011 was one that wasn't even there. Massimo Vignelli's wisdom and spirit was a refreshing breather from the spit-shined portfolio parades that design conferences tend to become.

In an exclusively made-for-designyatra film by Hillman Curtis, Debbie Millman engaged Massimo Vignelli in a conversation on design, philosophy, society, globalisation and interestingly, his opinion on the 'Indian way.'

TypeRadio, Fabrique's Jeroes Van Erp, TSK's Tania Khosla + Sandeep Khosla and the inspiring Troika at Designyatra last month.

Adrian Shaughnessy's "10 Things Good Designers Do/ Say/ Think."

Like most of the audience, I loved this list and grinned broadly through it.

A twinge of regret though: I've had an eerily similar list planned for the yellow wall at the studio, for months, and haven't got around to putting it down.