Designing India’s future: the 2013 Kyoorius Designyatra

I’ve just spent four excellent days in Goa as a guest of the Kyoorius Designyatra, an annual Indian design industry conference. Kyoorius is a not-for-profit organisation set up to bring some cohesion to the industry; and the Designyatra is their annual conclave. It’s a pretty big deal: it was on at the Grand Hyatt with sponsors including Zee TV, Vu and Absolut, 1,400 delegates and speakers from around the world.

Dominic Harris of Cinimod Studios

When I initially considered going along, I imagined I’d spend a few token hours inside the conference, then the rest of the time at the beach. But in the end, I spent far, far more time than originally planned inside the venue: listening to speakers, meeting designers, checking out exhibits. The whole thing was fascinating and a window into an aspect of India that is quietly steaming ahead, at a time when the country is wrapped in bad press. There’s a lot written and spoken about other elements of India’s creative industries – art, fashion, music – and probably not enough attention paid to Indian design: but this is starting to change.

Kyoorius was set up about eight years ago by fine paper merchant Rajesh Kejriwal, who was looking for a way to connect better with his main customers, mostly graphic designers. After consultations he realised that, at the time, designers in India operated in isolation, with no real way of connecting with each other, and so he set about trying to change this. The cornerstone event is the Designyatra, which in that time has become hugely respected. Last year, Creative Review called it one of the best curated and best organised design festivals in the world, and that it is: there were just 20-odd speakers (22 were listed but I believe some couldn’t get visas) and while many were people who are lauded in their chosen fields, the focus appeared less on presenting a slate of *stars* and more on finding people with unique insights. For example, ad men KV Pops (India, Leo Burnett) and Tan Yew Leong (Malaysia, The Storytellers) spoke of tackling social issues through advertising campaigns, while Karin Fong (Imaginary Forces) took to the stage to talk about the inspiration and process involved in designing film titles. Sarang Kulkarni of Mumbai-based typographic studio White Crow spoke of developing a standard typeface while Brit Dominic Harris (Cinimod Studio) told the audience about creating massive LED lighting installations, for example on the London Eye.

Some of Sarang Kulkarni of White Crow’s typographic work: versions of ‘Aa’.

But without a doubt, the highlight of the conference was Dharamveer Khambog, a Haryana farmer turned Delhi rickshaw driver turned inventor. He’d returned to his home village to care for his family and had noticed that other villagers were laboriously hand-pressing fruit and plants such as amlas and aloe vera to extract the juice. Unable to afford the machines already available, he decided to invent his own. The result: a rudimentary-looking yet effective structure capable of extracting oils and essences from herbs, fruits and other farm products. He spoke in Hindi which I could barely understand but had the audience in stitches: a combination of his shrieky speaking manner, comic timing and his turn of phrase (“So I returned to my village to care for my sick sister, and my wife told me she wouldn’t sleep with me until my sister was better”). But then, when the moderator asked him if the invention had a name, Dharamveer, his chest puffed with pride, told the audience of design and branding experts that yes, the machine did indeed have a name. He’d chosen to call it Multipurpose Fruit Pressing Machine.

For that, he got a standing ovation.

The Grand Hyatt’s private beach. I never actually made it there.