FAMOUS DESIGNERS IN INDIA

Suvi Chand
Jul 10, 2017 · 15 min read

Let’s have a look on 10 Indian graphic designers — a generation of global talent representing different cultures and diverse influences, but still revelling in their Indian roots.

1.Sujata Keshavan

About

Sujata Keshavan was born on 1961. She is an Indian graphic designer and co-founder of Ray and Keshavan, India’s leading brand design firm.she is the woman behind some of india’s biggest brands from airtel to infosys to max. she also developed some brand identity of the new airports at mumbai, hyderabad, delhi and bangalore.

Qualification

Sujata graduated in 1984 from the National Institute of Design. She also did her Master of Fine Arts in graphic design in 1987 from the School of Art, Yale University.

At Yale, Sujata studied under legendary designers Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson and Armin Hofmann.

Professional Life

In 1989, Sujata founded Ray and Keshavan, in India.

Sujata has been a speaker at many international conferences including Design Indaba in South Africa and the International Design Center at Nagoya, Japan. She was a jury member at Rebrand 100 at the Rhode Island School of Design and a member of the Design Jury at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. She worked as the Chairperson of the jury at the Business World Awards for Design Excellence, and Chairperson of the Design Yatra awards for Excellence in South Asian Design.

She is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Design & Innovation.

Achievements

In 2011, Sujata was placed 18th on Fortune India’s list of most powerful women in business.

  • She won the Eastern Press Award and the Schickle–Collingwood Prize for outstanding work.
  • She is the only Indian graphic designer to be honoured twice as the Graphic Designer of the Year at the annual Advertising and Marketing (A & M) awards.
  • Sujata was named among one of India’s 30 most powerful women by India Today, and was honoured as The Outstanding Woman Professional of the Year, 2007, by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Some of her best projects:

A. Delhi international airport logo

B. Bengaluru international airport logo

C. Mumbai international airport logo

D: Logo of vistara

2. Mira Malhotra

ABOUT

Kohl is a boutique design house led by graphic designer and visual artist Mira Malhotra. With a post-graduate from the National Institute of Design and a B.F.A. in Applied Arts, Mira’s rare approach to design is rooted in logic and common sense but enriched by her distinct aesthetic and creative flair. Her experience spans branding, editorial, packaging, advertising and design thinking and her work mainly caters to music, fashion, lifestyle and gender equity issues. Her clients have included Sony Music, Breakthrough.tv, Red FM, Deloitte India, Grazia, Reliance Mediaworks, 3D-printing startup Brahma3 and luxury brand EIDC. An occasional author, Mira has contributed to design publications such as Create Change by Kyoorius & British Council and The Trellis, NID. She also offers training programmes in design.

Her personal work tends more to image-making and illustration. Having been exposed to a variety of cultures as a child her work is oftentimes an amalgamation of what it is like to be Indian with what it is to look upon Indianness as an outsider. Colourful, humorous, charming and witty, it stems from her fascination with the decorative items at local bazaars, Indian history or from indigenous arts and crafts. She is also a member of a South Asian Indian collective of women artists known as Kadak.

HER WORKS

She works on design, strategy and visual branding for a variety of select, game-changing clients, including those for social good. In her free time she works on her own graphic art characterized often by humour, wit and the combined experience of being an Indian and the experience of looking at Indianness as an outsider. Her work primarily revolves around image-making, with a variety of themes. She is known for her specific style of hand-lettering; a bright, offbeat colour palette; a visceral use of line; and movement in her works.

HER DESIGNS

3. Akshar Pathak

About

Akshar Pathak (born 20 September 1989) is an artist and a graphic designer who makes Bollywood films posters. His posters have been extensively recognised in the digital world and featured in more than 90 magazines and newspapers.

He has earlier worked with Comic Con India, Happily Unmarried and DSYN. He worked for almost three years at Zomato. Meanwhile he worked with All India Bakchod as a Social Media Manager for a short duration. Since November 2015, he is back with Zomato.

Qualification

He is a pass out from NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) one of the best graphic design Institutes in India. He has done B. Des. (Bachelor of Designing) in the field of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessory.

Professional life:

Akshar’s brainchild started working on Bollywood poster in February 2012. His posters became viral through Social Networking Media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Tweetard is another such pet project by Akshar that he started in late 2012. It works under Pathak’s profound philosophy that “Twitter is a sheltered workshop for evil geniuses” and hence, began with depicting works of various Twitter handles in graphic form.

Tweetard has been positively reviewed by the bot press and its fans, as it takes an ironic spin on significant issues that concern society all in the same minimal fashion that he shows in his visuals in Minimal Bollywood Posters.

Some of his best projects:-

A . Roadies Poster

B. Rang de Basanti Poster

C. HT Brunch Cover

4. Binoy Sarkar

About

Binoy Kumar Sarkar also knew as Binoy Kumar Sarkar) (1887–1949) was an Indian social scientist, professor, and nationalist. He established several institutes in Calcutta comprising Bengali Asia Academy, The Bengali Institute of Sociology, Bengali Dante Society, and Bengali Institute of American Culture.

Qualification

He graduated from the University of Calcutta in 1905 with dual degrees in History and English.

In 1925 Sarkar started as a lecturer at the Department of Economics of University of Calcutta. In 1947, he became a tutor and head of the department.

Professional life

Benoy Sarkar left a noticeable mark in the arena of graphic design in India. His contribution towards corporate communications has much to be appreciated and is an example of virtuous effective design. He designed numerous logos of companies that are an expression of simplicity with elegance.

The study and gratitude of several cultures interested him considerably and can be seen in his designs. He had the honour of learning from experts like Paul Rand and Alvin Eisenmann during his studies at the Yale University in the USA. He applied his learnings in his designs as well.

Some of his best projects:-

A. Airport authority of India

B. Delhi transport corporation

C. Electronics corporation of India

D. Indian airlines

5. Dashrath Patel

About

Prof. Dashrath Patel (1927 — December 1, 2010) was Indian designer, sculptor, who was also the founder secretary of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, from 1961 to 1981.

Qualification

He studied fine arts at Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai (1949–53), and Debi Prasad Roy Choudhury was his mentor. Afterwards he studied painting, sculpture and ceramics during his Post Graduate studies at École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1953–1955).

He was idealistic in shaping the idea of design education at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. His teachings have stimulated many inclusive of students and designers. His remarkable contributions to design are now part of the history of design in India. His works are kept at the Dashrath Patel Museum located in Alibagh, near Mumbai.

Professional life

He was proficient in diverse art fields .He was a painter, a ceramist, a graphic designer, an expert in industrial and exhibition design. In his early career days, he was contemporary of Tyeb Mehta, M.F. Hussain and V. S. Gaitonde who were together in the 1950s in Bhulabhai Desai Institute, Mumbai, and often displayed alongside them. Later Henri Cartier-Bresson introduced him to photography, after visiting his exhibition at the Galerie Barbizon, Paris. He continued at the post of secretary of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad for its first 20 years. He also established the ceramics department at the NID. He resigned from NID in 1981. Later on he established the Rural Design School in Sewapuri, near Varanasi.

Achievements

He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2011 and Padma Shri in 1980 by the Government of India for his involvement in design and design education. In 2007, He was also honoured with the grandmaster Award during the Icograda Design Week in India at IIT Bombay.

Best work done

A. Ceramic Design

B. Painting

C. Photography

6. Gopi Prassana

About

Gopinath Prassana was born in Chennai. He is a graphic design artist, logo designer and branding expert famous for his pioneering designs created for few international brands. His work had been received with awards across the design community around the globe.

Professional life

He began his creative journey as a programmer cum web designer in one of India’s most respected media groups. He helped them in developing 11 websites for 11 of their publications.

He handled and headed a team of talented minds in a multimedia company in South India and built scores of games for multinational companies from the scratch.

His yearning to explore newer realms was the trigger to design the conceptual product ‘iBangle’. The groundbreaking revolutionary bracelet iPod caught the imagination of lovers of tasteful design. ‘iBangle’ was named by CNN as ‘tomorrow’s coolest designs’ and Yanko Design named it as one of the Top 50 product designs of 2008.

He made movie posters for several Tamil films like Drohi, Oram Po, Aaranya Kaandam, Paradesi, Raja Rani, and Vaayai Moodi Pesavum. His upcoming films are Kaththi, Azhagukuttichellam, Yatchan and many more.

Achievements:

He provided his animation skills for award-winning film maker Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s first short ‘Becky’. The short film was picked as the ‘Best Film’ at the India International Disability Film Festival in 2005.

Some of his best projects:-

A. Poster

B. Website

C. Advertising

7. Madhukar B Raju

About

He is open minded and capable of working efficiently as part of a design team or individually. He has specialization in Visualization, Design Concept, and Creative Thinking.

With more than 8 years of Industry Experience in the ever expanding field of Design, a creative individual able to produce solutions to design tasks with a diverse variety of media.

His portfolio includes Identity Design, Brochure Design, Package design, Presentations (PPT, Flash), CBT,WBT, HTML & Flash websites, Mail Casts, Screen Savers, Flash films.

He is proficient in Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash; Coral Draw; Audacity; i Film Edit; Dreamweaver

Professional life

He has been working as corporate communication Specialist at IBM India Pvt. Ltd.

November 2006 — Present and serving In-house and recruitment strategy through Internal Branding team.

The scope of work differs from print collaterals like brochures and poster, Identity materials like logo creation, Lotus Notes — mailers, mail-cast, presentations and screen savers.

Worked with IBM as a Full-Time Hire till August 2008 and re-joined the same team as Full Time-Permanent employee.

Supporting in-house Design cell of Pankhudi Foundation (October 2006 — Present)

Panhhudi Foundation is an NGO in the service of underprivileged and unfortunate children of Indian society.

He has worked on Projects for Yahoo India, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, IBM, ITC, ATC, Infosys, ideb Inc., Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Fouress Engineering, Mico Bosch and many others.

Car Simulation (Projects presented to Mico Bosch through Mindworks Solutions, Bangalore.) Flash Interface | Tools: Flash, .NET & hardware (Microprocessor, electric components)

A simulation describing the advantages of Bosch product for the AutoExpo 2006, Delhi.

The project was a grand success with the integration of Hardware (real car model), Electrical equipment’s and Software Interface. The Process of the project begins with an intro continues with advantages and then a real interactive mode, wherein the user interacts with the input from a hardware device. ex: accelerator of the car to the graphic Interface created with Flash.

Achievements

Received “Outstanding Performer award” — an HR individual award for internal communication campaign for contribution towards IBM’s growth, through the record-breaking success of Project Cheetah, a referral drive at IBM India, 2007.

Featured on ‘Francesco Mugnai’ under ‘The World Best Designers: India’ a design inspirational blog for designers.

Some of his best projects:-

A. IBM Poster

B. SACDV Website

C. Yahoo Research and Development Website

8. R. K. Joshi

About

Professor R K Joshi (1936–2008) was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. He was an academic type designer and calligrapher. He designed the main Indian fonts used in Microsoft Windows.

Qualification

He studied at Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. During this time, he found a lack of typefaces in Indian languages. He took up additional classes at the Government Institute of Printing Technology, located within the institute premises, where he learned that Indian typefaces were complex and had many problems in typesetting. He also participated in the first exhibition on Indian typefaces at the college.

Professional life

His first professional involvement was with D.J. Keymer & Co. (now O&M) in 1956. In 1961, he joined ULKA Advertising (now Draft FCBUlka) as Art Director. He started designing campaigns on critical issues like Family Planning and Farmers in order to unite the entire country. He designed the campaigns in several Indian languages. He created some spectacular logos. He designed several advertisements using Indian calligraphy, designed exclusive menus and stationery. He started the concept of multilingual ad campaigns in India, so that the concept can reach to maximum states. The first ever such campaign was the Ashok Jain Campaign.

Achievements

  • Bukva-raz, an International Award for his ‘Raghu’ font
  • Cag Hall of fame, 1990
  • Lifetime achievement award by Ad Club, 2004
  • ATypI country delegate for India
  • Type Director’s Club
  • ICOGRADA

Some of his best projects:

A. Punjab National Bank Logo

B. Welcome Group Logo

C. Welcome Group Logo

9. Sudarshan Dheer

About

Sudarshan Dheer is the magnificent master in the field of Corporate Communication in India having contributed to the discipline for over 50 years. Numerous corporates have their identity designed by him.

Dheer, who worked with ad agencies like National Advertising and MCM for about two decades, quit advertising to start his own design studio, Graphic Communication Concepts in 1974.

Qualification

He was born in Punjab in the year 1937. He achieved govt. diploma in fine arts-painting, and graphic design. He has also worked with innumerable advertising agencies in Bombay.

His area of specialization involves:

  • Corporate Identity Programmes
  • Corporate Literature
  • Corporate Packaging
  • Signage System

Professional life

Dheer, who worked with ad agencies such as National Advertising and MCM for about two decades, quit advertising to start his own design studio, Graphic Communication Concepts in 1974.

His biggest break, he recalls, was winning the HP logo design job. The logo is a circle within which oil spouts from the bottom and spreads to the sides. The circle represents the distribution of oil evenly across the country.

Dheer counts people such as J Krishnamurti, the philosopher, and Kersey Katrak among those who inspired him.

Dheer has a problem with the construal of design. He feels that, nowadays, the term ‘design’ is used very lightly and flippantly like ‘designer shoes’ or ‘designer clothes’. He believes that to create design, “you have to get in touch with your inner self to bring out that creativity. If you’re not doing that, you are recreating something which you have seen earlier. You have to feel it from your heart to create it.”

Dheer has published and edited a book named “Symbols, Logos, and Trademarks: 1500 Outstanding Designs from India’. He also gives lectures on graphic design at various national and international institutions and organizations.

Achievements

  • GOLD MEDAL:
  • The Sixth International Contest of
  • Trade Marks & Logotype
  • TAMGA, Russia 2006
  • BRONZE MEDAL:
  • Bienalleb of International Graphic Design
  • Brno, Czech Republic 1982
  • FIRST PRIZE:
  • One Dollar Design” at ICSID ’89 Nagoya Japan
  • GOLD MEDAL:
  • Art Director of Year,’CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
  • TWELVE AWARDS:
  • . ‘CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
  • SIX AWARDS:
  • ‘ABCI Association of Business Communicators of India
  • FOUR AWARDS:
  • Advertising Club of Bombay
  • FOURTEEN AWARDS:
  • National Awards of Design
  • HALL OF FAME:
  • ‘CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
  • GRAND MASTER:
  • 1st India Icogada Design week IDC, IIT Bombay

Some of his best projects:

A. HP Logo

B. Titan industries

C. ICICI Bank

10. Vikas Satwalekar

About

Prof. Vikas Satwalekar was a former faculty and executive director at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

As an experienced and devoted teacher, he has inspired a whole lot of students at the National Institute of Design. Apart from academic commitments, he has contributed considerably in the fields of Graphic Design, Publication Design, Exhibition Design, Identity Systems, etc. and made a transformation to the design scene in India.

He now works as a design consultant and is based in Mumbai.

Qualification

Vikas Satwalekar did his post-graduation at NID followed by a stint at the Basel School, Switzerland.

Professional life

From 1989–2000, he was the Executive Director of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad and member of its governing council 1982–2000 From 1982–2000, He was the Head of VC program.

As the executive director of NID and the head of its Visual Communication program, Vikas Satwalekar has given to NID, years of fostering and mentoring design education, especially its visual communications education program.

Apart from being an inspiring teacher, Vikas Satwalekar has also worked on prestigious exhibition design projects — Khalsa Heritage Museum; concept, design, proposal for the exhibition: ‘Bharat Ek Darshan’, ‘India Exhibit’, Commonwealth Institute, London.

As a graphic designer, he has contributed for several corporate identity programs for Mother Dairy, National Dairy Development Board, four regional identities for channel Tara. Creation of logos, channel identity graphics and signature films for Broadcast Worldwide Pvt Ltd, Doordarshan Channel identities, DD news, Metro, National Sports, Regional Doordarshan Channels, Prasar Bharati and others.

Achievements:

On 9th February 2007, Prof Vikas Satwalekar was presented with a Grandmaster Commendation on the occasion of the Icograda Design Week in India Conference, IIT Bombay.

Some of his best projects:

A. Logo of National Dairy Development Board

B. Airport authority logo

C. Doordarshan logo

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