Kyoorius Designyatra 2011

Mark Chalmers

Mark Chalmers trained as an architect and found his inspiration in the study of religious spaces such as Cathedrals ranging from the traditional to the kitsch such as inflatable chapels. In his talk, he spoke about coming to the realization that the cross is the symbol of one of the most widely accepted and recognizable brands in the world. He talked about popular brands in consumer culture, what they seem to do and what they actually stand for. According to Chalmers, H&M, though one of the hippest retail brands in the world, is basically a large distribution house; Ikea is a big warehouse selling street food (50c hotdogs is the reward to a tired shopper who has spent hours browsing through the store) and Amazon is essentially one of the largest software development companies in the world.

He took the audience through the Canvas Experiment. This was a hugely successful creation of screens where Converse shoes were the pixels that were animated through a series of simple mechanics and machines. They experimented with the mechanics of animating these screens responding to various sounds such as that of drums and guitars, motion sensing of people moving, walking and dancing in front of the screens and even programmed the screen of shoes to be an interface for video games. Once the idea was established and the technology resolved, the possibilities were endless.

Sandeep Khosla & Tania Singh Khosla

Their work explores history, tradition, culture and climate in the built environment and visual communication. Their work is local and at the same time global. Influences of their education in the US and their response to the rich arts and crafts around them become the set of tools for the projects. This husband and wife duo presented works from their individual practices of architecture and graphic design respectively. Their work largely talked about the modern vocabulary of design in India keeping in mind the culture, context and history of a place. They discussed the visual differences that are seen in the west and the east and interpretations and overlaps. In that spirit their work is a combination of minimalism overlapped with the ornate, embellished and wildly colorful sensibility.

Adrian Shaughnessy

Adrian Shaughnessy currently does what every designer eventually can only dream of doing. In his presentation on day one of Kyoorius DesignYatra, Shaughnessy explained how he made the transition from a traditional successful graphic design studio environment to writing and now publishing his own books. By eliminating the publisher, Shaughnessy says he has managed to design each book as a masterpiece project that allows him to not only write about work that interests him but also present it in a way that is compelling. Publishing his own books allows him to play with the choice of paper, the design of the cover, the changing textures of the pages of a book, the treatment of type and the images. The Internet, he pointed out, is the reason that has allowed him to bypass the bookstores and the publishing houses to create his own books.

Day two began with the Young Blood session featuring Novi Rahman and Raw Color.

The seventh edition of Kyoorius DesignYatra has drawn to a close. The two-day design, branding and visual communications conference featured workshops, sessions and an exclusive documentary screening.

Day One saw the conference begin with an opening by Michael Johnson. Anomaly London’s creative director Nathan Cooper was next, and he spoke about the different ways in which his agency approaches the issue of compensation models.