POOL 82 by Designindia Magazine

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Alex Davis pg 12 Priyankar Gupta 02 Neha Tulsian 26 Santanu Das 32 Nitin Barchha & Disney Davis 38 Maithili Kabre 44 Jeetinder Sandhu 50 Sruthi Kande & Apoorva Kamat 56 S Balaram 62

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Editor in Chief | sudhir@indidesign.in

June 2017 | # 82

Sudhir in Hanoi, Vietnam with delegates of the Vietnam India Design Education Talk 2017 organized by Haki Education Network

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Alex Davis pg 12 Priyankar Gupta 02 Neha Tulsian 26 Santanu Das 32 Nitin Barchha & Disney Davis 38 Maithili Kabre 44 Jeetinder Sandhu 50 Sruthi Kande & Apoorva Kamat 56 S Balaram 62

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Designindia was founded in 2002. It was started as a platform for interaction for the design community in India and abroad. Over the years it has grown into a forum spread over many social and professional networking domains, linking design professionals into an active, interactive and thought leading community.

Designing With Constraints Most of us in India live and grow up with constraints. I would say most of us in Asia grow up in a household, society and country with multiple constraints - not just physical and economic but social, cultural and religious as well. This creates a foundation for all our creative expressions, our crafts, our jugaad... it is the basis of starting any design work. But, it also creates a vacuum. Most Asian designers (and I say this based on my exposure to China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore Japan is an exception that I can explain) feel lost when expected to start work on a project that has no brief (or constraints). We excel in subjective design to do with culture, humans, people, interfaces, and services. We lack the skills for objective design of systems, processes, mechanisms. In my view this explains the major difference between the Eastern and Western philosophies of Design. It is a cultural difference as well. Sudhir

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ANIMATION

Drawn to Cinema

As an independent visual storyteller, Priyankar Gupta’s work ranges from illustrating for children’s books to making storyboards for films. He tells POOL why he never has the option of getting bored!

Where did your design journey begin? PG: I was in standard ten when I first heard about NID after the daughter of a family friend got admission there. I had no clue about the institute or the subjects taught there until I met her – that opened the door to the ‘Garden of Eden’, as I always called NID. When I had to choose a stream for standard 12, I chose humanities. When my friends were preparing for IIT and medical college, I was watching foreign language cinema and savoring world history and geo-politics. Drawing was something I always did. After the preboards I appeared for the NID entrance test. I cleared the first round and went to Ahmedabad for the workshop and interview, confident I would get through. But destiny had something else in store - I was rejected! I was rejected the next year as well. By then I had joined an Art College in Kolkata and was preparing for a third attempt in 2002 when riots broke out in Gujarat. I cleared the first round and thought I might not be able to make it to the interview as long distance trains were getting cancelled. I did finally make it to riot stricken Ahmedabad with my fearless mother who had 2 POOL #82

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COVER STORY

STEELING THE SHOW Alex Davis has an engineering background that he combines with his creative leanings to come up with the most eyepopping pieces of sculptural art. POOL learns how his journey evolved from designing furniture to creating awardwinning design-art…

How did formal education impact your career? AD: Formal education works more like the skeletal framework of your body...the structure that invisibly holds it all up. The backbone of my design career is my mechanical engineering degree and the backbone of my artistic and sculptural practices comes from my design education both at NID (where I pursued a Diploma in Product Design) as well as Domus Academy Milano (where I opted for MDes in Industrial Design). All these faculties fundamentally have shaped and guided my 12 POOL #82

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BRANDING

ON THE DESIGN HIGHWAY Neha Tulsian is creative director, accountant, junior designer, office boy and copywriter-in-the-making at NH1 Design, the strategic design consultancy she set up to offer clients ‘mind-bending creative solutions’

Where did your design journey begin? NT: It started in Kolkata. Though I leaned towards design, somehow I signed up for a B.Com course. My sister used to run a design agency called Wysiwyg Communications. Right after school, with her help, I managed my first internship at Lintas in Kolkata for three months. Post that, I was at Rediffusion as an intern for 11 months. That got me my first job as a designer with Apeejay Surrendra Group. I worked directly with Priti Paul and that’s where I actually started to believe I could be a graphic designer. I dropped out of B Com, and went on to pursue a design education (Foundation in Graphic Design + HND typography) at London College of Communication. I interned in London at some of the best design agencies like Johnson Banks, Together Design, SAS Design, Williams Murray Hamm, Interbrand, Un-real Design, and Open Agency – and that is where I got my real education. 26 POOL #82

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TRUE BLUE

Described as ‘a movement towards sustainability’, Santanu Das’s Maku clothing line focuses on handspun khadi and the natural indigo dye technique 32 POOL #82

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LIFESTYLE

CONCRETE IDEAS Architects and product designers Nitin Barchha and Disney Davis set up Material Immaterial studio to explore and celebrate the bare beauty of otherwise mundane materials

Mirage- Robehook 38 POOL #82

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JEWELRY

Making a lavish statement

Maithili Kabre’s eponymous label gives hand-crafted fashion jewelry a strikingly luxurious touch

What took you from architecture to a jewelry design? MK: I started making handmade jewelry in a very simple manner while studying architecture at Sir JJ College of Architecture in Mumbai. When I moved to Ahmedabad to pursue a PGDPD (Lifestyle Accessory Design) at NID, I did not think of this as one of the areas that would be my primary profession. However, my interest and tenacity both grew simultaneously, in the form of an obsession with refinement of design, process and product. In 2009, back in Mumbai after graduating from NID, I established a fashion jewelry label 44 POOL #82

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FASHION DESIGN

TIP TOP

Jeetinder Sandhu seamlessly balances Eastern and Western influences to create his striking line of men’s fashion and shoes

L|R: Autumn Winter 2013-2014 Show

How did your tryst with fashion design begin? JS: I am a men’s fashion and shoe designer, born and brought up in India. I had the opportunity to live in many different cities in India while growing up, and that has played an important role in defining who I am today. I was always interested in the arts and I think that just ended up taking a more defined route in my teens when I first started reading up about fashion and seeing shows on television. I decided to study fashion design from Istituto Marangoni in London where I did my Bachelor’s in Fashion Design. I started the Jeetinder Sandhu brand in 2013 just after my graduation, and was lucky to have an amazing kick-start to my journey with Graduate Fashion Week in London. My designs were well received and that’s what got me noticed in the industry. Soon after, I did shows in Paris and Berlin. I used to source shoes for my fashion shows, and wondered if I could design them myself instead. That’s how I started designing shoes about two years ago. The result was an immediate connection with shoes and the art of shoe designing. I haven’t looked back since. 50 POOL #82

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FOOTWEAR

SOLE PURPOSE

Sruthi Niveditha Kande and Apoorva Kamat, co-founders of hand crafted footwear brand Karmantik, have made it their mission to revive a dying art

What is the story behind Karmantik? SK: We met at the Young India Fellowship and that’s where the idea for Karmantik took root. Before joining the Young India Fellowship program, Apoorva had the opportunity to work in rural Rajasthan through the Gandhi Fellowship. It brought her closer to craft communities and better understand their economic challenges. After joining the YIF program, Apoorva came across like-minded people with an interest in business and craft and this sowed the seeds for Karmantik; she also met Sruthi - who was perfectly in sync with the idea. We never really started out with footwear in mind. A close friend told Apoorva about a shoemaker named Ballu in Churu; he made gorgeous shoes and wanted to expand his business but did not know how. We started out exploring with him and little did we know that our tryst with footwear would start like this. We made a few trips to Churu, trying to understand the craft of shoemaking and the sector. During the fellowship year, we saw many cobblers sitting at Connaught Place in Delhi - 100 meters apart from one another-with very few customers coming by. Some have been sitting there for 20-30 years. After engaging in