DESIGNING THE INDIAN CULTURES

08.01.2004 News

Istanbul (Turkey) - India is an eclectic mix of diversity. Geography varies from snow peaks to sand dunes and from sea shores to forests. English is the most important language for communication. Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people but there are 14 other official languages.There are 28 states and 7 Union territories. Quite a complex background Indian designers need to deal with.

Diversity in geography, language, religion and culture generated a rich and lively tradition of arts and crafts. Elephant Design is trying to blend in the best of the local icons and aesthetics with contemporary, urban needs. Ashwini Deshpande will showcase the diverse Indian culture and some of the work done by Elephant Design (printed material, signage, R&D projects, etc.) that represents how best design deals with the Indian cultures.

Graduated in 1989 from the faculty of Visual Communication, National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, (India), Ashwini Deshpande in specialised in Branded Environments. In May 1989 she founded Elephant Design with four friends, NID batch-mates. Based in Pune, Elephant Design is today India s largest integrated multi-disciplinary design set-up doing Communication & Product Design Projects, involved in designing trade fair displays & exhibitions in India and overseas, designing retail standardisation programmes, corporate identity programmes, package design and print design for clients ranging from IT, manufacturing, service sector and FMCG brands.

Aswhini has published various articles on design, displays and exhibitions. She was a panelist on the first ever Colour Forecasting Programme in India in September 2003 and conducted student workshops on Discovering Design in Chinese at TFIT, Taiwan in November 2003. In December 2003, she lectured at the National Branding Seminar at Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

Ashwini will also take part in the '6 Alfabe' student workshop from 27 to 29, in Istanbul, where she will present the Devnagari alphabets (Hindi s writing system).

For further information please contact:

secretariat@icograda.org

About the Icograda Design Week in Istanbul:
The two-day 'Building Bridges' seminar is part of the Icograda Design Week in Istanbul (Turkey), from 27 to 31 January 2004.

Held on 30 and 31 January, this seminar is free of charge but registration is requested. Seats will be given on a 'first come, first served' basis. It will bring together designers from Australia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, South Korea and Turkey to share their experiences and influences from their own regions. The seminar will showcase new perspectives on the diversity of graphic design today.

For more information and registration:  istanbul.icograda.org

About the '6 Alfabe' student seminar
Hosted by the Istanbul Bilgi University in Istanbul (Turkey) the '6 Alfabe' student workshop will be held from 27 to 29 January 2004.

'6 Alfabe' means 6 alphabets in Turkish. Students will explore six writing systems and alphabets: the Roman, Hangul (South Korea), Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic and Devnagari (Hindi) alphabets.

The workshop will be conducted by 9 experts in graphic design and typograpy:
Mohammad Ali Yaghan (Jordan)
Tarek Atrissi (Lebanon/The Netherlands)
Oded Ezer (Israel)
Yaki Molcho (Israel)
Tagir Safayev (Russia)
Ashwini Deshpande (India)
Cagla Turgul (Turkey)
Elif Yalcinkaya (Turkey)
Ahn Sang-soo (South Korea).

The workshop is open to all students. There is no registration fee but registration will be done on a 'first come/first served basis.'

For registration, please fill the contact form at istanbul.icograda.org and specify 'Registration for the Istanbul Student Workshop' and the school you re at.

related
articles