Graphic Design in India: A brief analysis of bullshit

In one single post it would be hard to talk about everything that has been developing in India in graphic design. It has certainly grown over the past 10 years, especially more so in the last 5 years. The quality and variety of work has gotten better. But is it really getting much much better? Not really, unfortunately.

Designers here in India are quick to jump and say that the clients are conservative, the public is uneducated and that they cannot express their creativity in such a stifling environment. However, a lot of fault lies with the designers themselves that they do not want to admit.

I will be a bit too broad in my generalizations but it doesnt make it untrue. Here are the facts as I have seen over the last few years since 2006 when I started to really understand design in India. There are very few design schools in India. Most of the graduates tend to have the same style and seem to be lacking originality or the "thinking out of the box" mentality, even in explorations. Noone seems to be trying to push the client much because they are afraid of losing them.

However the biggest fault of Indian designers, especially the senior onces is the way they go about designing. Concept comes second to the beauty. They are too busy emphasizing on making something pretty and agreeable to the client rather than something conceptual. Most believe that they can plug a concept after they have churned out something "pretty". When senior designers give this brief to their juniors, the latter get influenced in the way they design then and in the future. This is more so because the levels of hierarchy in any office (even a design studio!) are too stark and people are too drunk on their position of authority. Designers have egos yes, but good designers are those who do not let egos come in the way of great work. And I have hardly met anyone in India like that while in New York I worked with really successful and talented people who could push aside their pride to push someone to do something amazing even if it went against what they believe in. And it shows in the work that comes out from the two countries.

The problem is that there is too much bullshit here. Sure, bullshitting our way through a presentation happens everywhere but I am not cool with backward thinking-" make something pretty and we will plug a concept later on"! That's absolutely horseshit. Everyone knows that once you have a concept, the possibilities are endless- even the pretty design will come out! Senior designers in India have to stop making their juniors design in this way because they are the future of Indian design. And this is why design hasn't yet matured yet. Sure, clients can be conservative but not as much as we think. The most successful businesses are those who have taken risks. If the concept is really strong and you believe in it, the client will believe in it too. That's where you really use your bullshitting powers! Bullshitting logical and valid arguments is a true art. And to dismiss our large population as "stupid" or "uneducate" is just making an excuse. If liberalization has shown anything, Indians have the capacity to take anything new, however bad or good, whole heartedly. Taste is acquired. You feed them your bullshit, they will be used to bullshit. So if they stupid, it is probably because you have made them stupid with your bullshit!

This mentality of "my way or the highway" when it comes to senior designers is highly negative. Junior designers, fresh out of school or those toiling under boring bread & butter work, need real leadership not dictatorship. A true leader will tell them it is imperative that they do one thing that has great concept rather than 10 pretty things with no concept. If the leaders are unable to think of the concepts (due to actual inability, lack of time due to other responsibilities etc) the least they can do is not stifle those who can. Or better, promote this thought process aggressively. Even if the juniors havent met the client (which ideally, they should to start work on the project), it doesnt make their points irrelevant. The doctor doesn't always know best.

Right now the youngsters have anyway come from a very guided design program and now their seniors tell them to design only pretty things. They all look at great designs in great books and just wish and dream that they could do the same things. These books become "inspirations" for their pretty designs and this is what they believe to be the only way to design in India. When they become seniors, they will thrust this belief on their juniors to maintain the status quo of crappiness in the thought process- without having contributed a iota of something fresh or revolutionary in it. All those years of work cited as experience amounts to nothing if one cannot sustain modesty, humility or even the basic romantic idea of free thought.

Perfection comes with practice. Indians love to show off their knowledge of the English language or just what they consider "knowledge" inculcated through their love of books which they believe makes them superior to anyone on earth who doesn't indulge in it. They will go around town quoting inspirational quotes by famous people but one wonders if they really believe in what they are quoting. Because, Indian graphic design, the babies of these very "intellectualised" designers doesn't seem to reflect that. Only when they come around, will the clients come around. Only when they push for concept out of their juniors, will really great work come out. Till then, blaming people is the easiest thing that they can do. We will always stay a nation of artists with work that have hollow souls and generic visual imagery borne out of some lame-ass bullshit shroud under the garb of "pretty design".

Wherever I am, I will keep fighting this mentality and I sure hope I am not alone.

Rebranding revisited

This is going to be one of those few posts where I put forward an objective observation of a subjective topic related to my profession. And it would be something strong that would have provoked me do such a thing- and it was. To put it mildly, it was the plan eyesore of the most recent rebranding that has really ticked me off.

It is the already widely discussed rebranding of Pepsi & company. I was never a big fan of Pepsi as a occasional consumer of carbonated belch-inducing colored water and even less of their marketing campaigns which were tacky, poor in taste and seemed like coming from the mind of a teenager who has smoked way too much pot. It seems like that teenager has just entered college and is getting wasted in every conceivable party he can get to- and Pepsi has hired him again.

First of all I wouldn't call it a full rebrand as it fails in the way it transformed the whole company as a unit- its early days but by what we have seen so far, it doesn't seem to go more beyond this. But lets discuss what damage Arnell has done to the second most popular soft-drinks brand.

The circular Pepsi logo was quite likable and had a million possibilities to be redeveloped- its reinterpretations before this redesign has been quite nice and imaginative. I think they thought that the new design is fun and imaginative. To be fair it is. No, it truly is. For a fifth grader! Smileys? Really? I already thought that Pepsi marketed itself as some wannabe teenage brand and now they are just stepping back even more! The first time I saw the logo, I thought it was a cheap knockoff or something. And then the truth dawned on me. Pepsi screwed up. Big time. It could have made itself more "cool" and "sophisticated" at the same time by employing better sensibilities- for instance the way at&t was rebranded. The two-dimensional logo transformed into a three dimensional globe, lower case, softer colors and addiotion of the color orange- to give a friendlier image and it looks like it will live for the next 10 years. I can understand that Pepsi did not want to look like it copied their rebranding from at&t (expert perhaps the lower case type) but I wish they did. I am also guessing this was probably the decision that Arnell did not make but the Pepsi executives- or I am just hoping, for the sake of design studios everywhere.
The xerox rebrand was similar- the globish-button is not particularly to my liking but I think the whole project was still in better taste and it was sort of a more 'true' rebrand.


One of the more tasteful and complete rebrands-

























Pepsi was always associated with blue, white and red (Americana anyone?) but I don't think they ever used it to the full effect or consistently. Look at Coca Cola- u see the bright red and sweeping white letters or forms and you instantly think of them- even if it is not Coke itself! The new redesigned packages Now the new redesign takes pages from Coke's branding- look at the package redesigns- the plain blue, silver and black backs- sure they mean different things but come on, who are you kidding? Its a direct lift off- more or less. Losing some more imagination here Arnell?

Spot the similarities?























Some saving grace comes from the redesign of Mountain Dew but still how much the brand values have changed is really questionable.

Then the other change I saw on the shelves was of Tropicana and realized that it was part of the bigger exercise by Pepsi! Again, the first reaction to the new package was that it looked like a cheap knock off- a new brand that did not seem so confident inspiring in its dull (unripe?) orange with a glass wrapped around the corner. I am sorry but it does not look appetizing one tiny bit- it reminds me more of what happens after you mix too many drinks and do not eat a ounce of solid food. The old package was so much better and friendly- and no, its not one of those random cases where it's hard to accept the new. I love redesigns but this, I am sorry to say, is a step backward.

The entire (supposed) attempted progression to a supposed simplicity seems incomplete and the work- well, lets just say a sophomore could probably pull out a better one out of his/her hat. I don't think that enough research or concept building was done for this whole exercise and perhaps only focus groups were relied upon (if at all) for feedback and study. I think the biggest positive out of this huge miscalculation is that it can be taught as a valuable lesson about how not to go about rebranding something that is already so big in the market. The only reason that the brand will live on and not be affected much is because it is already so big and familiar- and that is the problem. A rebranding exercise is to excite and entice more people but it probably may put off more than few- like me and apparently a big chunk of the design fraternity. If you prefer Pepsi over coke, you probably will still have Pepsi regardless- and that's how it is going to be. The status quo has not been disturbed and that is where the whole exercise fails. And why is that such a big problem? It makes young designers like me disillusioned about what all crap can make it to final production and how much money companies will pay for it! It is, I repeat, not an outrage over something new, but a reflection on the mockery of the values that designers have been told to inculcate every single day of their lives.

And again, I hope it was just the suits who chose the designs though I shudder to think, like my brother pointed out, that if this was considered the best set of designs, how bad were the other designs?

Onions in design.

Onions have layers and hardly anyone uses the outermost one. Corns have a covering but I don't see anyone eating that. The sweet taste of apples is judged by the white inside rather than the red outside. I have never seen anyone eat the shells of peanuts either. Its the inside that counts - and I like to believe that it holds true for design.
Yes, when one thinks of design, our mind instantly thinks of improving how something looks. However, it is not completely disassociated from its concept, its inner soul. Design briefs are always convoluted and to simplify all that into one symbol, one layout or one design is a very challenging task. The problem is that quite often the solutions strive to make something 'pretty' and end up looking identical to earlier solutions to completely different jobs. Without a concept, most designs will end up having no individuality of their own. This is a problem especially in an atmosphere of intense competition between companies who want to stand apart from each other. And yet designers keep trying to make just pretty things. It could work once, twice, maybe thrice but really, if there has hardly been any thought into it, it will die out 99 out of 100 times. Among the many things that i have learnt from design school and design studios, one of them is to never ever kill the soul.
Lets take logos for example. Especially the typographic ones, especially in the fashion sphere. They look so similar to each other. Heck I saw a upmarket grocery store which had a type treatment that reminded me of some fashion labels- and sadly, the rest of the branding inside that supermarket/grocery was not at all related to the main logo. And then there are some amazing marks you remember- like the coke logo which you just never forget. The saddest part is that every designer remembers to make their design stand apart but ends up not really doing so. Some think that they need to reinvent the wheel but it really is not possible unless you are a genius or god himself! And the fact that most design solutions may have been used should not mean that we cannot create more solutions from these either. All the time staying true to the spirit of what we are making.
What I am saying is that we should desist from making grungy designs for upscale projects or polished ones for 'street' projects. "Relevance"- that should be the operative word while deciding the USP of our designs. NOT "pretty". After all, a banana's peel stays as fresh as the banana itself.