Most people don’t think matchboxes speak, or bookcases have voices. But for a handful of graphic and product designers—“communication designers” as Divya Thakur, founder of Design Temple, puts it—products speak loud and clear. And, to them, designing everyday functional products has become an exploration in the language of “Indian-ness”.
“(India has) been isolated for so many years,” says Thakur. “We had our own identity; we were fine with where we were. It’s only when you open yourself up to the world then you think about what defines India.”
Stylish slumber: Doshi Levien’s range of charpoys for Italian design house Moroso. Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint
In 2006, Thakur’s Mumbai-based company started experimenting with products that speak an urban Indian language: matchboxes detail the
Kamasutra and a toilet paper roll tells the story of Draupadi’s
cheerharan (the disrobing episode from the Mahabharat) with a few simple lines and one bold hand.
Designer Krsna Mehta, a Mumbai native, along with Sangita Jindal, first celebrated his city in the much-praised furniture line the “Bombay Project” at home decor chain Good Earth in 2006.
The two designers used old black-and-white photographs of the “Queen’s Necklace” (Marine Drive), men selling tiffins, and women in saris on the beach, and overlaid them on lamps, pillows and coat racks. The result was a funky homage to the city.
“This country should be our first (source of) inspiration,” Mehta says. “In fact, Western designers interpret the East better, and I was getting fed up of that. It’s about time we get our act together and create more products that celebrate India. I love this country and I will never be tired of being inspired by it.”
Over the past year, a fleet of designers have followed suit. Now coffee mugs celebrate the auto-rickshaw. A well-known Italian furniture design house touts top-end charpoys (cots). Clocks tell the time in Urdu. Coasters shout out famous Bollywood quotes. And pillows boast the deeds of freedom fighters.
Call it home-grown kitsch or sentimental art, but a new sensibility which celebrates local icons has now taken root in product designing.
Mumbai speaks
Good Earth, with a presence in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, has been supporting these designs, be it Thakur’s first line of products or Mehta’s Bombay Project, for a couple of years now. Now, even in-house designers at such stores have begun to capitalize on kitsch. Tara Lal, one of the designers at Good Earth, has set up a line dedicated to Bollywood classic stories and quotes, with images of actor Madhuri Dixit on pillowcases and quotes from Sholay on coasters.
And the movement has just grown bigger. It is not just an attempt to celebrate but also honour the designers’ home turf.