The Graphic Design Standard of India, 1977
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The Graphic Design Standard of India, 1977
Ivan Kostka on Sudarshan Deer, Novum Gebrauchsgrafik January 1977
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In India, where design consciousness is relatively low, the designer must first sell the potential client the idea, the very concept of a corporate identity programme, before he can hope to bag any business.
Sudarshan Dheer, 39, has been doing very well for himself. In fact, ever since he launched his own design studio Graphic Communication Concepts a couple of years back he has concentrated largely on total corporate identity programmes. Not too long ago, when Esso in India was nationalised and changed its name to Hindustan Petroleum, Dheer with all the odds against him, single-handedly beat leading Indian agencies in a speculative bid to design HP's new corporate identity programme.
His striking work in this field has most often won him praise from ‘tout le monde’. And we mean ‘tout le monde’ for in recent years Dheer has apparently become the pet Indian designer of Japanese design journals and even America's foremost design magazine expressed its (pleasant) surprise at finding “such sophisticated Western design being done halfway around the globe”. While one agrees about the sophistication, it is perhaps wrong to equate its eye-catching modernity with ‘Western’ design. Nevertheless, Dheer is acutely aware that both his own and Indian design generally has yet to develop its own (national?) identity as, for instance, Japanese design has done. “We have failed so far to substantially exploit our own rich symbolical heritage”, moans Dheer. “But, as we venture into international markets, I foresee Indian design being forced to develop identity.” The irony of the Indian communication situation, as he sees it, is that today it is probably easier for an Indian designer to communicate with an international audience than with an Indian one. What with India's pluralistic culture, fourteen officially recognised languages, and various scripts, coupled with 80% illiteracy Dheer feels that the roll of the Indian graphic designer is to bridge the communication gap.
Dheer ought to know what he is talking about; he has behind him twenty odd years of agency experience at all levels ranging from junior designer in a small agency to Art Director of national ones. In fact, he is the first to acknowledge that those years have stood him in good stead, especially in terms of contacts he depends on, now that he has set up shop on his own. He still remains the consulting Art Director of Adept Advertising a leading agency, though. It was also in those years that he got interested in graphic design specifically. “It was in my seven years as Art Director of Mass Communication and Marketing that I really flowered as a designer. It came through working closely with some fine copy-writers, especially the agency head, Kersy Katrak.”
For the son of a small-time Punjabi jeweller whose adolescent imagination had been so captivated by the garish Indian movie billboards that his sole ambition was then to become a portrait artist, this is quite a long way to have come. More so because in his formative years, under the tutelage of a fine artist, the young Sudarshan had all sorts of false ideas of ‘commercial art’ stuffed into his immature head. No wonder then, that when completing high school he enrolled at Asia's premier art institution, the Sir J. J. School of Art, he joined the Fine Arts department. As a ;fine artist, Dheer recalls, “I won some medals but did not manage to sell a single painting.” That's when he switched to the applied art/design course and took up a job in a design studio. He has not looked back since then. Take a look at his work on these pages and you will agree.
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Logo Histories' Extra Issue unlocks opinion and insights lost to time, buried within the pages of rare out-of-print design books and magazines. Through this series, you'll come to understand the challenges and opportunities corporate identity designers of the past faced to help you better understand design practice of the present. For Logo Histories, click here.