Design Yatra 2007

Hello, everyone. Just felt like sharing the experience at the Design Yatra 2007 with you all. With those who didn’t attend, so as to tell them about good things that we came across and with those who attended, so as to get their experience also as feedback.

I guess you all know now what is Design Yatra is all about.
Design Yatra this year was not as nicely organized as last year may be because there were more than double the number of people (1600) than last year (700). The hotels where people were put up were far from the venue, so lot of time went in traveling also. Food was bad at venue as well as hotel.
Now coming to the good part of it. The speakers that they managed to get this year were really big people. They are really big and famous even outside India. Not everyone out of them could give good speech and good presentation. But some of them were just mind blowing.

http://www.designyatra.com/2007/conference/Speakers.html

This link has the list of speakers and information about them. Go through them and their sites without fail.

Clicking on next will take you to the schedule of the 3 day conference. I will just tell you briefly about the lectures that we attended.



Day 1

Wally Olins was outstanding. Very nice work. Read about him. (click on his name on the first page in link.) and also check his work on site.
His presentations was very well made and to the point.
He spoke about how design can creat or change the image, in 4 different areas.
Product, organizations (like desiney), communication and services.
And also how the senario in market is now changing because now retailer has become bigger than the manufacturer.
He gave examples of how design created (or recreated) brands. Eg. Orange.
Also how brands changed their market strategy from selling product to selling service or experience. Eg. Cocacola. HSBC Pragati.
How brands can go beyond commerce, in charity, academy, nations and cities.
http://www.saffron-consultants.com/Home/Default.aspx


David Kester, who is a management guy had a high funda presentation which went bouncer for me. But have heard he has created good brands and promoted design in different n new areas.
http://www.design-council.org.uk/


Simon Sankarayya: I couldn’t get his work also actually. I just rememeber some installations that he had done, were good. The huge keyboard keys he had put in museum to play for kids. Which will light up when they climb on it. Actually just check his site.
http://www.allofus.org/


Stefan Sagmeister had all typo based work which was really good. Some of his typo and ideas were really really good. The way he had adapted those in installations were also very nice. But I dono how practical and functional his work was. And whether it was more of fine art kind of thing. Some idea were nice of using things like wires or leaves for typo.
http://sagmeister.com/


OneDotZero Film Screening : I didn’t attend this but some stuff that I saw on the site looked good. But I came across different opinions from different people about this session.
http://www.onedotzero.com/home.php


Day 2

Harry Pearce: ohhhh this guy was very nice. Looked good. Had good and down to earth personality. I like his work done for ‘witness’ and for the ‘dana center’. Actually this is what I remember right now. But do visit Pentagram site. They have some amazing work and amazing case studies. Site is worth keeping your favorites folder.
http://www.pentagram.com/en/


Itu Chaudhuri: I have no words to say that how confusing and pointless was this lecture. So not saying anything.

Piyush Pandey: well as we all know him, he as usual showed a showreel of O&M and added the work ‘design’ in place of idea. Though is ads are no doubt very nice. Some amazing ideas. And to a certain point he was right when he said that some brands like orange and hutch are created through design. But while he started off well by saying that “advertising has design and hence design is a vaste thing where adverting also comes”, later he made some statement saying something exactly opposite and so sounded very confused and unprepared.

Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi: actually we missed this lecture. I just attended last few minutes. But whatever I saw, I thought it was more of web and interactive design. And nothing I saw was extra ordinary.
http://www.dixonbaxi.com/


Neville Brody: he showed how they worked on ‘TIMES’ news paper logo. Also the work he had done for ‘FUSE’. And few more case studies. It was good. Check his work on his site.
http://www.researchstudios.com/home/006-neville-brody/NEVILLE_home.php

Day 3

Cary Murnion: He showed some case studies but I don’t remember much. I guess it was too esoteric for Indian audience.
http://www.stayhonest.com/

Kyle Cooper: there comes the hero of the conference……… he is a movie titles designer. He has designed for superman, seven, Spiderman, 300 and all those amazing titles. Just superb. I mean I also want to do titles design after seeing his work. The best was the Wimbledon (tennis wala) titles. I m sure those who attended will agree with me. Rt?
http://www.prologue.com/


Sonia Manchanda: I didn’t attend this one because I had attended her lecture in a seminar just 2/3 weeks ago. And I didn’t like the work very much. It was ok. They are very strong in business planning all. But work is ok.
http://www.idiom.co.in/


Erik Kessels: he didn’t come. he didnt get the entry to out country.

Stefan Sagmeister interviews Neville Brody : it was just entertaining and nothing much besides that. But it was fun because of their witty question answers.

Michael Johnson: this was the best and the gem of the crown lecture in the entire conference. You guys please do visit his site. The truly idea based design work that was simple but superb. The kind of work that makes u wonder, how they thought of such simple but brilliant idea. Very inspiring.
http://www.johnsonbanks.co.uk/noflash.html


Besides this we had fun in terms of going around on bikes in the evening after the conference. We all went to bagha beach for dinner at night because that was the only place where few places were open. Rest all was shut because it was off-season. I met dipali all the while on bike with his friend. Kapil came for dinner once or twice with us. And rujuta also came to meet us. But rajesh and diapli couldn’t come. And I guess everyone was with his or her respective colleagues so we all couldn’t get together much as I had hoped.

(now some gossip) Met few other people also from J.J. met gauri sohini. I forgot where she works now. But she is getting married on 21st October. Pradnya falari who works in kapil’s office was also there. Niklank jain works at ‘fig tree’. They had designed the whole design yatra event. There were these photographers also there: saish, kedar malegoankar, ashay kshirsagar. They all had put up their work on exhibition. It was all ok. I mean good.

And the last day beach party was 3rd class. There was no music. Bad food. (hardly any food actually).

Am I missing out on anything? I guess its already tooooooooo long. So people those who didn’t attend do visit the good sites and give your comments. And those who attended please add your views on this and add things that I missed out. Lets make use of our blog for some work porpose also.