EP 198 . 21 Oct 20
Tarun Deep Girdher is an Activity chairperson at NID. He is passionate about and also teaches Type Design, Typography, Printing Technology, Illustration, Visual Narratives, and Environmental Perception. Tarun’s professional projects include socially relevant communication projects, he has deep concerns about inclusive design, disability, gender sensitization, etc. He has designed more than two dozen publications. Apart from such a huge body of work, Tarun has also designed over thirty logos including Right to Information, and None of The Above (NOTA) for the Government of India – and that is the topic of our discussion today. Designing for the government.
Kedar Nimkar:
Today I have Tarun Deep Girdher with us on Audiogyan. Tarun is an activity chairperson at NID. He’s passionate and also teaches type design, typographic printing technology, illustration, visual narratives and environmental perception.
Tarun’s professional projects include socially relevant communication projects. He has deep concerns about inclusive design disability, gender sensitisation and more. He’s designed more than two dozen publications. Apart from such a huge body of work Tarun has also designed over 30 logos including RTI, and nota for the Government of India. And this is the topic of our discussion today. Designing logos I would say or designing for the government. So thank you Tarun for giving your time it’s a real real honour to have you on audiogyan, thank you.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Thank you. Hello, everyone, all the listeners, from wherever you are listening, it’s an honour to be on audiogyan.
Kedar Nimkar:
Thanks. I know, it’s my pleasure altogether. So I’ve have come up with like, I wanted to deep dive into one particular RTI logo or Nortel logo, but as like we discussed offline, I think it will be we’ll start with a more macro picture of what is logo, what are the challenges for designing for the government and stuff like that, and then maybe touch upon your thought process behind certain milestone logos which are designed. So to begin with, if you can, if you can start by telling like what is a logo according to you, and after designing like 30 plus logos or brand units, whatever you call it, for the government, how has your perception about building an entity has changed in the last many years of your work?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Well, actually, it’s a very interesting question because you know, it is making me time travel 30 years ago, when I was a student, and those were the days when the internet had not hit us as it has now, just for the larger audience. Let me just start with your first question, what is a logo, a logo is actually a very generic term used for any visual image which is used by any organisation or any company or any individual as an identification mark. And it’s not that logos are new in our life, because identification used to happen even in the medieval era, if we look at all these crests, which these soldiers and warriors used to wear or carry, or even the flags different tribes had, what were they? They were all visual identifier of a particular group which had a common agenda. Now, when we cut to the early 19th century, especially after the Industrial Revolution, when advertising was born, because the Industrial Revolution led to a certain relationship between the production, the demand and the supply. So, that was an very exciting time in the history of humankind, where people had to the manufacturers or smaller big companies, had to reach out to their customers to ensure that their products are being made aware of, so, that was where advertising started. And that was where this whole conscious thing of having a certain identification Mark outside the shop, even if we imagine a small shop like a big bakery or a baker.
So logo is a very generic word for anything which is a visual identity but when we get into the sort of our professional technicalities, there are different kinds of logos right. So, the most popular one is the word mark or in some books or some references you may also find that it is called a logo, essentially because it comprises of letter forms. So one good example is our recent VI Vodafone idea. So, they use the two letter forms of the English language or if we look at the industry, what is coming immediately to my mind is Larsen and Toubro. So they have a very beautiful L and a D embedded inside a circle.
So any visual identity which uses letterforms is a word mark, it could be short form or it could be the full name. Like if we look at the fashion industry something like Chanel or something, but sooner people realize that not everybody can read now, I’m still talking about 1940s 1950s, that was the time when symbolic representation in terms of visual abstraction started coming into the market. Now, symbolic representation led to the the naming of it as a symbol. So any visual identity which does not have letterforms directly falls under the category of a symbol, because it is symbolising a certain value or certain company and things like that. And we have many examples of symbols around us visual symbols around us, one of the most common one is the Government of India, right the Ashoka, the three lions with the Ashokan distinct, so that is a visual, of course, it is inspired by something which has tremendous historical value. But if we look at the media, the Doordarshan logo, it is a visual abstraction, right. So that is what logo is now when I look back at the last 30 years, a lot of things have changed.
And one only realises that in hindsight that how technology has played such an important role in the evolution of how our visual landscape has changed around us, in the context of logos and identities to two important things have changed to my mind. One is that the production processes and affordability of production processes has led to a lot more logos which are multicoloured. So if we compare in the mid 19, mid 20th century, or even till the 80s most logos used to be one color or at the max, two color. So if a company’s logo is printed into color it’s a big company, right? Because they’re able to afford it. But now when we look at this at one level, print production has become more accessible. At another level, the way the digital technology has penetrated us, our lives and all walks of our lives, that the interfaces will, as people we consume these visuals, visual identities, are more on the digital surfaces, right? from the TV, to the internet, to the websites and now, even to the mobile phones and the icons of the apps and all those kinds of things. So one has, one is very obvious of the trend of now logos becoming more multicolored, more gradients have started coming in, and things like that. The other significant change to my mind, what has happened in the last 30-50 years is that earlier, we used to have one particular visual, whether it is a word mark, or whether it is a symbol, and that used to be consistently used. Today, when we look around, we see a lot of variations. Right? So by variations I mean they would have a logo which is got solid colors when it is used in print or it could have gradients when it is used on the digital media. Or it could also have a small, you know, five, six second animation, the same visual concept with slight variations would also exist as an icon or even as a tiny fabric on which we see on our browser bar. So now what has happened is that unlike the monolithic single person of the earlier times, now of visual identities defined by a collection of all these different instances which exist in different interfaces, very beautiful.
Kedar Nimkar:
And is there a pattern because it intrigued my curiosity which is when you said that the word Mark word like slightly longer and then it became shorter. And then there was also like a color introduction. So was it because of advertising the same logo had to be placed in 1000 other places like on the mugs and all on bedsheets and like 1000 other places. So was that the reason to make it shorter as well. I mean, just because of the placement?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
You have a very good point here. I think it’s a very good observation but things actually are not so black and white when we work on this. So let me try and explain it. What actually happens is that there could be an identifier which is like the short form, right, like we said, L&T or VI but at the same there would also be situations where the full name of the company is also written. And this is more significant when we look at companies which are dealing with pharmaceutical and medical goods, because there it is important for them, that their target audience are people, whichever level they be, whether they are doctors or whether they are chemists who are distributing the medicine and all the things that they are able to read the name of the company or the manufacturer of that medicine.
When we shared earlier that a logo is basically a unique visual in whichever manifestation it is, it helps identify with a particular company. So then the word mark or whatever we call it, it has to be unique and it has to be different from how the other companies are. Now, it’s like a signature right. So if I write Kedar I will write it in my own handwriting, but when you write Kedar that is your own unique handwriting. So, similarly companies, they may be using a visual abstraction or a symbol or they may be using a word mark, but when they write the full name, that is also written in a specific style or in a specific form, sometimes the fonts are also further customised and modified to give it a particular visual style and then they use it constantly, consistently. I
Kedar Nimkar:
Interesting. And then the second part of the question after taking a look at the logos for the government, in different capacities of like different hierarchies, how is there any change in the definition? I mean, the core remains the same, but purely from observation standpoint, when you juxtapose with the commercial world, and its usage and its reach and its function. Is there any new insight which have landed up in
Tarun Deep Girdher:
To be very honest I have not gotten the opportunity to take a pause and reflect on this question but I think the government operates in a very very different way as compared to commercial organisations. For commercial organisation it is also a matter of survival in the sense that it’s important for these commercial organisations to remain in the customers eyeballs right. So they have to create a certain memory or a certain recall value time and again time and again time and again. And logo is just like a sutradhar, the sutradhar to the kind of narratives and the stories which these companies are telling about themselves and their products through advertisement, whether it is on the television, whether it is on YouTube, or whether it is on newspaper.
The government is not in that kind of a survival mode, right. So for them, it is more like a face of that particular organisation or that particular department that oh, this particular red kind of thing with a red circle. It looks like a human being. Oh, there is a small red circle also. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen it somewhere, this is the Ministry of women and Child Development logo. But whether people are able to recognise that logo or not does not necessarily influence the kind of work they are doing in whichever sector, that particular ministry or the department is doing.
But for the commercial companies, it is important for them that okay, if I enjoyed the taste of a particular cookies, I will read on the packaging that oh, this is from Britannia. And then half an hour later, when I’m watching the television, there are messages which are being bombarded at me which are constantly reminding me of that taste of the biscuits. Because then Britannia, Britannia, Britannia is happening in my mind, right? Like a very, very subconscious level, these visuals, they go and sit in some corner of our brain and every time we see it, it triggers the same memory of the taste which I enjoyed of that cookie. So that’s how these logos are actually something which also operate at a subconscious level over a period of time.
Kedar Nimkar:
But there is some sort of, so once you associate a particular visual entity to being like a government logo, there’s also a sort of seriousness or credibility to the entire thing. So does it take an extra effort to bring that credibility visually? So let me like rephrase. If we probably take RTI logo that you did as a guiding thing. And if you can tell us the process, and then how did you arrive at the logo? And yeah, if you can just share like finer nuances about why did you use Bell Gothic? Or whether was it tried in different scripts? And how did it pan out? And then everything put together? Is it because of the effort that is put in? Or gives it the credibility it has? Or is it just the tag of government associated with it? Does that make sense?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Yeah. So see, I understand that when we say government what comes to our mind is a certain authority figure because they make the rules, they implement and need to have that kind of an authoritative kind of look and feel of their logos. So imagine the defence forces or imagine the police. They have a certain kind of visual language in their logo, that kind of a crest, which evokes a certain kind of chaos, these guys are like that. And in that context, I think the RTI logo was very, very different. And I recall very vividly our first interaction with these government officials at the initial discussion stage, they had come to NID. One of the things which I still remember out of that conversation was that this lady said ki Tarun we are not a department but we are in every department. Second is that when we are saying right to information, it is a right, which the citizens of the India have. So, the whole act of asking for information under the RTI act is an empowering feature like on just a plain paper, you ask your question, I want this information, go to that particular department or that particular division of the government, pay 10 rupees and submit your application and within 30 days it is the government’s responsibility to provide the information. So, the comparison which he told was that this is perhaps the only department of the government which has doors open 24 seven, not having an authoritative image was actually a very, very critical part of our brief.
So I’ll just share what happened behind the scenes. Normally what happens is that when a designer or design studio or any agency which takes up an identity work, there is a very conscious process and interaction which they have with the client and all other stakeholders trying to understand how we are different from our competition, what is the message which we are trying to portray through our new logo and all those kinds of things. So that is called the briefing session right. And then they may alternate concepts, they make presentations, and then there are conversations and collectively the agency and the client, they decide that okay, this is the logo which we should finalise for our company or product or whatever it is right. Now, in that process, there is often a huge amount of decision making, which rests with the designer or in other words, it is often the individual designer or the design team’s own vision and interpretation of the company, which drives the kind of ideas which come out on the table. Now, in that sense, this RTI logo was very, very different.
As a matter of fact, what happened during the first presentation when we had gone to Delhi. RTI is actually coming under the Department of Personnel and training, right. Coincidentally, while we are having this conversation, I was just looking up on my older notes and all those things. The RTI logo was launched in the month of October, exactly 10 years ago. In 2010, so these stories which I am sharing that old, 2009 2010 around that time, the Honourable minister of Department of Personnel and training was Mr. Prithviraj Chohan. At that point of time, and I recall during our first presentation, we had our own vision of how the RTI symbol should be and what should it stand for and things like that. In the first presentation, typically, there were about 2027 officers of various branches who were there in that room. And at some point of time, when we were making presentation I was very convinced and I told them, sir, with due respect, I am a designer and I represent the premier Institute in India, the National Institute of Design, but I still feel strongly feel that we are designing this particular RTI logo with the sole purpose that the common man on the street in the village in any city or town of the country is able to identify, recognise this logo and say yeah, I this is where I can get information. So I should walk into this office right. So, at that point of time, I had shared the vision with them that of course, they had already that plan at every department, there is going to be one designated RTI officer who will be responsible for collecting the queries and be responsible for giving the answers to the whoever has asked the RTI information under RTI right. So that was the time when I shared with them we will also make standardised stickers with this logo which can be directly pasted outside the door of that particular designated officer. So, imagine if if I go to the General Post Office, and if I just look around and I see this RTI logo sticker outside the door, a particular door, it should evoke a certain sense of confidence in me that okay, this is the officer from whom I can get this information. And as a common citizen, I can walk up. So, with that conviction I had also shared with them because we are designing based on our own experience, you are responding to this, because you have a responsibility in the position which you are holding right now, you have the logo on one hand, but
I felt at that point of time, and I told them in those many words that we should go and do field testing of what is it that people are able to understand from these logos, because that was a time when it was very, very clear that the logo itself should not be a word mark because if we use letterforms R T I in English, then we are obviously alienating 1000s and hundreds and 1000s of people who are not able to read English. So then for them, it will be colour, sharpness, whatever, you know, they are not able to recognise the letter. So, they are not able to make sense that this is RTI and what does RTI stands for and that is where the idea gets knocked off. So, we were very clear that it has to be a visual representation of something we said now, people do interpret visuals in different ways depending on their own experiences, and there is a clear theory about theory of associations right. So, that was where the minister also got convinced and he said yes, of course, but how much time will it take and how much more money will it cost?
Of course, like in most government, this thing, we are all aware that sometimes budgets are constrained, sometimes time is also of great importance, we could not do a pan India survey, but we did a dipstick survey, rural urban kind of a combination. And 10 years ago, of course, we had the internet. So, we also curated a certain audience and reached out to some of my own circles who fell into the category of urban literate, so that kind of a survey and opinion seeking was done online. But from the urban illiterate and rural illiterate, we did go out to the field and those concepts to people, don’t ask me the numbers because as I said it was a dipstick survey. So, we were more concerned that the perception or the meaning should not be undesirable or incorrect.
Let me just add one thing here Kedar, the success of any logo, even if it is a local bakery, or a huge multinational corporation is how well people remember that particular you know, what influences how much people remember that logo is the visibility of that logo.
So one good example is the Indian post office amongst the government district right in the village also. Even an elderly illiterate person is able to see it and recognise ke he may not use the word post office but he is aware that what does it represent, my son is in the city and when he sends a letter, it comes through this particular organisation and that is where the Connect is happening. So a logo has to be promoted enough that people reach a certain critical point that it starts getting embedded in people’s subconscious mind. So that is one accepted fact in our communication industry.
So what our concern was that recall, value, visibility, all those things can be taken care of by how well and how far and how deep the logo is promoted. But what is very, very important is that whatever we create, people should not misconstrue it, people should not derive an undesirable meaning out of it. So that was also one of the reasons why we reached out to people. There was also another interesting backstory which happened perhaps, for the first time in an NID where I work, National Institute of Design. In the last 60 years, we have done more than 450 symbols, logos, identities for various kinds of organisations, ministries, government departments, and all those things. But I think RTI was the first time when we went public with the ideas. So, besides this online thing with the literate, urban group of people and rural illiterate, we reached out, we also tied up with the local media. And thanks to our local newspaper, Ahmedabad Mirror, they ran a cover story on this, where we also published, they put pictures of all the four ideas and we actually saw opinions of people of the common people. Okay, what do you think about this, if you have any feedback, what are your preferences and things like that. So people had also returned back to the editor, and those kinds of things happen. So that really helped us take a decision that which one of these three or four ideas are working safely.
Eventually, the concept which we see out there in the market is very, very simple, right? So it’s basically English letter form, ie, that vertical rectangle with a circle on top of it, which stands for information, that is what most of the literate people interpreted it as. But a lot of other people said, Oh, it seems to be a human being right, the most simplest basic representation of dot and the vertical line to the portrayal bipod human being the other rectangle on top of it with those five lines, basically represents the single sheet of plain plain paper on which somebody has written an application. Now, that is also a visual, which is very strongly embedded in the minds of people, right? Because whenever we see a thumbnail of a printed page or even on the computer or even when we see a paper from a distance, we actually are not able to recognize the text, which is written, but it looks like horizontal lines, right? At that level, it’s a very, very simplified version, that, Oh, this is a sheet of paper, you send it to this person, and you get the information back. So that’s how it evolved.
Kedar Nimkar:
So before we get into the design aspect of it also, just a quick question, that all this survey because I was going to ask you in the last section about designing by community, and how troubling or how good experience it is, when you are like dealing with these 26 different levels of officers in the company. So was this doing a sort of user research or just validating or getting some data from the actual people to make a stronger case was because like it’s a design story, right? So designers have this, this trick of actually presenting something which they are convinced with, with some sort of user research backing, as opposed to like the one which is sort of haan aise karo. A lot of times the client comes and says ki aisa hi chahiye, in that case you’re not really doing good justice to the work also. So I wanted to understand this going out to people and doing this survey, was it to further make the case strong? Or was it like a sort of a requirement from the the authorities as well?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Oh no it was actually the other way around. Because see, typically what happens in the design process is that the client shares with you their expectations, what is popularly labeled under the word brief, this is the design and we are also very proud of our profession saying oh, I am a trained designer, hum to 15 saal se kaam kar rahe hai. So I have also my own vision on how do I interpret the brief. And I will create those options, right? So we didn’t create those options. But in the presentation, it actually was not a new thing. Now looking back, I am very amused, because it happened at the spur of the moment, when I told him ki sir, you are sitting here because you have a responsibility because the organisation needs a logo. And I’m doing it because I represent this institute but I strongly feel that eventually, we are not designing this logo for your department, we are actually designing this logo as a bridge between the people and your department. So the people out there need to be able to understand and recognise this logo. And thankfully, he understood it, Mr. Chohan and he said, Yeah, by all means, go ahead but we will not be able to increase your budget. That was the whole kind of thing. Now, interestingly, what happened was, and some of these things are also documented in my blog, which is ignored for the last many years.
So some of the concepts which we thought being trained as designers in an urban scenario in whichever place, we thought that it fits very well. And if the interpretation is also very fine. Now, some of the people in the villages had a different perception of that particular visual and it is absolutely fine. Because each one of us will have a different interpretation. And we will respond differently to the same visual, my concern at that point of time as the project lead was that people will have different interpretations. But can we read out those options which are leading to an undesirable interpretation.
So just to give you an example, we had a very graphic symbol. From the top view, it looked like a human being is opening a file. And above that, there were five circles which were arranged in the form of an arrow. So, it was fitting the brief because there is an upward progress of the country because of RTI. And one government officer who’s opening the file is giving that information to many citizens kind of thing that was our interpretation, but a lot of responses which came from the villages, it is a very amusing response. They interpreted it as that there are many people on the top, and there is one single person at the bottom. So this person is somebody who has done something wrong, and is being presented to the panchayat.
So he said, yeah, this is taking us in a completely different direction which is not necessarily what we are looking at. So that not only helped us, it surely helped us in knocking off the concepts, which were not working. So that’s how it worked. We were under no pressure. I mean, I feel very blessed that this group, for the RTI logo, all those government officers were very nice, they were respecting our decisions as professionals.
Kedar Nimkar:
I remember I was just going through one, like I was trying this side project of mine called signages. And it triggered from like a basic thing like if you look at these small signages have beware of dogs or no parking, like no parking is written in probably eight or 10 font size on the big postcard like a4 size. And the rest is by Airtel or BSNL, like whatever, they’re selling their stuff. So I wanted to make like really simple ones. And that’s when I connected with Professor Ravi Bohia also doing this and then I made some things and the project didn’t fly. But there was a lot of interesting insights. I mean like simple men and women, loo, which is there. Circles of women are probably confusing until you put a bindi for a rural audience. Like just a small bindi changes perception for like an urban setting, as opposed to like rural settings. So yeah, I can sort of connect that thought and think about how interesting.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. And Professor Ravi Boyer has done a lot of work in icons and signages, especially for hospitals but I’m glad you took up this topic because this is a very important case study in how we accept a certain symbolic representation right? In India and even anywhere else, women don’t stand and pee, it is only the men who have the capability of standing and doing the job, but outside the loo, both the male and the female figures are shown standing. So, it has no direct representation of the act or the location or the space which it represents but over a period of time we all accept the abstraction which is built in our logo so another such example is a vegetarian non vegetarian signage which is you sign or symbol which is used on all these food products, right? It’s just a square with the outline and solid filled in circle inside. One is in green color, one is in all shades of brown to Maroon to red, it doesn’t mean anything but it has acquired a certain significance after a consistent use for people accepted that okay, this means this.
Kedar Nimkar:
Then once the logo was out what was the reaction? What was the biggest reason after putting it out that was it like really super simple? Was it easy to recall, easy to reproduce also, thinking of such a huge body of departments in the government space, so easy to reproduce is also one of the important factors right. So, we like if you can highlight certain aspects.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Yes. So, I think one of the most critical decisions which I recall having taken is that of the colour. So by the time over two three interactions formally and several phone conversations and emails with the team you it was very clear that it is easier to reproduce in the urban situation where there could be one agency which is higher, they have the artwork and they will take minimal prints and paste it on the walls of public health centre or wherever but in 1000s of villages in India, invariably some local sign painter or that local artist will be hired and he will be given a printout and he will be asked you will have to paint this on so many walls for so much money. Now, that is where my biggest concern was that the form is very, very simple. So, even if the form undergoes some distortion in terms of its proportion, or the number of lines on that paper, it will still retain the essence of the symbol, but colour is very, very important, right? Blue was a chosen colour, because of this for obvious associations with honesty and with cleanliness and with transparency and all that kind of pedantic stuff, but my challenge was what exact shade of blue now. So, normally as graphic designers we are trained to focus on these two mediums, print print on paper or digital surfaces. So, we normally work with CMYK or RGB modes for Pantone or whatever but when we got into this understanding I said oh my god, two things are going to happen, the local painter depending on whether he is doing it or whether his apprentice is doing it or sometimes his apprentice is not there. So he will just tag along his nephew with him to the job, on the scooter or on a Yamaha, how sensitive will they be to mix a particular shade of light blue, nobody can take a guarantee as to which village which painter will have access to what kind of paint. So that is where my search began that okay ready made commercial enamel paints, which are those companies from Nerolac to Asian Paints to Birger whichever one, those are the kind of pigments these painters usually use. And is there a shade of blue which is commonly available across all these companies. So that was my primary decision which I took and found out a blue, bonus firozi, firozi, almost like a cyan. So we got samples of that firozi painted on paper, on board, on whitewashed walls. Then we took images of that and from that we derived the CMYK and RGB colour values because it’s very easy to control your CMYK. But it is nearly impossible to control those hundreds and 1000s of painters who are working, sitting in their own villages and just going to the paint shop and saying mere ko firozi wala colour de doh and without any mixing he just takes that colour directly and paints it. So, these are decisions which go beyond the designing of the visual, the symbol which the client has approved and all after having done that, it is the responsibility of the designer to create a system which embeds a certain consistency when it is being rolled out.
Now, similarly, we looked at the selection of the typeface.
Kedar Nimkar:
Yeah Bell Gothic is something which I was just reading about. If you can tell about it
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Bell Gothic was clear, because I wanted the ‘I’, the capital ‘I’ to have serifs. So most sans serif typefaces the ‘I’ will not have those serifs at the top and bottom. So Bell Gothic was an easier decision. What was a tougher decision was what would happen in the other Indian scripts and languages. And 10 years ago we did not have access to Google fonts or a lot of other Indian foundries also so a type wasn’t there, Indian type foundry had just begun and things like that. And I was very conscious that, finally, the big boss is going to be the second or third level in the government office at a taluka level, who is going to take a decision, who knows something about the computer? And he will say chalo yeh aagaah dete hai, let us use this because it’s not his aesthetic sensibilities. You also found out that, at that point of time, most of the government organizations, actually almost all of the government organizations were depending heavily on the fonts designed by CDAC in Pune. And that point of time they had a unique software called Shree lipi, which used to work very well with Corel Draw, and also, bolte hai nah chappa chappa dastar dastar main Corel Draw and Shree lipi software, and your local script and local language and local posters are sorted, which was not unique order. It was not unique. So we looked at their font collection and we recommended mostly fonts which were mono linear. Now if I would have done this I would have recommended something else. But I would have still had my fingers crossed ke whether at the bottom of the pyramid that government officer who is entrusted with this, will he be bothered to use a typeface consistently or not because sometimes on the ground the reality is very different ki yaar you need this poster by tonight, if we don’t bother about downloading that font, just use whichever typeface you have on your computer but I want the poster by tonight. Sometimes there are those kinds of realities also. So, then as a designer, how do we simplify our designs, that even if there is some distortion, it does not take away the spirit from what you had intended to do.
Kedar Nimkar:
Very interesting. And then if you zoom out and look back now, and obviously you have an ongoing commitment with the government, like designing multiple things which you recently did as well. So how sensitive is government about design? From function to the aesthetics? I mean not just the current government but overall, yeh ek type ke log hain na? How, what is their approach towards design? And I have a follow up question, and that’s why I wanted to set some background here.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
It is actually not about the government. Everywhere and anywhere at any stage, it is about the people with whom we are interacting with. So I have also come across some projects, I do not want to take the names here, where after the first or second meeting, it became very, very obvious that somebody’s nephew has done a DDP course and that is where this influence and these kinds of questions are popping up from or somebody in that in the office of the client is overtly critical and trying to shoot down all our suggestions because his agency did not get the project. But at the same time I have also had the good fortune of having had very senior people with whom I had an opportunity to work with, who said, Look around, we are not experts in this. You are an expert in this. That is why you are on board, and we will go by whatever you recommend. So I’m saying it is eventually about the people and how do they accept capabilities of another fellow professional. So, it has it has been a salt and pepper kind of an experience, it has been both kinds of experiences. But yes, if I take a very bird’s eye view and look at where the government is going, yes, there is a lot more work which is available for the designers but at the same time, certain things are professionally done, and certain things can never be done as a competition. So I have nothing against the competitions which the government has rolled out, especially with the, mygov.in and all those kinds of things, but then they need to go a step further and engage professionals to help out the winners with refining their ideas. So sometimes we have symbols which are very illustrative, they almost look like an illustration, there is nothing wrong with that, because sometimes that is the requirement, that we cannot have an abstract visual but we need to be very upfront and create an illustration, which can be used as a symbol, but then the manifestation of that illustration the form quality, the line quality, that only a professional can do well, understanding that oh, this illustrated symbol illustrative symbol will be used at a small size of 20 pixels by 20 pixels. And at that size, if it is not legible, then it defeats the whole purpose, right?
Kedar Nimkar:
I think yeah, it is very much required. I also happen to interview Uday Kumar who’s designed the rupee symbol and it I think that the rupee symbol was also like a competition but fortunately a very senior PhD student cracked it. It was like,
Tarun Deep Girdher:
No rupee symbol there was a full panel of the jury and so that is what I’m saying, that is where sometimes the individual who is at the helm of affairs is aware and sensitive enough, like rupee symbol. Besides the government officials, there were about five, six trained qualified senior graphic designers of the country who were on the jury panel. So there was a balanced outcome of it.
Kedar Nimkar:
Actually, if you have time, can we spend some time on nota logo as well? If you can, please go ahead, please. So a small, maybe not as elaborate as RTI logo which we dived deep into but maybe briefly you can tell us the story behind nota logo also, because, again, this is like designing some symbol for the biggest democracy in the world. So what were the challenges and like, how did you arrive?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Yes, actually, for the listeners, and especially the youngsters, the design students and all, I don’t know how many of them have gone and voted as yet. But in the Indian election system, there is one very beautiful thing that there is this ballot paper or now they use the electronic voting machine which mimics the design of the ballot paper. So you have all the candidates who are standing in the election in your constituency, their names and their party symbols, they are all arranged in a top to bottom kind of sequence, and there is a certain logic in it, that the national parties will always be on the top then the regional state parties and then the independent candidates. So in 2002 actually, the Government of India had introduced this concept of nota, none of the above. So imagine if you have five candidates standing in your constituency. So the row number six will have this option for you to vote that I am not giving my word to any of the above. So that is where the word none of the above came in. The backstory is also very interesting, when it was used for the first time they had a black rectangle with capital letters and ot a written invite and somebody had filed a PIL in the Allahabad Court challenging that this particular symbol which you are using on the electronic voting machine, a lot of illiterate audiences are not able to understand what it is now because all the other candidates had the symbols of their parties which are allotted by the Election Commission of India. So that led the Election Commission of India to say okay, we need to have a symbolic visual representation and not use any less. So when I got this project it was very challenging. And to be very honest if I can make a confession, it was actually scary. And let me elaborate why I was so scared, because here I was asked to design a logo for an ad which has an inherent contradiction in itself. So I am going to vote, I will surely go to the polling booth and vote, but I will not vote for any of the candidates. You understand the contradiction involved in this?
Kedar Nimkar:
Yes, yes.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Now, at a conceptual level it becomes very, very challenging because one is accepting the fact that I am not using any of the candidates, why am I not using any of the candidates? Because I don’t
Kedar Nimkar:
Believe in them or whatever, like they’re
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Believing them ore I don’t accept their performance. So basically I’m rejecting all of them. Now, that was a very, very, very, very significant part of the conversation which we were having with the client, that there is a concept of rejection but I cannot show down any of the other candidates because that goes against their right of being represented equally. So even from the clients perspective. See, we are all aware that before the election, the election dates are announced, then the party is also announced the candidates from different constituencies and then each candidate and the party gets certain time to promote themselves amongst the people and amongst the constituency. So the voter is aware of the candidates but this particular option of nota, it cannot be promoted, the government cannot advertise about them. So basically the voter, the less aware voter gets to know about the nota option only when they step into the polling booth, you understand the contradiction involved in this. Now, here, I was supposed to design a symbol, which cannot have any religious or cultural correlation, which I cannot use script of any language, because that would be alien, yet something, it should be something which should be easy to understand by people from any part of the country, it should be simple enough for people to remember during those particular days. So four years, in between the two elections, the candidate is always there in the confines of the people because you’re seeing his or her performance, you know about your MLA, about your MP, and they are in the news and things like that, but the nota goes into hibernation, it resurfaces only just before the election. So it had to be something very simple, which people are able to recognize on the spot.
Kedar Nimkar:
Correct. In fact, I was going to come to that, on the spot, because there will be always a new generation of individuals coming to vote for the first time. So instant recognition is also a very, very critical factor in that.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Yes. So we went through our own entire process and we had both kinds of directions. In this one direction was obviously that we try and understand how people interpret rejection, what is the Indian ethos of rejecting, sometimes we have typical gestures like folding our hands above our head and saying arroyo ab bas kar yaar, now please go away enough of this, that’s also one form of rejection or throwing ink on the face of a person as a mark of protest or rejection. So we also studied all these kinds of things that what are those existing associations which are there in different forms and in different sections of the society. So in the school we have all grown up that if there is something wrong, it is represented by a cross-mark because school notebook, exam paper or whatever, and whatever is correct is a tick mark. So, we looked at all those kind of existing correlations or associations with visuals, which visuals have with the whole notion of cancelling out something or rejecting something or not agreeing to something, the second important direction which we took was more of a free thinking direction, which was based on the assumption that let us have a simple, very simple logo and then let it be used and over a period of time people will start associating that with nota. So you remember the example which we were discussing about the vegetarian and non vegetarian food, something on those tracks. So at some point of time we had about 40 different alternatives, some had a theoretical concept behind it, some were very simple direct images, things like that.
And again, like what happened with the RTI we did a dipstick survey, but it was different this time, it had two folds right. So, we did something what is also known as a participatory sort of process. So one part was where we showed the ideas which we had created and after that we asked them to draw which one they remembered. So that was more of a survey in terms of figuring out the recall value, which shape do people recall, which shape or which configuration is easy to remember and things like that. The other one was where we had focused groups of women separately schoolchildren separately elderly people separately and we got them to draw on a green jar of things which we reject, like how do you say no to tobacco? Or how do you say no to drinking or how do you identify something is not good and things like that. So interestingly the cross-mark was coming out repetitively but then we also realize that the cross-mark is also used to indicate some other things in a different context. So, say for example, when you are traveling on the road, even within the city, the road signage is one board with the X mark, is also used to indicate that there is a crossroad ahead or in the notebook it could mean something else, things like that. That actually made us move a little closer that cross-mark is universally accepted as something which is wrong or something which is unacceptable. So we are actually risking and walking the thin, walking on twin knives by saying that eventually the context is that you are standing in upholding polling booth, you have shown your identity card, three people have processed your identity and then put that new mark on your fingernail and you are in that closed secure place you only have the voting ballot paper or the EVM in front of you and then the last symbol is a cross. So then when people make those connections subconsciously it would trigger them that this means metaphor mere ko koi bhi nahi chahiye. So that was a certain conviction which we got through that kind of field work and field interaction and being open and listening to what other people think about this very abstract notion of rejecting now, eventually what is being used now is a very very simplified visual representing that you are crossing out a particular list
Kedar Nimkar:
In fact, is there an insight there because the crosses on top of a outline box which has some dot dot dot, which also shows as if there was some sort of a manifesto by someone and you have crossed it. So that manifesto is more of like an abstract representation with again the newspaper thing which sort of is loosely done in RTI as well right. So is that a conscious call or is it changed over time?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
You are very correct in that interpretation but then what will shrink to our favour is very much like the vegetarian non vegetarian thing. Now this notice symbol is going to be used nowhere else except for the ballot paper itself. So this rectangle which you are saying actually represents the ballot paper itself, that ballot paper has a list of candidates. And as a voter I am saying no to the entire list. So none of the above whether there are five candidates above this symbol or whether there are 11 candidates above this symbol, but all of them are being voted out by me. So at that level, it’s a very, very simple straightforward concept. You know, of course, a lot of rigour and work went into the form correction because Election Commission of India also has very tight regulations of the proportion and the size in which the symbol should be printed on the ballot paper and all those kinds of things. So it had to be visible at that 18 mm, 19 mm size also.
Kedar Nimkar:
Very very fascinating thanks for sharing this backstory as well. So on on a concluding note I have two three questions, one is which we were discussing on other call as well that these days like designers or graphic artist or whoever is familiar with graphic as a medium because of the social media because of certain voice empowering like empowering platforms which make your voice heard, there are certain commentaries or critiques which are done without understanding the complete context. In one case I was super disappointed when one of the design agencies had critique on the pink colour 2000 rupee note and then series of posts around the new currency notes. And I had written a counter intuitive rant but a blog post. But then my boss told me that why don’t you just give it a positive spin saying that just tell the challenges, my club will joke like, there’s also like a lot in world in the currency node there is this piracy angle, there are a number of security features are in I mean, aesthetics would be like probably p 10 or if there are 10 priorities I would keep like aesthetics probably on p 9 or P 10 for a developing country like us. So wo sabka baggage leke if you can give like students and professionals some sort of an insight into what are the bigger challenges when you’re designing for such a wide scale people as opposed to just thinking of a narrow output of good looking. So if you can share any insights there it would be wonderful.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
See any design, whether it is a logo or whether it is an artefact like you talking about currency notes or coins or any design which is there in a public domain, it has a certain purposefulness and a certain function which it has to fulfil that as you very correctly said should be the topmost priority. So I was also equally disappointed at that point of time, that for two reasons, a people were too much in a hurry to respond or react to the new currency notes. And I would respect it if those kind of opinions come from somebody who has designed currency notes in the past themselves, then I will listen to them. But that is the enigma of social media, you know, that everybody has a right to express themselves and rightfully no issues with that, no issues with that, irrespective of whatever people told or thought or criticised the pink 2000 rupees note or the greenish 20 rupees note, or the the purple 100, purple 100 rupee note but have you seen it now, in your wallet when all those coloured notes are all of the same height in the earlier times different currency notes were of different sizes, both in their width, and also in their height. Now this one is also of course, there is a, I don’t have the data, but I have strong reasons to believe that these design changes have happened to prevent further counterfeiting. Now as a matter of fact if you look up on Google the Government of India at that point of time went down to pay a premium to the company manufacturing that particular kind of paper to make it an exclusive deal that that company cannot sell that paper to any other country in the world. Now that’s a huge thing. And it’s a very small investment compared to the losses incurred because of counterfeiting. So while the colour does not increase the value of that currency I can keep my personal opinion to myself till the time the shopkeeper is accepting that 100 rupees note or that 2000 rupees note, I will trust the government to do their job and I will focus my energies on what I am supposed to be doing which is learning. So my take on this is that let us not be in a rush to react to any new change which is happening. Likewise you said with the currency The same thing happened with the new Vodafone India logo also, moved on but I think yeah, there is a bunch of people who are responsible to run a particular company which is supposed to make a certain profit by giving a certain kind of service. And they have the wisdom to hire a particular agency, and that agency has the wisdom to create something unique, absolutely fine, I will start getting irritated if the new Vodafone India call drops increase, or if their network becomes poor, then I say I don’t give a damn about the logo, because your service is not good, right? So, after all, this is also a world where we are dealing with subjectivity now. So I’m also very aware that despite whichever stage I am in life today, personally and professionally, there would still be people who would not be appreciative of the logos, which I have designed, I’m absolutely fine. But they are out there and they are working for that organisation for which they were designed. So it works like that.
Kedar Nimkar:
And forget about the colour, I mean the person who must have criticised, even I don’t remember the name, but he should have traveled at least some parts of India to understand, like I’ve been to Jaipur and there are still people giving 10 rupee notes which are torn in five pieces in an airtight sachet at the toll. So people are using, we are living in a developing country, which is way too away from the urban setting, which we are in. So thinking across these broader horizons will give a different perspective and your critique. And take any suggestions because I’m personally interested in contributing certain because being a designer it’s somewhat like a responsibility to contribute to collaborate with government or with someone, some like bigger, authoritative bodies and help them guide so there’s this Bandra collective which works with the BMC and plants. And just like this is a pro bono service which they give in terms of architecting the road or just putting the dustbins in the right places and stuff like that. So since you have dealt with the government, any suggestions which you can give all the students and designers? How can they contribute their skills to government institutions or projects to improve the overall standards of design, when where and how can one indulge? If they are not in NID?
Tarun Deep Girdher:
I think no, irrespective of whichever Institute, any one of us are engaged with, whichever agency we are working with, I think in especially for the younger audience, we need to talk about what we are learning and what we are doing and what we are teaching and what we are practicing. Who the common people, right. Often I spend a lot of time in looking at portfolios, partly because we also need young people, but also as a part of our mentoring programs and all those kinds of things. So absolutely correct, all these young students, the younger generation of designers are building their portfolios which are being targeted at senior designers because those are the kinds of people who are gonna hire them. But the beginning has to be made in our own house, are my parents aware of what I am doing as a design student? Am I able to explain to my parents what difference can design intervention make? When I go down on the weekends in the evening for a little walk in my own society and I get chatting with, when old Kaka Uncle who’s also there in the evening, if I am I able to speak to him about my profession? Am I able to give him examples of where design has made a difference? We need to, it is what I call the sprinkler effect. If a whole lot of water comes into the lawn it may end up damaging the soil and the crop but there is this brilliant sprinkler model, tip tip tip tip karke it gets irritated. So the retention is more each one of us have to become champions of our profession for the single reason that as a profession we are still very young. So the common man doesn’t know.
Let me give you an example. You know, you’re going in a local train and all of us are holding the overhead handles and literally hanging from those handles in the overhead train. But did any designer attempt to strike a conversation with the next person saying, Oh, is this very uncomfortable? How it is handle would have been designed like this? What do you think? But most of the youngsters we find are in their own world, the headphones and all those kinds of things. So I believe that it is an equal responsibility which all of us share, is to go and tell the world out there, that what is it that we do as designers, what is the potential of this, we will always be looking for an ideal client and an ideal project that will happen in your lifetime, depending on how you define ideal because some projects will get you the money to pay all your rents and telephone bills, and investment on a new car or a computer. But there are also going to be some projects which will give you that satisfaction and a good night’s sleep. Because you know that the work that you have done or the textbook which you have designed is easier for those students to read. So it creates a certain interest in those students about that subject. So those kinds of projects also, we need to start looking at, and then people in the government are also people. So if I am able to convince my mausi and that mausi’s neighbour happens to be a government officer, how will that government officer even get to know that although there are designers like this, she may be looking for person but she’s not aware. So she’s hiring anybody with a computer to do their job and there are people who are doing a lot of good things, even amongst designers, we need to talk to each other even more. So there are a lot of these conferences which happened in India, which have have started happening recently, some joint collaborations with the government like CCIE, and all those CII and all those bodies are doing, India Design Council and all, some are initiated by other organizations like Curious Design Yatra or Design Up, Pool Design Show and all those things. So they are helping to bring the profession together, designer designer talk. So I am comparing this with a model, business to business jaisa hota hai na in the economic model. So some of these conferences are like D to D, they are designers to designers. So my call to everybody who is listening to this is that can we spend one hour in a week, getting into the D to P mode, designer to common people? No. And then over a period of time, I don’t know how long it may take two years, it may take 10 years, people will start realising and people will start accepting design as a profession.
Kedar Nimkar:
This is so inspiring. Like my love, you just articulated it brilliantly. I think this is a good note to end and a very positive note and a very, it’s inspiring note to end this. And yeah, it was really, really wonderful talking to you, I wish we we do like multiple episodes, doing more case studies and sharing your I would say wisdom rather than knowledge now, to fellow designers and younger generation designers as well. Thanks a lot for giving your time.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Thank you, it was actually very interesting to look back. Because it’s been, we were talking about projects which was 10 years ago and five years ago, and I think at a personal level, I need to revisit them because a lot of things have changed in the last five years, including how the exposure to visual content has increased. So the kind of literate and illiterate rural and urban things which I was talking earlier, those boundaries have blurred right now as we are speaking, right? Because thanks to the internet and the penetration of technology, that today, even in the village people have access to these kinds of technologies and their exposure to visual content has changed. And that is obviously going to influence their visual perceptions also so that’s how it is but it was it was really great to have me here, I also enjoyed very much sharing these experiences. Thank you.
Kedar Nimkar:
Thank you I mean I would definitely like to have you again for the other side which is typography and letterpress which I’ve been following your work some places, on Instagram.
Tarun Deep Girdher:
Oh yes, yes. Would love to do that.