तुका म्हणे बरवे जाण । व्हावे लहानाहून लहान . This is an important line by Tukaram, since it illustrates something universal. I am from design background and swear by a line which says, "Less is more”. Having some bent towards listening or understanding poetry, I also loosely interpret this couplet as “realise that, the shorter the better”. In the 100th episode os Audiogyan with Balkrsihna Doshi, I asked him why do all architecture look the same. To which he replied because architects are no longer poets. In my 33rd Episode with Gangadharan Menon, even he said, "The moment we rediscover our poetry, that will be our renaissance.” On that backdrop, today I have 3 guests on Audiogyan. Rochelle Potkar, Pooja Bhatia and Sanket Mhatre; all, stewards of an upcoming generations of great poets. Importance of short form poetry? Rochelle: What are the short form poetries that you have explore? What is a Hiaku? Sanket: In Marathi we have Charoli? Are there any other forms? What are those? Pooja: Can you tell what’s the difference between a Gazhal, Sher and Nazm? How have they evolved over time and why is sher so well known versus other forms for layman? What are the constructs and why? Have they being broken in it’s journey? Art has always been transient. How have these short forms evolved? Why is haiku only 6 syllables? Why don’t we have Paacholi? Is it the meter or some other constraint? Is there conscious effort by poets to keep every Sher integrated in the bigger narrative and yet independent in nature? Who are the big names who have redefined trajectories? Like Kumar Gandharava in Music. Who are the Haiku makers who have propagated this form? Is Tanka as famous as haiku? Chandrakant Gokhale is all time favourite of the youth. Who all have made such impact on different sections of the society through short form poetry? Sher has been glamourised by Bollywood and also abused? Where is the real substance and how Bollywood got influenced? Any insight there? How did the word Irshad come about? Topics of Short form poems In haiku, what are the topics which are explored and yet to be explored? In Charoli? In Sher? Is it always about love or passion? Have there been writers writing shre about social awareness like Rahat Indori? Future You all have been to various parts of the country talking about poetry and reciting your poetry, what has been your observations? How is Poetry perceived by a middle class layman? Where do you see poetry 100 years out in India and other parts of the world?

Audiogyan

12: Short form poetry with Pooja, Sanket and Rochelle

Rajdeepgiri is a Graphic Designer from Bangalore with over 11 years of experience. He has worked in the various fields of design, like type design, branding, packaging and advertising. Today we are here to discuss a case study with him called Tenpoints braille which is his passion project and he has been working on it for past 5 years. What is Ten Points Braille? How did it come about? What made you think about it? You also have other type design projects like Baboo, RupeeRaj, Singlanguage A. Can you tell us about these briefly? If one has to use this for typing the required text, why do we have you use on 10pt size font and line height 30? How did you arrive at these numbers? There is a beautiful video of how can one use it. But can you walk us through it orally as well? Can you share your journey from the first cut of the font, experiments and iterations till you now have arrived at it? How did you keep on validating? Why Tenpoints braille? How do you think it will help the visually impaired and others? With just 34% Internet penetration in India, one side we have invisible UI, speech to text, image recognition technology developing, What made you think of this idea? In your research, what were the learnings, especially with visually impaired and hearing impaired people? How do they perceive fonts? Are they aware of serif and san-serif typefaces? What are your thoughts on bringing in revolution; can braille also have serif ans san-serif? What was the process of making it 13 scripts? What next? How do you plan to make it accessible? How can people collaborate with you to make it bigger?

11: [ACS] Tenpoints Braille with Rajdeepgiri Goswami (Hindi)

Today I have Appupen with us on Audiogyan (loosely translated from Malayalam as grandfather). Appu is a noted graphic novelist and artist from Bangalore. He is the creator of graphic novels ‘The Snake and the Lotus’, ‘Moonward’, ‘Legends of Halahala’, ‘Aspyrus’ and the super hero satire series ‘Rashtraman’. His work is almost wordless narratives with sarcasm and irony. He is the founder/editor of Brainded India. Today we are here to know his thoughts and ideas about art, comics and more... What does art mean to you. Especially comics as an art form? Can you briefly share the kind of books you've written and the reasons for it? You work which I have seen or could comprehend, want to strongly communicate a message. If I can say, your work has a lot of despair - if yes, why? I mean I am saying this as layman, be it titles like Dystopian times, Halahala (which is poison), Aspyrus, brainded and so on… Also the kind of colour palate seems to be dark and grungy. Not just that, you characters like Rastraman, Propogandhi also has subtext to it. Whats going on in here? How would you respond to that? You don’t seem to like the idea of a superhero, or of gods or god-men either. Ironically you yourself are trying to create a superhero Ratrashman. Whats your response to that? Who is Rashtraman? I would also like to know what is BraindedIndia? Do comic as an art form gives you hope? How?

10: Subtext in comics with Appupen

Ranjit Dahiya is an artist, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and an arts & design professor all rolled into one. Founder artist of BAP, Ranjit Dahiya is originally from a small town named Sonipat in Haryana. He did his Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art from College of Art, Chandigarh and further went on to do his Post Graduate in Graphic Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Today we are here to discuss his love for Bollywood, murals and documenting a case study of BAP, Bollywood Art project. Can you start by telling us what is BAP and some background story behind it? Can share some brief historical background about murals as an art form in India? Which all other Indian cities do have murals or graffiti going on? What according to you is role of mural in society? India has 2 religions. Cricket and Bollywood. You picked Bollywood. The first ever mural made is a poster from a 1953 film Anarkali. What makes you draw stuff which is pre-2000’s? Do you consider drawing anything apart from Bollywood if not commissioned? How different it is to detail out the nuances of the subject being painted when you draw on big walls? You have rough strokes or also show the smaller details? How do you decide the level of detailing you wish to achieve? Can you quickly walk us through the process? What sort of colours are used to keep the painting fresh for some time? With the heat and rains in Mumbai - Have you experimented with colour mixtures to keep those murals long lasting? Mixing acrylic, with emulsion paint or simply oil paints? When you travel across India, especially in highways and country side, You see lot of walls painted with either Tele-com providers or tractors… in a way actual advertising, which seems to be a paid job. From where do you think your motivation comes for painting old Bollywood stuff? Can you take a particular example and tell how do you respond to the surface and how does surface responds to your artwork. For eg: If you are painting a Bollywood heroin, can her eyes be 2 windows which are nicely designed? Do you expect the building owners and keep their windows open or closed all the time based on your artwork? I saw few of your videos online where you draw a rough sketch and then probably a complete artwork on canvas to envision, why can’t or don’t you just draw on huge canvases and hang them? What is the difference in drawing on huge canvas versus actual walls? With Flex and other mediums emerging to promote films and TV series, what is your one hope and one disappointment when you look at these?

9: Bollywood art project with Ranjit Dahiya (ACS) (Hindi)

Arthur G. Doughty a dominion activist once said, "Of all our national assets, Archives are the most precious; they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the extent of our civilisation.” Today I have Ruturaj Parikh with us on Audiogyan. Ruturaj is an Architect & Partner at Matter. an architecture, design and content firm based in Goa. He has been involved in architecture, urban design, planning, curatorial and social projects. Ruturaj regularly writes about contemporary works and ideas on architecture relevant to India and its subcontinent. I stumbled upon him when i visited an architecture conference called Frame Conclave this year.  Ruturaj designs and writes from Goa. What is Matter. ? Why do you think Archiving thought / documentation is important & required? Especially post Independence thought? With so much noise, how do you decipher signal? How do you decide what to archive? What qualifies to be worth archiving? What are your thoughts on “reflecting on your own work”? As per my experience, very few professionals are reflective about their work; while academicians, authors & researchers have a more broader vision. Is it true and if yes, why? Classic work always has a pull and need not be pushed. But it can take really long for people to understand the value. What keeps you going and doing this?

8: Think Matter with Ruturaj Parikh

"I feel the real bliss lies only in blankness. And it is only through blankness that the reality can be experienced. The moment we shed our prejudices, we have direct access to the reality. Above all, what matters, is the joyful moments that an artist experiences through portraying the reality on his canvas” - Says are today’s guest, Parag Borse. Parag is an artist whose paintings have been exhibited across the world. He is an award winning artists who studied at JJ School of applied arts. He lives in Karjat a small town between Mumbai and Pune. You can find more on parag borse.com. Today we are here to discuss and understand his philosophical outlook towards paintings. This Audiogyan will be in Marathi. What do you mean by expression? on canvas and off canvas What’s your definition of reality? on canvas and off canvas Can you tell us your thought process from seeing something to putting that on canvas after a very long time? What according to you is important while creating a painting? Style, medium, content, context, artists journey? Why? And same question from a viewer's standpoint? What he or she should look for? What are your thoughts on your finished paintings and artwork? How do you see them in retrospective?

7: On canvas and off canvas with Parag Borse [Marathi]

Ambi Parameswaran brings with him over 35 years of experience in a marketing, sales and advertising. He is an alumnus of IIT Madras and an honour roll graduate of IIM Calcutta. He has a PhD from Mumbai University and has also done the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School. He is the author of seven books and more than 100 articles. Ambi has been involved in the building of brands such as Tata Indica, Santoor, TCS and more… actually I would tell the listeners to check his website given in the show notes below. It’s quite comprehensive which documents some of his work.  How dependent is brand building; is it based on a good product / service or good marketing strategy or media buying? Is it possible to make great brands if the product or service is substandard? What is difficult to brand? Service or a product? Why? In one of Steve Jobs interview, he said, marketeers will have more say in companies which seldom change their product line. For eg: Coke or Pepsi. While marketing may not be really required for tech based companies where the product it self is solving user needs. How would you respond to that? Do you think Tech companies need marketing? With growing chaos of brands, especially in India, what are the few challenges which brand experts are facing? Brand like “Khaitan-Sabse Tej" or "Asian Paints-Her ghar such keheta hai” are memorable because of the media buying or profound copywriting and design of the campaign? What is your response to especially e-com brands hurting them and user by incessantly harping on discounts

6: How brands are built with Ambi Parameswaran

Eli Giannini is an architect and director of an award-winning Melbourne based firm, MGS architects. Over the past twenty-five years Eli has been responsible for the design direction at MGS and winning numerous industry awards for her practice. We will try and get insights on, how she brings tenacity and passion for the craft of design with a special interest in developing architectural typologies into project specific responses. She is based out of Australia. What according to you is the core requirement when it’s going to be public use or public facing architecture? How do you identify / define body and soul of a space or a building which is meant for people? What role does “context” play in every project? How critical is it and why? With your project, "McIntyre Drive apartments” you did in 2012, which has won many awards, it’s mainly designed to give people a sense of village. So if you can tell us briefly that how did you manage to weave in inclusiveness for this particular project. I am more curious since this project for people living on air. I am asking this question since I believe, it’s a crying need for India and other developing countries. You speak about bringing “craft of design” in your architecture work. What message would you like to give to young architects around the world; In terms of priority, 1, 2 and 3; which skills need to be built or harnessed to start designing space which are inclusive and benefitting people or society at large.

5: Public architecture with Eli Giannini

Today I have Ruchita Madhok with us on Audiogyan. She is the Founder and principle designer of Kahani Design Works; a design studio based in Mumbai. Trained in exhibition design and scenography, Ruchita has worked extensively with corporate organisations and arts institutions in India, the UK and Middle East. She brings influences from visual arts, culture and heritage into Kahani’s creative approach, setting the studio apart as a global Indian design practice. What practice does Kahani Design works exactly do? What role does research play in your practice? Commissioned or pro-active / pro bono? Your focus has been narrating a story through visuals in story cities. Be it maps or illustrations. What are the grounds of picking a story and how has that evolved over time? What goes into making a visual guide / local map? Walks, research, architecting on paper? How long can this process be? How do you decide when to stop? What qualifies to be in the map and what doesn’t? We as culture are proud of our past but make very less effort to archive / document it. Whats your response to that w.r.t geographical / physical location perspective? What according to you can be a good start for individuals and groups to start investing time and effort to start telling stories of India visually?

4: Designing a visual guide with Ruchita Madhok

Prashant Is a Creative Head, Founder, Ideas@work.  Graduate from J. J. Institute of and Member of Bombay Art Society, worked for several advertising agencies, major brands in India and abroad like Bajaj, Raymonds, Park Avenue, Shoppers Stop, Airtel, NECC, Marico, Tata Group, Taj Hotels, Killer Jeans, Colgate, UPS, The Times of India, Citibank, Philips, Tetley, Thomson, Zee TV, Big Rock, Infosys, Reid and Tailor, Big rock Rustomjee, LinkedIn, Pepsico, Addidas shoes, etc. He started his career as an art director and with the iconic ‘Hamara Bajaj’ campaign and has been the driving force behind some of the most talked-about campaigns in the industry over the years. With a career spanning about 30 years, Prashant has worked with almost every top agency in India and has seen his work win over 250 metals at award shows like Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, the New York Festival, Asia-Pac Awards, and others. Today, aside from being one of the founder-NCDs of creative boutique ideas@work, he works on photography projects for reputed brands and gives guest lectures at various art schools and photography schools across India. What does a frame mean to you? Almost anything can be frame? How do you perceive time philosophically? It is said, write drunk, edit sober. Although it’s controversial, can you tell us, after years of clicking, I am sure the craft is perfected, how has curation evolved? Is curation difficult or clicking? Why curate? Importance of curation? In one of your interviews, you said, “you click in your head first” - Seems like Anahad-nada. Can you please explain it? What is the function of great street photograph? Timing? Traveling?  How has your advertising skills help you being a photographer and the other way round?

3: Framing and philosophy with Prashant Godbole

Shweta Malhotra is a Graphic Designer based in Bombay. After graduating in Applied Arts from Sophia Polytechnic (Bombay) in 2004, she started out as an Art Director with advertising agencies like McCann Erickson, Contract Advertising and Ogilvy. In Feb 2008, after a short stint at Fabrica, she decided to pursue a career in Graphic Design and has since worked with firms like Grandmother India and Rediffusion Y&R Design. On a project basis, she's also worked with Itu Chaudhuri Design and Illum Design. We will start with this one line which I found in most of your articles and interviews online. "My overall design aesthetic is minimal, bold and graphic, a response to the maximalist visual language prevalent in India.” - Can you tell in detail what do u mean by that? What have been your observations when you say, the maximalist visual language prevalent in India? Why do you define your work to be minimal? Your initial work was fashion-focussed, while fashion doesn’t seem not very minimal in a philosophical sense? What have been your observations w.r.t the contemporary art scene in India? Is contemporary word getting synonymous with minimalism due to our global exposure? What is your process of approaching an artwork? Minimalism is all about eliminating while you are creating something new out from your observations and what you consume? Does a blank canvas intimidate you especially when u approach with a minimalistic mindset? Do you think minimalism restrict the color palette or choose of images or fonts? What would be one take away who wish to explore this form in their work?

2: Maximalist contrarian - Shweta Malhotra

Sulekha is an independent graphic designer, type designer, and lettering artist. She has over 10-12 years of experience in designing for brands from Aviation, Personal Care, F&B, Healthcare, Banking & Financial Services to the Hospitality industry. She has a very insightful and worth listening talk recorded in 2015 at Typoday on youtube. Reference Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds4FVRyRX4c What is the difference between lettering and calligraphy? If there is any? For a layman, I believe lettering artist is generally referred to as who does typesetting for signages. Your work focusses on Multilingual brand design. How has lettering helped you in improving that skill? What is the most challenging part of multilingual branding - is it the client’s education or availability of well designed regional fonts or lack of awareness in designers?  What impact (conscious or subconscious) does a well designed English brand in Marathi or Hindi create of laypeople? How do you measure that impact? For eg: What changed tangibly when you did redesign Paradise Biryani Logo? What do you mean when you say, brands must adapt to a multilingual approach?

1: Letter design and multilingual branding with Sulekha Rajkumar

R.K. Joshi was born in Kolhapur in 1936 and passed away on 5 February 2008, leaving behind a rich tradition of advertising, love of alphabets, poetry, teaching, calligraphy, type design and many more. One of his important contributions is designing the core Indian fonts used in Microsoft Windows.  Who is this immortal R.K. Joshi for our new age designers? His tryst/passion with types and passion for letterforms? His top 5 contributions to the world of arts & top 5 to the world of Type design in India His contribution in the field of design education? Who were his main influences like Arrighi and more, in India and outside? Any personal ah-ha moments with him during your association/stories? What was his vision for Indian type or calligraphy industry? His thoughts on multilingual types considering his outlook towards India? Any story behind designing the Adi Shankaracharya stamp?

54: India’s type hero - R.K. Joshi (Audiogyan turns 3)

Tanya is an Indian Typographer and Type Designer. She did her MA in Typeface design from the University of Reading. She works in the are of Graphic Communication and Identity design. She teaches typography as a visiting faculty at ISDI and Pearl Academy. Along with this she also conducts TypeWalks in Mumbai.

53: Font licensing and more with Tanya George

I have Anjali Menon with us on Audiogyan. She is a co-founder of Gudgudee. Anjali with Aditi Agarwal (who works from BLR) started Gudgudee in 2014. It’s a design studio that specialises in creating innovative play spaces for children of all abilities. They aspire to transform public spaces and improve the quality of life for children and society at large. We will try and document a broad landscape of playing areas for children in India and how Gudgudee is trying not to make a dent, but smoothen the slides and swings so kids can play.

52: Designing play areas with Anjali Menon

A podcast for people interested in Art, Design and Philosophy. Audiogyan is an attempt to audio document knowledge, ideas and thoughts of people who have devoted their life in the field of performing arts, design or philosophy. It is a genuine attempt document and create a pool of content which can be useful for future generations to come. The podcast is mainly for Indian audience and interviews are also of Indian people.

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Audiogyan

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