WORLD GRAPHIC DESIGN, MERRELL. 10 FEBRUARY 2004 CONTEMPORARY GRAPHICS
World Graphic Design features ICD
Contemporary graphics from Africa, The Far East, Latin America and The Middle East.
A new Merrell publication, World Graphic Design curated by Robert Caban, features a full three page section ICD's work. The report also quotes Itu's views on the cultural and political climate in which our work as designers in India is carried out. All this is especially relevant to the book's thematic question, which we think will still be topical years from now: is there an Indian identity in Design?
An excerpt from the intro, which also quotes Itu at length "The tone and texture of the concerns voiced by Western designers would seem comically utopian in India.
Chaudhuri feels that, as India globalizes, its designers will become increasingly international in their values and concerns. The exceptions, he says, will be those designers who use traditional Indian imagery/ iconography as kitsch or for ironic or self-reflective humour. As an example he cites, somewhat disparagingly, the tendency of Western publishers producing books by Indian authors in English to have these covers scream ‘India’ as loudly as possible. “ ICD's covers”, he says, “have a more international sensibility, as Indian writing in English has its own place in the world, and confining its representation to images of Indian silk or Indian spices is condescending, or annoyingly Orientalist.”
