 typography society of India. Last month, we celebrated the world calligraphy day and we had a record audience of more than 2,000 people watching the program live in different social media platforms. Today, we have a legendary type designer and an educator with us, Professor Mahendra Bhai Patel. It is a very proud and happy moment for me to introduce one of my teachers and gurus for this program. Professor Mahendra Bhai spent 39 years of service as a faculty member at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He retired in 2003. Today, he is a mentor professor at Symbiosis Institute of Design and B.Y. Patel International University, Pune. He is also a distinguished chair professor at IDC School of Design, Ayati Bhangri. After his studies at Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda and at NID, Mahendra Bhai did advanced graphic design at School of Design Basel, Switzerland in 1968. Later, he worked on type design projects with the legendary designer, Adrienne Frutighe. Mahendra Bhai has made very significant contributions in several areas, including type design in various Indian scripts, wayfinding and signage design, information design, brand identity, publication design, et cetera. I will share some of his important projects here. Map design projects, including tourist and bus route maps for the city of Ahmedabad, guide maps for Gujarat State and Goa, irrigation and ecology maps for Gujarat State, industrial and archeological site maps for government of India. Mahendra Bhai's work for the multilingual signage design system for the Tirupati Temple complex in the year 2000 is a landmark project in the area of signage and wayfinding. It is a remarkable work considering the challenge thrown out by the multilingual script requirements of the place. He has also designed the tourist signage design system for Hyderabad City in 2002. His fond Naya Frutighe Devnagari in five ways, matches with the Naya Frutighe was launched by Monotype Corporation in 2013. He has been recipient of several awards and recognitions. I'll share a few of them in 2007. Mahendra Bhai was felicitated with grandmaster of design for his contribution in design and design education at the ICOGRADA Conference at IDC, IIT Bombay. In 2010, Prasad Patel was honored with the most prestigious Gutenberg International Award for his contribution in type design development of Indian scripts. In 2016, he was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award the Typography Day Conference organized by IDC and Srishti School of Design in Bangalore. Also in 2016, he was felicitated as design guru on National Design Guru Day in memory of Professor M.P. Ranjan by NID Alumni Association and Association of Designers of India. Prasad Mahendra Bhai teaches extensively in several design institutes around the world and conducts design workshops for various organizations. Prasad Lee is busy designing matching fonts across all Indian scripts, including English. It is a very happy moment for all of us to introduce Mahendra Bhai for this program. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation. Over to you, Mahendra. Hello, my typography friends and colleagues. My sincere thanks to Sri Kumar to give me this opportunity to present my design journey with all of you. Looking to complexity of our country, having so many state languages, great culture, festival, calendars and four habits, there's always someone who needs me and somewhere I can go for the work. I was a painting student from Faculty of Finance Baroda in 1964 and then I was selected as one of the trainees at NID to do graphic design. Here is my very first assignment or first project I have done with Armin Hoffman, completely freehand learning graphic design. Being a painting student, everything was new to me. I never know what is centimetre square and what is right angle because as a painter you see beautiful, you see aesthetics, you see patterns. You never worked on graphic forms like that. That was very challenging and interesting for me. I was sent to Bajal with Armin Hoffman for one year and in 1967 on coming back I started working on typography project at NID. This is one of the first project. I work on young designers for NID to celebrate 58 years of India. I created a dynamic layout for it. So you can see this is all hot metal. With a dynamic layout, it was a challenge to create this sort of layout. New York pictures, normally you have black text and colour title. Here I have colour text and black titles in order to bring out the images of students work. I work on creative folder, bilingual folder for western culture centre for English and Hindi for their folk festival in 1974. I got the same project with all type of folders for western culture centre next year and I did another folder in 1995 focusing on the local craftsmen for jewellery, for folk instrumental festival in Goa. I did some symbol design with letter forms at NID. This is for hotel horizon in Bombay. In those days there was no computer. So I did photo print, I did photo colour and recreated my design presentation. This is for Gujarat steel tube. This is Natin Chan Kilachan, a financial co-opress who was running industrial equipment for textile industry. Asok means the middle one is just symbol they selected. This is the way I presented. This is all done in a photo print. In interest of India, I proposed them this logo. They liked it but they didn't want to change logo for them. In the end, so they asked me to design saving publicity committee symbol for government of India. This says you have total income and then you save and your saving is saved with us. I designed symbol for India International Centre. Asok Chakra simplified on the top. India, the globe simplified at the bottom. International, India International Centre. Hindustan Thompson Association, the advertising company approached 90 in 70s. They didn't want to change HTA, they didn't want to change oval but they wanted to have a different identity. Very strange, they don't want to change anything but they want to have new identity. So this is my attempt, oval retained, added circle, robust and extended thing. Voltage limited, they have three major department, major missions to project that thing. I have created new symbols and logo type for them. This was a proposed, they have not selected it to take further. I was also a designer with printing department at NID. Very few people wanted to spend money for graphic design thing. So in printing, I created identity. This is two colour, two twice printing. Nugree and I is one time printing, second time agree and RI. So twice printing makes the configuration of a logo. And without paying extra, I could use my interest letter form to pay stationery for them. Same thing with sports club in Gujarat. They came to us to print stationery. I designed new stationery enhancing as for sports club of Gujarat and their existing emblem I put within the circle. See like sportsman's football, tennis ball, it's sort of a ball in where they exist in local output and played with SSSS. I tried to use letter form wherever I can. Gujarat Businessmen Convention, they are having seminar in 1980. So I created a computer computing calculations, but they didn't realise this in those days. So they asked me to do more simpler version. So I created another solution to them. I created Gujarat with terms business people use in India. And they liked this and I created stationery and information folder and other items for them. This is information folder. Dr. Kurian was interested in the concept I presented through Gujarat Businessmen Convention. So he developed a new punchline which is perspective 1980 in 1970. It means they are looking forward to 19, 10 years ahead and I created this conference logo with V and with a system of dots and they liked this idea. We created total conference graphics based on that. Full trucks, small scale industry, they built the motors. This is very easy nowadays to create on computer. Imagine when there was no computer, I created by hand on printing under camera twice. So this less exposure, more exposure and repeated exposure under calculated movement. And it requires a big scale to create this sort of a thing. Development and investment, they had a bi-weekly magazine. So every month one bi-week Gujarati edition comes, second time English edition comes. So I created information folder for them and magazine covers for them. Tested limited is a small scale industry expert in creating iron exchange which is huge in size. So I created their information folder for an international trade for. I made about cotton mills, their textile sample cover. They send samples to all wholesale merchants who can order them. So I created a sample folder cover for them. Played with ACM stands for is a Mirabar cotton mills. And you can see different sizes repeated and created. Wherever I have a chance, I use that to form to create visual impact. Vakil Mehta Parik Seth are the consulting engineers in Mirabar Bombay and Bombay. This is offset printing. I created their catalog cover. And inside that quotation and catalog. I created a letterpress information sheets. It is very easy to create this sort of a tab and rules on computer. Imagine this is done on letterpress. It require high precision to align space before rule, after rule and create that tab. So this was created at those days. This was supposed to be a very precise and high-scale to create a tabular matter in those days. And I use cut out block letterpress block to print their projects. I designed system of covers for Gujarat textbook corporate textbook. For 5th standard it is red to yellow. For 6th standard it is blue to yellow. Like that I created total color range for 5th, 6th and 7th standard for different subjects. These are my Gujarati typeface. This is the first time I use Amul to print their cattle feed for their poster in villages. One color black color printing. And I have printing department. They print publications. I design grid and layout for this. And this is the information folder for this. This is for another book by Hakusa. Baroda museum. They wanted to have booklet on the museum exhibits. They have a letterpress blocks. So I created a cover in offset printing which is very typical exhibit of them. This is a very proud exhibit of from the museum and art gallery. This is one page of the inside booklet. The constraint was they don't want to spend extra money for it. These are the postcards what they sell over the counter. I use the same blocks. And in a letterpress I printed the text in brown and the images in black and white or color as it was whatever they had. But you can see normally your text is black and the image is color. I need another round so your exhibit can come out. Museum pieces can come out. Gujarati State fertilizer company. This is Manu Desai's house magazine. They approached an ID for a new design. I designed their new house magazine which saves around 12% price cost in offset printing. NID was very famous for its collection of type specimens in the hot metal studio. So this is type specimen book of that collection. This was given to students and our clients to select what type of type they want they can use it. At NID I got another opportunity apart from that one year education in Basel School of Design in 1967. In 1971-72 I had another one year to go to Ardrian Thutigar in Paris and learn type design. The condition with Ardrian was half-day I worked on type design project to learn how to go about and half-day I worked on his project. So other half-day I used to work on his existing project. This is for mid-couser printing in Switzerland and they wanted to do catalog covers. So I used my interest in letter form. This is for technology, this is for nature. There was another architecture and engineering. They had another graphic design project publication coming on. It is automobile locomotives from Switzerland and they had a different type of black and white images. This is dust jacket for the hard bound book. I reduced all photographs proportionally into stamped size and created a dust jacket cover. It looks very simple nowadays to size and fit to a frame. Imagine when there was no computer you have to calculate the size and fit and margin and have the same height was requiring lots of calculations. Alpha 3 for Air France timetable. This is the cover of their timetable. Alpha 3 is a system in 3 second you can reserve your seat. This is first time they were very proud of it to announce it. So in those days we had IBM ribbon for computing. So I created A3 the symbol A and 3 with the ribbon and created cover. They had inside the timetable. This is timetable designed by Bruno Fairfleet, their typographer. I did just the fill-in spaces wherever there are extra space or left out space in the timetable. I created Alpha 3 announcement using my interest in letter form. There was one whole page left at the end blank where I designed. They were very proud to announce that they have now new 747 large Boeing which they can operate. So I created 747 sort of painterly composition with toasting overlapping each other. Create artwork for offset printing. Returning to NID in 1972, there was no type design project. So I was put immediately on an exhibition design project for Asia 72. I was one of the three visualizers. This is the model we made for Textiles of India at Asia 72. This is the entry and it flows like that. Then you can go from here to go to the fashion show. Come out and then there is a cotton silk, manmade fiber and upholstery like that. This is all photo model which created little mannequins, photo mannequins. So it gives correct idea to client for investing them in our design and executing. We executed this design on the spot in Delhi. You can see the scale of that entry. If you see that, this is the scale and this is the pillar where you can see Hussein is coming out of our exhibit. This is Super Tail animator taking photograph of Nehru spinning. At the entrance, we had 16 feet tall stuffed elephant with cut embroidery. Normally this elephant embroidery elephants are around 18, 20, 18, 6 inch height. We exaggerated it to present textile heritage of India. Introduction, textile history, cotton, manmade fiber. Now I have another opportunity to design exhibition in 1979 for theme pavilion, industrial achievement of India. We gave a name Ujjib. You can imagine the whole height. This is a human figure. It is almost 80 feet tall height. And our panel was this size which is 9 feet height. So it get lost in this. We had a AV show which is very high. So we can see through the panels there and there was a photo mural we created. And to take out the impact of height, we have hanged 15 feet, 30 feet and 45 umbrellas from the top. I was the only chief visualizer and I created this schematic for presentation to client. This is the plan. Here is the entry. And then we have VIP plot rate carpet which guides people to go through. There's audio visual in the middle. And these are the panel system. The rhombus you can see are the exhibit. There are double rhombuses, single rhombuses where the exhibit of industrial product would be there. This is the exterior. Jackie Hussain visited our pavilion to inaugurate. Ashok Chatterjee was our director at that time. Jyoti Sevak was my project head to execute. And I was the chief visualizer. We did the exhibition, prints and panel in Ahmedabad structure was sent to Delhi, erected in Delhi. You can see single display panel, double display panel. The panel are such that the display panel has the same width as the exhibit panel. And two panel makes the double panel. We worked out the total system and it is assembly system. So two panel with one connector here, second connector here can connect together. You can see little umbrella hanging from the top. And this is the mini entrance because it has three entrances to people can enter from anywhere. So we had a small introduction. Do you notice that the English character created by Rilpin form to go with my wood jump Rilpin retreat. This is first time I use new style for the English based on Rilpin. This is audio visual. So in those days we didn't have audio visual means you have 12 projector and project slides on that. People sit on this and look at it. My signage design project. So my first project on signage design started with letter form for International Airport. That is Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. They use existing English and asked me to design Devnagari, Bengali and Tamil in 1976. So I created actual size artwork and they screened the lettering on their signage. I did only letter form for them. All the things which is required. I designed the logo type for State Bank of India in all the languages for tiling your use. Please understand the each script has its own characteristic. But if you see the size looks same style looks same. The gray value of the type looks same. This is not typeface. This is logo type whatever letter form required for to write State Bank of India. Now if you notice State Bank of India is internationally registered so they use. But in Indian languages we propose them to standardize but your State Bank translated not translated logo. And they agree with it and I created a total configuration and letter form for all the Indian major languages. You can see tiling your sign prototype and we created artwork for them to be used all around the country. Another experience I have is I took a NID declare semester in service of Amidabad city. So I took 16 students with me and created a way finding design and sign the design for Amidabad city. So we created this on a PVC. This is on a MS seat PVC and acrylic seats. We created different size. I selected this one. We wanted to have this one and it was actual prototype was made. And presented to the commissioner then commissioner who like and then given us the advance to execute in whole city. My next project for way finding design or signage design was for Tirupati. There are many 40,000 people visit every hour and there are too many tourists to be managed. So we have five language communication and we created a pictogram and specially created pictogram and then language to start with in the after sometime the pictogram only would be used. And we have language policy road name in three languages signage in five languages and the map in language addition one language is for five languages separate maps that sort of a thing to distinguish and make the reading very this is just a testing on the street in Tirupati itself. So we have a Hindi in yellow and telugu and English in white in order to have a proper comprehension according to your language familiarity. These are the map panels to triangle to prism and we have six sides or six side is the. This is the first time I am using ceramic ties with a third firing with five color printing offset printing and transfer on the ceramic. Then brief was decided should not be beautiful that God and it should not require any maintenance. And this side of the map was covered by the pictogram and description in four different languages to familiarize people with icons which I use on the map. I designed signage design for Mirabas for NID NID is a central under central government. The committee has a requirement Hindi should be first English to be second Hindi should be same size, but reality is in an ID 80% English speaking hardly 10% non English speaking who don't understand English. So what I did I did like they would agree and more English and we put they would agree first and English second and created a total signage system. You can see this actual prototype there, not prototype actual signage. They still use this. This is not in your 2000. I retired from NID in 2003, and they had this project in Ujjain, Kumbh Mela in 2004. So, on my own, they have given me this project to work on. And we designed this way with I with lip design. I designed this signage design for them situation in Ujain is different Hindi speaking in 90% and non English, non Hindi are only 10% so we have a large they would agree and very small English and more emphasis on they would agree Hindi. This is the city sign and we proposed this would be permanent city signage and temporary map signage Mirabas signage. I am also a map designer. After coming back in 72 from Paris, I wanted to, there was not much project or challenge for me to do type design. So I went into map design. I never learn map design, by the way, I just the general interest because I used to use maps, go around Switzerland, and you will walk and wonder what wonder week which is walking streets and find each and every place without even asking people. So when I came back, I asked Kira Sarabay, our director, that I would like to design map for a Mirabas city. This is my first map I designed for a Mirabas city, which was awarded best design and printing award from the way with me. Once we received the award people started coming for a map design to us. So earlier we, there was no client we printed and we distributed and we sold the map. Now, the tourism department came to us and say design map for us. My first map has two mistakes. And so I design new map for Mirabas. This is poster color. In those days, ammonia free poster color. So I created ammonia free painted with poster color and created a simulated map how my map would look. And finally I created a map in English and Gujarati editions for Gujarat tourism. My first map was only in English and I realized even my family can't use because most of people in a Mirabas are good Jews. So when next time cooperation came, I have a condition with them that I would design Gujarati and English map and I had printing department. So we give a design and print total key projects. So we created 25,000 Gujarati maps and 25,000 English map for them. So here, first time I'm using, you can notice this small bullets pictograph bullets to identify. So you can see there's a post office here, there's a theater here, there's a swimming pool here, even in this there's a religious space here. This become a very easy map is full of information but it is very not crowded with information. To educate people with my little bullet pictogram is of using picture in index I use large program to familiarize people with a system. Now in Amirabad people dot by map by four rupee they are habituated to a cycle or panwala where is this sir. So I decided to give away map which is skeleton map anybody can buy 500 copies we printed one lakhs copies and a bunch of 500 can be bought by anybody can they print their own information letterpress or a on a xerox machine and they can make their own map for distribution. Now people started knowing me as map Patel Mahindra Patel. So the MTS people Amirabad Municipal Transport Corporation people came to me and say we would like to have map like London underground. I say you have system like underground, but I can bring you your map to international quality. So if you read this is the existing map if you read this index you don't know what to find where to refer only bus route comes in a sequence. But if you want to go to Paldi you have to read like a novel where Paldi comes then from where is the which place you want to start you have to again. So it is very difficult to find index it is a data but not user friendly. Even the map says we are full of bus routes we are full of stock don't ask her where it is yeah that's sort of a thing. So I design a route map for them. This is our bus looks like that there's a state bus transfers across the state and then bus stop index frequency index. It means route wise index which what are the route pass through if you know your route what is the timing what is the pickup or non pickup or night bus available and no night bus available. And we created a stops, number the stop number the terminal, fast changing stop our large non fast stop as well so you can save money by stop getting down one stop earlier so your pair would be next step like that I created a total map for them. We printed in Gujarati and Hindi both. Now because of our recognition at map designer. Dr. Tabakawala, who was the governor in Goa, who who was going to host the Chogam meeting which all prime minister of the world were coming there for a resort for a weekend from Delhi. So he asked me to design map of tourist map of Goa because they had no money problem, no budget really so I created a four color map for both side. And to go to Goa, Panjim is the major city I included in sort of Panjim map also inside. So now map of Gujarat city Gujarat state. It is easy to design a map for a city but to hold state is very complex to verify and check. So my studio was 40 feet by 40 feet 16 people working on tables to work, get a data. These are the 1974 you can imagine. You don't travel with a map in a state you have a booklet in a booklet you can find out what to see where to stay what to buy, all those information. And once you are in city, you can say these are the important places to visit in city like that. And all eight major city in Gujarat was included in there. And insert was a guide map of Gujarat printed on both side. I designed the irrigation map of Gujarat showing major and minor major and medium irrigation scheme for engineers and the government body to refer to. In this map they were using ammonia print and color it and send to each other with this every five year plan, they created a new map, and they can distribute for funding and photo communication among them. So this is planners map. This map has been designed in a manner that it can be folded and piled. There was it's 19. I don't remember, but 79 I think there was a this, this discovery of India exhibition in New York at Paris, and they wanted to create a monument map and cultural map for India. So I created a map sites and celebration, the title was given, we have art and archaeological index and map was created India is one so the state boundary was put in yellow for India boundary was put in tricolor of flag and each information about culture was put the word custody be hard and pointing to the state and the monument information according to the index were put in a postal size stamps from Public Information Bureau I got all monument photographs I reduced them in a small size stamp size retouch them and did the map for them. It looks simple but without computer all this require very hard work and very precise work. Now, the India Gandhi was a prime minister, she called an ID and says she want maps for their ministers to refer industrial glimpses what is happening in the country industry. So I created a reference map for minister to interact with MLA they have a directory with them and they are coding. So I have created a alpha shape color and so circle and square circle means government square mean private close filled up means completed outline means proposed like that total stickers and sticker were printed on the skeleton map which has a yellow means power, red, orange means highway and blue line means the airline. Each district has the information and each district is referred with a directory. I designed the map for Hyderabad city for the students who are attending this if you will be interested the way we I propose the map. This is all dummy text and dummy images simulated images and presented two by five full map how what where what would it be and this is all dummy text and client like it based on that we executed that map. This is the folder map. This is the open map front and back. We have four proposal to client client asked us to for one map but they like all four. So we say not for but they can take two maps and pay 50% more for the second map. So they selected one which is giveaway map folder map and one is a booklet map. This is the one by five folder booklet map concept. The booklet will be pulled out and there will be further information and the insert will be a map which would be on the backside. This is the final product printed map cover when it opens when it opens further if this is the binding line map can open this is heritage work and it talks about what to buy where to say how to travel. All information what to eat all and this is the insert map in that booklet. This is the ocean during that way finding design we designed two maps for them. One is the city map. This is the city map and other is the Mela map. This is the Mela map for them. And this is the orientation map within the satellite city to find where they are. There are so many Jones. And each Jones have around I don't remember but more than 500 people staying in tent. So numbering system, which they should not confuse the naming system and signage system we worked out in Hindi is a primary language and English is secondary language. Now I'm coming to my major interest which is type design. This is my first, which is known as a particular, what you call a universe typeface in 1971 I work as a trainee with Adrian put together in Paris, and this is the block we created for proposing our typeface it is designed for a photo type setter for monotype later on it is taken by photo type setter for monotype corporation. This is all individually cut and paste photo provides and then created block and this is the print of the block 1971 you can imagine. Then I had a after three years I had a chance to do they will not be for stencil writing for architecture engineer by ISI Indian standard Institute, and I created a writing system and design for them. This is how the text would look with that and I did take lots of exhibitions as you have seen my exhibition in. I designed special degree for our exhibit exhibitions and we created a offset print like a all letters and cotton paste and create artworks and offset prints on panels pasted on panels or since printing pasted on panels for bilingual uses. This is my second, third type design in Daewoo Nagri which is used for NID exhibitions for airports. I designed Bengali all the latest by this time I'm so good in electric so I don't require any more French cow this is all prehand drawn letter form on ordinary Xerox paper. You can see my outline by gel pen and fill up by Parker yeah and this is the I become very good in my head to draw later from this is Tommy for text space. Gujjati type foundry came forward. They wanted me to design Gujjati type page for that. For wasn't but who was going to execute it. Gopal Krishna Modi commissioned this project to us. So I took this project into classroom for exploration for one week to students, they explore different skeleton of the same letters, you can see, and apparently I was designing for my client. I kept space bar and right spare by and this is all done on ordinary white paper Xerox paper and fill up by hand. We created a cotton paste artwork to for a exhibition we had a middle of the future and we test out the text in Gujjati. And Harold approaches for the Prajavani other magazines to design typeface. Now if you see the letter form in Bangalore are heavy at the bottom like pregnant ladies. So normally your vertical is heavier than horizontal. Here it is horizontal slightly heavier than vertical. This is a new style I propose for a conduct type faces which they have taken and we executed. For them. We created for them to be executed by monotype corporation. They have a small work tools and mobilization key key. It has become part of it so I created all combinations of the letter form for as artworks. Malayalam Manorama heard about my work for they can handle they came to us and they wanted also a new typeface, but they wanted to have more classical typeface so I created it Malayalam with a field pain and created this typeface for them. They I had a chance to go to England. For a British Council Fellowship. So I visited Salphor where they were executing Malayalam typeface and I learned how how they this is the little reduction here this is the actual size they enlarge it. This is what computer output in terms of pixel. No, this is the computer output at the bottom and upper one is aesthetically correct to get a smooth curve in a reduction. So I learned how to do notching and editing of the letter form for aesthetic rendering output. During the scholarship bank and miles approached me and asked me to review the bell sentennial typeface they which was used for a telephone directory. This was the existing typeface they had desired I with my knowledge of Malayalam. I went into typeface and not an edit which become more readable in a smaller reduction. So these are all my diagnosis. I approached them. I went to them. I saw their specimen and this is like my correct by comments on that typeface what I can do and they gave me a job and I corrected that typeface which one young green world award for them. So now coming back to NID some of the work I realized that English has all capital all capital and capital lowcase while Indians keep doesn't have capital and lowcase but we require to match to each other. So I have created an English with a special cap height which matches with both all Indian languages. So this is my for one second trial with matching Indian script with Roman scripts. It's unseriff style. Based on that after my retirement in 2003 I got a project from NID to design Devanagari for five different ways so you can see light, normal, bold, black and ultra black. If you see that gray value going on it. I designed that for them. You can see it is matching very perfectly with English. We had a scheme to design same thing for all Indian languages but NID didn't continue on with Devanagari. This is my presentation sheet. They didn't took it further. So I had a bad luck with typeface with NID. So this is the way I match Hindi, English, Bengali and the script. The idea was first stage was Hindi, Bengali and English and then rest of the languages. We had total four year program but it fire back and within one year they told me not to continue with it. So Monotype Corporation actually Linotype Corporation approached me after I received that Gutenberg International Award and they say why not to do it for us. So I designed, redesigned and created a very refined version of it and completely new design of Noy Kutiga Devanagari with all five ways and they have now launched this and it is available on their website. This is the only typeface which is commercially available. What I designed rest of the typeface if you see are all exclusive rights for the company with whom I did it. Thank NID for all this opportunity and building me what I am. After retiring from NID I decided to focus on teaching and I teach letter design, type design, map design, wayfinding design and print publication to different institute in India. Thank you. Mahendra bhai we will, we are about to go live. I am just waiting for Rishwin to tell me when we are going live. Mahendra bhai thank you very much for the wonderful lecture. We are live now. I will read out some of the questions and comments from the participants. Would you please share some of your experiences in interacting with the legendary Adrian Frutiga. Mahendra bhai we are about to go live. I am just waiting for Rishwin to tell me when. Yes can I share my experience with Frutiga. Yes sir. Okay it is in 1966 Adrian was going to Japan and he visited NID on New Year day after Diwali. He had a presentation. I was young like some of your young graduate. I was in my second year of post graduation course. And I was put to assist him in the presentation. He talked about in those days 1966 computer and typography. And he was talking about OCR E. In those days OCR B was not there. Yeah. And let me tell you almost 90% went above my head. Yeah. But I like his way of presentation and interacting people. He made things so simple for others to understand. Based on that. Sarabha is invited him for two week workshop in India. A following year where I was assisting him for the workshop. Where our friend but you by Robert Gopal Krishnamudi and many people participated from all over India came to NID and I had a chance to interact with all of them. I was a assistant person to Adrian to understand what is the opportunity challenges Indian languages have. It was my first exposure to work with Indian languages also on scripts. I learned how to cut read pain. I was master. I learned to write. Now after two weeks there was very heavy heavy pouring in Ahmedabad. Nobody can come to the campus. Things were flooded. And in those days we had ambassadors car to drop him to the airport. There was driver and him but I was so impressed and I like to worship and I saw it's a golden opportunity. I went on my father's salesman bicycle to NID and made him there at the gate and say sir if you don't mind I would like to come and drop you. Even Sarabha couldn't come to NID. It was such a heavy rain. So I said yes why not. So I sat with him in the ambassador car NID's ambassador car and went to the airport. The airport in those days is you have a sofa. You wait in the sofa and you walk down to the plane. There is no checking and all sort of thing. No boarding passes. You have ticket and they give you seat. So while waiting for boarding for around 45 minutes to one hour we were sitting on a sofa next to each other and to pass time he started asking me question. So he asked me about my father about my grandfather about my family and certainly he realized that I come from a middle class family. My father is a businessman and grandfather is a farmer. So he was impressed and said do you know my father is a viewer. And like that we started talking to each other and we felt so much at ease to each other. So he said me Mr Patel he was not calling me by Mahindra at that time. I would love to have you with me. I'm going to go back and do some proposal to Sarabhaish and I'm sure you would be with me. That is the first meeting with Adrian otherwise he was Gherav with those Gopal Krishna Modi and all big dignitary in a workshop hardly had any chance and he was staying with Sarabhaish in that retreat. So no thing only hello sir, hi sir. Now in 67 towards the end May I was selected to go to school of design Bajal for one year to learn typography. At NID I had a one to one ratio to one teacher one student ratio to learn typography. When I went to Bajal the teacher says Mr Patel you know everything. Our Bajal teacher have come personally and teach you one to one. What can we teach you more? You know everything. That day hot metal typography was there. So I that the Bajal was a teacher who can't speak English and I can speak no one can speak. So I just do it broken German I can speak. So I had a German girl who can translate between two of us. It so happened that I said told him that I'm here to learn how to teach not learn to typography. How do you deal with typography? How do you teach? How do you relate with students? So suddenly one weekend Frutiger came in. He heard about we are he's in Paris. We are in Bajal. He's in France. We are in Germany. He came. He knows all the teachers. He know Mr Müller personally or Ruder was his teacher, his colleague. So Ruder was a director. So he introduced me to Ruder and say here's the special person and please see that he's my special guest. And whenever there's a vacation I would like him to be visiting Paris. So he arranged special car for me to go during Christmas to spend two weeks with him in his atelier. He says you are my guest and I reached there in midnight. So there was a guest house. I was not knowing guest house. He has all those things. He said I'll take care of you. He put a little label on the gate. Help yourself. Everything is open. There's a garlic rice in the freeze and curry. I don't know how he managed all those things. I opened and I was happy. It is my first exposure to his studio. Then after vacation I went back to NID, start teaching and he kept his promise and invited me for one year to work with him in 1971. So he talked to Sarabhaj and said I would not charge anything to NID. Mr Patel or Mahendra. Now by that time we know each other and we call my first name Mahendra Nadryan. He said Mahendra would work with me for half day on my project and half day I would train him like a trainee on type design, professional way of dealing with type design. Sarabhaj was very happy. They don't have to pay only anything. They have to pay my travel and living expenditure in Paris. He also organized my stay in Paris. He has his what's called modern laws apartment in Paris and his modern law comes hardly twice a year. Her husband was a doctor. So he said use her apartment. Don't worry. And I'll see that when she is there you are put on somewhere else. So he used to arrange vacation for me. I would go to Spain or I go to South France when her mother-in-law comes and he paid all those things. He was so much impressed by my work. So we didn't, I think three months after working with him half day on my project and his project. I was so enthused. I thought I would never have such golden opportunity in my life. So I was starting working around seven o'clock in the morning and working till 10 o'clock of night. After six o'clock I used to go and learn French also. I went attended French class so I can get a student pass. If you get a student pass you can get concession everywhere, museum and everywhere. After three months he came to me and says Mahendra, don't work so hard. You have already worked for whole year. Don't give so much back to NID. Keep something for you for future. So he said now nothing doing for two weeks. You are going on a vacation on me. He arranged ticket, stay everything and said now two weeks break to you. I took two weeks break to Spain, went around, he arranged all those things. It happened, I came back, I was sick, not home sick, real sick. I was hospitalized and believe me, meal in a hospital and in those days was very big. I was nervous. He came, he said don't worry. You are my friend and guest. All the expenditure, even NID takes care of not, I'll pay. He paid all the expenditure, wrote to Sarabhai that Mr Patel has been sick and this you have to pay for it. Sarabhai couldn't say no to him. They paid it. So when check came he said Mahendra here is the amount of money. I said no you have paid it. He said no. I said I won't take it. He said no. So he came with bundle. In those days we didn't have plastic card. So he put one note to me, one note to him, one note to me and say here is your bonus. Keep with you. Very, very nice relation I had. He was too busy, extremely busy. Every week something happens he gets money and he gives us champagne. Whenever there's extra payment of royalty, there's a champagne in the atelier. I started drinking sweet champagne, jeans and little champagne. Otherwise I don't eat non-veg or don't drink alcohol. But this is not alcohol. At the end of my one year, I'm very emotional about Adrien here. Just I'll finish in five minutes. I finish one year with him and say you can stay back. I'll pay all your debts to NID. Call your wife. The apartment you are staying of my murder in law will give you. You work for me. I said no sir. I'm very happy at NID with my family and in India. Thank you very much. But I would love to go back to my own country. In this country I will be one of 2,000 people. In those days there were not too many typographers. But in India I would be one of the few people. So I prefer to go back to country and especially to NID who has trusted me so much. And given such a golden opportunity, I don't want to say no to them. I would like to stay back there. Sarabhai knew about it and they respected my decision and I went back. But then say okay, like ask me anything I want to give you. So every day my studio, he has given me a studio in his studio on second floor. One room, everything. So I can work peacefully. On the staircase there was one painting of him. Ambos painting, but a life, human being life. You might have seen on his book. So he had done 2 paintings and it is like a mini marj relief sculpture. So he asked me, I said sir if you want to give me, I want to have one of these paintings. He says yes, I'll make one more for you and give it. I said no sir. I would like to have this one when I'm passing every day. He said but it is broken in the corner. It was little dent on the corner. I said that's why all I like it. Bruno Pepele who is a typographer there, he told me Mahendra, you are asking things. He promised me he would never, he has never done it. So I knew this that he won't have time or he won't be able to do it. So I say I want to have it. In the end he agreed to give me that painting and that painting was packed well. Believe me he came personally to the airport with a packed painting. Instructed the airline people that he is my special guest. Please help him to carry this painting in the airplane and take care of it. Such a large big person coming to you see off at the airport which painting in his hand was a great memory for me. Now whenever I go to Europe, I mean many times after 71 in Europe, I make a point to meet him in Paris. Last meeting I had is 1988 where I went to Paris from, I was on a British Council Fellowship to understand what role of typography with computer. Computer came in 84. All of us were worried about how one can teach computer or a typography through computer. And NID was very ahead of it. So they asked me to explore it. I went to London College of Communication. Now in those days London College of Printing. I went there for four months. The lady very pretty lady told me that Mr Patel you know more than me. You can teach my students other than we can teach you. You at NID know much more and you are very impressed with the technology. Whatever you are doing is really good. We can't add into it. So I told her that madam here is a nice scarf for you. People like gifts and I love to give Indian gifts. And one real paint cut and write her name on a paper or something like that. And say if you don't mind madam, give me presents in your department. And let me do whatever I can do in London on excuse of London College of Community Printing. She said done. So I telephoned Collin Banks. I don't know banks and mines. Collin Bank did social communication. He did that telecom thing and underground signage and post office signage. He is very known for it. Communication for public services in UK. I knew him. We do a workshop in Ahmedabad together. So I talked to him and Collin I am here. I have this golden time to work with you. Do you have anything for me? I want to have professor exposure. He said nothing really. But we are working on new directive on Ben Centennial. They have decided Ben Centennial. In those days it is digital. Not outline form. He says come let's have at least coffee together. So I went to Elephant and it's a little about away from London. He has a lovely studio. Say have a copy with him and he asked me that what can you do with this? We are at this stage. I said okay sir, give me a proof. We call it proof. You call it print. So he gave me a black and white proof of wherever they were. I sit with my red paint and green paint and started diagnosing. I had a magnifying glass from Basjol which can read one tenth of a millimeter. One tenth of a millimeter physically. So I can look at that thing and I diagnose what I can do with it. And I gave him after 45 minutes. He said my God we thought we are already finished. This much you can do. I said yes. He said how much would you charge? I said I can't charge anything because I am on British Council Fellowship. But this is a professional service. I know you would be getting. So do one thing. Whatever I buy you pay it. There is a London stationery shop in London. Very known shop. All of us go there and buy things. So what I did I bought all the material for all my faculty. Not only for me. From their store. I didn't bring anything else than material. Back to India. And hold my bag was full. In those days your .5 pencil was not available in the country. I am talking about 82. That anti-cutter what you see was available for 15 rupees. In those days it was costing 125 rupees. It is called surgical cutter. So all those things centimeter scale which don't slide. Normally your centimeter scale slides when you write. So there is a special rubber packing at the bottom and all type of good material I found. Plastic glass mounts. In those days slides so there was no computer. So you do a slide so the glass mount which is square which can have different things. There are many many things I bought. Still sat square. My Gira Sarabhai was impressed when I landed in Ahmedabad with all material. He said here is the person really devoted to design. And that's why my journey with Frutigate ended. I am sorry I went beyond Frutigate. Sir I will just read out another question. Is it which software do you use for designing fonts? Okay earlier I used to do font to font to graph her till 19. Year 2000. Then I shifted to font lab. Now I am having font lab 7. I have not started Gleap. Actually I was going for a Gleap from 2013 because Lino type only promote Gleap. So I had a mission with Lino type to design all Indian skip but it somehow got backed out. So I continue with my font lab 7. Another question is after this software and digital apparatus came do you think graphic or typography design is somewhat an easy thing to learn and practice? Yes very much. But believe me the computer operates what you command, what you instruct. If you are not sensitive about curve, visual proportions, visual corrections which is vertical, horizontal, curvilinear stroke. How to handle the bezier point, the handles it is called nowadays and control point it can make a mess. So what I use computer by the way I am taking one font design course now. Directly on font lab 7, directly no paperwork because they have gone to one letter design course with me. I start directly on that and they can give same quality what they can do by hand. Even as a teacher I don't teach now A to Z on hand but the sensitivity to understand what is the right visual proportions. Weight, height, visual center, visual alignment, visual stroke weight. I give a little two day to three day very concentrative focus experience to students. I call it experience other than a skill. Once they have sensitivity they can do anything on computer. As someone who wants to get into typography what should be my starting point? Person what he means is I think he or she means is maybe an aspiring font designer what should be my starting point? Okay understand the skeleton of letter form very important. Understand the different tools how it contribute to the form in a classical forms as well as contemporary designs which is different tools. When I say different tools basically there are three type of tools flat nib brush flat brush or a solid brush or linear tool. So you use it one of them or both all of them and explore what is their influence in curvy linear stroke diagonal stroke vertical stroke horizontal stroke. Any design any letter anywhere you do whether Malayalam, Urya, Urdu, English Hindi they are made up strokes. Other thing is flow of the stroke clockwise anticlockwise. The writing is continuous writing. When you construct you break them into stroke one stroke second stroke third stroke how the stroke behaves how the stroke joins how the stroke ends. You have to have that basic understanding and sensitivity and insights onto that for which you require little bit more what you call like a lot some some special assignment. Once you have that which means you confidence to give it any type of material. Other thing is language. You have to understand how the things are constructed together to create a phonetic construction of sentences. So how the vortues work how the joint letter works how the matras work you have to have basic understanding. There's an advantage you understand the language but you need not to know the language you can work with design is a teamwork. It is not only you give a solution it is not one window things. You may not know even the font engineering or language engineering. If you are lucky you know all those things very few people can deal with all those at least my age. It's very difficult for me to go into font engineering. I understand what is font engineering. I know what language engineering to but to give a professional industrial service extensive service require a professional so you work with a team you understand. So now you're at the moment you're working on the font lab. What left seven I have a license copy. I have some very interesting message. Dr Fianna Ross was listening to your talk. Oh thank you. She has written thank you for the fascinating talk my very best wishes. Actually I gave it another talk to Reading University letter design to logo type design. This is my journey that was my teaching journey. This was not my teaching this was my professional journey. I have another journey of sharing my academic experience. That's what I did with Reading University. But it is very very very happy to know that Dr Fianna Ross is attending. Thank you. Another is what type of grids do you use? Oh I think it will take one more lecture for that. Kumar I am a super expert in grid design. I have gone beyond that. Now there's a baseline grid with also has a row and columns perfect grid. So I have seven different type of grids and I teach grid extensively takes around three solid days with 18 hours session. And then I don't teach I can teach layout also but grid is my mastery. There is nothing like base grid appropriate grid. What if it is text dominant document it is image dominant document. It is a graphic design which is square and circle perfect design. If it is a news magazine where the shape is not matter but image is thing. So based on that you decide a grid. Basically there is a perfect in division perfect in measure and baseline grid. There are three different type of grids. The next one is that you are teaching typography for a long time. So suddenly this lockdown happened and online teaching has created a lot of new challenges. What are your experiences in teaching design through an online platform without meeting the students in real life? Okay let's start from the end. I teach still online and students are very close to me. I see one to one they have no choice than listening me. I can attend each and every student in a big classroom half of them are absent minded. In digital media all of them are listening me. If they don't listen they have recorded things. I can contribute, I can help them. The production, the outcome is almost three times better than the actual class. I was very nervous to start with. It was Sangeeta Shrupa from Nirma. I think in May 2020 I took my first online class. I never know what is Zoom and gym meeting and how to start. I was not knowing Wi-Fi. I had a Wi-Fi at home but how to connect social media. She said don't worry Mahindra Bhai we will take care of it. Within three days I got conversion. Then I created a totally different approach. There are 79 students. Imagine 79 students teach online. I divided them into three groups. We were three teachers. We repeated the same thing three times. I created what is called learning management on online. That gave me a good confidence and then there is no end. Now I am very comfortable online. I have my camera to demonstrate my horizontal RIPRO camera. Unfortunately I don't have it now. My university bought special camera for me. It is called RIPRO camera. But it doesn't work. So I use my mobile iPhone horizontally. I use this. I have special lighting and I make it sure that my students receive the maximum. They take care of it. For me I am very successful. I am not praising myself. The result is very encouraging. Even something like folder design. Creative folding. Which requires physical touch. Or way-finding design. I have done online for the last one and a half to two years. I am very excited. Even when we start campus thing, I would continue online instruction. That is very good. It should be combo of both. What was the feedback of visitors from different cultures who come to Tirupati? After your signage system was implemented there. As you mentioned that many people have different language requirements. And you had made a multilingual system with five languages. So I just wanted to know what was the feedback of those visitors. Sorry Sree Kumar. I have not received any feedback. Unfortunately I have not been able to go to Tirupati. I retired from NID in 2003. And after 2001, I started working on other things. And NID don't relate with me. I am sorry to say. They don't share anything. And they have never called me after I retired. So I have no idea what is the feedback given to me. Because it is not my project. NID project. And all documents also with NID. Actually we created a very extensive document for them to follow. I wanted to create a case study. Believe me. Even I was the main designer. I don't have access to it. Because it is a very big landmark. Because only in India we have this thing of 22 official languages. Lot of unofficial languages. And the signage system with five different languages. It is a very big challenge for a type of language. Extremely. I worked for almost one year. I went to each and every spot. Actually the pictogram we did. Because I don't know local languages. I took two people with me who knows languages. Every 20% who passed through we had an interview. We check what it is not my design. I am a technical person to give what they need. So based on feedback. Now I have biased mind about my own design. So what I did. I summarized the feedback. And put two other designers in a workshop. And said this is the feedback. This is my design. This is my feedback. So you know S.M.S.A. S.M.S.A. And Pradeep Choksi. I called them in my office. Gave them a summary of feedback. Asked them to look into it. And then as the main chief designer. I rectified that. So that is what I said team work. It is not one person work. Okay. So we will take you through the concluding slides. And then we will find them. Sure. Just a minute for sharing the screen. I would like to thank the organizing team. Prof. Tarendi. Dr. Uday Kumar and Chirag Gandhi. They're organizing team with me in the typography society of India. I want to truly thank the Haskig team for all the help and the technical support. And this is the, our contact details. I wish I request all the participants, all the audience who has more questions for Maindrabai. You're most welcome to write to us. And we will pass on the messages to Prof. Maindrabai. With that, we'll come to the conclusion of today's session. Thank you very much, Maindrabai, for accepting your invitation. It is a pleasure and honor to have you as a speaker with us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hello. And it is an auspicious occasion, 2nd October. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Sikumar. I thank you also to give me this opportunity. Thank you, sir.