The best way to motivate yourself is to go through this list of popular Indian graphic artists — a generation of global talent representing different cultures and diverse influences, but still reveling in their Indian roots.
Indian Graphic Artists
India has always had an incredible history of graphic design, from advertising signs on the walls of the smallest villages, to the hand-painted Bollywood movies posters in the cities.
In the modern industry of graphic design, it can be difficult to establish a name brand. However, there are some faces who have managed to cut through the competition and have gained some prestige not in India but all around the world.
Their list of clients, inspiring portfolio of work, eminence in local and international markets have made them reach some of the most famous graphic design companies on the planet.
Note: This given below list is just for information. It’s not based on any kind of ranking.
Meet with top 10 popular Indian graphic artists
1. Benoy Sarkar
Benoy Kumar Sarkar was born in Kolkata in 1938. He was a man with great designing sense and had done commendable work in the field of graphic design. His simple, elegant and meaningful logos were perfect for any organisation that he designed for.
Because of his interest and inclination towards various cultures, it also impacted hugely his designs and can be seen as elements of design in his works. He also designed exhibitions like the Indian pavilion at the Montreal Expo ’67.
Qualification
- He completed his Bachelors and Masters studies (BFA and MFA) at the Yale University in the USA.
- He also got an opportunity to teach and work at the NID (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad) for several years.
- Later he shifted to Delhi and was with the Handicrafts and Handloom Export Corporation of India.
Professional life
- Benoy Sarkar left a noticeable mark in the arena of graphic design in India.
- His contribution towards corporate communications has much to be appreciated and is an example of virtuous effective design.
- He designed numerous logos of companies that are an expression of simplicity with elegance.
- The study and gratitude of several cultures interested him considerably and can be seen in his designs.
- He had the honor of learning from experts like Paul Rand and Alvin Eisenmann during his studies at the Yale University in the USA.
- He applied his learnings in his designs as well.
Some of the best projects by Benoy Sarkar:
Airport authority of India
Delhi transport corporation
Electronics corporation of India
Indian airlines
Images Source: designindia
2. Dashrath Patel
Dashrath Patel (born in Gujarat, 1927) is one of the first multi-media design artists in India. His great design visionary reflects the multiple facets of Indian culture. The interrelation of color and light is the central to all his artwork. As per him, the Indian palette is designed to interact with the light that is sun.
Qualification
- He studied fine arts at Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai (1949–53), and Debi Prasad Roy Choudhury was his mentor. Afterwards he studied painting, sculpture and ceramics during his postgraduate studies at École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1953–1955).
Professional life
- He was idealistic in shaping the idea of design education at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.
- He was proficient in diverse art fields such as:
- Painting
- Ceramics
- Photography
- Industrial and exhibition design
- He continued at the post of secretary of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad for its first 20 years.
- He also established the ceramics department at the NID. He resigned from NID in 1981.
- Later on he established the Rural Design School in Sewapuri, near Varanasi.
- In his early career days, he was contemporary of Tyeb Mehta, M.F. Hussain and V. S. Gaitonde who were together in the 1950s in Bhulabhai Desai Institute, Mumbai, and often displayed alongside them.
- Later Henri Cartier-Bresson introduced him to photography, after visiting his exhibition at the Galerie Barbizon, Paris.
Here’s one of his one of the popular sayings on meeting with Henri Cartier-Bresson:
“In my first art show in Gallery Barbizon in Paris in 1952,
Via designindia
a gentleman walked in with a Leica M3 hanging like
a necklace around his neck.
After seeing my exhibition he asked me if i took pictures.
I told him that i did not like photography.”
He said “you see well, i can show you how to use my camera”
“I agreed and did exactly what he had suggested.
A fortnight later he invited me to his house for dinner to meet
his wife who had studied Bharat Natyam in India.
That eveningawakened my interest in photography
and also started a fiftyyear friendship
with a legend called Henri Cartier Bresson.”
Achievements
- He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2011 and Padma Shri in 1980 by the Government of India for his involvement in design and design education.
- In 2007, he was also honored with the grandmaster Award during the Icograda Design Week in India at IIT Bombay.
You can explore his amazing works that are kept at the Dashrath Patel Museum located in Alibagh, near Mumbai.
Above all, his remarkable contributions to design are now part of the history of design in India. His teachings have stimulated many inclusive of students and designers.
Some of the best projects by Dashrath Patel:
A. Ceramic Design
B. Painting
C. Photography
D. Product Design
Images Source: dashrath.in/museum
3. R. K. Joshi
Professor R K Joshi (1936 – 2008) was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. He was an academic type designer and calligrapher. He designed the main Indian fonts used in Microsoft Windows.
Qualification
- He studied at Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. During this time, he found a lack of typefaces in Indian languages.
- He took up additional classes at the Government Institute of Printing Technology, located within the institute premises, where he learned that Indian typefaces were complex and had many problems in typesetting.
- He also participated in the first exhibition on Indian typefaces at the college.
Professional life
- His first professional involvement was with D.J. Keymer & Co. (now O&M) in 1956. In 1961, he joined ULKA Advertising (now Draft FCBUlka) as Art Director.
- He started designing campaigns on critical issues like Family Planning and Farmers in order to unite the entire country.
- He designed the campaigns in several Indian languages.
- He created some spectacular logos. He designed several advertisements using Indian calligraphy, designed exclusive menus and stationery.
- He started the concept of multilingual ad campaigns in India, so that the concept can reach to maximum states. The first ever such campaign was the Ashok Jain Campaign.
Achievements
- Bukva-raz, an International Award for his ‘Raghu’ font
- Cag Hall of fame, 1990
- Lifetime achievement award by Ad Club, 2004
- ATypI country delegate for India
- Type Director’s Club
- ICOGRADA
What inspired R.K Joshi in his childhood to become a designer?
I used to be fascinated by signboards, shop signs etc. I used to wonder who makes these?.
Then further on, Mr. K.G. Dixit (his Sanskrit teacher) from my high school days. He had a beautiful handwriting. He used to come and stand in front of the blackboard, quietly take the chalks, take out a knife from his black jacket, chisel it and start writing. In about 45 minutes the entire blackboard will be full of beautiful handwriting, letter like jewels.
I’d dare not ask him at that time, Sir, how do you write so beautifully? But I used to appreciate it.
I feel these were a few instances that influenced to becoming an artist. At that time, there was nothing such as a ‘designer’, but yes these few things I guess, fuelled the creativity in me.“
via designindia
A Message from R.K Joshi for Designing Students
“I would just say ‘ENJOY IT’. But enjoy what is yours, what belongs to you and is part of your culture, enjoy it, don’t ignore it. The ‘it’ you enjoy is the most important thing. You have to decide for yourself and be particular towards it.”
via designindia
Some of the best projects by R.K. Joshi:
Logo Designs
Punjab National Bank
Steel Authority of India
Welcome Group
Calligraphy
Calligraphy- experiments
Calligraphy – Letter Shree
A Calligram of Lord Ganesha
Calligraphy – composition
Images Source: designindia
4. Sudarshan Dheer
Sudarshan Dheer is the magnificent master in the field of Corporate Communication in India having contributed to the discipline for over 50 years. Numerous corporates have their identity designed by him. Dheer, who worked with ad agencies like National Advertising and MCM for about two decades, quit advertising to start his own design studio, Graphic Communication Concepts in 1974.
Qualification
- He was born in Punjab in the year 1937. He achieved govt. diploma in fine arts-painting, and graphic design.
- He has also worked with innumerable advertising agencies in Bombay.
- His area of specialization involves:
- Corporate Identity Programmes
- Corporate Literature
- Corporate Packaging
- Signage System
Professional life
- Dheer, who worked with ad agencies such as National Advertising and MCM for about two decades, quit advertising to start his own design studio, Graphic Communication Concepts in 1974.
- His biggest break, he recalls, was winning the HP logo design job. The logo is a circle within which oil spouts from the bottom and spreads to the sides. The circle represents the distribution of oil evenly across the country.
- Dheer counts people such as J Krishnamurti, the philosopher, and Kersey Katrak among those who inspired him.
Dheer has a problem with the construal of design. He feels that, nowadays, the term ‘design’ is used very lightly and flippantly like ‘designer shoes’ or ‘designer clothes’.
He believes that to create design, “you have to get in touch with your inner self to bring out that creativity. If you’re not doing that, you are recreating something which you have seen earlier. You have to feel it from your heart to create it.”
- Dheer has published and edited a book named “Symbols, Logos, and Trademarks: 1500 Outstanding Designs from India’.
- He also gives lectures on graphic design at various national and international institutions and organizations.
Achievements
- GOLD MEDAL:
- The Sixth International Contest of
- Trade Marks & Logotype
- TAMGA, Russia 2006
- BRONZE MEDAL:
- Bienalleb of International Graphic Design
- Brno, Czech Republic 1982
- FIRST PRIZE:
- One Dollar Design” at ICSID ’89 Nagoya Japan
- GOLD MEDAL:
- Art Director of Year,’CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
- TWELVE AWARDS:
- . ‘CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
- SIX AWARDS:
- ‘ABCI Association of Business Communicators of India
- FOUR AWARDS:
- Advertising Club of Bombay
- FOURTEEN AWARDS:
- National Awards of Design
- HALL OF FAME:
- ‘CAG’ Communication Arts Guild
- GRAND MASTER:
- 1st India Icogada Design week IDC, IIT Bombay
Some of the best projects by Sudarshan Dheer:
Hindustan Petroleum
Titan Industries
ICICI Bank
Images Source: designindia
5. Sujata Keshavan
Sujata Keshavan was born on 1961. She is a well-known Indian graphic designer and co-founder of Ray and Keshavan that is one of India’s leading brand design firms.
Qualification
- Sujata graduated in 1984 from the National Institute of Design. She also did her Master of Fine Arts in graphic design in 1987 from the School of Art, Yale University.
- At Yale, Sujata studied under legendary designers Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson and Armin Hofmann.
Professional Life
- In 1989, Sujata founded Ray and Keshavan, in India.
- Sujata has been a speaker at many international conferences including Design Indaba in South Africa and the International Design Center at Nagoya, Japan.
- She was a jury member at Rebrand 100 at the Rhode Island School of Design and a member of the Design Jury at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
- She worked as the Chairperson of the jury at the Business World Awards for Design Excellence, and Chairperson of the Design Yatra awards for Excellence in South Asian Design.
- She is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Design & Innovation.
Achievements
- In 2011, Sujata was placed 18th on Fortune India’s list of most powerful women in business.
- She won the Eastern Press Award and the Schickle–Collingwood Prize for outstanding work.
- She is the only Indian graphic designer to be honoured twice as the Graphic Designer of the Year at the annual Advertising and Marketing (A & M) awards.
- Sujata was named among one of India’s 30 most powerful women by India Today, and was honoured as The Outstanding Woman Professional of the Year, 2007, by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
Some of the best projects by Sujata Keshavan:
Delhi International Airport
Mumbai International Airport
Vistara
Bengaluru International Airport
Images Source: desicreative
6. Vikas Satwalekar
Prof. Vikas Satwalekar was a former faculty and executive director at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. As an experienced and devoted teacher, he has inspired a whole lot of students at the National Institute of Design.
Apart from academic commitments, he has contributed considerably in the fields of Graphic Design, Publication Design, Exhibition Design, Identity Systems, etc. and made a transformation to the design scene in India.
He now works as a design consultant and is based in Mumbai.
Qualification
Vikas Satwalekar did his post-graduation at NID followed by a stint at the Basel School, Switzerland.
Professional life
- From 1989-2000, he was the Executive Director of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad and member of its governing council 1982 – 2000 From 1982-2000, He was the Head of VC program.
- As the executive director of NID and the head of its Visual Communication program, Vikas Satwalekar has given to NID, years of fostering and mentoring design education, especially its visual communications education program.
- Apart from being an inspiring teacher, Vikas Satwalekar has also worked on prestigious exhibition design projects – Khalsa Heritage Museum; concept, design, proposal for the exhibition: ‘Bharat Ek Darshan’, ‘India Exhibit’, Commonwealth Institute, London.
- As a graphic designer, he has contributed for several corporate identity programs for Mother Dairy, National Dairy Development Board, four regional identities for channel Tara. Creation of logos, channel identity graphics and signature films for Broadcast Worldwide Pvt Ltd, Doordarshan Channel identities, DD news, Metro, National Sports, Regional Doordarshan Channels, Prasar Bharati and others.
Achievements
On 9th February 2007, Prof Vikas Satwalekar was presented with a Grandmaster Commendation on the occasion of the Icograda Design Week in India Conference, IIT Bombay.
Message from Vikas Satwalekar for designing students
“I would encourage all students of design. The only thing I think is needed, is curiosity, curiosity to be able to pursue in depth whatever one is doing. I think unless one has that, its very difficult to really reach the top. And one gets that only if one is passionate about one’s work”.
He said during his interview taken by Chetan Shastri and Shruti Agarwal, Mumbai, 2007.
via designindia
Some of the best projects by Vikas Satwalekar:
A. National Dairy Development Board
The symbolization of this logo is inspired from the 1970’s Operation Flood that is one of the successful moments in India carried out by Dr Verghese Kurien for National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). This moment known as the White Revolution as it had shown the great results and made India world’s largest milk producer.
7. Yeshwant Chaudhry
About
He was born on 26-04-1930 and survived till 19-09-2000.
Qualification
- Yeshwant Chaudhary graduated from the Sir J J Institute of Applied Arts at Bombay and always stood first in the class.
- In the late 50’s, he did his post-graduation at the Central School of Art and Design, London and took additional courses in exhibition design, film as art, advertising management and philosophy.
Professional life
- After his graduation, he worked with Hans Schleyer R D in London.
- In the 60’s he joined CIBA in Switzerland and came to India to establish their corporate communications. He was appointed as the deputy manager.
- After few years, he established his own firm ‘Communica Corporate Communications’ with offering services like film-making, audio-visuals, design services and corporate identity programs.
Some of the best projects by Yeshwant Chaudhry:
Logo of Amul milk product
Educational Conference Logo, IIT Bombay
Logo for IIT Guwahati
Images Source: designindia
8. Gopi Prassana
Gopinath Prassana was born in Chennai. He is a graphic design artist, logo designer and branding expert famous for his pioneering designs created for few international brands. His work had been received with awards across the design community around the globe.
Professional life
- He began his creative journey as a programmer cum web designer in one of India’s most respected media groups. He helped them in developing 11 websites for 11 of their publications.
- He handled and headed a team of talented minds in a multimedia company in South India and built scores of games for multinational companies from the scratch.
- His yearning to explore newer realms was the trigger to design the conceptual product ‘iBangle’. The groundbreaking revolutionary bracelet iPod caught the imagination of lovers of tasteful design. ‘iBangle’ was named by CNN as ‘tomorrow’s coolest designs’ and Yanko Design named it as one of the Top 50 product designs of 2008.
- He made movie posters for several Tamil films like Drohi, Oram Po, Aaranya Kaandam, Paradesi, Raja Rani, and Vaayai Moodi Pesavum. His upcoming films are Kaththi, Azhagukuttichellam, Yatchan and many more.
Achievements
- He provided his animation skills for award-winning film maker Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s first short ‘Becky’.
- The short film was picked as the ‘Best Film’ at the India International Disability Film Festival in 2005.
Some of the best projects by Gopinath Prassana:
A. Posters
B. UI Design
C. Branding
Images Source: gopiprasannaa
9. Akshar Pathak
Akshar Pathak (born 20 September 1989) is an artist and a graphic designer who makes Bollywood films posters. His posters have been extensively recognized in the digital world and featured in more than 90 magazines and newspapers.
He has earlier worked with Comic Con India, Happily Unmarried and DSYN. He worked for almost three years at Zomato. Meanwhile he worked with All India Bakchod as a social media manager for a short duration. Since November 2015, he is back with Zomato.
Qualification
- He is a pass out from NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) one of the best graphic design Institutes in India.
- He has done B. Des. (Bachelor of Designing) in the field of Fashion and Lifestyle Accessory.
Professional life
- Akshar’s brainchild started working on Bollywood poster in February 2012. His posters became viral through social networking media such as Facebook and Twitter.
- Tweetard is another such pet project by Akshar that he started in late 2012. It works under Pathak’s profound philosophy that “Twitter is a sheltered workshop for evil geniuses” and hence, began with depicting works of various Twitter handles in graphic form.
- Tweetard has been positively reviewed by the bot press and its fans. It takes an ironic spin on significant issues that concern society all in the same minimal fashion that he shows in his visuals in minimal Bollywood posters.
Some of the best projects by Akshar Pathak:
A. Logo Design – Asian African Association
B. Minimal Bollywood Posters
Images source: Minimal Bollywood Posters
C. μHavare – (Newfangled Hindi Proverbs)
D. Mispronundrums
Images source: Behance
10. Madhukar B Raju
He is open minded and capable of working efficiently as part of a design team or individually. He has specialization in Visualization, Design Concept, and Creative Thinking.
With more than 8 years of Industry Experience in the ever expanding field of Design, a creative individual able to produce solutions to design tasks with a diverse variety of media.
His portfolio includes Identity Design, Brochure Design, Package design, Presentations (PPT, Flash), CBT,WBT, HTML & Flash websites, Mail Casts, Screen Savers, Flash films.
He is proficient in Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash; Coral Draw; Audacity; i Film Edit; Dreamweaver
Professional life
- He has been working as corporate communication Specialist at IBM India Pvt. Ltd.
- November 2006 – Present and serving In-house and recruitment strategy through Internal Branding team.
- The scope of work differs from print collaterals like brochures and poster, Identity materials like logo creation, Lotus Notes – mailers, mail-cast, presentations and screen savers.
- Worked with IBM as a Full-Time Hire till August 2008 and re-joined the same team as Full Time-Permanent employee.
- Supporting in-house Design cell of Pankhudi Foundation (October 2006 – Present)
- Panhhudi Foundation is an NGO in the service of underprivileged and unfortunate children of Indian society.
- He has worked on Projects for Yahoo India, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, IBM, ITC, ATC, Infosys, ideb Inc., Toyota Kirloskar Motors, Fouress Engineering, Mico Bosch and many others.
- Car Simulation (Projects presented to Mico Bosch through Mindworks Solutions, Bangalore.) Flash Interface | Tools: Flash, .NET & hardware (Microprocessor, electric components)
- A simulation describing the advantages of Bosch product for the AutoExpo 2006, Delhi.
- The project was a grand success with the integration of Hardware (real car model), Electrical equipment’s and Software Interface. The Process of the project begins with an intro continues with advantages and then a real interactive mode, wherein the user interacts with the input from a hardware device. ex: accelerator of the car to the graphic Interface created with Flash.
Achievements
Received “Outstanding Performer award” – an HR individual award for internal communication campaign for contribution towards IBM’s growth, through the record-breaking success of Project Cheetah, a referral drive at IBM India, 2007.
Featured on ‘Francesco Mugnai’ under ‘The World Best Designers: India’ a design inspirational blog for designers.
Some of his best projects by Madhukar B Raju:
A. Magazine and Photography
B. Branding
C. Campaign for Kannada Habba 2019
Images Sourse: Behance
The most stirring things are often right in front of us. It might be the typography on a book cover or magazine, the colors of your favorite poster, the most simple and creative logo and much more.
To rejoice all those little moments of inspiration, keep reading our graphic design blogs and get motivated to bring out the creativity in YOU.
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