(no images on this post: designyatra2008)

There were a great many dutch designers this year at design yatra, both good and bad. Their design is fresh and witty, although the lack of cultural variety was felt towards the end of the three days.

*****Paula Scher, Pentagram
Her philosophy is simple, and it stole the show; especially since the audience was filled with a number of heart-e designers.
Specializing in type, Paula seemed like the Madonna of design - as diverse, versatile, creative, and uninhibited. Although they work with mostly small and medium size companies, Paula also spoke about the Citigroup identity, where the logo was designed at the initial meeting, but it took 1.5 years for the group to sign off on it.

You'll need browse through their website to get the full feel of their work, especially look out for the type.

<>Richard Bullock, 180 Amsterdam
I don't think this guy spoke.

**Paul Belford, This is Real Art
The most strange name for a company, their work is pretty interesting. Paul mainly touched upon the perspectives of design and advertising and advertising and design through two interesting videos
(for veena) Paul Rand
(for for) Helmut Krone (video unavailable, but it was really nice)

***Eric Scott, Saffron
Not dwelling too much into the Indian Connection with the name Saffron, Eric is an unassuming man with great presentation skills.

****Tirso Frances, Dietwee
He was a cutee. I couldn't find an English version of their website, so we'll just have to make do with this one. Look out for the annual reports.

****Kenya Hara, Nippon Design Cetner
The only speaker to hold 20 sheets and read from it presenting this amazing work, my heart really went out to Kenya-san. He presented on not things that are there, but things that happen: haptic, senseware, emptiness. Inspirational work.

*****Erik Kessels, KesselsKramer
I loved his humor, especially with the Hans Brinker hotel campaign.
- http://www.adverbox.com/hans-brinker-budget-hotel-2/
- http://www.adverbox.com/hans-brinker-budget-hotel-3/

I didn't find their website, but I highly recommend their 2 Kilo book
They also have an interesting series of books called "In almost every picture."
They pick up abandoned photographs from flea markets (the owners are usually dead) and tell a story of sweet lives -- http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/ -- Go to Catalouge.

****Nicolas Roope, Poke
See the neverending website for Orange
See Warholizer

(See Also Simpsonize me)

*****Tyler Brule, Monoocle and Winkreative
The first speaker at the event, I liked him.
His work speaks for himself. Explore all.

****Patrick Burgoyne, Creative Review
The last speaker of the event, he spoke about the main theme, "Convergence":
convergence of language (e.g., http://nickasbury.com/corpoetics.html), convergence of style (logolounge.com). He also spoke about the fluidity of design and the relationship between author and audience, brand and consumer.
(Also see God's Eye View)

****Jeroen Van Erp, Fabrique
Again couldn't find an English website, but I liked their work too.
He spoke mainly about thinking and doing, and how in design there are endless opportunities and endless possibilities. The sweetest story he told was about this complicated remote (much like all the remotes we use). So his dad is getting a bit old, and a bit blind, and kept getting confused with all the different options on the modern day remote control. What his mom did was scotch tape out all the buttons except for the main numbers, channel up and down, volume, and power. The point being with so much focus on usability, simplicity should be a big part of it.
(See Stephan Sagmeister, Raymond Lowey, Marc Newson, Wat Was Waar)

Among the Indian designers, we had:
*Ashish & Ashwini, Elephant Design
Terrible presentation, too terrible to look at the work. They repeated the word "convergence" 300 times in the presentation, and didn't showcase their work enough as make it an HR initiative to recruit talent.

**Preeti Vyas, Vyas Giannetti Creative
Ok. Not too inspiring. She did say she was a middle child (note to pass on to Rebecca)

***Harsh Purohit, Cognito
He spoke about "sustainability". Overall made the point by showing some nice videos (like George Carlin's Saving the Planet), but his start lacked context

(I really recommend the above designers visit presentationzen.com to understand the impact of design in presentation as well.)

*****Rajesh Dahiya, CoDesign
Inspiring work and presentation. True and solid guy. Parag even gave him a standing ovation.

Observations, quotes, notes, and to-do's

• Most gripping presentations were those with a story, and a personal beginning
• There is no convention in design, no guidelines, no rules (just space, colour, and type)
• Learn more about Japanese design
• New is not doing something new that everyone is doing, but in creating or inventing something new
• Try and collect all the doodles drawn during designyatra (or tell kyoorius
• Take a series of ear lobes
• Take a series of people peeing (face shots)
• Open a chain of hotels across India, called "Budget"
• 4 Ps of sustainability: profit, protest, policy, preservation
• The planet is fine, the people are fucked
• Teach India article usage (veena?)
• Integrate story telling into work
• Google should give up on Picassa
• Scientists are designers too
• Get into Science Education in a big way within the next five years
• Design: makes strategy tangible, makes stories visible, creates meaning, creates interactions, evokes emotion
  
• Designers are: futurists, concept thinkers, philosophers, entrepreneurs, business creators, networkers