Ishan Khosla is an Associate Professor at the School of Design at UPES, Dehradun. He is also the founding partner of The Typecraft Initiative which was launched in order to create a dialogue with rural folk and tribal communities through craft, type design and technology. He is also the director of the graphic design studio, Ishan Khosla Design LLP.

Launched in 2012, The Typecraft Initiative, develops a range of display typefaces based on the rich crafts and tribal arts of South Asia. The initiative's primary aim is to inspire craftspeople to engage with design and use the typefaces as a way to engage with new audiences and to make them aware of these crafts and the people behind them.

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with CCA faculty Rachel Berger (Associate Professor, Graphic Design) and Steve Jones (Senior Adjunct Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies).

Craft as a functional starting point in the cycle of creation

Every "Typecrafted font" starts out as a handmade analog object that is converted to a digital typeface. In a world where crafts have become relegated to decorative objects, we believe that it is important to relink crafts with functionality. This emphasizes the maker and the making process and also highlights the myriad possibilities and applications that “traditional” crafts have in today's technology driven world. 

Craftspeople and design skills

South Asia still suffers from a colonial mindset where the mind (design) is valued more than the hand (craft). This means that while designers tend to benefit more from their interactions with craftspeople, the reverse is sadly not usually true. We believe that craftspeople in India are too dependent on designers for ideas, inputs and methods to address the changing market needs. If craftspersons can acquire design skills, they will also get the value addition designers get. This is our endeavor.

Using Letters to spark Design Thinking

A vital aspect of our mission is to use the workshops with craftspeople and design students to instil craft and design methodologies to them. To allow for free-thinking, failure and the ability of independent thought in craftspeople, who in South Asia are usually relegated to implementers and not treated on par with designers. We envisage a world where craftspeople will also be designers. 

Why letters?

Letters are alien to the everyday world of artisans who make their crafts based on 'traditional' motifs (that are usually based on plants and animals). Giving them something out of context challenges them to really understand what sorts of new forms their craft can take. For instance, some of the embroidery craftswomen we work with, tell us that they are usually given the designs to make, and so they end up making but not applying their minds to think of new forms and possibilities of their craft.

Why typefaces?

A font or typeface is a tool, a starting point for more creation by anyone, anywhere in the world. Crafts in South Asia has always been seen as an end, not as a beginning or a starting point, a catalyst for more creation. We endeavour to change this. The typefaces are meant to inspire, create awareness and generate further interest in the art, history, context, and life of the people and the communities we work with. The typefaces are not only an archive of the IPR of communities that are on the brink of merging with mainstream society, but they are meant to be a celebration of their rich artistic heritage that — through the creation of a digital typeface — has been converted to a contemporary idiom.

Why women?

The Typecraft Initiative is also interested in raising larger socio-geopolitical issues such as gender and minority rights through the creation of its typefaces. It might seem ironic to be making a typeface with craftswomen who themselves are largely illiterate. Working on letters with women in a largely patriarchal society — where more boys are sent to school than girls — makes a statement by reinforcing connections between letters and women which sometimes leads to changes, even if small, in these communities. Women are considered the gatekeepers of the village society, and it is true that a woman more than a man will ensure the well-being of her children, the family and the larger community. Each community can be identified by their unique use of motifs and icons manifested in the crafts they make and wear. Typecraft is then a call to action both symbolically and practically, to raise questions about marginalized communities, their identities and the role of women, who, through their crafts, shape and reshape this identity. 

ASL interpretation will not be offered at the event. The lecture uses a slide presentation. All content from the slides will be read aloud or described. 

SPEAKER BIO:

Ishan Khosla is an Associate Professor at the School of Design at UPES, Dehradun. He is also the founding partner of The Typecraft Initiative which was launched in order to create a dialogue with rural folk and tribal communities through craft, type design and technology. He is  also the director of the graphic design studio, Ishan Khosla Design LLP.

Khosla is a practicing visual artist, designer and researcher with an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Having returned to India after living in the United States for over a decade, Ishan explores various facets of the contemporary Indian milieu through design. Much of his research has been about examining the links between upcycling, innovation and “undesign” via the informal economy of urban India. He is currently working on a book on lessons and insights from the people who work and live on the street.

His papers have been published in academic books such as State-of-the-Art Upcycling Research and Practice. [Springer,2021]; Art, Design and Society: Global Perspectives by the National Museum Institute, New Delhi [Macmillan 2021]; Bi–scriptual: Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems [Niggli,2018]

Khosla’s design work has been published in Bi-scriptual — Typography and Graphic Design with Multiple Script Systems; Typographic Universe, Found Type, India Contemporary Design: Fashion, Graphics, Interiors; Tokyo Type Directors Club, New Graphic Design; Asian Graphics Now!; Stop, Think, Go Do; Kyoorius Design AwardsandKyoorius In-book.

Exhibitions include, the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, Perth, Australia | Handcraft for the digital : Type design from India at Atelier Muji Ginza, Tokyo | BOLD— Graphic Design from India, London Design Festival |  Crossing Visions V: The Ecology of Creation, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan | Fracture: New Directions on Contemporary Textiles, Devi Art Foundation | Make it New Again, NID, Ahmedabad | Common Ground at Gallery OED, Kochi. Works created for Porosity Kabari at Studio X, Mumbai in 2016 have been shown at — Matters of Hand: Craft, Design and Technique (SerendipityArts Festival) | Continental Shift: Contemporary art and South Asia (Bunjil Place) | Nishi Gallery, Canberra | the Australian Design Center, Sydney | and the Hawkesbury Gallery. Works made by Ishan are in the permanent collections of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan and the Powerhouse Museum, Australia.

Awards include the Oxford Bookstore, book cover of the year award; Tokyo Type Directors Club,  the Kyoorius Design Award, the Kyoorius design in-book, Asian-Pacific Design Awards, Graphis among others.

Ishan has given talks at Association Typographique Internationale, Type Drives Communities, Typo Berlin, TypoDay, London Design Festival, Pune Design Festival, Kyoorius Design Yatra, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Powerhouse Museum, Maison de Sciences de l'Homme, Semi-Permanent , the University of Edinburgh, College of Fine Arts, University of NSW (Sydney), Konstfack (Stockholm) and Aalto University (Helsinki), the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA) on Art, Design and Society among others.

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