V ariety is the spice of life they say. Why then must design be left behind? When the best creative minds come together, the result is going to be astounding. And agencies across the world are beginning to recognise this fact and are bringing together different designers to create a line of high-quality products that are quirky and unique. Take Mumbai-based Kulture Shop, for instance. The store brings together some of the best graphic artists to create a range of products that stand out. Chennai-based Monk Story has a team of designers and craftsmen who put together their creative energies to create vegan accessories.
The advantage, say the people behind these design collectives, is the sense of a creative community and shared vision. Says Arjun Charanjiva, founder and CEO of Kulture Shop, “It also affords us an extended reach into the artist network to promote the collective; share knowledge, tools, techniques and processes; have a critical mass of artists and work that make it worth a consumer’s while to explore, and a documentation of the visual identity of our time.”
Kulture Shop has curated over 60 Indian graphic artists and received over 2,000 requests to join the platform. Some of the artists on board are Shruthi Venkataraman, Sameer Kulavoor, Lokesh Karekar, Archan Nair and Ranganath K.
For Arjun, the idea to create Kulture Shop was inspired by the experiences of his wife Jas, who is also the co-founder of the company, and friend Kunal Anand, co-founder and curator, as struggling artists who were trying to monetise their designs on art and lifestyle products. “I felt that it would be difficult for an individual artist to succeed, and it would instead be a good idea to bring together the most talented Indian graphic artists and shine a light on them, so that they could over time make money by simply doing what they love.
The more I explored, the more I felt that there were too many great ideas and artwork sitting in various stages of completion in the sketchbooks and computers of these artists. I felt that the world needed to see and own them,” he says.
The result, he adds, “was particularly fascinating, as we could see a very fresh Indian visual identity being formed. There was now a new, fresh and original Indo-global identity driven by a perspective that has been accelerated through our connectedness to the globe and a new confident India that was on the way to earning its place in the world.”
For startups like Monk Story, a design collective also makes business sense. Abhinandan Jain, co-founder of the company that makes cruelty-free and vegan accessories, says that they have a team of consultants working with them on design and manufacturing of the products. Their funky collection features a range of products such as wooden sunglasses, wallets made from cork and faux leather shoes and bow ties. “We roped in a team that works on designs given to them by Nilesh Jain {co-founder} and me, and on the various stages of manufacturing. All our products are handmade and people have been receptive,” he says.
Even the Chennai-based Wannawill Inventorium, founded by Anantha Narayan and Joseph Babin, relies on a design collective to create their patented products, such as the shell idli plate. For them, though, the motive was to keep the final design and product a secret before they applied for a patent. “We worked with three different vendors to come up with the prototype, because we didn’t want anybody to know what we were creating. So, each person was working on a different part of the prototype at each stage, without actually knowing what it was that they were working on,” says Anantha.
A design collective also works well in the realm of urban planning and architecture, as the Urban Design Collective (UDC) proves. Founded in 2011 in Chennai by Vidhya Mohankumar, the collective is a collaborative platform for architects, urban designers and planners to create livable and sustainable cities through community engagement. “What started off as monthly meetings and activities with a bunch of like-minded individuals has now organically grown into a formal non-profit organisation. We work on liveable and sustainable city pockets that are largely shaped by urban living. Our main aim is to improve the quality of living, and we work directly with communities and neighbourhoods,” she says.
The reason she sought to create a collective, says Vidhya, is because there are very few firms that work extensively on urban design, as it is financially difficult to sustain on public sector projects. “With a collective, professionals can plug in on a project based purely on interest. The teams, therefore, are quite amorphous and the results are quick and gratifying. We are currently a community of 25 people with a global online community as well. Most of our operations are in Chennai and Puducherry,” she says. Some of the projects UDC is currently working on is the Urur-Olcott Kuppam hygiene and sanitation project and Friends of Public Transport, which is an initiative to make public transport accessible to people. “We’re also working with Goethe-Institut on their water-city festival,” says Vidhya.
