Manu Desai
Series on design masters in India:
Manu Desai was born in Vesma, Gujarat, India in 1919.
He studied at the Pratt Institute, New York, USA around the late 40's. After his return to India, he worked with advertising agencies as an artist and as an art director. He also taught at the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay and at the University of Bombay.
Although, Manu Desai was influenced by American and British designers, he carried out reserach in traditional arts in India. He firmly believed that in India, design should reflect the Indian ethos and Indian sensibility. He would have liked the design schools and institutes to introduce curriculum sythesizing learning of traditional cultures with modernity.
He wrote and published the following books:
- Alphabet Book , 1966
- Indian Folk Art ABC, 1974
- Krishnaleela, 1974
- Numeral Zero, 1981
- Indian Graphic Symbol, 1981
Works 1 -Indian Colour Symbology
Works 3 - Other works: Childerns Book and Calender
Indian-colour-symbology-yellow
Calender based on Numeral Zero
* Images/text in this section courtesy 'The Korean Design Journal' and thanks to Sudarshan Dheer for sharing the documents