On the last day of the Kyoorius Designyatra 2016, the D&AD-backed Kyoorius Design Awards will be presented. The jury sessions took place from September 2 to 4 in Mumbai’s Ecole Intuit Lab. Gabor Schreier, Executive Creative Director, Saffron Brand Consultants, chaired the jury as Jury Foreman. Anuka Roy and Santosh Jangid India caught up with Schreier for a quick chat about the awards this year
The judging process of Kyoorius Design Awards:
The judging process works according to the criterion established by D &AD and Kyoorius Awards. We go through the whole work from the beginning according to the different categories submitted. First, we screen everything and how they look like and how they work, this becomes the part of the first selection process. We then go through it and look what goes in to the book; this is for the Baby Elephant. After that we discuss the Blue Elephant, what is good to go the second round. Obviously, after that what is the best of show for the big award- the Black Elephant.
Trends spotted this year:
Many different things and categories from logo design to environmental work, so it is a little bit difficult because some pieces you have physically in front of you and other pieces you just have to trust what you see and what gets submitted, whether it is a video or image and you have to trust. Every year is different and I have been judging this a couple of years ago and you can see global trends get repeated and also in India you got a strong cultural component, you have a lot of projects that have social component.  I would say, graphic design in general is very much sort of global trends getting repeated and things that you have seen before. Some things are there that stand out and emerge. They are excellent design and obviously some basic things that we have seen before, it is sort of representation of what is going on in the country right now.
Importance of design from the marketing and branding perspective:
Design is the most importance thing. Design is what gives the strategy, if there is one, a body. If the strategy is a structure, the design is the body. So the body needs to be the thing that makes me want to interact with the product, the interface, the design, that company, with whatever we are talking over here. Design is absolutely crucial in order to be able to get an idea across in the most efficient and compelling way to attract consumers, audiences and attract attention of the targets that has been set for that product.
Does design get the importance it deserves?
No, obviously not, because now everyone is a designer. We have trends going on where people do outsourcing; they crowdsource logos and design. Design has become a sort of a task for everyone. Everyone has an opinion about designing which is somehow true because we are exposed to design every day. But there is very much a sort of inflation going on about design as well. So, here we are exposed to a lot of mediocre communication and this has been lowering our expectations. We are now satisfied with almost anything. It is really difficult because there are so many good designers and design conscious companies out there. There are so many people who are really in to valuing design and making aneffort that design becomes a part of the company’s culture. But it is a difficult task, especially if you have no clear design education. If design education is not good enough, you have obviously, the culture would not sort of react on design the way it should.
India’s position in the world of design:
If you compare the design, the branding sector in India with other countries, obviously, in my opinion India has great internationally performing companies that are out there that people know. Products that are used worldwide and I think still there is these companies have a long way to go until the design culture becomes more important to them. I think everyone knows about that because we have so many examples out there that people always mention the same examples. The good examples have been able to become good examples because through years and years of investment they have got where they are today. And, I think in India there is a big difference between the way people look at design, it is sometimes a decoration but it needs to fulfill a function and has to have a strong reason to be. Sometimes it is just a bit difficult to separate these two things and leave decoration with decoration and make a design which becomes a vehicle to give value to a product or an idea.
Advice to participants:
First of all it needs to be outstanding work and it needs to be good. It needs to withstand the competition; it needs to be well-explained, which is super important. We have seen lots of work that could have been much better but it was not properly explained. If you look at the board or a video, you need to cut through the unnecessary things and get immediately to the point. What was the idea, how did you get the idea across and how does it react to me. I think less is more and make sure that whatever you submit, it really capsulate the essence of the project and it makes the best aspect of the project come through in a very sort of a reduced way, it is absolutely crucial because you do not have time to go through everything in detail, you need to concentrate.