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Tag: Tihar Jail

  • Guerrilla Art and Design’s entry involving India’s best-known prison and TBWA/India's conservation message grabbed the top awards at the 10th edition of Kyoorius Designyatra

    Tihar Jail & Save Aarey creatives win big at KDY15

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    If you thought a conference in Goa would just be an excuse to celebrate, then Kyoorius Designyatra (KDY) was the wrong place to be. For, it’s certainly not an event where people go to spend time in the lobby, drink away at the bar or head to the beach. Designers, creatives and a mix of marketers and brand practitioners, flock here for their annual dose of gyaan and stand-out creative thinking.

     

     

    In-book: Work that stands out above the rest and meets the three judging criteria, ie 1) An original and inspiring idea, 2) Well-executed, and 3) Relevant to its context. Among the best pieces of work in the year, In-book winners are the nominees for Blue Elephants.

     

    Blue Elephant: Checks off all three criteria and reaches the Kyoorius Awards benchmark of creative excellence. Recognised as a symbol of the very highest creative achievement.

     

    Black Elephant: Best of Show. The ultimate prize. Work that is truly ground-breaking among all the judged work.

     

    For ad industry honchos Ravi Deshpande (Whyness) and Anil Nair (L&K Saatchi & Saatchi), a visit to Designyatra is like an annual pilgrimage. Well, almost. Both underscore the great attention paid to the content of the conference. And what they may not say in so many words is that the stuff dished out elsewhere doesn’t raise the bar and that perhaps a comparison of KDY with Goafest is incorrect given that that their target groups are different, even though both celebrated their 10th anniversary this year.

     

    The interesting news for Indian adland is that its constituents have done rather well at the third D&AD-governed Kyoorius Design Awards. Of the 29 Blue Elephants and two Black Elephants awarded, eight were won by Ogilvy, and three each by JWT and Alok Nanda Company. But the biggest awards of the night – the Black Elephants, and there were two of them awarded – were bagged by TBWA\India and the Delhi-based Guerilla Art & Design.

     

    A total of 488 entries were submitted across 10 categories: Branding & Identity, Design for Packaging, Design for Communication, Design for Space, Design for Books, Design for Editorial, Design Craft, Writing for Design, Product Design and Design for Good. The 29 Blue Elephant winners included Thought Blurb, Out of the Box, Sisterconcern, Open Strategy and Design, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Landor, MuseLab, Studio Lotus, TBWA/India, TenArt Private Limited, Star India Pvt. Ltd, Godrej Properties, Open Strategy and Design, Guerilla Art and Design and Ek Type.

     

    Guerilla Art and Design’s Black Elephant-winning work ‘Tihar Jail’ had the design firm working with local sign painters to illustrate an emotional poem written by one of the inmates, on the four walls of the prison.

     

    TBWA/India was awarded a Black Elephant for ‘Rakhis from Aarey’, where the agency created letters on behalf of the trees and rakhis made from discarded material of the same trees, which were sent out to 2,000 influencers.

     

    Said Rajesh Kejriwal, Founder CEO of Kyoorius, on the awards: “Our winners can confidently stand up against some of the best international work, thanks to the rigorous standards and judging criteria laid down by D&AD and Kyoorius. We are committed to nurturing and stimulating Indian creative talent through the awards, which help to fund our educational initiatives.”

     

    About the three-day conference, Kejriwal was ecstatic. “We were blown away by the creativity, passion and dedication on display,” he said. In a session entitled ‘10 Years of Designyatra, 10 years of Design’, that followed, Designyatra regular Harsh Purohit of Cognito, did a survey of 10 years touching on the things that have changed and those that have stayed the same.

     

    There were several speakers who were standout on the three days. Nick Law of R/GA, Lydia Winters (Mojang/Minecraft), Satya Raghavan (YouTube) and John McHale (SapientNitro) on Day 1; Jon Wilkins (Karmarama and, earlier, Naked), Morihiro Harano (Mori), Dave Trott (Author), Armin Vit (Underconsideration) and Max Weisel (innovator) on Day 2, and Jessica Walsh (Sagmeister & Walsh, who has done the new Frooti identity) and Neville Brody (Brody Associates) on the last day.

     

    Meanwhile, work has already begun on the 11th edition of KDY. Planning ahead and with uncompromising rigour with regard to curating content, are the key to Kejriwal’s success with Designyatra. Indeed.

     

    A shorter version of this report first appeared in dna of brands dated September 14, 2015

     

  • TJ's, a brand of FMCG products made exclusively in Tihar Jail, Asia's largest prison complex, will soon be available in the outlets of Reliance Retail

    Tihar Jail in talks with Reliance Retail, Spencer’s & Vishal Retail to sell products

    By Rasul Bailay

     

    TJ’s, a brand of FMCG products made exclusively in Tihar Jail, Asia’s largest prison complex, will soon be available in the outlets of Reliance Retail, one of the largest retailers in the country.

     

    “Over the months, every Reliance Retail food and grocery store in Delhi will display TJ’s products,” said Neeraj Kumar, former director-general of Tihar Jail, who earlier this month assumed office as the commissioner of Delhi Police.

     

    TJ’s branded products, including spices and bakery products, are being sold in Reliance Retail outlets in Gurgaon for the past two months.

     

    “We are already an official vendor to Reliance Retail and have a vendor code,” a jail spokesman said. He said jail officials are also in talks with other retail chains such as Spencer’s Retail and Vishal Retail to sell TJ’s products through their outlets.

     

    Behind the walls and iron gates of the Central Jail of Tihar, more than 600 inmates are working in two shifts in a factory within jail No. 2, making a range of products, including bakery items, spices, stationery, furniture, garments and detergents.

     

    Police Commissioner Kumar said jail authorities plan three shifts as TJ’s products find their way into the lucrative modern retail market. These products were earlier sold only through government offices, Khadi outlets and Kendriya Bhandar stores.

     

    Mr Kumar said jail authorities are in the process of fulfilling requirements such as adding barcodes to products and mentioning the nutritional value of food products before taking them to all Reliance Retail stores in the National Capital Region. “All these formalities are done,” he said.

     

    Reliance Retail did not respond to an emailed questionnaire till late on Tuesday.

     

    TJ’s brand was born in 1995 with bakery products. Over the years, the portfolio has expanded to include handloom and textile, apparel, furniture, mustard oil, stationery paper products and even phenyl for household uses.

     

    In recent months, it has started making soaps, detergent powders and blankets, among other items. In the pipeline are cosmetic items such as face wash and henna. TJ’s products comply with global food safety norms and are certified under various ISO norms. Tihar’s backing school is certified by London-based global technical agency Moody International.

     

    TJ’s revenues have risen from Rs2.36 crore in 2004-2005 to about Rs18 crore in the last fiscal year. TJ’s products’ first brush with the organised retail happened late last year when jail authorities showcased products at Select Citywalk Mall in the city, and got overwhelming response from shoppers. This prompted the jail to open a kiosk in the mall to sell TJ’s products.

     

    Mr Kumar credits brand consultant Suhel Seth, who visited the jail in April, for initiating talks with retail chains. Mr Seth said that after visiting the jail in April he wrote to a host of corporate honchos, calling for promoting TJ’s. “This is a great branding opportunity,” he said.

     

    He expects TJ’s to become a Rs300-crore business, with net profit of Rs30 crore, in the next one year mainly by retailing through branded stores. This would help the jail ramp up capacity and supply products to other cities, Mr Seth said.

     

    Source: The Economic Times

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