When graphic designer Anthony Lopez met clients a decade ago, he was at pains to explain that he wasn't an 'artist' but a communications visualiser who could offer brand identity-building services critical to shaping the core values of a company.
"We had to tell them (clients) that a good design can churn revenues for the company," recalls Lopez, CEO of Lopez Design.
But this proved to be mere sound bites; only companies seeking to expand businesses that couldn't get appointments elsewhere to sell their products were willing to listen to him.
Fastforward to 2005: Lopez's business has been doubling every year and his staff of 14 handle 24 clients at any given time. His client bank today includes Unicef India and US-based International Research Group.
While the graphics design market is still small at Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) as compared to the $21 billion jewellery market, or the $37 billion fashion and apparel industry, a robust economy and a competitive consumer market is driving up the demand for good graphic professionals.
In a market where competition among retailers is heated and product uniqueness to reach the consumer is all important, companies today are not just looking at stand-alone collateral projects such as a corporate brochure or an annual report.
It is seeking consultancy services that extends from ideating the brand to creating corporate identity, designing logos and signages to print communication.
Pune-based Elephant Design has even gone a step further by designing an open air steel sculpture for Bajaj Auto's headquarters as part of its identity-building programme.
For instance, Bangalore-based TSK Design is mainly known for its hospitality retail branding work such as Pasha at Park Hotel, Chennai. Last year, however, it landed an assignment from Kiran Majumdar-led Biocon Ltd prior to its IPO launch.
"We had a defined brief. Biocon had grown from an industrial enzymes manufacturer to a global bio pharmaceutical company. It needed a brand identity that will realign with its shifted business focus," says Tania Khosla of TSK.
The result was a new Biocon logo (a double helix) for the company and subsequent communication materials that reflected that spirit.
Meanwhile, Mumbai-based Rabia Gupta is also rendering design services to offshore clients, apart from Indian companies such as ICICI OneSource, ITC and Reliance Infocomm.
She recently executed work for UK-based retail chain Body Basics and Ashoka in Spain. She also did a book design project for Leopard Book in Sri Lanka.
"What we really want to do is create a corpus of work which is rooted in the Indian ethos," says Gupta.
Other designers echo Gupta's sentiment; to build an Indian idiom for which they can stake claim as original, and charge anywhere between Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) per project.
Graphic design was once the domain of advertisement agencies. But with the emergence of a new crop of designers, experts say work is moving away from the agencies, making a dent in its earnings.
"For ad agencies," said one designer, "it is campaigns and not designing a brand which is its mainline business. Hence the work it produces is also not mainline."
With the growing value of design, however, advertising agencies have also started setting up their own design divisions such as d-Cell (Lintas India) and Design Sutra (Contract Advertising).
But the moot question remains, does India really have enough designers? According to Darlie O'Koshy, NID executive director, NID and the IIT design centres together produce 500 designers every year, including product and graphic designers.
"Ideally, the institutes should produce 5,000 designers every year," he says.
But the momentum to build brand India is picking up. Apart from the Commerce Minister Kamal Nath occasionally trumpeting to the "Made in India" cause, the department of industrial policy and promotion has initiated measures to formulate a design policy.
The government has asked NID and the CII to assist in gathering the inputs and the third of the four CII-NID design interactive session will be held in Bangalore this week.
As for O'Koshy, it was no small achievement to manage to bring President APJ Abdul Kalam for the 25th convocation of NID on January 5 last month where he stated that designers need to impart "experience with creativity".
The creativity has been tapped; now for the experience.
