The Techno India Group, a pioneer in education in Eastern India, helped build École Intuit Lab in Kolkata, which presented its annual exhibition, The Kolkata Design Fest, on June 2nd and June 3rd, 2023.
Kolkata: On June 2nd and 3, 2023, École Intuit Lab, Kolkata, which was established in partnership with the Techno India Group, a pioneer in education in Eastern India, presented its annual exhibition, the Kolkata Design Fest. The Design Fest gave students a stage on which to present their best work to professionals from around the world who had been invited as part of the event's fundamental mission to bring the best and most innovative in art, design, and creativity back to Kolkata. Thus, Design Fest turns into a gathering place for students, mentors, and influential figures to exchange knowledge and ideas.
Every year, a theme is selected to represent Design Fest. The theme for 2023 was typography. Although it is a constant in printed layout, typography has long been the unsung hero of the design world. It has been in use ever since the printing press was created. However, good type still frequently goes undetected and unacknowledged in modern society.
For this year’s The Kolkata Design Fest, we wish to pay homage to the Indian scripts that are all around us all the time, whether we notice them consciously or not. Furthermore, we wish to expand this to scripts from all around the world from the more-recognised Latin script to the beautiful letterforms that often go unappreciated,” shared Prof. Manoshi Roychowdhury, Co – Chairperson of Techno India Group.
There were various spaces (labs) for The Kolkata Design Fest where fascinating events happened. A component of Lab 1 was tasked with highlighting the 'type' development process. Students investigated "type" the way it was created at its most basic level, using hand drawings and custom designs akin to those of an ancient scribe. The main location for the next major innovation, woodblock printing, was Lab 2. Lab 3 portrayed the revolutionary renaissance age, which is essentially post-printing press, to illustrate the critical role in the development of art and design.
The post-graduate students, who were in the latter stages of their design school, researched the digital world and depicted the most recent period in the history of type. Each lab investigated various scripts and languages using the medium and style that were given to them. The following languages are being researched:
Cyrillic
The Slavic heritage and culture are inextricably linked to cyrillic type. Numerous languages, including Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, have been written using the Cyrillic script, which was created expressly for the Slavic languages.
India
Bengali and Marathi are two linguistic groups that are associated with our Indian communities. India has around 250 official languages, the bulk of which have established scripts.
Oriental
Oriental languages have a rich historical and cultural background that has influenced their writing systems and aesthetics, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Making wise design decisions can be aided by having a solid understanding of the beginnings and development of these languages. Oriental calligraphy and brushstrokes are frequently linked to these languages.
Latin
Latin letterforms are widespread and are still enjoying their prime time in the sun today. Because they are so pervasive, people have been pushing the envelope of experimentation. We intend to thoroughly comprehend the origins of the letterforms and how to manipulate them for our explorations.
Every room has displays showing the animation and AR posters with Kinetic Typography in several languages.
A room specifically designated to display hackathon work was present during the Kolkata Design Fest.