Designyatra, one of the world’s leading design conferences, celebrates 20 years of inspiring India’s creative community. In this exclusive interview, Rajesh Kejriwal, Founder & CEO of Kyoorius Group, shares the incredible journey of how a simple marketing initiative for a paper business transformed into India’s biggest design movement. From the challenges of the early years to building a thriving design community, Rajesh opens up about the struggles, learnings and evolution of Designyatra.
00:00Hello Mr. Rajesh. So we've been at this amazing Yatra for the last three days and it has been
00:07nothing but quite overwhelming. It has opened up our minds to another world of design. So you
00:15being the founder of this whole idea, what is the story behind it? When did it start and how
00:23it started for you? First of all, thank you for having me here. Design Yatra, this is our 20th
00:29year. So obviously it started in 2006. It started as a marketing exercise. We were India's first
00:36organized paper merchant business, selling fine creative papers. And as a way to influence
00:43the choice of paper, the design community was important to us. But at the end of the day,
00:47for the design community, we were a paperwala, right? If I had to call someone, I would say
00:52there is no paper requirement, I would call someone else, that kind of a thing. So I said
00:58how do I change this relationship from being a vendor to being a friend? And obviously,
01:03from my mind, it's way back when people are not talking about community building, I said
01:09I need to build this as a community. And if I have to build this as a community, I will
01:13do something that they profit from, so that they can professionally grow, personally grow. And because
01:21of that platform that I built, I become a friend. And that was the purpose of Design Yatra
01:27and the first Design Yatra happened that way. When you started it in your first few years, there must be
01:32some teething issues, there must be some challenges up until now that you faced and overcome. And I'm
01:38sure there are still more challenges. So maybe you can talk about some of your struggles while building
01:42this journey. I don't think there were struggles. I think there were more like learnings. Right? I'm a non designer.
01:48I don't know the world of design. But I had a co-founder, Kay, who came from this world. But irrespective
01:53of who you partner with or who you make, the choices of designers are every time very different. Right? So the
02:01initial years were very difficult because we didn't have great infrastructure in India. Halls
02:07were a problem. We also had this problem where there was a large number of hungry designers, but no big venue
02:15to have them. So we tried to build a hangar and do that. But then the infrastructure does not
02:20support. Sometimes the government rules and regulations does not support. It's always been
02:24amazing. We did the first one in Goa, second one in Goa. Third, we went to Kala Niketan
02:29that we did in the auditorium. But in the auditorium, the vibe was not coming. It was very formal.
02:35Then we went to Bombay. It wasn't. It wasn't. We went back to Goa. It's been a lovely journey. Right? Because
02:41every time you do something, it excites you. You also have heartburns. But it's a journey.
02:48But I'm happy because throughout this journey, the design community, which used to live under
02:55the shadow of this big brother called advertising, evolved as an industry. The confidence that the
03:01industry started having themselves grew. It also built up this huge network of designers, which
03:08they're living in what I call isolation. And they all came together. And they started meeting,
03:14talking, laughing. It also, in some ways, took away the insecurity and the immense discounting
03:25that they used to do to get a job. So a lot of things evolved. We've always been supportive
03:31of students. We've been kind of sponsoring students at a very low cost. Right from the
03:37first design year threat till now, 25% of our audience is students and faculty, which we are
03:43continuing. Immense number of students have come here, felt how they should transition. Many
03:52many of them have come back to me and said, you've changed the way we look at design or
03:57changed our lives completely. And all of those things kept us going. And it's been continuing.
04:03We keep going. And carrying forward from there, what is that one thing when you, I've seen you observing
04:09the whole, the venue, the, you know, the performances, the, the people. So what's the most heartening
04:17thing for you when you see your, you know, at this, at this platform for a designer?
04:23I think the most heartening thing is that we are always sold out. Right. So the first thing is
04:30key. We're not on the wrong part, right? There's a hunger for something like this. There's a hunger
04:34for this kind of knowledge, inspiration, whatever. So that's heartening. There are still some
04:40people. There are lots of people who come and all of them come up and say, thank you for putting
04:44it together. And I say, no, thank you for coming. Right. It's a two way street. And in any case,
04:49but it's heartening to say that they feel good enough to come and say, thank you. I mean,
04:55that delegates, right? They're paying money and coming. But for them to come and say, thank you
05:01for putting it together gives me immense satisfaction. Honestly, as I said, this was a marketing exercise
05:07for my paper business, but my paper business closed or started closing around 2012. And
05:13at that time it was a choice whether we continue with Design Yatra or not with Design Yatra because
05:19from the paper side, it made no sense. And Design Yatra was started as a not for profit organization.
05:25And I said, if I can tweak that and make it a not for loss initiative, we'll keep it running because
05:30I also built a passion for this. And now we have evolved. We've become anti-disciplinary
05:36because I think earlier you had the swim lens, my graphic designer room, my illustrator room,
05:41my photographer room, my architect room. Now I think those lanes have gone and it become one
05:46big swimming pool and everybody can do everything. The internet has evolved. AI is coming.
05:52The skill sets of people are being helped by so many other things. And I've seen graphic designers
06:00doing interiors, interior designers doing branding. The whole world's changing. And I think that's why
06:06we've made it anti-disciplinary because I think today a graphic designer needs to understand how an architect
06:12gets inspiration or a furniture designer gets inspiration or how a furniture designer thinks of color.
06:19And then the graphic designer suddenly thinks, hey, that's nice. That's a great way to look at this
06:24when I'm doing this branding project, right? So it's cross-pollination.
06:28It's become very fluid and dynamic in today's world.
06:31So I think that's the future where we are headed now. Actually, what I'd like...
06:36My next question is about what is the next 20 years of Design Yatra?
06:40I don't know about the next 20 years of Design Yatra or the 10 years of Design Yatra, but what I'd like Design Yatra to do for the Indian community would be...
06:50We've always seen this international designers leading the world of design, right? But a lot of designers...
06:57You saw Dave's presentation today. What a wonderful presentation. Awesome, I would say. I do it.
07:02Right? And young guy, way back in 2014, we had a guy called Dheria Dhan, who had done a couple of things.
07:08And he was just 22 at that time. Quite famous now. What I'd like this platform to help do is where I see Indian designers doing global work.
07:18Indian designers leading in terms of trending, where foreigners are looking up and saying, hey, that guy is doing great work.
07:29Indian designers are being called as speakers, as jury members, etc. That's where I think is the next step.
07:36And I'm also hoping that the clients start paying a little better so that the designers can spend a little more.
07:43They pay their people more. Because the only way this will evolve is there's enough money to go around to get better tools, better everything.
07:53I mean, I've seen many people ideating over here and pitching their ideas to the big designers who come.
08:00And I'm pretty sure this dream will be realized very, very soon and all these are talented people.
08:06I keep telling everybody that this is India. Right? What does India have? We've got history. We've got culture. We've got festivals.
08:15Throughout our life, we grow up with colors. Throughout our life, we grow up with chaos around us and navigate the chaos.
08:22These are the tools that a young mind needs while growing up to become a designer, right?
08:27Compare that to some, let's say, Europe countries or American. It's a bleak place, grey skies, raining or something.
08:35Even if it is not raining, it's bleak. There's no color around. But there, the designers are still doing it.
08:41But if you see Spain, Spanish people, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, India, Asia in general, we are a vibrant color community, right?
08:53And we show that in our illustration, in our work, etc. We have all the ingredients that we need to go and make it big abroad.
09:02What we don't have is that exposure, etc., which we are trying to hope in the next 10 years.
09:06And that's something we are going to try here over the next period. How do we make that happen?
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