Postmodern · 1997–present · South Asia
Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)
Also known as Indian kitsch, Desi kitsch, Desi chic, Desi cool, Indian pop art (T-shirts and gifts), Quirky Indian design
Urban Indian gift and T-shirt design from the late 1990s into the 2010s that recasts the street and bazaar as ironic, affectionate icons: truck tails and 'Horn OK Please', auto-rickshaws, Ambassadors and Chetaks, cutting chai, old Bollywood stills and dialogues, Bhagat Singh in place of Che. Labels such as Happily Unmarried, Playclan, 1469 and Chumbak redrew them as flat, saturated graphics with Hinglish puns and painted-sign lettering on mugs, magnets and notebooks, 'modern yet at the same time Indian'.
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Use it with care
The style quotes living crafts and sacred images: commission, credit and pay truck, sign and hoarding painters rather than lifting their panels, and do not put deities, the Om, the Khanda or Qur'anic phrases on footwear, underwear, ashtrays or toilet jokes. Check Hindi and Punjabi puns before printing, since several hits of the trend ('KLPD', 'Bosedk') are vulgar double entendres, and keep away from divisive political figures (1469 turned down demands for Bhindranwale T-shirts). Bhagat Singh is claimed by rival political camps (the farmers' movement, Communists, Khalistanis, the AAP and other parties), so check how a portrait tee will read before printing it. Laugh with the vernacular, not at the drivers, rickshaw pullers and chai sellers whose working lives supply the icons.
01
How it works
- Choose an everyday icon that every urban Indian recognises (an auto-rickshaw, a truck's tail, an Ambassador, a family on a Bajaj Chetak, a cutting-chai glass, a nimbu-mirchi charm, an old film still) and make it the whole picture, centred on a T-shirt, mug, magnet or notebook cover.
- Redraw rather than reproduce: turn the painted or printed original into a clean, flat, outlined illustration in saturated, clashing colour (rani pink, taxi yellow, turquoise, saffron, parrot green on black or white), so that it reads as a graphic icon and not as the craft it quotes.
- Let a phrase carry the joke: borrow truck-tail slogans, signboard warnings, film dialogues and Hinglish or Punjabi puns, letter them in the shaded block capitals of the truck painter or the drawn title of a film poster, and twist one word to show the quotation is knowing, as Nida Mahmood's runway signboards read 'Buri nazar waaley tera mooh fluorescent pink' instead of 'kaala'.
- When one icon looks thin, repeat it as an all-over print or frame it in truck-art borders, florals, lotuses and evil-eye charms for cushion covers, notebooks, coasters and phone cases.
- Keep it a wink between insiders, 'modern yet at the same time Indian': swap a global icon for a local one (Bhagat Singh for Che, 'Kem Che' under Che's duotone). The labels split over the tourist and sacred set. Tantra happily sold a snake-charmer tee, and Shiva-Parvati, Hanuman and Omkar tees were worn to 'signal novelty and coolness more than anything really religious', while Brooklyn's Chor Bazaar said its designs were 'not about a deity with eight arms, the Om symbol, the Taj Mahal'. Pick the everyday street over the postcard when the piece should feel like an insider's joke.
Urban India, above all Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. T-shirt and gift labels made the street and bazaar into self-aware merchandise: Tantra (Mumbai, from 1997, Ranjiv Ramchandani), which Open named among the pioneers of 'zany T-shirts'; Happily Unmarried (Delhi, started 2003 by Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand, whose products had 'a desi cool vibe'); Playclan (Himanshu Dogra, an NIFT graduate, 2008); 1469 (Delhi) and Fightercock (Abhishek Gupta and Nandita Basu, Delhi); then Chumbak (Bengaluru, launched 2009–10 by Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda as a souvenir brand) and Mad(e) in India (Pankaj Acharya, January 2013). Designers such as Nida Mahmood took the same icons to the runway. Madhu Jain's exhibition Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai (India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 2000–01) had already shown artists working with Indian kitsch. Its bazaar lineage runs through calendar art: Avid Learning's press release for the 2019 NGMA Mumbai panel 'Kitsch and the City' said Indian kitsch 'derives its inspiration from calendars, cinema visuals and posters of gods and goddesses', and Open (2009) saw Shiva-Parvati, Hanuman and Omkar tees worn for 'novelty and coolness'. Open magazine reported the trend running out of energy in April 2010, and by 2015 Chumbak described moving from 'early India themed products' to 'a more mature design language', but the idiom lives on in souvenir shops, city-themed cafés and gift stores
02
Its design choices
From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.
- Layout & composition
- Space & hierarchy
- Typography
- Colour
- Surface & texture
- Ornament
- Imagery
- Medium & production
- Tone & intent
- Avoids
- Naturalistic depiction, Ornament-free, Monochrome, Spiritual & sacred, Rational & objective, Painterly illustration, Modular grid
Palette
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Typefaces
Truck painters' shaded block capitals for slogans such as 'Horn OK Please', which Avid Learning's press release for the 2019 'Kitsch and the City' panel at NGMA Mumbai named among Mumbai's kitsch: 'the letters "Horn Ok Please" in block fonts'
Drawn Bollywood title lettering and quoted film dialogue, as in Happily Unmarried's 'Kya Tumney Aaj Phir Sharab Pee Hai' series
Hindi written as street graffiti, as in Playclan's 'Indian take on graffiti' collection announced in 2009
'we are writing it all in Hindi'
Hinglish, Punjabi and Gujarati puns set as T-shirt captions, such as 1469's 'Sardar dey kaakey, na fikr, na panga' and a Gujarati 'Kem Che' under Che Guevara's duotone portrait
Repainted signboard phrases, such as Nida Mahmood's 'Buri nazar waaley tera mooh fluorescent pink'
2010
Known for
Happily Unmarried (Delhi, from 2003, Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand)
the 'Kya Tumney Aaj Phir Sharab Pee Hai' series (Open, 2010), a key-holder shaped like the back of an Indian truck 'complete with poetic phrases and kitschy artwork' (Outlook), and truck-art coasters, placemats, bags and mugs (Deccan Herald, 2014, which credits them to Happily Unmarried and Mad(e) in India); Tuli also sold block-printed shirts with auto-rickshaws under his label Mental Block
Playclan (Himanshu Dogra, from 2008)
T-shirts with Delhi's Jama Masjid, an Indian family standing with their Bajaj Chetak, the Ambassador ('Amby'), the postman, the auto-rickshaw, truck humour and an Indiana Rascala series, which Open summed up as 'Indian pop art on a T-shirt, if you will' (Open, 2009); every theme is redrawn in-house rather than taken from photographs (BW Businessworld, 2015)
Fightercock (Abhishek Gupta and Nandita Basu, Delhi)
Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh T-shirts offered as an 'indigenous replacement for Che T-shirts'; 1469 followed with its own Bhagat Singh tees beside Punjabi slogans such as 'Sardar dey kaakey, na fikr, na panga' (Open, 2009)
Tantra (Mumbai, from 1997, Ranjiv Ramchandani), among the pioneers of zany T-shirts
a double-humped camel captioned 'India: a land of great humps' and a T-shirt with a snake charmer on it (Open, 2009)
Bosedk 'Bank-Ki-Lorry' T-shirt, a truck with a Hindi double entendre, made for an art project by Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra (Open, 2009); Open notes the shirts were never intended to hit the streets
Nida Mahmood at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, Delhi (reported April 2010)
headgear of chai-patti wrappers fixed onto Nehru caps, lotus icons and signboards reading 'Buri nazar waaley tera mooh fluorescent pink', after her High on Chai collection and her Rickshaw line; the same week showed a fleet of artist-painted auto-rickshaws, Object D'Arte (Open, 2010)
Chumbak (Bengaluru, launched 2009–10 by Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda)
'fun and bright Indian souvenirs' as an alternative to 'marble Taj Mahal replicas', beginning with fridge magnets, key chains, sippers, mugs and notebooks from a 20 sq ft mall pop-up and later making 'prints of inane things like owls and auto rickshaws stylish' across 75 product categories (YourStory, 2015; Outlook Business)
Mad(e) in India (Pankaj Acharya, from January 2013), a lifestyle brand that 'celebrates the quirks, colours, spirit and mysticism of India and its people' (BW Businessworld, 2015)
03
Make something in this style
Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Indian Pop-Kitsch Design (Desi Kitsch)’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.
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Where it comes from, and what it’s close to
Before it
The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.
After it
The styles that grew out of it.
No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.
Alike in its design choices
Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.
05
Sources
- FashionUnited, 'Tantra: India on a T-shirt' (undated; its URL points to September 2010): https://fashionunited.in/v1/fashion/tantra-india-on-a-t-shirt/201009148954 (Tantra 'incepted in 1997' to 'convey the essence of India to foreigners visiting the country'; Ranjiv Ramchandani, Director)
- Reena Mital, 'India: Tantra's brand philosophy is first world creativity at third world prices', Textile Excellence (1 May 2014): https://textileexcellence.com/single-news/581/india-tantra-s-brand-philosophy-is-first-world-creativity-at-third-world-prices (Tantra 'officially took off in 1997'; 'headquartered in Mumbai'; Ranjiv Ramchandani, Director)
- Kabeer Sharma, 'Tees That Wink', Open (23 July 2009): https://openthemagazine.com/features/living/tees-that-wink (Happily Unmarried's Rajat Tuli: 'modern yet at the same time Indian'; his Mental Block shirts with auto-rickshaws; Tantra's camel tee and a snake-charmer tee; Playclan's Jama Masjid, Bajaj Chetak, Amby, postman, auto-rickshaw and truck-humour tees, the writer's summary 'Indian pop art on a T-shirt, if you will' and a Hindi graffiti collection; 1469's Punjabi slogans and Bhagat Singh tees and its refusal of Bhindranwale tees; Fightercock's Bose and Bhagat Singh tees; Bosedk 'Bank-Ki-Lorry' by Thukral and Tagra, shirts 'never intended to hit the streets'; Brooklyn's Chor Bazaar, whose Umang Shah said its designs were 'not about a deity with eight arms, the Om symbol, the Taj Mahal'; Shiva-Parvati, Hanuman and Omkar tees that 'signal novelty and coolness more than anything really religious')
- Kabeer Sharma, 'High on Chai?', Open (7 April 2010): https://openthemagazine.com/features/living/high-on-chai (a truck and an Enfield as 'the poster boys of Indian kitsch'; Nida Mahmood's chai-patti headgear, lotus icons and 'Buri nazar waaley tera mooh fluorescent pink' signboards at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week; Object D'Arte auto-rickshaws; 1469's Lambretta tee; Playclan and Happily Unmarried's 'Kya Tumney Aaj Phir Sharab Pee Hai' series; 'The kitsch fashion revolution has outlasted its energy and purpose'; the writer's own judgement that 'in the race to be desi, we ended up being too desi')
- Simar Singh, 'Adding A Dash Of Quirk To Daily Lives', BW Businessworld (5 August 2015): https://businessworld.in/article/adding-a-dash-of-quirk-to-daily-lives-84451 (Happily Unmarried started in 2003 by Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand with products of 'a desi cool vibe'; Playclan started by Himanshu Dogra in 2008, designs redrawn in-house without photographs; Mad(e) in India launched January 2013 by Pankaj Acharya)
- Sindhu Kashyap, 'From a souvenir store to a lifestyle brand, in five years Chumbak has seen 300 per cent growth YOY', YourStory (29 July 2015), read via the Internet Archive: https://yourstory.com/2015/07/chumbak-growth-story (started March 2010 by Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda as 'fun and bright Indian souvenirs'; designs evolving from 'early India themed products' to 'a more mature design language')
- Laveena Iyer, 'Queen of quirk', Outlook Business (6 October 2016; profile of Shubhra Chadda): https://www.outlookbusiness.com/specials-34/outstanding-women/queen-of-quirk-3082 (Chumbak founded 2009 as an India-themed souvenir brand; key chains, fridge magnets, sippers, mugs and notebooks; first pop-up in a Bengaluru mall; 'prints of inane things like owls and auto rickshaws'; 75 product categories)
- Namrata Joshi, 'Khali Peeli Bunkus Ltd', Outlook (online copy dated 5 February 2022; its text says HU started 'six years ago'): https://www.outlookindia.com/society/khali-peeli-bunkus-ltd-news-266862 (Happily Unmarried's Khan Market shop; products by NID- and NIFT-trained designers on royalties; a key-holder resembling the back of an Indian truck 'complete with poetic phrases and kitschy artwork')
- Brinda Suri, 'Motion pictures', Deccan Herald (22 March 2014): https://www.deccanherald.com/features/motion-pictures-2182829 (Indian truck art; 'The rear end of trucks is a slate for poetic outpouring'; slogans such as 'Horn OK please' and painted 'nazar' symbols; truck-art coasters, placemats, bags, mugs and folders 'from trendy product design companies as Happily Unmarried and Mad(e) in India')
- Avid Learning and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, press release for the panel 'Multipolis Mumbai: Kitsch and the City' (20 November 2019): https://avidlearning.in/uploads/press_release/75EC4F99-2228-450E-88D3-21B269C03D5C.pdf (rickshaws, cutting chai, nimbu-chilly and vada-pao in Mumbai kitsch design; 'the letters "Horn Ok Please" in block fonts'; 'a bright and neon colour palette'; 'Indian Kitsch derives its inspiration from calendars, cinema visuals and posters of gods and goddesses'; 'Photo-shopped images of the Taj Mahal')
- Godrej India Culture Lab, 'Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai' (Friday Funda, 8 March 2013): https://indiaculturelab.org/events/friday-fundas/kitsch-kitsch-hota-hai/ (Madhu Jain's 2000 Delhi exhibition of the same name on kitsch and the contemporary imagination)
- Wikipedia, 'Horn OK Please': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_OK_Please (the phrase painted on Indian trucks, buses and taxis, often in South Asian truck art)
- Soumya Mukerji, 'That T-shirt's from Janpath', Hindustan Times (19 October 2011), reposted by SikhNet: https://www.sikhnet.com/node/31362 (Harinder Singh, 'a shop owner from Janpath', New Delhi, whose store 1469 'sells pop Punjabi tees and curios')
- Asia Art Archive, catalogue and event records for 'Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai: Kitsch and the Contemporary Imagination': https://aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/library/kitsch-kitsch-hota-hai-kitsch-and-the-contemporary-imagination (Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 2001; essay by Madhu Jain; the Godrej page gives 2000)
- Dinesh Kafle, 'Ode to the Road: Truck Art of North India', Sahapedia: https://www.sahapedia.org/ode-road-truck-art-north-india (truck literature of North India, including 'popular sayings such as 'Buri najar waale, tera munh kaala''; bumpers 'painted with couplets and quartets')
- Monica Sabharwal, 'Punjab's battles over Bhagat Singh', Himal Southasian (16 March 2023): https://www.himalmag.com/punjab-battles-over-bhagat-singh-communists-khalistanis-farmers-protests/ ('the farmers' protest movement, Communists, Khalistanis, the AAP and other parties all having staked their own claims')
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