Forty long years after this “book” was
published, and almost two decades since the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), whose silver jubilee it
sought to commemorate, lost its identity, it is time to put the book out in the public
domain as an archival document. Apart from the graphic design of the book, what
also needs to be archived, as a case-study perhaps, is the entire experience of
creating a commemorative volume at a time when imaging and printing technology
were rudimentary in India; simple things like getting the right colour and
conveying the right emotion through visuals was an achievement! Even graphic
literacy was in its infancy in the country and there were few in the corporate
world at that time who understood subliminal messaging.
The Assignment
The year was 1978. I had not even completed
three years of employment with ICICI, then a development bank. But, in that brief
period, I had inspired a feeling of respect with the then top echelons of the
organisation, perhaps because of my background of research in development
administration and of what they perceived as my writing skills. I was still too
‘wet behind the ears’ to understand my abilities and too steeped in the
upbringing of self-effacing professionalism, to appreciate the reason for that
respect. For a comparative novice in the hierarchical corporate world, and a
very junior employee, it was quite an enviable achievement.
HT Parekh, who had just retired as the
Chairman of ICICI, after having launched HDFC (Housing Development Finance
Corporation) in 1977, undertook to write the history of ICICI as its
silver jubilee commemoration volume. He specifically asked for my services as a
research and editorial assistant. And Siddharth Mehta, the then Chairman &
Managing Director (CMD) of ICICI entrusted to me the task of ‘publishing’ the book. In
his signature way, he told me: “Remember, I want a world-class book. And the
deadline is sacrosanct.” There was no ‘briefing’ about design, agency, size,
paper, costs, etc.
Thus commenced the odyssey resulting in
this publication – I would have hardly called it a book. The text was a longish
personal memoir by HT Parekh (HTP, as he was known in the haloed world of
banking & finance as well as government and corporate circles). In that
genre, it had nuggets of very valuable information – in fact, invaluable for a
business historian of that period. But the manuscript was all of about 50
pages! HTP did not want a data-heavy book; its target audience comprised
international bankers, corporate executives and Indian policy-makers – who
would lap up every word that HTP wrote – such was his standing in those
circles. So the author too did not expect a typical coffee-table tome that
would be looked at but not read. But he did want gloss and colour. His one
sentence brief to me was: “I want a book that’s good looking – one which will
be noticed all over the world.”
The challenge was terrific and the
opportunity once-in-a-lifetime one. Of course, I had to work with the best
designer available in Bombay then – one who would be able to translate my
concept into a work of art. So I turned to Yeshwant Chaudhary with whom I had
just finished working on the corporate identity of HDFC. My instinct, and the
experience of designing the HDFC symbol and logo, told me that Yeshwant Chaudhary would be able to weave together the symbolism of Indian tantric art with the
industrial photography of Mitter Bedi blended with the thematic photography of
Vilas Bhende and the philosophy of development that HTP and ICICI espoused.
The Concept
In the 1970s, communicators in India were animated
about Marshall Macluhan’s book “Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man”, in which he had coined the famous phrase “medium is the
message.” I discussed with Yeshwant Chaudhary if a similar visual phraseology could
be developed to communicate ‘Industry – The Extension of Man’. It would convey
that ICICI was into assisting Indian industry; industry was working toward the
total development of man; it was in a way extension of human faculties – the
five senses. If we could develop that graphic phraseology, it would add a lot
of gravitas to ‘verbal content’ of the book – where the book, as the medium,
would also deliver the message of total development of humankind through
industrialisation.
The concept charged up Yeshwant Chaudhary such
that we spent nearly three months debating various aspects of this phraseology
– even as HTP and Siddharth Mehta were getting impatient to “see” the
presentation of the concept. They had to approve it before I could go ahead and
commit the financial resources and work out a detailed implementation plan –
within the deadline! We presented to them just the three theme pages; and we
had expected that we would have to spend at least an hour explaining the why
and the wherefore of it. We came out beaming, in three minutes flat! The visuals
were powerful enough. No ‘wordy’ explanations were needed.
These were the three finally printed
spreads.
Three images of the
cover and the two theme pages
For readers who may like to access the entire document, here is the link
