The core team members of Aksharaya comprise both teachers and industry professional, who have unparalleled experience and skill in Indian typography and calligraphy. They are supported by a strong working committee and a dedicated team of volunteers
VINAY SYNEKAR
Worked on various calligraphy and typography projects under guidance and leadership of Prof R K Joshi. Was associated with Chimanlals Pvt. Ltd. as chief design consultant. Teaching Calligraphy and Typography at Sir J J Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, since 26 years. Participated in a group show ‘3 Calligraphers’. Type-designer. Designed Kannada, Bengali, Assamese and Devnagari text fonts, essentially for corporate communication. Written a book on Calligraphy – Aksharsaundarya: Nirmiti ani Itihas, for calligraphy enthusiasts. Calligraphy Lectures in various institutes and groups. Participated and organized workshops for Children to create awareness about calligraphy. Currently involved in calligraphic works which interests him.
SANTOSH KSHIRSAGAR
Born: 1967. B.F.A., M.F.A. (by research) from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art. Mumbai, India. Teaching Indian (especially Devnagari) Calligraphy, Typography and visual communication design,from last 20 years at JJIAA, Mumbai. Type Design for Microsoft (first OTF for window xp) in Gujrathi & Oriya scripts. Illustrated talks on Indian Calligraphy in Germany, Belgium, London and Japan. As well work exhibited in Australia, USA. Show in Japan with Prof. Mori Kooun. Conducted more than hundreds of workshops, in India. Many publications. Academic consultant to governmental organizations and many institutions. Now pursuing Ph.D. at IDC, Indian Institute of Technology.
SHUBHANAND JOG
B.F.A., M.F.A. (by research) from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art. Mumbai, India. Teaching faculty Member, from the last 20 years at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. Produced & Directed “Angel of Peace” a short film on “World Peace” which was screened at the Texas International Film Festival, World social forum (Mumbai) & Mumbai International Film Festival (Competion Section) Designed and Calligraphed “Citations – (Manapatras)” for Shri. R. K. Laxman, Shri. Ajit Wadekar Shri. Vinda Karandikar, Shri. Julio f. Rebero, Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasia and many more He has conducted more than 30 Workshops on Calligraphy & has participated in 12 Creative Seminar’s and Workshops
VIKRAM GAIKWAD
VIKRAM GAIKWAD, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Underdog. Vikram graduated from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art in 1990. His career started with Lintas and since then he has had stints at Enterprise, SSC&B Lintas, Leo Burnett, Grey Worldwide and Creativeland Asia. In Jan 2014, he and Vistasp Hodiwala joined forces to start UNDERDOG. In over two decades of advertising, Vikram has worked on and contributed to almost every brand worth its salt. His work has won countless golds and silvers in many national and international award shows including Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Spikes Asia and Clio. He has been a judge at many different advertising awards shows – both local and international including the Cannes Lions. In 2007, he was ranked amongst the Emerging Young Indians in a survey conducted by the Week magazine. While working very closely with the Late Prof. R. K. Joshi (the legend in Indian Typography) for more than a decade, Vikram was involved in many design and type design projects through IDC, IIT and has even designed fonts for Microsoft (OTF for Windows XP) in Tamil and Malayalam.
SARANG KULKARNI
Sarang Kulkarni specializes in type design, calligraphy and typography. He is a graduate of Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts in 2002 and is the proprietor of WhiteCrow Design Management. WhiteCrow has handled various projects in Indian and Latin scripts, with a vast portfolio of graphic and identity design, as well as calligraphy, commissioned by both Indian and international clients. The studio has also designed all the typefaces for Vodafone and Virgin Mobile’s multi-lingual branding in India. Sarang has worked with Prof. R. K. Joshi and Prof. Santosh Kshirsagar, and has designed a Gurmukhi typeface for Microsoft Corporation for their operating system Windows XP.
GIRISH DALVI
Girish Dalvi is an inter-disciplinary faculty of Design at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Bombay. He teaches subjects in the area of Visual Design, Interaction Design and Design research. His research interests in the domain of Visual design are: Devanagari Typography (History, Type design methodologies, Theoretical Modeling, Classification, and Type-Culture); within the field of Interaction design his research interests are: Culture sensitive Interactions, Frugal Computing, search-retrieval paradigms, Indian Language (localized) interfaces and input mechanisms for Indic scripts. As a design researcher his work deals with applying Statistical and Mathematical modeling techniques for designers.He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, a Master’s degree in Design and a Ph.D. from IIT Bombay. His doctoral research dealt with the theoretical modeling of Devanagari typefaces. As a type designer he has co-created several typefaces for Indian scripts, prominent amongst these is the Ek multi-script family, the open source Ek Mukta family , LifeOk Devanagari and Star Bengali.
PRADNYA NAIK
Pradnya Naik is a Mumbai based designer specialised in the field of Type Design, Lettering and Calligraphy. She graduated from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, in 2009. Having worked as a Graphic Designer with WhiteCrow Designs, she was involved in type design projects for multiple Indic scripts like Devanagari, Gujarati and Urdu. After pursuing her post-graduation from Type & Media at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, Netherlands in 2012, she worked as a Research Associate at IDC school of design at IIT, Bombay with on projects like the Analysis of Jain Manuscript calligraphy, Devanagari Font Search Tool and Glyph Diaries. She has been involved in teaching calligraphy, typography and type design at various design schools across India. The past and the future of Indian scripts is something that fascinates her, right from calligraphy studies from manuscripts to and current type technologies and is always seeking new ways to further her knowledge of Indic Type.