Dr. D. Udaya Kumar (32), assistant professor in the department of design at IIT-Guwahati, is the designer of the new symbol for the Indian Rupee which has won widespread praise in India and abroad for simplicity and imagination.
Newspeg. Udaya Kumar’s representative symbol for the rupee was adjudged the best in a national contest sponsored by the Union finance ministry which attracted over 10,000 entries. On July 15 last year, his design was selected by a panel of seven eminent judges including two officials each from the finance ministry and RBI, and professors of NID Ahmedabad, JJ School of Arts, Mumbai and IGNOU, New Delhi. He was awarded Rs.2.5 lakh in prize money which he donated to Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based NGO working against trafficking in women and children.
Direct speech. “One of the main guidelines of the contest was that the entry should reflect Indian culture and values, while resonating a strong national spirit,” explains Udaya Kumar. “The symbol I designed is a blend of the Devanagri ‘Ra’ and the Roman ‘R’, with the Ashoka chakra of the Indian tricolour also represented in it.”
History. Though not professionally trained in art, Udaya Kumar took to painting at a young age with the active encouragement of his father N. Dharmalingam, a Chennai-based civil contractor. He schooled at La Chatelaine Residential College, Chennai and School of Architecture and Planning of Anna University. Subsequently he acquired a Masters in visual communication from the Industrial Design Centre of IIT-Bombay (2003) which also awarded him a Ph D for his thesis on Tamil typography last year. In July 2010 he signed up with IIT-Guwahati where he teaches in the design department.
Future plans. “Teaching is my true calling as I derive great satisfaction from sharing knowledge with students as well as learning from them. I am deeply interested in typography and plan to continue my research in this field especially Tamil typography. I want to evolve new ways of using Indian scripts in design,” he says.
Rinky Marwaha (Mumbai)