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The Conscious Designer
Vehicle Design From Rajesh Mirajker

The magazines he subscribes to — Auto & Design (Italy), CAR Magazine (UK), Automotive Engineering (USA), Car Styling (Japan), Car & Bike International (USA), High Speed Diesels & Drives (USA), Auto India — should tell you a lot about Rajesh Gnaneshwar Mirajker. To cap it, there is his company letterhead where prominence is given to an illustration and some text copy which leads you to conclude that Rajesh picked up the Grand Prize and Award for Excellence in an international car design competition held in Tokyo. The year: 1991.

Time often stands still for Indian designers who, having won international recognition, are content to bask in the glory — no matter how insignificant — for the rest of their life. It is obvious that Rajesh Mirajker is a car designer (he prefers to call himself an industrial design consultant in the area of transportation). But has he moved since, or is he lost in the wreaths of a time warp that has swallowed up the creativity that led him to pick up the gauntlet of an international challenge to begin with?

That Tokyo award, organised by Japan's Car Styling magazine, however, has not been a shot in the dark for Rajesh who has followed it up with another in 1995, an Award of Excellence for car design at the Tokyo Motor Show. Its exclusion from his stationery merely represents a failure to update it, something which is at odds with his personality which he himself credits with being "meticulous and neat". He also describes himself as "an introvert, affable, sensitive but shy person" though "I also tend to lose my temper if pushed wrongly".

Rajesh couldn't have had too much pushing around. A resident of Madras, he returned to his home base after graduating from the great Indian fountainhead for all designers: Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design. And found himself a niche in styling cars and transport industry products. Cars, in any case, had been "a childhood passion" encouraged by fond parents and friends "who would gift me cars, trains, airplanes and construction kits, many of them detailed replicas with intricate automatic operations".

Long before NID, Rajesh was already on the road to the discovery and learning of design the way his own mind saw it. "It was natural for me to investigate their mechanics when they stopped functioning," he says of those childhood toys. "I started to build my own model Hot Rods from broken toys and assorted junk, inspired from a few cult car magazines." That early interest was nurtured by the family, all of whom were car enthusiasts and regulars as spectators of motorsports events. Rajesh's interest led him to sketching his ideas, "emulating the work of such masters as Giugiaro and Gandini from the magazines", and the industrial design course seemed almost the natural choice. In 1988, Rajesh's passion became his profession.

But his work had gained acceptance even before that. In 1985, Rajesh created the Ranger for Standard Motors, Madras, a three-ton light commercial vehicle which combined functionality with what was, then, contemporary styling. The brief required a revised layout with minimal investment in sheet metal press tooling. The following year, the same company commissioned him to create the Lenca, a multi-purpose mini van based on the Renault Espace. Simply styled, it has the angularity associated with mid-'80s vehicles, its box-design ideal for low cost sheet metal tooling, and with modular body panels for flexibility in usage.

The year Rajesh set up shop was the year he accepted a project from Ashok Leyland, to create an eight-ton intermediate commercial vehicle cabin front. "The approach was dictated by the client who tampered with the original proposal to produce unaesthetic and poor quality vehicles which were a failure in the market." Disappointment was tempered, by the facelift he provided that same year to an earthmoving dumper for Hindustan Motors. So successful was this that in 1989, Rajesh worked on an all-new dumper design based on the original Caterpillar, "which started off as a radical and futuristic proposal, but was later pared down by engineering", to create a product with very high export orders. This was one of two dumpers he worked on that year, the second, also for Hindustan Motors, a complicated cab design (and associated bodywork) "based on kinematics of the machine and human factors such as operator visibility, comfort and ingress/egress" for a medium-size earthmover.

Work for the Tatas, also in 1989, involved dashboard design for its light commercial vehicles: "A complex technical project with an elaborate design brief, the assignment was later simplified to a boxy, spartan appearance with minimal features." Full rein to creative styling — at that, independently — began in 1990 when Rajesh did his "most satisfying work bringing international recognition" for the Megha microcar, his design entry which won him his first international award. This time it offered him total freedom to design the way he chose, "trendy styling for the Indian lifestyle". The award it won him gained him recognition especially from the automotive media who discovered a new hero in him. Gently rounded in the current '90s look, it was intended to be a family hauler, but its size and purpose were identified as the smallest car, practical for city commuting and shopping. The body shell was designed to be modular and lightweight. It had a small floor area, was intended for four passengers, and had recessed footsteps for easy entry. Two years later, Rajesh designed Chavi along sleeker, more aerodynamically contoured lines. Once again, it won him an international award.

Meanwhile, back home, Rajesh had worked on tractors, sports bikes, a 13-seater taxi bus, mini vans, rural transport vehicles, luxury coaches and even the cowl design and graphics for a microlight aircraft. He was perceived to be one of very few transport related designers in India. Despite which, it has proved to be anything but a lucrative business. "Working independently in this field results in a state of constant financial insecurity," it's only reward the "recognition for good work". On the other hand, "If financial security is a must then one can opt for a job in the few design studios attached to R&D departments within companies — a bureaucratic rise with no recognition in the world outside."

What sets Rajesh's designs apart is that he is able to create an international look within the confines of Indian usage, a combination, he says, that is fuelled by his fascination for multipurpose, lifestyle vehicles "most suitable for a country like ours". The small car, in particular, is one of his favourite challenges, again not only because it is most appropriate for use in India but because it has "tremendous potential for export if the designs are original, contemporary and cost-effective".

For an automobile designer, says Rajesh, the deterrents are "incredibly high development costs". "Investments in design involve a long gestation period and prove beneficial in the long term and over a broader perspective. In our country the business trend is short term and quick return oriented. This is the main challenge for the designer whose creativity suffers due to lack of opportunity."

Typically, Rajesh — who sees "challenging times" ahead for himself— would like to work in all areas of mobility (land, sea, air, space), and qualifies that he is a transportation designer, not someone who customises individual cars for friends. But are Indian manufacturers likely to entrust their projects to professional designers? "The most progressive do employ designers and have set up modest design resources," says Rajesh, "but even these companies revert to foreign design consultancies on projects. The others are content in promoting the dated designs given away to them through joint ventures with companies abroad, due to short term interests."

It is a harsh indictment, but then a designer who has gained recognition for his work overseas while the local industry has still to utilise his creative resources, may be forgiven for saying so. For those who Rajesh has worked with, the concept of working on a brief "varies considerably" even though the process usually follows the following steps: concept and idea sketches, styling freeze renderings, layout and package studies, design drawings, scale renderings, scale models, full scale tape drawings and renderings, detail drawings, surface drafts and modelling, seating development, full scale mock-ups, prototypes.

What materials does he work with? "An industrial designer has to possess basic understanding of materials and processes and also build up information on proprietory technologies and connected developments that happen continuously. A designer cannot make specific choices of materials to work with as this is dependent on the product, its functions, the manufacturers' infrastructure and investment capability." His own involvement has largely been with "medium to low volume production and fabrication industries that employ sheet metal forming/pressing, metal fabrication, plastic moulding/forming and mechanised carpentry among other material processes".

For someone so dedicated to his craft, what styling trends influence him? "It is difficult to categorise styling since trends keep changing every decade based on technical advances and cultural influences," he says. "Every now and then, there emerge beautiful, strikingly different designs that set major trends. These originate from various sources..." And who knows, in times to come, that source might well be Rajesh Mirajker himself.