Only focus, by design, appears to have allowed this creative-consultancy to complete.

By Anshu Tandon

If design manages to be an art-form that meshes (UN)comfortably with commerce, nonchalance must have something to do with it. Ask Niladri 'Bilu' Mukherjee, the 34-year-old managing director of Whisper Design (Whisper), who took a call from a representative of Studio Cerezales -- a Paris-based firm that specialises in exhibition-design -- in early November, 1997.

Studio Cerezales had been commissioned by the French government to identify an Indian counterpart that would execute a technology-driven event that would celebrate 50 years of India's Independence. Would Whisper be interested in bidding for the project? As Mukherjee heard the brief -- set up a virtual gallery displaying state-of-the-art imaging technology -- he knew that this project would, definitely, be bigger than Whisper's Rs 43-lakh turnover in 1996-97.

Could Whisper's 16-member team work with technology from 21 organisations, set up 23 different installations -- ranging from the audio-visual to the interactive, each was to be insulated in an allocated space -- within a six-week deadline? How would Mukherjee compare with another bidder, the Rs 3-crore Oriole, which was one of the country's largest exhibition-design firms? Would Whisper really be able to pull it off?

Oui, was the chain-smoking Mukherjee's answer. After a tense four weeks, Studio Cerezales' president, Fabrice Cerezales, came down to Delhi to meet the final bidders: Oriole and Whisper. And on December 30, 1997, Cerezales informed Mukherjee that his company had bagged the Rs 75-lakh project. Quickly, Whisper got down to work in anticipation of the usual glitches.

Sure enough, Mukherjee had to rework all his plans for the project as he was informed, three weeks before D-Day, that the venue had been shifted from Delhi's Indira Gandhi Stadium to Pragati Maidan. That was tough since the latter would give Whisper -- which had hired 40 people for the project -- only four days to assemble the installation.

Still, the two-week-long project was a spectacular success, with over 10,000 visitors to the show. Agrees Ajoy David, 40, who heads Oriole: ''It was a great show. The only thing that was not planned for was the number of people who visited the exhibition.'' That's a real compliment for Mukherjee, a product-designer from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (NID), since it was Oriole that was responsible for bringing him to Delhi in the first place.

In 1989, Mukherjee did his diploma-project -- developing lightweight modular structures that could be easily assembled -- with Oriole. Eight years later, Whisper is a Rs 1.30-crore design hot-shop, specialising in product-design, retail-merchandise, and exhibition-design. Explains Mukherjee: ''We aren't just a design-vendor, but a creative planning consultancy. Our projects vary from research to manufacturing, implementation, and the creation of feedback-monitoring mechanisms.''

Whisper's small employee-base -- made up of designers, engineers, architects, and cad-specialists -- limits the start-up to not more than 10 clients at a time. Still, over the years, Mukherjee has built up an impressive list: exhibition-design for the Rs 196-crore Hero Motors, the Rs 389-crore Subros, the Rs 48.76-crore Orient Tiles, and the Rs 707.11-crore ICI; modular exhibition kits for the Rs 5,960-crore ITC and the Rs 919-crore Eicher Group; retail merchandising identity for the Rs 15-crore Coty India and the Rs 117-crore Hindustan Sanitaryware; product design for the Rs 47-crore Harita Grammar and the Rs 1,223.80-crore Siel

Says Sandeep Gupta, 35, national sales manager, Coty India: ''They are creatively very good, work well to a brief, and offer several options.'' Indeed, the company's 1,400-sq ft office in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar is a far cry from Whisper's humble beginnings in 1989, when batchmate Aditya Chopra, an engineer with a specialisation in product-design, got Mukherjee on board.

The duo shacked up in a single room in Delhi's South Extension, with a partition separating their workplace and living place. And Whisper was born as a product-design outfit. Says Mukherjee: ''We wanted our work to speak for itself. Therefore, Whisper.'' But when the company's first assignment came from the Rs 877-crore Godfrey Phillips, the experience taught Whisper its first lessons in the facts of (business) life.

Delhi's close-knit design community had heard that Godfrey Phillips was looking for prototypes of tea-dispensing units for its Tea City brand. When Whisper cold-called, Godfrey Phillips gave them the go-ahead. While the Rs 4,000-prototype failed to gain approval, in its excitement, Whisper had failed to get a written contract from the company. That meant that the duo had to forfeit their design-fee of Rs 10,000. Says Mukherjee: ''It was our naivet . Godfrey Phillips could hardly be blamed, but we are now clear about documenting discussions.''

In April, 1991, Whisper decided to, wrongly, diversify. Anthony Lopez, a graphic-designer from NID, joined up to add communications design to Whisper's portfolio. Seven months later, another product-designer from NID, Tilak Lodh, joined Whisper to set up its new venture, Web Systems. The logic: it made more sense to take a product to a client rather than work on a skimpy brief.

By now, Whisper had varied interests: from exhibitions, retail merchandise and films to corporate identity, interior design, and furniture design. While diversification was profitable -- revenues shot up from Rs 5 lakh in 1990-91 to Rs 65 lakh in 1992-93 -- Web Systems was not doing well. A number of projects had to be abandoned.

For instance, Whisper's fuel-average meter -- a device that indicated how far the fuel in a petrol-tank would take the driver -- never went into production as Hero Motors changed its strategy. Admits Pankaj Munjal, 43, CEO, Hero Motors: ''They are an outstanding bunch of designers. But their weakness lies in production.'' And Whisper realised that it didn't have the pockets to sustain the foray into product-development.

When Web Systems was shut down in 1994, Whisper also went through a churning. Lopez went on a sabbatical while Mukherjee, Chopra, and Lodh agreed to split, leaving Mukherjee in charge. Says Chopra, who now heads his own product-design firm, Design Access: ''The synergies were not working any more. We found ourselves pulling in different directions.'' Adds Lopez, who has started up a graphic-design company, Lopez Designs: ''We were stretched too thin in terms of money.''

After buying the shares of the others, Mukherjee decided to stick to three areas: retail design, exhibitions, and product design, in that order. While the split saw revenues drop from Rs 27 lakh in 1993-94 to Rs 12 lakh in 1995-96, this focus has, indeed, helped the company bounce back. Why, Whisper is, at present, talking to the British design firm, Edward Briscoe Design, to forge a partnership. While Mukherjee hopes to export the services Whisper sells by competing on cost and capability, the inventer in him waits patiently for tougher patent laws. When that happens, Whisper will have a chance to shout from the roof-tops -- by (product) design.

Issue Contents  Write to us  Subscriptions