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Itu Chaudhuri
Itu Chaudhuri is an Indian graphic designer, author, typographer, columnist, actor and architect based in New Delhi. He is the principal at Itu Chaudhuri Design, a design and strategic brand consulting agency that he leads with partner Lisa Rath.

Itu is known for his editorial design projects with leading Indian publications Economic Times, The Times of India, Man’s World, Open Magazine, Outlook Traveller. His agency has designed corporate identities and packaging projects for Eicher Motors, Nestle R&D, Haldirams, McNroe, Tata Beverages, Sleepwell, Jack Daniel's among others.

Early Life
Itu is the son of sculptor Sankho Chaudhuri and ceramicist Ira Chaudhuri. Both his parents were deeply involved in the Indian art movement. His father is a Padma Shri recipient. His mother was honoured with the the Jaya Appasamy Life Time Award in 2017, the Kalidasa Sanman, 2022.

His formative years were spent on the grounds of the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, where his father taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts, one of the major art colleges in India. Itu is also related to Bengali film director Ritwik Ghatak. The writer-activist Mahashweta Devi was his first cousin.

His uncle, Sachin Chaudhuri was the founding editor of Economic Weekly, which later became Economic and Political Weekly, the prestigious Indian scholarly journal.

Itu attended the Rishi Valley School and took a bachelor’s in architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in 1984 but pursued his interests in letterform and graphic design instead.

Design Career
Itu began his graphic design career at India Today. At India Today that Itu met typographer Aurobind Patel, who was to become the future design director at The Economist. He formed a close working relationship with Aurobind, assisting him in multiple projects.

Aurobind commissioned Itu for multiple infographics and illustrations for the magazine issues, illustrating historical events like the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Operation Blue Star, the first Indian in space, Rakesh Sharma among other notable work.

Itu started Itu Chaudhuri Design (ICD) in 1993 with 2 people, taking up branding, book cover design, editorial and identity design projects.

The firm grew steadily in size and stature over the next 5 years, with partner Lisa Rath joining in 1998.

Itu now leads ICD on a variety of projects spanning brand consulting, product design, editorial design, packaging design, UI UX design. He is a regular speaker at design conferences and festivals across the Indian subcontinent and has delivered talks on design at IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, the H.Y. Sharada Prasad Memorial at the India International Centre, New Delhi.

Itu has been a visiting faculty at the National Institute of Design, Ashoka University and consulted the UCLA Arts, Los Angeles on curriculum development.

His work was also published in World Graphic Design by Merrell in 2003.

Writing
Itu wrote a column called ‘Deep Design’ in Business Standard from 2016 to 2020, exploring current events and trends from a design lens, the column found a niche audience in the corporate world.

He has authored multiple pieces on design for publications including The Platform Magazine, Outlook Traveller, Open Magazine and Paper Planes.

Itu is also a fiction writer and has contributed short stories to Civil Lines 6, an anthology of Indian fiction writing, published by HarperCollins.

Other work
Itu has worked as a production designer for a television series directed by National Award winning filmmaker, Sanjay Kak under the banner of Octave Communications. He assisted Pradip Krishen as a production designer for his movie Bargad. He also played the role of Big Shit in Pradip Krishen’s cult classic In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.

In the early 1990s Itu developed India’s first electronically distributed service to create and distribute syndicated, ready-to-print current affairs graphics to 70+ client newspapers, using public telephone networks, before mail or the internet was introduced in India.

Awards and Recognition
President’s Award for excellence in illustration for a children’s book, Pagdandiyan in 1981.

Typography Jury President, D&AD Awards, 2020.

Filmography
In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones’, Directed by Pradip Kishen, 1989.

Bargad (Unreleased).