Designer Michael Johnson of johnson banks, looks back at his recent visit to India, where he found a design scene that is beginning to reflect the country's unique and rich visual language...
On my first ever trip to India, I managed to embarrass myself before I'd even landed. As the plane banked and approached the runway, I noticed multiple blue rectangles on the ground and thought 'wow, that's a lot of swimming pools'.
Those 'pools', I soon discovered, were the blue tarpaulin roofs of the slums by the airport, protection against the imminent monsoon. Before stepping off the plane I already felt like a colonial plonker, and shame has stopped me retelling the story until now.