Sutirtha De conducts writing workshop at William Penn

Sutirtha De hails from Chinsurah near Calcutta, which was once a Dutch colony, which perhaps explains the characteristic features of his work – which is disciplined, conservative, and the attention to the smallest details crowning their glories. Just like the Dutch, he is thrifty in his creativity, hardworking, practical and well organized, almost to a fault.

Sutirtha De currently is a Design Consultant and Educator / Consultant doubling up as a Visiting Faculty at NID Ahmedabad, NID Vijaywada, IIT Jammu, NIFT Bangalore and NIFT Patna. He was till recently, associated with Flathead Design Private Limited, Bangalore – a start-up sneaker company. In this avatar, he conceptualised India’s first natural fibre bamboo shoe for the brand.  His designs were launched for the brand in US market as lately as in August 2021.

He worked as Associate Senior Designer, Jute Design Cell, Innovation Centre for Natural Fibres Department and also an Educator/ Faculty for Lifestyle & Accessory Design at the National Institute of Design, for 5 years at the Postgraduate Campus, Gandhinagar. He is an Economics graduate from University of Burdwan and a Post Graduate from National Institute of Fashion Technology in Leather Design. He was master trained by ARS Sutoria School experts from Milan in Bags & Accessories Designing.

 He has 21+ years industry experience working across many Indian and international brands for design and product development (accessories/ apparel/footwear – knits, woven & leather) spanning over 16 years.  Before joining NID in 2015 he has worked with various entities – Tata International (leather export division), ColorPlus, Arrow, Lee, Wrangler, Louis Philippe, Reid & Taylor and also independently consulted for Puma, Saville Row and several start-ups. Sutirtha has been awarded the India Design Mark 2017 award for Jute Fashion Tote Bag design.

Sutirtha has developed custom logos for different brands (Paul John Whiskey) and also commissioned custom art works. He has been the Official Calligrapher for the Office of The Chief Minister, Rajasthan (2014 – 15).

 Sutirtha’s love for Calligraphy developed in his high school days (1992-93) and he has been pursuing it ever since.  The thrill and fun catapulted to a serious passion for him since 2010 after he bought some new writing instruments and started to teach himself. In August 2018 he went for Master training at Calligraphy Residency with the master calligraphers of this era – Sheila Waters and Julian Waters – at the Waters’ Residence in Pennsylvania, USA, and since then with other Masters – John Stevens (USA) Yukimi Anand (USA) Christopher Haanes (Norway) Duy Huy Hoang (Vietnam).

Sutirtha is also deeply passionate about photography.

Thus, for the twenty odd enthusiasts who enrolled for Sutirtha Dey’s Calligraphy orientation workshop last Sunday at the Koramangala store of William Penn in Bangalore, it was like a manna from the Heavens. True to his character, and thanks to Sutirtha’s solid grounding as a teacher, the workshop was not only extremely well crafted, but was also very rich in content, with the conductor’s passion for the craft helping it attain heights that are seldom scaled in the short span of time in which it was conducted.

“It is always a pleasure to take your craft outside the confines of the academic institutions and reach out to a bigger audience of interested learners” said Sutirtha De, adding his gratitude to Nikhil Ranjan, the owner of William Penn and his team for facilitating such an exercise, “especially in these pandemic infested times, when more and more people are taking up calligraphy as a potent tool to fight depression, to delve inwards and unleash the potential of their inherent creativity.”

Varun Sharma of William Penn, who was instrumental in organising the event was equally ecstatic, “with Sutirtha De’s workshop our weekend interaction, which had begun with the launch of Sailor’s Fika Collection, featuring talks by the distinguished polymath Prof Y Pitkar and the Maestro Prof K C Janardhan reached its crescendo. I must admit that the event surpassed my expectations by far and I consider myself privileged to have been a part of this highly educative and enlightening exercise.”

Participants to the event were also thankful to William Penn for organising such a mind-bending event, expressing their hope that such events will be held more often.

For More information visit: https://www.williampenn.net/