Ayon Sarkar
ProfessorAyon has had a promising design career spanning 27 years. He has been successful in carving a niche for himself as a hardcore advertising professional and academician over the years. He has had an illustrious advertising career that went for more than 21 years. Ayon had the privilege of serving the Indian Advertising Industry in various capacities ranging between an Art Director to an Executive Creative Director. All through his advertising journey, Ayon had the opportunity of working with some of the Industry giants, MNCs like J. Walter Thompson (JWT), Saatchi & Saatchi, Rediffusion DY&R, Bates CHI and Partners, Cheil Worldwide (A Samsung Group Company) and Leo Burnett (New Delhi and Dhaka, Bangladesh).
His advertising journey was consistently exciting as he encountered new challenges on the way while handling creative duties of a wide spectrum of brands like Coca-Cola, Samsung, Airtel, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, Pizza Hut, GSK, Dettol (Reckitt and Colman), Sony Ericsson, Canon, Videocon, Magic Moments, Malaysia Airlines and Mother Dairy to name a few. Ayon played a prime role in many successfully run advertising campaigns that demanded extensive conceptualisation and execution. Those advertising campaigns have a strong recall value even today. He has had the privilege of heading several creative departments for many years during which he successfully exercised his managerial skills by bridging the ideological and philosophical gaps between the clients and the advertising firm. He has also got the opportunity to mentor several next generation creative people who are doing well in the industry today.
Ayon has always been a student of life. And life has always offered him opportunities to understand deep human insights that have often come in handy while designing effective visual communication solutions. He believes that design is of the people, by the people, for the people and one cannot arrive at a design solution without empathising the end-users.
Ayon’s decades of experiences in advertising has given him his share of glory in the form of national and international awards in revered award festivals like Cannes Lion, One show, Goa Adfest and Asia Pacific Adfest.As an industry expert, Ayon has often been invited by prestigious universities and institutes for sharing his holistic experience in the form of lecture sessions and workshops. He has been invited as a guest faculty at NIFT, Kolkata to conduct a module on Fashion Communication and has also been on the jury panel at Faculty of Visual Arts, BHU and NIFT, New Delhi.
The avatar of a mentor/teacher in him inspired him to switch gears eventually and so he gradually steered himself into the world of academics. Ever since, he has been sharing his experiences and expertise with students while collaborating for their design projects and honing their skill to make them industry-ready. Ayon’s last engagement was with GLS Institute of Design, GLS University, Ahmedabad, where he has spent 6 years, conducting both elementary and advanced design modules across design disciplines.Ayon has a Bachelors in Visual Arts from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He also holds a Masters in Applied Art and an M.Phil in Applied Art. He has done his Ph.D in Fine Arts.