Education
Six modules in Kohei Sugiura's design methodology — taught nowhere else in the world. In person, Puducherry. Developed and led by Prof Kirti Trivedi from four decades of close study.
Applications reviewed against module capacity. Acceptance confirmed before payment is requested. Bank transfer details issued on acceptance.
Apply for a module EnquireA book is not a flat surface. It is an object in space — with a spine, a weight, a texture, a way of being held. This module begins where Sugiura's own book design practice begins: treating the book object itself as the first design problem, before a single line of text is set. Participants work directly with physical book structures, materials, and the relationship between cover, spine, and page sequence.
The relationship between image and text in Asian typography is not a hierarchy — image subordinate to text, or text explaining image — but a genuine, productive dialogue. This module works directly with that relationship: designing with image and text as equal and interdependent elements, drawing on examples from Japanese, Indian, and Chinese visual culture. There is no direct parallel in Western typographic education.
Sugiura's typographic practice is built around the idea of variation as a generative design tool — not the application of a fixed system, but the exploration of a set of rules that produce different outcomes depending on how they are applied. This module studies variation programs drawn from natural and mathematical structures, and their application in book design, grid construction, and information layout.
The magazine as a design form is distinct from the book in its relationship to time, to seriality, to the coexistence of many different voices and content types within a single visual system. This module studies magazine design as a sustained typographic and editorial problem — drawing on Sugiura's own extensive work in Japanese magazine design and on the SAKS publication Matrika as a live case study.
The fifth module widens the frame: what does it mean to design from within the Asian visual tradition rather than toward it as an outside observer? Sugiura's own position — as a Japanese designer working in sustained dialogue with Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese visual philosophers — and his published dialogues on Asian graphic design are the source material. Prof Trivedi was a credited contributor to those dialogues; this module is taught from the inside.
Sugiura's information diagrams are among his most widely reproduced work — complex systems of knowledge made visible through rigorous visual structure. This final module studies the diagram as a design form distinct from chart or infographic: a visual argument, not a visual summary. Participants develop their own diagrammatic projects across the week, working in areas relevant to their own practice.
All six modules take place at Villa Appavou, a 143/1 Periyar Nagar Main Road, Manaveli, Ariankuppam, Puducherry 605007. The space was chosen for its relationship to the broader Puducherry creative community and its proximity to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Getting here
Apply
Fill in the form with your details and module preference. The team will confirm a seat before requesting payment. If a module is full, you will be offered a place on the waitlist.
Payment is by bank transfer on seat confirmation. Details will be issued by the admissions team.
Questions?
Use the Enquire form →Application Form
Tally or Google Form embed goes here.
Fields: name, email, phone, professional background,
module selection, prior Sugiura exposure,
travel/accommodation needs.