Dr. Santosh Kshirsagar is an internationally renowned Indian calligrapher, researcher, designer, and academician with over 35 years of experience in Indian calligraphy, typography, handwriting research, and visual communication. He holds B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, and a Ph.D. from IDC, IIT Bombay. He is the former Dean of the Sir J. J. School of Design and the former Director of the Directorate of Art, Government of Maharashtra. He has conducted hundreds of workshops across India and abroad, and presented his research at leading international conferences including ICTVC, ATypI, ICoRD, and the International Graphonomics Society. He has delivered keynote addresses at Typography Day and served on its Advisory Board from 2008 to 2025. He is the founder of Aksharaya, dedicated to advancing Indian scripts, calligraphy, typography, and design education.

Yogesh Jahagirdar is a PhD Scholar at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, and a Professor at ISDI School of Design & Innovation, Atlas SkillTech University, Mumbai. An alumnus of Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, he brings over 15 years of industry experience, having worked with organizations including the Reserve Bank of India, Godrej, and Nature’s Bounty (Tanzania). His expertise spans Visual Brand Design, Publication Design, Typography, and Calligraphy, with a particular interest in the relationship between language, script, and visual communication. He is a founding member of Aksharaya, an initiative focused on documenting, exploring, and promoting Indian scripts and typographic heritage. With over a decade of teaching experience, his academic interests include typography, visual communication, design education, Indian scripts, visual culture, and design research.

Vinay Saynekar is a Type Designer, Calligrapher and a Design Educator. He completed his graduation and later post-graduation from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai University and joined a paper company, Chimanlal’s Pvt Ltd, as Chief Design Consultant. In 1984 he returned to his college to teach and remained an inspiring teacher of Typography and Calligraphy in JJ till 2011. He has taken several lectures in various Art and Design Colleges, on alphabets and their design. He wrote a book for Calligraphy enthusiasts – Aksharsaundarya: Nirmiti ani Itihas, Beautifying Letters: Creation and History. In his association with the renowned typographer Prof R K Joshi as a member of font design team in CDAC, he designed fonts in various Indian languages - for Microsoft Corporation: Tunga (Kannada Script), Vrinda (Bengali) and for Linux – Jan-Marathi, Jan-Bengali and Jan-Kannada.

Girish Dalvi is a faculty at the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, where he teaches visual design, interaction design, and design research. He holds a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering, a Master's in Design from NID, and a PhD from IIT Bombay, where his doctoral work developed a theoretical model of Devanagari typefaces. His research covers Devanagari typography, including its history, type-making technology, classification, and type culture. He also works in the areas of culture-sensitive interaction and Indian-language text input. He has also published papers in the area of game design and education. He has co-developed several font families including Mukta, Baloo, Jaini, and Anek. Most of these fonts are released under free and open-source licenses.

Noopur Datye is a type designer and calligrapher from Mumbai, India. She is one of the co-founders of Ek Type, a collaborative, multi-script type foundry that has designed typefaces in seventeen of the many writing systems used in India. Her work includes custom Bengali and Devanagari typefaces for television channels Star Jalsa and LifeOk, open source typefaces Mukta Vaani (Gujarati), Mukta Mahee (Gurmukhi), Baloo (Gujarati, Bangla), Noto (Dogra, Gunjala Gondi and Masaram Gondi), the Anek Mukti-script Family, Honk, and Nithya Ranjana. Her work has won several awards including the Yellow Pencil at D&AD, Best of Show at TDC, CA’s Awards of Excellence and Black Elephants at Kyoorius Design Awards. Noopur has presented her work in several international conferences and has conducted workshops on calligraphy and letterform design at design schools and conferences in India.

Pradnya Naik is graduated from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art and specialised in the field of Indic Typography, Type Design, Lettering and Calligraphy currently based in Jamnagar, India. Having worked as a graphic designer with WhiteCrow Designs, she was involved in type design activities for multiple Indic scripts like Devanagari, Gujarati and Urdu. After pursuing her post-graduation from Type & Media at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, The Netherlands in 2012, she worked as a Research Associate at IDC school of design at IIT, Bombay with Prof. Girish Dalvi on Analysis of Jain Manuscript calligraphy, Devanagari Font Search Tool and Glyph Diaries. Pradnya has been involved in teaching calligraphy, typography and type design at various design schools in India.

An alumnus of Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Sarang specialises in type design and calligraphy. In 2005, he founded ‘WhiteCrow’ – a type foundry and design studio based in Mumbai. With clients such as Vodafone, Virgin Mobile, Star Network, Coca Cola, Flipkart, Future Group, Godrej, Facebook and Pidilite, his studio has steadily found its niche in multi-lingual branding, designing custom typefaces across Indian scripts and calligraphy. He is an invited member of Alliance Graphic International (AGI). Apart from his commercial ventures, Sarang conducts workshops related to multi-script typography in conferences, advertising/design agencies & design schools.

Prof. Shubhanand Jog, 61, is a calligrapher, designer, and educator with over three decades at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. Joining in 1996, he has shaped generations of students while sustaining his own practice. He holds an M.F.A. in Exhibition Design, Display & Stage Craft. The State Government of Maharashtra appointed him as a core team member for establishing Sir J. J. School of Art, Architecture and Design – De-novo deemed to-be university. He also chaired its postgraduate Design Education syllabus committee. His work has earned four international awards and the Maharashtra Rajya Kala Puraskar. His film Angel of Peace screened at the Texas International Film Festival, World Social Forum Mumbai, and Mumbai International Film Festival. Working across calligraphy, logo design, font creation, and book covers. His calligraphic citations have honoured over 24 personalities including P. L. Deshpande, R. K. Laxman. etc. He merges tradition with innovation.

Graduated from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art in 1990. In over two decades of advertising, Vikram has worked on and contributed to almost every brand worth its salt. His work has won hundreds of golds and silvers in many national and international award shows including Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Spikes Asia and Clio. He has been a judge at many different advertising awards shows both local and international including the Cannes Lions.