Designing MemoryShaping Moments That Last Forever
Shaping Moments That Last ForeverTake colour, for instance. Saffron doesn’t just signify vibrance, it can signal faith, politics or protest, depending on where and how it’s used. A banana leaf motif may seem sacred in Tamil Nadu but might feel unfamiliar in Mizoram. Even typography holds emotion, a rounded Devanagari typeface can evoke softness or devotion, while a sharp Latin style might evoke momentum & action.These aren’t just design elements. They’re memory triggers. In India, where people often recognise before they read and feel, design that evokes familiarity can do the heavy lifting. It taps into what people already carry: moments, smells, sounds, relationships. Memory makes a message land faster. It builds trust not through explanation, but through recognition. This is why culturally anchored design holds so much potential. It doesn’t just reflect the audience’s world. It tells them: we see you.Take Paperboat. It sells nostalgia but without cliché. The packs don’t shout “tradition.” Their visual language feels contemporary and global. But the names and flavours like Aam Panna, Jaljeera do the emotional work. They act as memory cues, bringing the past into the present. The packaging isn’t sentimental, but the product is.
Contrast that with McDonald’s India. The McAloo Tikki, the Jain menus without onion or garlic, these aren’t surface-level adaptations. They’re operational design choices that embed culture into the very infrastructure. In this case, memory isn’t visual, it’s behavioural. The brand isn’t using symbols to evoke emotion. It’s building relevance through practice, through rituals that feel known.But let’s not pretend it always works this well. Take the countless Diwali campaigns that lean on stock imagery: marigolds, diyas, rangolis, not because they mean something to the audience but because they’re the default visual vocabulary. When brands overuse such motifs, culture becomes a costume. And if that costume doesn’t fit everyone, it risks alienating those whose memories don’t match the mainstream.Culture can backfire when used thoughtlessly. Consider Fabindia’s 2021 Diwali campaign titled Jashn-e-Riwaaz. The intent was to be inclusive and plural but it quickly drew backlash from audiences who objected to the Urdu phrase being used for a Hindu festival. Under pressure, the brand pulled the campaign, raising serious questions about how fragile public memory has become. And how politicised cultural cues now are. Not everyone sees their identity reflected in the same cues. India’s younger audiences often don’t seek memory, they seek momentum. Their references are shaped by global media, memes and indie creators. For them, the emotional connection isn’t about remembering, it’s about belonging in the now.That’s where brands like boAt or SUGAR have excelled. Their language is sharp and urban, with gen z and millennials as their target audeince, their focus remains on connecting with the younger generations. boAt doesn’t use Indian motifs to appeal to youth; it builds identity through self-expression. SUGAR skips the nostalgia and builds recognition through tone, sass, and transparency.So where does that leave us?Memory isn’t always linear but it’s always powerful. And in a country like India, where people carry multiple histories at once; caste, language, geography, gender, class, and more, designing memory is never neutral. That’s why the best design choices don’t start with “What do people like?” but with “What do people carry with them?” Sometimes it's a legacy. Sometimes memory. Sometimes an aspiration. There’s no fixed formula. And maybe that’s the point. To design for India is not to find one truth. It's to learn how to navigate many. Culture doesn’t give you answers. It gives you a language. And what you say in it and how carefully you listen makes all the difference.But even here, there’s a form of memory at play. It’s not intergenerational memory; it’s personal memory. A campaign doesn’t need to reference a festival to feel intimate, sometimes even a phrase, a mood, a meme is enough. So does that mean cultural design is outdated? Not at all. But it does mean we must stop treating culture like a shortcut. Culture is not a palette to pick from. It's there to anchor meaning. And meaning can come from memory or momentum. In these cases, culture isn’t being replicated, it’s being interpreted. Sometimes through aesthetics, sometimes through behaviour, sometimes through tone. 
