It isn’t just software engineers who have made it big, but the backroom boys of Indian publishing have done it as well, if not better. They are the graphic designers who perform a range of activities, including typesetting and page-layouts to make a book attractive and user-friendly. Increasingly, they have been commissioned by American, British and European publishers for STM (science, technology and medicine), big coffee-table pictorials, tourist guides and so on. With desktop publishing, personal webpages and hundreds of digital fonts freely available on the internet, publishers have discovered a quick way of making money.

Why have graphic designers taken off and why have several Western publishers turned to Indian designers to do their jobs? What does the job entail and what does the future hold?

The answer to the first question is simple: computerization of the production process and the communications revolution or ‘the death of distance’. Rapid computerization has meant that the quality of typesetting would be the same as anywhere else in the world: it is the same machine and software, whether it is in New York, London, or Bangalore. Quality will not be diluted, provided the instructions given to keyboard operators are precise: the print area, typeface and font to be used, inter-linear spacing and so on.

But this isn’t enough for a technical book, especially when it comes to scientific and mathematical books. Here, the keyboard operator must know mathematical symbols, how physical and chemical equations are set out on a page. Without this knowledge, he could make a mess of things. It isn’t just a mechanical operation of punching in the keys; the operator must recognize the difference between derivates and integrals and other formulae to do a proper job.

It is here that Indian keyboard operators score over their Western counterparts. They may not know their sciences, but they have the ability to distinguish one mathematical, physical or chemical symbol from another. Of course, they have them in the West too, but they come there at a very heavy price.

Until some years ago, Indian graphic designers were faulted over delayed delivery dates, but this is a thing of a past. Every graphic design unit has its own power back-up now with broadband connectivity that provides instant access to the publisher. There are two other factors to explain why Western publishers are increasingly wooing Indian graphic designers. Their knowledge of the English language, which makes communication so much easier. And their fees, compared to Western artists, are rock bottom. With a little more fine-tuning of the latest trends, Indian graphic designers would hit the world scene sooner than we think.