Print, posters, comics and advertising

Where

Mainz, Germany. This replica is in the printing museum at El Puig, near Valencia, Spain

When

1440s; the Gutenberg Bible was printed in the 1450s

Who

Johannes Gutenberg, Germany

Made with

A wooden screw press, metal letters cast in a hand mould, and oil-based ink

Gutenberg cast thousands of small metal letters in a mould, all exactly the same size. A printer set them in lines to make a page, inked them, and pressed paper onto them with a wooden screw press, like the presses farmers used. After printing, the letters were taken apart and reused for the next page, which is why it is called movable type. His Bible, printed in Mainz in the 1450s, is also called the 42-line Bible because most of its pages have 42 lines. Books became far cheaper and faster to make, and new ideas spread across Europe.

Where

St Paul's College, Old Goa

When

1556

Who

Jesuit missionaries, in Portuguese-ruled Goa

In 1556 a ship carrying Jesuit missionaries and a printing press stopped at Goa on its way from Portugal to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). The mission there fell through, the clergy in Goa asked to keep the press, and it was set up at St Paul's College in Old Goa. That made it the first printing press in India, about a hundred years after Gutenberg. Its first known work, printed the same year, was a set of philosophy theses for students, and it went on to print mostly religious books. The title page shown here is from a later Goa book: Thomas Stephens's Christian teachings in Konkani, printed at the Jesuit college in Rachol in 1622.

Where

Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of British India

When

First issue 29 January 1780; closed in 1782. This page is from 10 March 1781

Who

James Augustus Hicky, an Irishman

India's first newspaper, and the first printed anywhere in Asia, was a weekly paper in English. Hicky began with news, gossip and advertisements, but soon attacked the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and officials of the East India Company, accusing them of corruption. The Company stopped the paper from being sent by post, Hicky was jailed after libel cases, and in 1782 his printing type was seized, which ended the paper. It is remembered as the start of the fight for a free press in India.

Where

Bombay (Mumbai), first published by India Book House

When

1967

Who

Anant Pai, known to readers as Uncle Pai

Anant Pai was dismayed when a 1967 quiz on Doordarshan showed that Indian children could answer questions about Greek myths but not say who Rama's mother was. That year he started Amar Chitra Katha with India Book House, to retell the epics, myths, legends, history and lives of great Indians as comics. The first Indian title was Krishna. The series became hugely popular, and for many Indian families it was the way children first met the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

Where

Bombay (Mumbai)

When

First issue 1980

Who

Anant Pai, its founding editor

Pai followed Amar Chitra Katha with Tinkle, a children's magazine of comics, stories, puzzles and quizzes, which also printed stories sent in by its readers. Its best-loved characters are Suppandi, a servant who follows every instruction far too literally, and Shikari Shambu, a timid hunter who wins only by luck.

When

Early 1970s, for the Hindi children's magazine Lotpot

Who

Pran Kumar Sharma (Pran), 1938 to 2014

Chacha Chaudhary is an ordinary old man who solves problems and catches crooks with common sense, not muscles, powers or gadgets. Fans say his brain works faster than a computer. Beside him is Sabu, a giant from the planet Jupiter who does the heavy lifting. Pran also created Billoo, Pinki and Shrimatiji, and was given the Padma Shri after his death, in 2015.

Where

This statue stands at the Symbiosis campus in Pune

When

You Said It ran in The Times of India from 1951

Who

R.K. Laxman, 1921 to 2015

Laxman, the younger brother of the novelist R.K. Narayan, drew a daily pocket cartoon called You Said It in The Times of India for more than fifty years. Its hero, the Common Man, wears a checked jacket and dhoti and never says a word. He just watches, puzzled, while politicians and officials make a mess of things. Laxman also illustrated his brother's Malgudi stories, including the sketches for the Malgudi Days television series, and in 1954 he drew Gattu, the Asian Paints mascot. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1984 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2005.

Where

Loutolim, Goa; worked mostly for papers in Bombay

When

1926 to 2011

Who

Cartoonist and painter

Mario drew busy, good-humoured scenes packed with people: Goan villages, churches, markets, offices and parties, with every face given its own character. He became famous through The Illustrated Weekly of India and drew for years for The Times of India and The Economic Times, where readers met characters such as the glamorous Miss Fonseca. He received the Padma Shri in 1988, the Padma Bhushan in 2002, and the Padma Vibhushan after his death, in 2012.

Where

New Delhi

When

1948 to 1975

Who

K. Shankar Pillai (Shankar), 1902 to 1989

Shankar, often called the father of Indian political cartooning, started this humour magazine in 1948, modelled on Britain's Punch. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a friend, launched it and told him, "Don't spare me, Shankar." The weekly gave young cartoonists such as R.K. Laxman, Abu Abraham and Kutty a place to start. It closed in 1975, soon after the Emergency was declared. Shankar then gave his time to children: he had already founded the Children's Book Trust (1957) and Shankar's International Dolls Museum (1965) in Delhi, and he received the Padma Vibhushan in 1976.

When

1924 to 2002

Who

Attupurathu Mathew Abraham, from Mavelikara, Keralam (Kerala until 2026)

Abu started at The Bombay Chronicle and Shankar's Weekly, then moved to London in 1953. In 1956 The Observer made him its first political cartoonist, and he later drew for The Guardian. Back home, he was the political cartoonist of The Indian Express from 1969 to 1981, and a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha from 1972 to 1978. His most famous cartoon, from the Emergency in 1975, shows President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed in his bathtub while a hand pushes more ordinances (emergency laws) through the door for him to sign.

Where

Hoardings, starting in Bombay, then across India

When

1966 onwards; topical from 1967

Who

Sylvester daCunha and his art director Eustace Fernandes, of the agency ASP (Advertising and Sales Promotion)

When ASP won Amul's butter account in 1966, it needed a mascot simple enough for painters to copy by hand onto hoardings that changed often. It came up with a naughty little girl in a polka-dot dress, and the line "Utterly Butterly Delicious". Soon the hoardings turned topical: each one makes a pun on that week's news, from cricket and films to scams and politics, and ends with the girl and her butter. Some have annoyed the people they joked about, which only made them more famous. Sylvester daCunha's son Rahul later took the campaign over, and it is one of the longest-running ad campaigns in the world.

When

1928 to 2018

Who

Head of the agency Lintas in India, and a theatre director and actor

Key works

The Liril girl in the waterfall, Lalitaji for Surf, Hamara Bajaj, the MRF Muscle Man

Padamsee led Lintas in India for many years and made it one of the country's top agencies, and he is often called the father of modern Indian advertising. For Liril soap, his team filmed a young woman (Karen Lunel) laughing under a waterfall, selling the soap as a moment of freshness and freedom. For Surf, they created Lalitaji (played by Kavita Chaudhury), a sensible housewife who explains why paying a little more for a better detergent is the smart buy. He was also a leading figure in English theatre in Bombay, played Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the film Gandhi (1982), and received the Padma Shri in 2000.

When

1989

Who

Lintas, under Alyque Padamsee, for Bajaj Auto

These television ads for Bajaj scooters, above all the Chetak, showed Indians of every region, religion and job riding a Bajaj, to a jingle that ends with the words "Hamara Bajaj" ("our Bajaj"). Instead of listing the scooter's features, the ads sold a feeling: one country sharing one ride, and pride in something made in India. The line became so well known that it was reused and remade for decades. The scooter in the photo is a restored 1996 Chetak.

When

1955 to 2025

Who

Creative head of Ogilvy India, born in Jaipur

Key works

Fevicol ads; "Har ghar kuch kehta hai" for Asian Paints; "Kuch khaas hai" for Cadbury Dairy Milk; the words of "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" (1988)

Pandey joined Ogilvy in 1982 and led its creative work in India for decades, later becoming its worldwide chief creative officer. He is credited with making Indian ads talk in everyday Hindi, with small-town humour, instead of copying Western ones. His Fevicol films are visual jokes about things stuck fast, such as an overloaded bus from which no passenger ever falls. For Asian Paints, "Har ghar kuch kehta hai" means "every home says something". He received the Padma Shri in 2016 and died in October 2025, aged 70.

Where

On walls, cinema fronts and hoardings across India

When

From the 1940s to the 1980s; this poster is from 1953

Made with

Paintings, reproduced in thousands by lithography

For decades, almost every Indian film was advertised with painted art. Studio artists painted the stars' faces in bold, glowing colours, often with several characters and scenes on one sheet, and the painting was printed in thousands and pasted on walls. Outside cinemas, painters made giant hoardings by hand. From the 1960s photographs crept into poster designs, and by the 1990s computer design and digital printing had replaced most of the painters.

Where

Printed in Paris for Indian State Railways

When

1928

Who

Roger Broders, a French poster artist (1883 to 1953)

Made with

Colour lithograph

In 1927 the Railway Board set up a Central Publicity Bureau in Bombay to bring tourists, especially foreign ones, onto India's trains. It ordered bright travel posters of places such as Benares, Kashmir, Darjeeling and Madurai, and showed them at stations and in shop windows abroad, with offices in London and New York. Most were drawn by British and European artists in the flat shapes and strong colours of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1931 Indian members of the legislature complained that foreign artists were paid far more than Indian ones and that some posters got India wrong. Muttra is the old British spelling of Mathura.