MUMBAI: It was an evening where design roared louder than words and elephants ruled the room. The 2025 Kyoorius Design Awards and Kyoorius Young Blood Awards, both presented by Zee, wrapped up in style at the Taj Cidade de Goa, Horizon, with over 1,000 members of India’s design fraternity cheering the winners.
After three days of Designyatra, India’s biggest anti-disciplinary design conference, the awards night saw the stage lit up by the much-coveted elephants. The spotlight first swung to the Young Blood Awards, the only platform in India dedicated to nurturing the next generation of creatives. Tasked with cracking live briefs from Ather and Bingo! (ITC Foods), young designers delivered big: out of 475 plus entries, 63 made it to The First List, and finally 22 entries claimed Baby Red Elephants. The night then revealed the majestic 6 Red Elephant winners, the ultimate nod to fresh, fearless talent.
The headline act of the evening was the Kyoorius Design Awards itself. From over 700 entries, only 75 projects managed to take home Baby Blue Elephants. Among them, 23 stood tall as Blue Elephant winners, each piece recognised for setting new benchmarks in creativity and craft. But the true rarities were the 2 Black Elephants, reserved exclusively for the Best of Show. This year, they went to ‘Naatak’, a stunning font project by typography studio Ektype, and ‘Desi Oon’, an animated long-form film by Studio Eeksaurus for the Centre For Pastoralism.
Unlike traditional award shows that deal in gold, silver and bronze, Kyoorius keeps it delightfully democratic: only work that truly deserves it wins an Elephant. Baby Elephants mark disruptive and showcase-worthy ideas, Blue Elephants signal industry-defining excellence, and Black Elephants represent work that not only takes risks but creates conversations with lasting cultural impact.
The grand gala capped off what many in the industry now call the “festival of ideas” where design isn’t just celebrated but canonised. For the winners, carrying home a Kyoorius Elephant isn’t just an award; it’s an entry into a creative hall of fame where originality trumps hierarchy and risk-taking is the ultimate reward.