Mahendra Patel (21.02.1943) is a retired senior faculty member from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, India.

After his studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, and at NID, he did Advance Graphic Design at School of Design, Basel, Switzerland, in 1968.

Later in 1971, he worked for one year on type design projects at Atelier Frutiger in Paris.

His work has concentrated on type design development projects of Indian scripts. He has also worked extensively on map design projects, including Tourist and Bus-route Maps for Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation; Guide Maps for Gujarat State and Goa District; Irrigation and Ecology Maps for Gujarat State; Industrial and Archeological Maps for Government of India.

In 2000, he designed the Signage Design System for Tirumala and Tirupati Devasthanam, India’s most privileged place.

In 2002 He designed the Signage Design System for Hyderabad City.

After retiring from NID, he is busy designing matching fonts for all Indian scripts, including English.

He has taught and practiced for 39 years at NID since 1964. He also conducts workshops and courses at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda; Srishti College of Arts and Design, Bangalore and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), and Industrial Design Centre, IIT, Mumbai and Indian Institute of Crafts, Jaipur.

He has also taught at Rhode Island School of Design, USA; Nova Scotia College of Arts, Canada; Christchurch College of Arts, New Zealand and Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture, Pakistan.