"Only those designers who are versed in the history of design will fully comprehend the ideas behind their daily work" ~ Wolfgang Weingart

A post-card for Asheem:

Pen & ink, mixed-media on inland letter [2013]

This project was done for Little Black Book Delhi {LBBD} and was aimed at creating a post-card about Delhi, an escape within the city. {LBBD} is a curated online space that celebrates the people, places, art, culture, food and lifestyle of Delhi.

This is a tribute/eulogy to Asheem Chakravarty ~ The Man with the Golden Voice; Indian Ocean's percussionist and vocalist who passed away on the 25th of December, 2009.

Brody: Bold

Brody: Bold | Mixed media on Canvas [2012]

I've always admired Neville Brody's work whilst in college. Well, him and David Carson whom you couldn't simply ignore. One can not undermine Raygun and a lot of his avant garde work – it is however another matter that I've outgrown Carson's heathen design sense but with Brody, over the years, his work has slipped into recesses of my brain that I didn't access or more accurately lost amidst the plethora of information and visual overload that a designer goes through on a daily basis.

This is an apology and an attempt at a homage to his Ocean's series of posters.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again...”~ George Orwell {Animal Farm}

Away

"The thing I hate most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little." Banksy

Very Very Special

"He rose to the occasion like a backbencher suddenly standing in an important debate and producing a speech so full of gravitas that the government itself took notice." 
- Peter Roebuck on VVS's 281 vs Aus, 2nd Test, Eden Gardens
http://www.espncricinfo.com/wac/content/story/225368.html

When I first saw Syntax...

Hans Eduard Meier is to modern day typography what Gabriel Garcia Marquez is to the literature of our times. Like writers of today built on Marquez's magic realism, Syntax has to be that epic font which brought about noticeable change.

I used to always try and find at font which inspired and changed the way type was looked at in our generation. It was when I discovered Spiekermann's Meta (1991) that I started formulating this personal theory; a gradual genealogy – from hand fabricated type to harsh geometry to humanist and finally to a distinctly angular approach and largely European tinge that is avant garde today. Bil'ak's Fedra confirms this theory.

These were rebels that did not build from but were more of an anti-thesis to earlier typefaces. While Meta in intent opposed Helvetica, Fedra was designed to ‘de-protestantize Univers.' And then came Scala Sans (1993) and Martin Majoor's philosophy of combining typefaces and why serif and san serifs must be designed with a clear intent of combining them harmoniously.For me the buck stopped at Scala Sans. Originally drawn to compliment Scala* (1990) – humble beginnings of super families as we know them today. 

*Majoor contradicts himself here. In his design philosophy he points out the similarity in the skeletal structure of Scala and Scala Sans whereas in an interview with Peter Bil'ak he refutes it.

I can't say much about Syntax which I discovered much later. Hans Eduard Meier, designed it in 1968. Meier described Syntax as being a sans-serif face modeled on the Renaissance serif typeface, similar to Bembo. 

But you have to look closer and beyond the two storeys of 'a' and 'g' to see the visionary approach it endows.

Blood & Tears

Homage to the Senti Don – Faisal Khan from Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur, a great character played to perfection by Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Be it stoic endurance of haunting childhood memories or an all guns blazing show of emotions whilst wooing the salubrious (yes, that's the word) Huma Ji or his thirst for revenge, he pulls it off with gusto.

Adam Films

Adam Films is a collaborative work with Sushil Chintak, senior from college, friend and mentor. With Adam Films we wanted to categorically move away from the clichés that the name Adam carries with it and we finally froze on ivy leaves which can be seen in historical depictions of Adam & Eve. These ivy leaves, concealing and revealing were in context to techniques used in traditional film making.