The year that was 2012

This is such a delayed entry, I kept trying to finish it for so long. Finally I am posting this before the end of January.
It was a momentous year, 2012. Like every year there were things that happened that changed me, taught new life lessons. This year was far too important in those aspects, for I’ve smiled, laughed hysterically, travelled, awed, been scared, encouraged, endured, failed, cried, then cried some more hopelessly, then fixed myself and smiled again and worked pretty hard. Its been a roller coster ride of experiences that has brought me closer to understanding myself and people around me. As the year 2013 is here and we’ve survived the Mayan fate, here is a glimpse of the year that was 2012 and wishing everyone a very happy new year!
2012 started with many weddings, the most important of them being Tanu’s. It was by far one of the most beautiful ceremonies I attended, and enjoyed. Tanu made a stunning bride and Akshay the perfect husband to her. March was a busy month with my friends visiting from Germany and Typography Day 2012 that was held at the Industrial Design Centre IIT, Bombay. I had the good opportunity of speaking about my Linotype internship and my first font family DIN Next Devanagari at the conference.The experience was mixed, I am quite scared of public speaking and was not easy to be facing a large audience, nonetheless I had a good time.

June was a fantastic month, I traveled a lot. Celebrating my birthday in Pondicherry was definitely a highlight of this year. I would like to thank the people who made my day so special. The trip that followed was also one of the most fun trips I’ve been to. It was amazing to walk around the cities of Bangalore and Chennai, raid book stores, talk to street painters, try calling type foundries. The temple city of Kumbakonam was mesmerizing, the Daraswaram temple is by far the most beautiful temple experiences I have had. Except for a few rough times in Chennai, I think this type trip was highly motivating; it encouraged me to learn more Indian scripts and hopefully design them someday.

July was again memorable as I travelled to London and Reading. The TDi course at the Department of Typography and Communication at the University of Reading was a very enriching experience. A very special thanks to Dan Rhatigan, Gerry Leonidas, Gerard Unger, Fiona Ross and everybody else who made this trip so wonderful. It was great to meet so many MATD students and see their work, a big hug to Dot Georgoulas! I got the opportunity to see some amazing archives at the department and the Monotype Imaging, Salfords office and get hands on feedback on some type design I started working on.

The festive season this year was also quite special, trip to Ratnagiri for Ganpati, a warm and happy Diwali with family. One of the highlights was definitely getting to decorate my room. From getting a bookshelf after much trouble, painting a wall to buying a trunk and lamps; I am very happy with the way it feels now, I’ve never had a better living space.

The year ended with a lot more weddings than it started with. Its always nice when people who mean a lot to you, celebrate their love. Kadams wedding was one such experience. Designing Kadam’s wedding card, being a part of wedding was all very special. I enjoyed being draped in sarees for all these weddings and wish all the newly married couples a very happy married life ahead! I have never worn more sarees than in these two months, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

The eventful year ended in an amazing new years celebration with some of my very dear friends. I can’t say enough how glad I am to have had Swati Dalvi here in Mumbai. I realize how special some relationships are and I have new regard for all these wonderful people in my life. My family is and will be the immense store of love and strength for me. They have proved to be such great parents time and again and they mean the world to me. Its been a great start to the year so far, with the release of my first font family DIN Next Devanagari and I am totally looking forward to the next year, I have a feeling its going to be good to me. So here’s wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! May the new year bring peace and happiness to all.

to Santa with love…

Its was a boring Friday and I was procrastinating. No weekend plans to look forward to or anything. My favourite recent past time is looking at products on flipkart. So as I was browsing I decided to make up a list of things I’d like to buy or be gifted this festive season. I am often told by my family that I am difficult to buy gifts for, this post is dedicated to all you beautiful people who have the will to give but are not aware of what.

So in no order of preference here’s things that I’ve wanted for long

Coffee maker

There’s the never ending list of books: (This is a rather incomplete list of books I want since they’re so many and I enjoy buying them myself)

Non-latin scripts from metal to digital type

Letters of credit: A view of Type Design, Walter Tracy

Letterletter, Gerrit Noordzij

Seasons, Blexbolex

This instant camera seems out of stock so I am confused between the polaroid and the Fuji.

Black palazzo pants 

Montage 2 T-shirt from House Industries

Worthe numerals from House Ind.

Coloud headphones grey or green

Speakers for my desk

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D Lens

That’s all for now, will update more on yet another boring day, till then happy holidays and here’s hoping we all don’t die the next week.

There are things I found that I’d like to add to the list, I’d like to keep updating this post as and when I stumble upon awesome things that catch my fancy!
Traditional furniture pieces from Pepperfry like:
Bedside tables, yellow or the one with blue sides
Wooden boxes
I like so many things on their website!

12.12.12

I discovered my interest in letterforms sometime during my years at NIFT. As semesters passed by my passion only grew. My graduation concluded with me doing a project with Whitecrow Designs, where I designed a Latin typeface based on devanagari calligraphy. As a part of the project document I made a page where I added my name to a list of typeface designers I referenced from the Linotype webpage for Font Designers.

I went on to do an internship with them in the winter of 2010 and had the good fortune to meet and work with some extremely talented designers. My time there was an enriching experience for more reasons than one. Since then, I have enjoyed designing typefaces, learning, researching, travelling…

And so when I got to be actually listed on their website, it is exciting. It has been amazing doing what I have been, and there is so much more to learn in the years to come. Here’s hoping that I get to make my contribution to Indian type design.

For love with love

Its the season of weddings again, I have had a pleasure of attending one already. In the coming months there will be more to look forward to. The most important one was that of my dear friend, Aniruddha Kadam. Kadam as I fondly call him, is one of the nicest people I have ever come across. Its been special designing his wedding invite this season.

Its a simple design that brings out Aniruddha’s deep liking for traditional arts in India. The front cover of the invite is an illustration of Radha- Krishna in contemporary Madhubani style. The colours are bright and the lines simple. There is careful detailing yet the edges are rough. The envelope is made of a muted beige and gold screen print.

Designing this card has been special because its for a dear friend. I am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to do this for Kadam. I take this opportunity to wish the happy couple a beautiful married life ahead!

Leap month +

Along with attending weddings I played part-time tourist guide to some very dear friends visiting India for the very first time. It was interesting meeting people from various parts of the world in different parts of India. Then there was Typography Day, where I presented my work from Linotype. It’s too much to write about, so I’m going post some nice pictures we made all around this month. This post is dedicated to all the people who made this month the busy, exciting and memorable.

From left to right: [1] Dhara taking her pheras. [2] Mask from a stall at Surajkund Mela, Faridabad. [3] Aadipt and Udipt, Pooja’s adorable nephews. [4] The super awesome Pooja Haldar. [5] Cheesy fur heart from a shop at Lajpat Nagar. [6] Cycle rickshaw wala. [7] Me and Pooja being cheesy on Valentine’s day. [8] Kunal’s decked up wedding house. [9] Rob Keller at the Standard Type Foundry. [10] Rob at Raj Path [11] Table from Papa Pancho da dhaba, Bandra West. [12] Flo’s first day in Mumbai at Sheesha, Bandra. [13]Rob and Flo in a kurta, on the way to Tanu’s wedding. [14] Tara and Flo on a ferry ride near Gateway of India. [15] Shadows on Girgaon chowpatty. [16] Ferocious Rob. [17] My Typo Day fuchsia pink badge. [18] Rob tying to fish for crocodiles in the Powai lake at IIT, Bombay. [19] Doodles from Typo day. [20] Flo at Clove Bar, getting ready to partyy! [21] Me at Typo Day (photo credits: Ami Shah) [22] Metal type sorting. [23] Flo playing Jenga at Shokolade, Bandra.[ 24] Flo and his Great Indian Thali at The Golden Chariot hotel, Andheri.[ 25] Holi celebations from fisherman colony, Mahim. [26] Tanu and Niki grooving to the Koli sangeet. [27] Drinks with the cousins. [27] Hand lettering board from Mahim.

 

Bigger pictures here.

Leap month

The past month and a half have been the most craziest, busiest ever. So many things kept happening at the same time. From attending marathon weddings in Pune and Delhi, being a tourist guide, more weddings in Mumbai to preparing for Typography Day- its been really exciting and exhausting. With the end of Typography Day though, it was time for goodbyes and that’s always the sad part. So all the excitement is over and I have idle time to finish writing some posts I began writing before February.

I attended four weddings in two months ,which was really crazy. The awesome part was that I designed wedding invites for three out of them. Here are glimpses of the invitations.

This simple yet bright invite was made for my darling little sister, Tanaya. The electric blue peacock fold out with gold foiling has a bottle green insert that goes inside a gold shimmer tissue envelope.

This is an invite to my friend Kunal’ wedding that happened in Delhi. The laser cutting and assembly was done in Delhi and  Kunal took real pains to get this one together. The green gold cover is a laser cut frame that can be reused as a photo frame. The inserts are screen printed invitation cards on pink and purple metallic paper.

It has been amazing fun to be a part of these celebrations. The brightness and excitement of Indian weddings is almost unparalleled and infectious. Here’s wishing all the happy couples a wonderful married life ahead!

More about my crazy month in the next post…

Deej

The wedding season is here again and I have some of my closest friends getting married in the months to come. I am really looking forward to all the fun that is to follow, for I have always loved weddings, more so the preparations that precede them.
I was super excited when Dhara asked me to design her wedding invite. There are very few things I know that match the passion that is Dhara Jain. She is a super talented art director and her enthusiasm is contagious. It has been an amazing experience designing with her. We were fairly clear about how the invite would be; it took us a few coffees to get to the actual design of the invite. We wanted to use less paper, and decided to do away with paper envelopes that end up siting in the trash bins of relatives eventually.
So here is what the invite looks like. I am very glad that it makes me and more importantly the bride very happy.

The main lettering is in the process of being converted into a typeface, which is called Deej, after the bride of course! Here are a few letters from the typeface.

Its been a lot of fun working on this invite and I look forward to working more on the typeface.

P.S. Dhara, thank you so much  for letting me do this, it means a lot.