Crap

Had been working on a booklet for quite a while. Fell sick, was hospitalised (even spent some time isolated as an H1N1 suspect :D ) and sent home for a month for recuperation (still struggling to come back to some semblance of normalcy), then faced a hard disk crash that wiped all my data off, and forced me to start from scratch (on this project, and much of the rest of my life too), then my laptop screwed up, and things just kept going wrong too often for me :( It’s been a bad semester, and with only 20 days to go, and my submissions on all my courses running atleast 2 months behind, it will only get worse.. Yeay.

Still,

I finally managed to complete the Web version of the Alcheringa 2010 Events Booklet. ..Must convey thanks to the 5 design juniors who worked with and assisted me, albeit in their own different capacities. Our collective aim was that they’d begin to learn to work on softwares, and practice them while working on what i assigned. In return, i managed some sort-of-an informal workshop, with assignments for them, and checking their work and giving feedback on it, and also managing the process for the booklet. Essentially, while they worked and i criticized it ;) i ended up teaching them the introductory basics of grid, hierarchy, a few brainstorming methods, typographic tools, visual balance and so on \ to whatever extent that i could.

In the end, i guess things turned out just about right :)

We made an attempt to follow a rather detailed process while working on booklet:

- Each module of events (and thus, each page in the booklet) was brainstormed-on and keywords based on colour, emotion and imagery were discussed, and ultimately all this was used to arrive at multiple options for the graphics to be used on each page.

- Existing images and graphics found all over the web were heavily discussed-upon. For guys as new to design as them (and me too!), i believe it is imperative to first observe work, and draw from it, while adding a little more of ourselves into each successive job we do. So – the images we observed were complimented (often!), and although most such graphics were of an exceptionally high quality, we consciously tried to understand different ways in which they could be improved upon, or simply, different approaches that could have yielded different or better results.

It is important to note here that these students who worked with me are 2nd-yearites at IIT Guwahati, and thus, only freshmen at the Department of Design (since the first year of every Design student is filled with a pathetic load of common engineering subjects – which, in some ways, is a good thing – but mostly doesn’t seem to work that way), and thus had been here only for about 3 months before work ended. So not every idea was solely original – a lot of existing concepts were evaluated and relied upon – but the bottom rule was that each graphic was to be made by us ourselves. Nothing was to be a direct copy or a rip-off, and even if we ran out of ideas and graphics, we made sure that nothing was the lift-from-the-web-and-paste-it-into-the-booklet-sort-of-a-thing that had always happened before, when booklets or such things had to be made for events on-campus.

- For each idea or concept, i encouraged discussions about whether it worked or not, and invited each person to table his views. Often, people disagreed and arguments stretched a bit, though frankly, i seemed to like it that way :) It was simple – no one was a senior or a junior among us. If you had an opinion, it had to come out. At the risk of sounding cliched: A design process just couldn’t exist if one guy dictated something and others worked as robots under him. Though, when discussions seemed to be going nowhere, i’d take a call (since i was the senior and sort-of more experienced in these matters), and unless someone had the strongest-possible conviction that said that i was wrong or being unreasonable, i asked them to go-along with me, for want of churning-out results within the stipulated time period.

I guess this worked quite well. All discussions do need to have a deadline, and then, the ideas that have come until then are the ones we ought to play along with. Else, creative thought-processes just don’t end. And while getting many ideas is a good thing, there’s this bit that Prof Ravi Mokashi-Punekar told us – learning when to stop pondering, beginning to organize the ideas and selecting the right ones is even more important, so that we may actually make something tangible, rather than only think about it.

- Each junior was to pick up one skill – one worked on floral brushes in Photoshop, one worked with simple type-based graphics, one began with the Pen tool, another was asked to create image-boards for each module, and one worked with the Glow effect for the backgrounds on pages. I did have a definitive plan in my mind, and thus selected those specific skills as the ones we’d go with. The fact that not each one of them would be able to deliver, was also accounted for – all that mattered was that they gave it their best shot, and asked me to teach them whenever they hit a roadblock.

- Discussions often related to the functional aspects of each element of graphics we used. A genuine attempt was made to try and convey the emotions with the use of the meagre-most of graphics – though i understand that our execution of the same may not have come out perfectly in the end. The juniors had only recently begun work on softwares (some, had to be introduced to the Selection and Pen tools), and i myself concentrated more on the layouts, fonts and explaining stuff to 5 guys who just couldn’t stop making mistakes every 5 minutes. But that was fun, and in most ways, i was egged on by the fact that no one (on the outside at-least) seemed to be embarrassed to hear me make verbal-sushi of everything they’d do. Then again, a lot of the work, given their newness to this all (pardon my english!), was quite encouraging, and, in some cases, simply brilliant.

Below are JPEGs of a few of the pages from the web version of the booklet. The print version, still to come, is what i’m waiting for – kinda expecting it to come out pretty decently, if the printing studio in the city can match the promises he’s made :) Also, the published .PDF can be downloaded from here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, yet another blog-post that trails an “i won’t post no more” notice. Get used to it :D

Well, like all things, Purple Leaf (henceforth referred to as PLD) needs a logo\logotype too. I won’t outline the entire process undertaken, mainly because i’m not an authority in this matter. He, however, is. And since this needs to be mentioned:

All of us (who’ve teamed-up for PLD) pitched-in for the logo, in our own ways. For my part, i just played around with the Pen Tool in Illustrator, a little bit ;)

The intent: Since PLD is our own initiative, we didn’t really need a brief. As-such, everyone knew what was required. And even though we did struggle with this, we wished to avoid direct references to organic forms. A simple logo, which wasn’t too rigid, nor too playful, was what we wanted to have at the end of it all.

Here goes:

The initial typeface (once chosen) was suitably tracked, converted to outlines, modified, (and i guess i can still use this term for the outlined glyphs:) kerned, and ultimately, stroked and expanded.

Editing the Outlines of the Typeface:

Obviously, the Logo was still not complete. This is what the logotype looks like:

Next… the graphic element for the Logo didn’t really pop-up from mid-air. But here it is, nonetheless.
And thus-with, the completed Logo for PLD is as follows:

Logos often need to be used in Grayscale, or monochrome. A grayscale sample:

So then,
My work here is done. …O wait, i hit campus in 3 days. No rest. Hmmph!

this post remained on the boiler for long. never knew if i should have been warranted the audacity to write something such as this, especially since i’m very new to design. finally decided that thoughts, no matter how naive, sometimes ought to be expressed, simply so that they may be read, contemplated upon, and there-by be better suited to refinement, possibly (and seemingly) for the better.

there was big talk. and there was small talk. there were idiots who said design as a field sucked. and there were idiots who proclaimed it didn’t. and then, there was…something, called me.

in principle, any field – be it engineering, be it medicine, be it political sciences, be it accounting, or be it cobbling or rag-picking – each is equally perfect. and each of them can, in a deeper, philosophical sense, be invaluable to humanity, or earth, or the universe even. and on the face of it, each of them is just a means of keeping us occupied and a means of getting us those two square meals we crave for. to live. live – unto what? no one knows.

i am very-much inclined to go down the “whole universe will get destroyed some day, so why live” route here; then again, shall not.

people have said to me that design is all about designing for humanity, and i’ve convinced myself (or, sufficiently allowed others to convince me) that design is a (figuratively-)divine field that has no bounds. i can design something as (outwardly-)simple as a visiting card, or a website, or a chair, or a car, or a naval warship, or complicated social architecture, or an entire system that will enclose within it every person alive today. and well, it’s really quite true. i can. and design is a field that’d give me all the freedom to do so.

but then – the more i see, the more i seem to get convinced that design isn’t really that special. it’s just common sense. true, the common sense does come after practising a fair-bit, and i need to be a ‘designer’ to be permitted that practice. i’ve just spent two days (unsuccessfully) trying to come up with a visiting card design for a client at my internship. i admit, maybe i suck at it. but, as i practised, and practised some more, over the two days, i saw myself get better at it.

it’s all about taking up the cause, and trying. and failing and trying. a guy with no formal education can try to sit and make something that helps rid him of some inconvenience in life, and well, he may end up solving one of the world’s biggest issues. who knows!

all i can see for now, is that i don’t really want to be (branded) a designer. i just want to be a guy who can use his common sense. and maybe help some people along the way. if that’s what you call design, then design it is.

even so, why does design suddenly feel so constricted. why do i not enjoy making tiny posters that’ll probably change no one’s lives? why can i not just walk up to dr manmohan singh and speak with him of all my ideas that’d help change the world? why do we let kasab live while he laughs his ass off at us from the prison cell? what use is all our might when we can’t even physically force pakistan to prevent erstwhile-arrested terrorists from roaming free? why…why?!!

design won’t let me achieve that. or maybe it will. i’m dazed.

–
from: 1 am. june 5, 2009.
(hence, the connections to the news from that day, such as that day’s events from kasab’s trial)

Couldn’t find a better way to put it, than this (have made minor edits where neccessary, like, adding commas and censoring the protagonists name):

dude says: hey… wats purple leaf?
me: it’s the name of a design firm…
dude says: hmm…uncanny name
me: uncanny?
dude says: wats a PURPLE leaf??
me: haha, yes. well, leaf stands for a lot of pure, new, fresh things. and purple does have a sense of royalty attached to it, na?! now does purple leaf make sense to u?
dude says: ohh…i guess so. so… wat r u doing for purple leaf?
me: well, i’m doing quite a lot for it… too long a list :P
dude says: like? financing it? :P
me: well, for starters…i am.
dude says: eh??
me: also, running it. on a 25% ownership basis :)
dude says: wat? how?
me: alongwith 3 other designers. we’re in the process of starting a small little new firm…just to try out…
dude says: dude, u already have a company?
me: we dont technically have one. registration and all that can happen only after we return to campus…but yes, the fire has been lit :)
dude says: NICE. who are the other three?
me: shamik, jasmeet, and aditya bandi
dude says: sahiii. yaar, wish i had the nerve to do things like u.
me: haha…well, we’re shit scared too…
dude says: :)
me: and frankly, we know that the timing is something people will laugh at us for… but well, we had to take a step, and took it. if we fail or win, only time can tell :) either ways, we’ll end up learning, so who cares! :)
dude says: hmm… true

Sub-note: We’ve completed 2 years out of 4, for our Beachelors’ degree in Design, and actually had only 1 year of Design courses (iit course structures demand for us to spend the first year doing rather-lame engineering courses). Agreeably, we’re novices, but well, that won’t stop us from experimenting with life :) Earning money is not really a priority – we hope to gain some experience, that’s all.

Wish us luck. Or mock us. As you may.

Tablet. First Sketch

I bought a simple Tablet – a 6″x8″ iBall one, that cost me INR 3000 – about a year back. And only today, did i finally sit down and unpack the baby. It’s quite a pain, i’ve got to admit. Even so, it’s a new experience, and it’s f.u.n !

So i’m uploading the first thing i drew.

Hopeless, na?! [:D]
I’ve got to admit, i still can’t get a fluid stroke moving (i think i can credibliy blame the hardware for that!), and my old habit of uneasy and multi-stroked lines, just won’t die easy. Still, i-like [:P]. Cerainly do have a long way to go!

played around some more, with yesterday’s work. and now it sits as my wallpaper. [:D]

new.media wallpaper : click to expand : 1440x960

so this is the designer i shall become – one who makes wallpapers [:P] eh?
ciao.

Just trying my hand at some (web-based-)brochure design. Simple layout. Nothing freaky. Learnt the Mesh Tool in Illustrator today, so…

Click to Enlarge

Intended as a brochure for a QIP. Not final, just a trial. The “won’t-go-to-print-but-still-need-to-work-on-it” type.

QIPs are short programmes that academians attend to brush up their skills…or something like that. Basically, it’s for the academia and such people. The brochures for them are, understandably, boring. Need proof? Read the rest of this entry »