A conversation with my guide where he gave some interesting insights on things that could be improved.
Instead of full bottles, look at the distinctive caps of each. Or things they are drunk with like straws, or different types of glasses. Try a different style perhaps, not so scribbly.
In the bharat logo a negative space between the two languages might work.
The word for each solution should be re-looked at, it should fit perfectly. There are numerous words which may fit, but try to find that ideal one that relates to both ‘solution’ and ‘design’.
The copy for ‘develop’ needs to be re-looked at. ‘Avoid widows and orphans’ is anti-social and controversial statement at the first glance.
In the envelope the illsutration on the top is a bit messy at first glance and can be much simpler, or more orderly. Its almost the face of the envelope.
The ‘design solution’ can be better designed, or removed if not needed.
Another medium is a 2-fold envelope, printed on the inside, which can also be put up like a long poster. This has a little more copy, and an additional angle of ‘order in chaos’, which relates to both what India is, and what design is all about as well.
The visual language of the stamps could be easily adapted onto stickers.
These are again easy to print and send, and can be used by a person in a design studio.
The challenge lay in deciding the size and shape of the stickers. The rhombus is interesting as it also resembles a road sign.
Since stickers have little scope for copy, it was essential that the website link be mentioned.
Stickers are more like a supplementary medium that can be sent along with a postcard or something else. They cannot stand in isolation since no where do they mention that I am looking for an internship.
After creating the postage stamps there was the question, how to use them? Again, what medium? After some discussions I decided on a postcard for these reasons.
It is cheap to print, in large numbers also.
It is the cheapest thing to post, even abroad.
It is something tangible, can be put up on the wall.
It’s unexpected to see stamps on the front of a postcard, it gives stamps more value, and they have more symbolic value.
India does not yet have any stamps on ‘design’, so it’s a way to launch a new set of stamps.
Its size restricts the amount of copy I write on the back, which is an advantage, since most people will not read too much. It enables me to keep it to the point.
To adapt these illustrations to a series of postage stamps, I looked at the other elements seen on postage stamps. These are the price of the stamp, a word or two about what it shows, and most importantly the name of the country.
I worked on the name of the country, creating a kind of logotype for India which is one form in both Hindi and English, but readable in both. This is the final logo. It can be understood by an international audience, and those who know Hindi can still read ‘Bharat’.
We designers always use this term ‘design solutions’. I thought of interpreting it literally. What is a solution? What are the different kinds of solutions that we drink or use? What if design solutions were also available like other solutions. One bottle for great typo, another for illustration, and so on. That is how I linked the two ideas to create a few illustrations of bottles of various kinds. Each bottle had to be symbolic, an icon in fact. In this way the approach can be slightly humourous.
The illustrations were hand done, later I scribbled the ‘contents’ of each. Again, highly iconic colours.
The medium I settled on is an envelope. It is printed on both sides so that there is no need to insert a card or letter. The envelope itself carries the message and when open it can be put up as a small poster.
It is printed in black and white so that it is less expensive to make numerous copies. It can be photocopied onto different coloured papers as well.
The copy inside adds meaning to the illustration and talks about what a designer does, or has the power to do.
Some issues I faced while doing this were trying to get the back-to-back print perfectly aligned to each other. And figuring out which side the fold should ideally come. Once the envelope is torn open it can affect the copy inside, so that probably needs to shift a bit.
‘Design is natural.’
This is the theme for Visibility, a self-promotion project. It sums up my personal view-point on design.
The best design occurs naturally, it’s a child of it’s time, born out of the culture, and to fulfill a certain need of the people. It is forced design that stands out like a sore thumb.
In my last post I talked about encoding and decoding and the conscious or un-conscious signals people communicate to others.
‘Design is natural’ also communicates a certain artistic and more spontaneous kind of nature, someone who is not very logical, but more random. The debate within me was that is ‘design is to make rain’ a huge claim? But at the end of the day, that is what designers do, or aim to do metaphorically.
For further explorations I could also think about the responsibility of designers, and environmental impact of design.
