Dharohar Continued

When a corporate turns 40 and has a legacy of its own it talks about the legacy of its soil at the turn of a new decade. A calendar design that was in process at DesignMembrane for the Kalpataru group is out now and we have received our copies to share in this space.




After a few rounds of theme presentations there was also a request from the client's end to develop and present on the theme of kings from different dynasties that ruled India in the past. We suggested a slight twist to it, listing down several dynasties from the first in the Vedic era to the era of post independence and seeking a derivative from each one. We knew each period would have some relevance in the present. For example, the Indian emblem came from the Mauryan times of Ashoka's pillar at Sarnath.

We called it "Dharohar", a sanskrit word that translates as "legacy".




Research was difficult initially. Our studio turned into a boring history class but with little chance of bunking it. But soon we were engrossed. It was not just about presenting the facts as is but somehow relating these with what we see around us today which is what made it interesting after all.

Soon ready with a moodboard for each month with all facts lined up with relevant images, a rough cut for the basic look and feel was also presented for the first three months so that the basic benchmark was set.

After loads of brain rattling, swapping one dynasty for another and eliminating a few, our basic theme and flow was set for the calendar (not necessarily in that order!). Our approach was a combination of pictures with illustration and we were also keen to later experiment with printing techniques but that was for later.

These dynasties with their respective legacies made it to the final cut...
*Mauryan legacy : Lion pillar-Emblem of India and the message of peace
*Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas' legacy : Dravidian architecture and a bureaucratic form of governance
*Satvahana legacy : First coinage
* Kushan legacy : The present form of Buddha
*Gupta legacy : Chess in its ancient form of Chaturanga and the beautiful cave paintings of Ajanta
*Pala legacy : First ever illustrated manuscripts
*Islamic Sultantes' legacy : The beautiful work of inlay from Bidar, Deccani painting
*Mughal legacy : The first rajput-mughal alliance:Jodha-Akbar and the message of love that emperor Shahjahan built for his beloved wife Mumtaz, the beauty of architectural forms and geometric patterns
*Rajputana legacy : Miniature paintings - Kishangarh's Bani Thani
*Maratha legacy : Shivaji's heroic tales and message of swarajya which also became the motivation behind the Indian Independence Movement
*British legacy : The Post, Railways and colonial painting
*Independent India : The spirit of freedom, National insignia - lotus, tiger and peacock

The calendar design breaks the routine perception of India often explored through kistch art forms. The photo-illustrations in a rather graphic manner aim to be both informative and evocative. Here are some pictures of the final print.


Mauryas - Indian Emblem form the Ashokan pillar in thermography to give a seal-like effect

Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas - The zari border in an imitation with screen printed gold motifs

Satvahanas - The symbol of their capital Ujjain, a cross with four circles at the ends screen printed in metallic copper

Kushans - The folds of the buddha sculpture can be felt with raised UV

Guptas - The pieces of the board game in foil

Palas - The stone wall in the background has a rough textured UV

Islamic Sultanantes - The Bidri metalware imitated with silver silk screen and foil stamping

Mughals - The emperors and their empresses in a spot UV

Rajputs - The motifs of the odhani replicated in an imitation of the real ones in gold silk screen

British - The imitation seal on the postal stamps in thermography

Independent India - The lighting on the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the motifs that represent the Indian insignia in glitter lamination to enthuse a feeling of celebration

Brilliantly printed and fabricated at Parksons Graphics, Mumbai. At our end, we kept a thumb rule of keeping "the effects" to the minimum and only in the front and not on the back side with the description text so as to not go overboard with it. All printing techniques were carefully selected for a single characteristic, only to add more meaning to the image and enhance the visual perception and sometimes add a dimension of touch, like in the folds of Gautam Buddha in the Dharohar of the Kushans.

Project Closure : Dec 2010

MindWave Identity

Our client is an IT facility management service provider besides which they also provide IT hardware sales and support who had earlier required an identity for MindSpark Infosolutions.

The brief for MindWave was to design a mark that was industrial-like and could be eventually placed over products as well.



We experimented printing with white ink on ivory card this time to achieve this water mark effect on the cards.

2010 Calendar for Span

Span Group, is a Delhi based technology solutions provider for telecommunications and internet operations in India. We had the opportunity to design their calendar for 2010, this time again however on a very very short notice.
Last year we had focused on the solutions they offer in a rather graphic treatment. The brief this year was to have something fun and fresh as well as low on budget.
We almost had a blank canvas before us that made it challenging. So we recycled some vector graphics created this year for other projects that were unused and also created some new, changed the orientation to a portrait and presented to our client.



The outcome is fresh and is not completely company focused like last year. Its experimental and totally out-of-box for our client's image who never hesitates to try.




Digitally printed on german alabaster.

Project Closure : Jan 2010

Dharohar

When a corporate turns 40 and has a legacy of its own it talks about the legacy of its soil at the turn of a new decade. A calendar design in process at DesignMembrane.
More coming up soon!

Happy Diwali

"A Family for Every Child" OUT NOW!!!

The book on all about adoption in India initiated by the Catalysts for Social Action is the new release from DesignMembrane now on stands at CrossWord and Oxford Book Stores all across the country.

Our cover girl is the beautiful Mohini, an adopted child who looks forward to a bright future . The launch at the CrossWord store at Kemps Corner, Mumbai was an apt beginning to the Joy of Giving week that has just come to an end.





DesignMembrane is happy to support the cause of child adoption in this mini step.

The paperback in greyscale spreads and black and white photographs by Sameer Tawade has some very interesting articles on the subject by people from all walks of life who have had the wonderful experience of adopting, some celebrity adopters like Sushmita Sen (actor), Sandip Soparrkar (choreographer) and Raveena Tandon Thadani(actor) and adoptees with their perspective.





Project closure : September 2009

A FAMILY FOR EVERY CHILD

Catalysts for Social Action, a social welfare organization dedicated to the cause of child welfare is currently focused to influence change in adoption practice. We are honored to be associated with their initiative "A Family for Every Child" that will unveil at the Joy of Giving Week, 27th Sep-3rd Oct 2009.
We have designed the identity for this project which is also the name of the book.

Concept: 'A' for adoption, and 'A' completes a 'FAMILY'.
More updates on the book design and the rest soon.

M.I.C.E. Tourism Planner

"... the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India."

-Mark Twain

India is in a continual process of upgrading its M.I.C.E. (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions) facilities. There are multiple plans on the anvil for more world-class convention centers, airports that contest with the best in the world and efforts to team the famous Indian hospitality with customisation as per a visitor's requirement.
One such effort has been initiated by the India Convention Promotion Bureau sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism, the Government of India to launch a planner to list details on the M.I.C.E. destinations for 2009-10. DesignMembrane was approached by its marketing partner, Hotel and Food Service India Pvt. Ltd.(H&FS), Mumbai for design assistance on a publication that would be an exclusive showcase on the above.
Here are a few excerpts from the journal.

We designed the gate-fold cover like a teaser. The die-cut words by Mark Twain reveal a psychedelia of images from destination India underneath.

The opening page with scattered polaroids of the ten M.I.C.E. destinations with their defining landmarks and a spread from the India section.



The planner begins with a section broadly describing all about India, further leading into each city with a list of hotels, other accommodations, convention centers and auditoria preceded by pre/post convention information on what to do and when to come.







Designed with inputs from H&FS team and well printed at Krishna Art, Mumbai.

Project Closure : May 2009

studio site

The initial attempts of having a website of our own in order were simply not successful enough. So finally here's our brand new launch with the help of Muthu at Trigya who needs a big round of applause.
Happy browsing.

MindSpark Infosolutions

Our client is an IT facility management service provider besides which they also provide IT Hardware Sales and Support.

The logo construction aims to convey order, perfection and quality of service in the mark.

A clean, simple and straightforward logo mark for a company that deals with corporates on a day to day basis.

Span-ing Around

The 17th Convergence India recently concluded at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. We were happy to see our work on the Span exhibition booth come up well.

We have also redesigned their new website. Just to share the design process, this is how their website looked like when we were approached to redesign it.



A long list of their areas of operation-10 links, vertically on the left and 7 links to different sections lined up horizontally on top. The Span Group on the top right was not required when the logo was placed on the top left corner itself. We felt the overall look of the site for a company that was doing pioneering work in the realm of telecommunications in India, was rather dull.





As we moved on to the pages further we realised that the content needed to be crisper. Also, the overall colour scheme of the site did not resonate with the Span logo. We obviously had to share these issues with the client after which they were convinced for a complete overhaul and were ready to cooperate with us on rebuilding the content.

We had only recently designed the Span Calender and understood the need for a similar, cleaner and fresher look for the website as well. Since Span is into providing telecommunication solutions of a wide variety that they wanted to speak about on the home page itself, it became a challenging task. Clearly, for this website the two critical areas were the home page and the solutions page which had an intricate classification. We suggested that they make broad categories for these instead of listing 10-15 odd solutions together, just so that the page would look less cluttered and they could keep adding/removing more solutions/pages within these. This took care of the basic web structure. We disliked the idea of presenting a list for the solutions/areas of operation, so we thought of alternative ways of doing this task.



Emphasizing the Span purple, we made it look like an intricate section of a hard disk of sorts. However, this appeared cluttered and heavy on illustration and the eyes of the viewer.

We then suggested our client to come up with a basic sentence/para which would cover all their solutions that would work as keywords and an introduction to the company. We worked on it further and it became a perfect opening for the home page! Another option was presented with a lighter flat blue background and enhancing the spark element which is also a part of the Span logo. We also colour coded the solution categories in a family of pastel shades.





The Span "Spark" element was adding some bit of a noise to the otherwise clean layout so we decided to drop this.



In the meanwhile our client decided to drop the Span colour from a deep purple to a blue that added freshness.




The flat blue was then changed in favour of a blue gradient. It also adds contrast to the logo from the background blue. As per this layout we wanted to use the tab space on the left in the white area for the page/section titles. However as you can see, this did not work too well when one came into the solutions domain. Also, reading rotated type on screen can create legibility issues.



Finally, the Span home page still has all the many links but we have smoothly managed to conseal them! See the website www.spantel.in for more.

Project Closure: March 2009

ILOVEINDIA

A lot of traveling around and learning from different cultures, we came to value and preserve our own in a small studio initiative called ILOVEINDIA. This would explore the multi- dimensional facets of the Indian visual culture in a manner that is evocative and informative.



For starts, it is this set of six coasters. More on this, till we get some stores where we can make available more from this range.

Project begins: March 2009