Monday, December 20, 2010

Jimmy The Terrorist : : Omair Ahmed

Once Maithili told me, designing book cover is like designing movie poster. Only difference is the size. All design principles remain the same. It should have loud shelf value, also how a movie poster communicates 3 hrs in a single sheet similarly the book cover should manage to tell the gist of 300 pages. 
I completely agree with her when I recently got an opportunity to design a book cover. The story is about a guy called Jamal who became a terrorist after stabbing a police inspector and being beaten to death, he calls himself JIMMY. The author Omair Ahmed aesthetically captured the tragic life of Jamal and his father Rafiq and circumstances which transformed him to become aberrant human being. This story is set in northern part of UP, India around 1990.
After reading synopsis and few chapters of this fiction I decided only calligraphy would do the justice for this kind of subject. Thankfully I managed to reflect the same expressions of the content through the words. Editor, design head and the most important the author accepted the result and were happy too about the cover.
I got the chance to attend the launch of the book too. I was quite thrilled to see the blown up of cover used as promotion materials, backdrop etc. In the night this contrasting cover with black calligraphy on the stark white background with red accent was standing out beautifully in ambiance.
Here its the book:


And here is the full spread, designing a book jacket is 'more' fun, more scope to play.


Photo Credits: Aman Sagar

Friday, December 17, 2010

A New Beginning

Breaking News!
Yes, I quit my full time job and I am full time at home.

Plans: No plan is the plan
I will do whatever I want
I will do whatever I enjoy*
Calligraphy? For sure
Graphic design? Bread and butter
What's wrong with you? A Risk
Do you need any help? Get me some projects or buy my artworks+products or just wish me luck:)

*I wanted a well deserved break from my routine life. I will literally sit and think and sleep over my ideas and give some time to myself. I will make sure those ideas will see some day of light. This would also give me the opportunity to pursue my calligraphy in art form as well as for commercial purpose and of course graphic design as well. Now onwards I will be working as an independent designer and calligrapher I am also open to working/collaborating on projects.

So, keep visiting this blog to see what I am upto...

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Typography Workshop : : Aksharaya

Recently I attended a typography workshop/camp which was organized by Aksharaya group, Mumbai and sponsored by a well-known paper company. This camp was took place in 'Alibaug' a 2 hrs ferry ride from Mumbai.

I was excited from the day when they invited me to participate. After lots of emails exchange about cordinatation, briefing, accomodation, communting etc. we finally reached Alibaug. These were all new faces for me, I haven't interacted with any of these participants before. It was a great experience to share creative space with them; learn new interesting things, methods from them and of course a fun with them. This camp was full of joyrides and productive outcome too.
The brief was to create word/s using any of the Indian script but only with paper/s. Well I can't reveal much details about this but I can share some glimpse of what we were upto! Soon this group will officially disclose the magical moments of Alibaug, then I will also share the same with you guys.


Its wonderful initiative from a body like Aksharaya and its great to know my country is also started these kinds of events for 'letter conscious people' like me. Looking forward to more come from and many more hidden talent, skill and passion flows.