April 25, 2017
Andaaz Apna Apna from the eye of a designer
There are two types of people in the world, the ones who love Andaz Apna Apna, and the others, who LOVE Andaz Apna Apna. No matter in what situation you are in, you will always have a dialogue from the movie running in your head. Designers always have their own perspective of everything, for obvious reasons. But world’s favorite thing from the eye of a designer will give you a completely new perspective!
Every client meeting Ever
When client takes your case like no one else has ever before, but you still have to act cool in front of your team.
Chillar Clients
Dealing with miser clients has always been a pain. From offering you ONLY ‘experience’ to paying you in parts, you can’t stop saying “ Yeh to Chillar Hai”
Client Pitch be like
When the client says in the first meeting, “I don’t care about the money, just get the work done” and you would say anything to get them onboard.
Dealing with the Kacche Khiladi
Your frustration level when the entire content and concept is changed by the client after the artwork is ready.
“Aapne pehle design manga, aur fir content dia. Aapko pehle content dena chahiye tha, aur fir design mangna chahiye tha. Plan Hi Galat hai. Kaccha Khiladi Lagta hai”
Potato-Patato
“Aapne ye picture ShutterStock se li hai?”
“Nahi Nahi, Maine ye Colourbox se li.”
“Oo. Maine socha ShutterStock se lia hoga”
Galti se mistake!
When you delete the open files of the designs and your boss flips out.
Great Expectations
When you get a 200 page project, and the deadline is in a week
Time Bombs
When you get a call from the client 5 seconds after getting the email from him saying you haven’t replied yet.
Change
This is what we look like after 200th changes.
October 28, 2016
World Animation Day
Animation is everywhere these days, and most of us have been raised on it. Starting with our Saturday Morning Cartoons that we enjoyed with our sugary bowl of cereal, straight through to our favorite video games and movies of today, our view of the world has often been shaped by this amazing artform.
History of International Animation Day
The International Film Association was originally established in France, and was organized for the purpose of recognizing all forms of cinema and art. Among them was Animation, and thus they developed International Animation Day in 2002 to serve as the pinnacle event in the celebration of the rising art of animation.
Animation is the art of creating the illusion of movement through a series of images that each show a separate stage of the animation, then displayed at a set rate through a projector. The original animation was known as ‘cel-animation’ or ‘hand-drawn animation’, and was quite literally drawn frame by frame into the animated characters that we’ve come to enjoy.
More modern renditions of animation are done via CGI, and these often emulate the age old method of animation that is hand-drawn, while others use computer animation to bring the art into the modern world. All styles of this art-form have their own appeal, and many fans have rallied behind one or the other as the ultimate form of animation.
Other forms of animation that carry their own aesthetic are stop-motion animation where individual pictures are taken and streamed together to create an animated film. These methods often include complex sets and gorgeous dolls, but have also been done with clay as a medium. These forms are often called claymation.
Animation has been used in everything from short commercials to full feature length films, and have served as a method of delivering everything from entertainment to information through an accessible medium.
How to Celebrate Animation Day
The best way to celebrate animation day is to pick up a series of films that represent the various ages of animation. From the original Disney Mickey Mouse cartoons all the way through the classic Wizards film and into modern shows like Avatar that show the most magnificent blending of traditional filming and new.
Dig deep and you can find a great variety of animation techniques that will create some fantastic variation in theme, feel, and style. So take this Animation Day to get out and explore the great wide world of animation, and relive some old adventures, and try some new.
October 12, 2016
Doodle-Doodle Do!
August 10, 2016
Is the letterhead dead?
This is a common question when someone has to send out a business letter.
Yes, written letters might not be trendy anymore since everything has turned electronic. Letterheads, however, are there not just to make your letter pretty; a letterhead can set you and your business apart from your competition. It’s the first thing we see in a letter and just like human interaction, you have to make a good first impression or else your letter will be thrown into the “NO” file.
It’s also a great way to establish your brand. When used cohesively with other products, your letterhead gives you the chance to put your business name, logo, corporate colors, and contact information.
The bottom line is, if your letterheads are eye-catching, there is no reason for you to stop using them.
We’ve curated some amazing examples for inspiration below.
January 19, 2016
The Challenge of the Blank Canvas
I break into a cold sweat. My eyes become misty and lips dry. What I see in front of me is what nightmares are made of. A new beginning. The blank canvas. An empty artboard. And an even more empty mind.
So what am I supposed to do? A brand-new brief suddenly makes its way into my life, and I’m supposed to miraculously come up with something that looks fantastic? Am I supposed to switch on the “Be Creative” button, and kick-start the gears in my (rusty) brain and IDEATE? Try as I might, nothing of that sort happens. On the contrary, I think I go into a mind-numbing state of calm. I’ve spoken to a lot of my colleagues and most of us art-directors go through more or less the same phases.
Image source: sajithansar.com/tag/design
December 21, 2015
5 great apps to learn new skills
3) Duolingo : Duolingo gives you easy to follow lessons on any language that you choose to learn. Each language is divided into various stages with levels in each, its visual, interactive and game-like format makes it fun and addictive. You can even decide how much time you want to spend on it each day, with a maximum of 20 minutes. The best part is that it’s free and ad-free too, you can download it on your smartphone to make the best out of it. visit site
September 2, 2015
Google’s New Logo
Google yesterday changed it’s logo after a long time with the main change being the typeface and the added animation. They’ve been using a serif wordmark since 1999 up until 2015, the only changes occurred in between were, the removal of drop shadow and letter spacing.
It’s updated now to a sans-serif typeface which itself is one of google’s creations, called Product sans. This typeface was first introduced with google’s new parent company, Alphabet, making their design language fall inline with one another.
The more notable change, however, is the added animation. Unlike the rest of the world and their static logos, google’s logo transforms into a series of four dots that orbit in a circle and await your request, which is possible only on screens.
All in all, google’s new logo is personalised, flexible, neat and absolutely note worthy.
Written by,
Arushi Arora
Graphic Designer
July 9, 2015
The Return of Surrealism
Surrealism is a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that aimed at expressing the imagination in a way that was free from control, convention, and reason. Often in surrealistic art, there would be irrational juxtaposition of images and different subjects blown out of their actual size. I specially like the works of Salvador Dali, MC Escher, Joan Miró, and Man Ray. The conceptualization and execution of their work was remarkable, even if compared to artists today.
Surrealism has influenced and inspired different fields of art and design in the past few years. An amalgamation of surrealism and collages has significantly evolved in the art scene with lots of artists specializing in surrealistic collages. Personal favorites being Eugenia Loli, Julien Pacaud, Cur3es, Bryan Olson and Sarah Eisenlohr to name a few. I particularly love the way they play with different textures, as that’s something I enjoy experimenting with as well.
In today’s day and age, art and design is well integrated in our lifestyle, and has become more accessible to everyone than before. Now it’s not just restricted to a piece of paper, intricate patterns and designs are transferable to various mediums. With the help of new technology, art has stretched its boundaries into our everyday lives through consumer goods.
Here are some examples:
Eugenia Loli products
To buy go to www.society6.com
Products by Beth Hoeckel
To buy go to www.society6.com
Contributed by
Subahlakshmi
Graphic Designer
June 16, 2015
Stacked Simplicity
We cannot believe half a year has gone already. Was it not just a while ago we made new resolutions (and broke them the next day)?
Six months into this year and we have already witnessed innumerable graphic design trends surface. While some did not make the cut, many of them developed into better styles as brands all over adopted them.
Ever since Apple and Google moved to a cleaner look, minimal elegance is making it’s way to the design industry. The design is maturing and it is bringing with itself the beautiful possibilities of stacked typography. What is not to love about this trend? A counter to all the visual clutter that we have been a victim to lately, this is like a breath of fresh air with it’s regal sophistication.
The bit we love about this trend is that it is not just restricted to a particular kind of application. According to our prediction, it will be largely seen in brand identity design but will be used across print and publication designs, publication designs, user interface designs, the list is endless!
Needless to say, companies are putting a greater emphasis on design standards and consistency due to which a lot of premium brands or brands aspiring to be premium would adopt this design trend.
Contributed by
Unnika
Communication Designer
Image source – Pinterest
May 20, 2015
Herbarium
While all of us had gone to high school, some of us may have paid attention to the lovely Botany diagrams. I say lovely now because back then they were daunting and information heavy, most of which could never percolate my thick brain.
In last few years or so, this has been revived and revised by designers all over the world and hence my romance with Botany got re-kindled.
As I scanned across the internet I found many delicious lifestyle applications of these in packaging, wedding themes, earthen pots, art-prints and upholstery.
You can try a few DIY applications of the same with some usual techniques of dipping leaves with thick veins in watercolor and imprinting them on the paper, we all have done these as kids, maybe it’s time to get your hands dirty again. Another great way of using them is to dig out old books for yellow paper effect(you can probably look for second-hand books market) or can just buy from the nearest bookstore, cut them out and frame them in a natural color wooden frame to get your Botany diagram fix.
You can go through some DIY techniques here
You can download free Botanical print-ready files from here
May 7, 2015
5 Absolutely Drool Worthy Websites!
So I was on a hunt for absolutely stunning food websites on a dull day for some inspiration to think beyond the usual and guess what, I don’t know if I feel as inspired as I am hungry!
Here goes my list that you MUST NOT MISS! (click on the images to visit respective website)
1) For Better Coffee: You will fall in love with this journey of a coffee bean.It’s clean, bright and modern in its approach. I love how it imparts information visually and gives you that warm fuzzy feeling.
2) Eat Me Ice-cream: Pastel ice-creamy colors, bold fonts and subtle animation make this website delicious, I bet it will give you a sugar rush.
3) Quo Vadis: This website captures the old world charm with its black and white hand drawn look and old newspaper layout. Every page of the website is so well integrated with the look and doesn’t fail to impress.
4) Gnosh: Though the chalkboard look is not innovative, the freshness of this website is very pleasing to look at. The contrast of blackboard with vegetables and dishes look stunning.
5) Chickenbot: Modern and clean, this website is all about food. Large image and orange color is appetizing, clever use of icons and numbers make the website look interesting.
