The act of creating a card reminds me why I like being a graphic designer so much. The card making process has evolved (or degenerated, depending on how you perceive it) from a handmade process to an entirely digital enterprise. Due to the crazy life I lead, I allow myself no more than 30 minutes to create one. Its like speedy-dating Hallmark style.

This is a little card I created for the wonderful Jasia Reichardt and Nick Wadley (whom I met through their Themerson archive) for the wonderful lunch they had for us in January 2011. Its called Red as Remembered.

Kitchen door, 12 Belsize Park Gardens

Fridge door, 30 Overstone Road

Chilli powder from my sister in Chennai, India

Chinese New Year

Will Self, Dr Mukti book jacket

My wedding sari

This is the final brief of their second year and it ends in a very different sort of ‘Work in Progress’ show. The show (which is actually a non-show) will be a sale of items produced for the brief and sold in a pop-up shop space on Clerkenwell Road – the proceeds of which will go towards their final degree show next year. We have been intentional in not having a usual kind of London work-in-progress show where work is sanitised and glorified, and taken out of its actual context. Instead, the intention is to engage with the audience that London as a city provides – the passers-by and specifically non-designers.

I enjoyed very aspect of the making process of this brief.  The research (happily conducted off the books in my library), the writing, the editing (thanks to David Preston and Rebecca Ross who provided useful and clear critique), the design and final production.

The final 24-page booklet contained the brief, timetable but also important and essential readings. It was produced using 80gsm copier paper, laser printed masters, an ancient protesting photocopier, and rubber bands. As this is a brief about designers as producers, I chose typefaces designed by people rather than corporations. I used Archer designed by Jesse Ragan, Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler for the body text and Leyton, a chunky yet astonishingly readable typeface designed by Ian Moore for the titles.

I was keen to make the booklet as sustainable as possible – working with the recycled copier paper that was available in college and simple rubber bands from Rymans (easier to recycle than staples). Rebecca had the idea to use coloured paper to separate the content – so the yellow part is the brief, and the readings are printed on white paper. On the day of production, I must confess that I struggle not to over design the booklet but to produce it with the materials available – even if they were a strange yellow and an almost-lilac paper and the photocopier toner was exhausted and weary.

Over the weekend I collated each of the 120 copies (1 for each of the tutors and students taking part in the brief), trimmed and cut them by hand. A mad labour of love (resulting in severe tendonitis!) that was intended to convey to students that this was a physical brief rather than an impersonal pdf document, and that tutors do practice what they preach! On the day of the briefing, each of the 7 tutors personalised copies for the students using a simple label space on the cover.

The postman brought a delivery from Tara Books, India yesterday. This is a book that Sirish Rao and I have worked on. The project was introduced to me by Tara’s editor V Geetha and has been incubating in our collective minds for a long time. The available English translation felt too big and complex to illustrate and design, and I felt a bit overwhelmed by it. The project finally fell into place when Sirish came up with a highly visual translation of the original author Morgernstern’s text. My job was to typographically ‘illustrate’ the text and design the book.

I enjoy the challenges of approaching typography as sign, mark and image. For me, this is process takes me back to the origins of language – where letters are marks and images that can be read both ‘textually’ and ‘visually’.  The word is a mark on a page. At very first glance, the word is first and foremost an image.

As the blurb on the book reads: First published in 1905, German poet Christian Morgernstern’s Im Reich der Interpunktionen (In the Land of Punctuation) is a brilliant comic poem on language. Morgernstern called it a linguistic caprice; and it is a fun romp, populated by punctuation marks as characters with their own agendas … and yet the political undertones are unmistakable, suggesting systems of control that go beyond language.

A detail from a spread

An excerpt from an email to publisher Gita Wolf explains part of my process: I’ve taken a modernist (some may say militaristic approach) to the design. What I liked most about Sirish’s text was the visual but also staccato nature of the text. I’ve tried to maintain this by giving a very left-right, turn page, left-right, turn page rhythm to the book.
Other thoughts: Besides the obvious political nature of the text, I’ve envisioned this as a modern, contemporary conflict with visual allusions technology, machinery, war…Influences have been, amongst other things, the structures and rigour of letterpress and metal type, Russian posters of the 1920s and 1930s, the work of Werkman and modernists such as Weingart.
The look right now is flat and graphic – but this is the artwork. I envision the printed version as having uneven texture. Also, as with letterpress, if the black is printed first and the red after, then both layers should be visible… we can experiment.

The book is available here and was featured in Wallpaper magazine’s Reborn in India issue

A6 invitation

These are books that, as Gita Wolf, Tara’s publisher puts it, ‘refashion traditional artisanal skills into fine contemporary bookmaking’.

Designing the poster and flyer for the exhibition was fun. Keeping in mind the spirit of Tara’s initiative, the publicity material was entirely (and painstakingly) printed by hand in India on handmade paper. The peacock on the poster is an image by the Gond artist Ram Singh Urveti from the book The Night Life of Trees.

A3 poster

Often, due to shortage of time & budget, I had to be creative with low-res options available via online image searches or find images in my personal photo library that would suit. These are some favourites.

14 Non-Latin Typefaces was a series of posters created to celebrate a bipartite exhibition and two-day conference on ‘Non-Latin Typeface Design’, jointly hosted by St Bride Library, London and the Department of Typography, University of Reading.

I worked on the project with the wonderful, hugely experienced typeface designer Fiona Ross. These typefaces were produced for Linotype in the UK, by teams headed by Walter Tracy in the 1970s and Fiona Ross in the 1980s. It is incredible to imagine that the beautiful graphic forms and non-latin characters you see below were each created and drawn by hand.

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Yakout Bold

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Qadi

Script: Arabic/Farsi; typeface: Linotype Nazanin Bold

On the posters, we featured the same character ‘ka’ (often the first consonant in non-Latin languages) in a white box on the top left corner. This, along with the script and typeface titles on the top right corner provided an index that grouped the 14 posters together. The main character showcased on the poster was chosen both for its characteristic as well as its representative shape. I chose bright, bold colours to suggest the flavour and vibrancy of these scripts.

The posters were printed by silkscreen on black handmade paper by Arumugam and his team at AMM Screens in Chennai, India.

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Maged

Script: Bengali; typeface: Linotype Bengali Bold

Script: Devanagari; typeface: Linotype Rohini Bold

Script: Gujarati; typeface: Linotype Gujarati Bold

Script: Gurmukhi; typeface: Linotype Gurmukhi Bold

Script: Kannada; typeface: Linotype Kesari Bold

Script: Malayalam; typeface: Linotype Manorama Bold

Script: Sinhala; typeface: Linotype Araliya Bold

Script: Tamil; typeface: Linotype Samanti Bold

Script: Telugu; typeface: Linotype Tamara Bold

Script: Thai; typeface: Linotype Sukothai Bold

You can read Fiona’s paper on Non-Latin Typedesign at Linotype and a review of the exhibition by Eye magazine. You can also buy a copy of the exhibition catalogue from St Bride Library.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Pushkin on their Classic series, and on their first titles in the Modern series. Melissa played a key editorial and creative role and was a hands-on publisher. In our first design conversation, she spoke of Pushkin’s visual identity and interest in continuing to use the typeface employed in previous titles.

The typeface used in previous Pushkin titles is a transitional serif and a masterpiece. Transitional typefaces are so-called because they bridge the gap between old-style typefaces (low contrast) and modern typefaces (high contrast). This transitional serif, Baskerville, was developed in the 18th century by John Baskerville. The typeface is said to be the culmination of a series of experiments (including paper making and ink manufacturing) by John Baskerville to improve legibility.

A print sample by Baskerville, image courtesy ILT.

One of the most beautiful alphabets in the typeface: the calligraphic capital Q.

My first step was to invest in a good quality typeface. As most graphic designers know, there are several revival versions of original metal typefaces. I narrowed my choices down to ITC New Baskerville designed by Matthew Carter and John Quaranta and a Baskerville revival by Linotype. I chose the version as digitised by Linotype which has six different weights and a reasonable but not overly emphasised contrast which made it perfect for both titling as well as long text typesetting.

I had two design responsibilities with Pushkin. The first, was to standardise the logotype and series titles. We kept the design stark and simple, focusing on the beauty of the typeface.

A detail of a book cover which shows the Pushkin and series logo

Detail of the Pushkin paper logo on the book spine

My second responsibility was for the design and production of the books which included everything from picture research for the cover to doing a final print check on site. Included below is an example of a typical Pushkin title page, and a few of the book covers from the Pushkin Modern and Paper series.

A typical Pushkin title page has a classical design

Detail, title page

Cover design for Anthology of Apparitions by Simon Liberati. The photograph of the moth is by Thomas Nützl.

Cover design for Lovers or something like it by Florian Zeller. This image shows the spine, front cover and front French flap.

Cover design for Fantastic Night and other stories by Stefan Zweig. Image of Donati’s Comet over Balliol College
by William Turner of Oxford (1789-1862) from the Bridgeman Art Library.

It was possibly my first real freelance job in Reading. I learnt a great deal from the process of working on these simple postcards which were later placed in various libraries and universities as hand-outs.

Having no ‘contacts’ or network in this new country I had chosen to call my home, I had to research and find available paper stocks and cards and find a printer who would be able to print the cards. The print run was small – just 1,000 in total – so we could not afford offset printing so I had to explore various printing options.

The first task however, was a design problem. John was keen on a contemporary yet crafts-based feel and preferred some kind of illustration or imagery rather than plain typography. He wanted to steer clear of the usual kitsch that accompanies such marketing material.

Being crap at illustration, I resolved the design problem by trolling through tons of good quality clip art online (yes, there is such a thing) and finding my final selection of possible images in the wonderful Briar Press archive (pointed out to me by fellow Reading student Ben Weiner). Here are some of those that we considered as possible images:

Rejected as it implies that the Book History Research Network is mainly about printing (which it is not)

Rejected because she looks really worried about joining the Book History Research Network

Rejected as it is too ‘Aubrey Beardsley’

Rejected for being too generic and directive (i.e. you must join the Book History Research Network!)

As it was a low-cost job, we chose to go with two-colour digital printing. Armed with Reading’s telephone directory and yellow pages, I rang around and asked for quotes. We finally settled on using a good quality printer in Caversham called Conservatree (whom I use till today and would recommend) who offered to do it at reasonable cost and was quick to respond to my query.

Front of the postcard

The entire job took 20 days from design concept to final production and delivery. I’m reasonably happy with the final product except for some horrific justified type on the back of the card. The quality of the digital printing is pretty damn good.

Back of the postcard

Importantly, I learnt some crucial lessons about freelance graphic design which are relevant no matter where you work:
1) Trust your contacts and network and ask them for recommendations. I would not have found Briar Press without Ben’s recommendation.
2) Be confident in approaching printers for quotes and samples. They are usually keen to establish a relationship and are  approachable. Go with the one who treats your job as valuable even if it is small budget.
3) Print your work to check it before it goes to final production. Test, test, test. Check, check, check. Clearly something I did not do for the back of the postcard!
4) Never underestimate the power of clip art.

The spirit of the old site is much like the present one. It offered a choice. I call my design studio Minus 9 in reference to my eyesight. Central to the concept of the site was the idea of ‘vision’ (referring both to the name of the studio as well as the vision or mission of the studio). Visitors to the site could choose ‘normal vision’ which (like the name indicates) is a more direct way of accessing the work. Or you could choose ‘m9 vision’ which was my way of looking at my work.

Front page of the site

A key aspect of the design concept and narrative of the site was the typography. Words were all blurred (as they would seem to someone with short-sight) until your mouse hovered over them, at which point, the word would come into focus.

Pop up screen for normal vision showing the various categories.
Clients interested in only a particular type of work (for example, publishing) could directly and quickly access previous projects.

A selection of work under the Corporate/Screen category.

Explanation of a branding project for the British Council.

m9 vision which organises work using ‘active’ descriptions of the design process.

Work done under the category ‘educate’

Work in the ‘illustrate’ category

Explanation of a book design project for Tara Books.

The Council was an interesting, challenging and really fun client. Due to the range of activities undertaken by the Council, each brief was unique in itself, requiring a different approach and thinking. The projects I did for them ranged from invitations to plays they were hosting to maps for their library. Due to the lost portfolio incident, I have very little of the work I did for them. Here is a leaflet used to advertise the services offered by the Culture Cafe, a forum for young people interested in the visual and performing arts to exchange ideas and share experiences.

Anything But a Grabooberry is a book of nonsense verse for children aged 4-8 years that employs typography as word and image. Written by Anushka Ravishankar, and typographically illustrated by me, the book was bravely published by Tara Books in 1998. Working on the book was my first true foray into both typography and collaboration. In the process, I fell in love with both the ability of typography to convey ideas, and with collaboration as a method of engaging with creative practice.

Anushka is one of the most inspiring and easy people to work with. The poem she wrote for her daughter Akshara became the fodder for a book enjoyed by many children.

For an outsider, it is easy to presume that all books develop in the same way – text comes first, illustration next, design and production at the end. This rarely happens with independent publishers such as Tara. In this case, Anushka gave me the text simply typed out on an A4 paper. I began to experiment with different typefaces and tried to ‘visualise’ the ideas contained in the words. Some descriptions worked better than others. Anushka and I reviewed them together and she suggested other more visual words.

During this, I tested the pages out on several friend’s kids – their reading aloud of the typographic text on the page was an invaluable input. It gave the bee many more ‘e’s, and the grabooberry more ‘ooo’s… It was important that the design rather than being intended for adults was understood by the audience of children. There was a pleasurable to-and-fro designing and editing process. As Gita Wolf, publisher at Tara Books explains, ‘We found that children enjoy figuring out words like puzzles, since they have no pre-conceptions about this. Adults are not necessarily faster at comprehending it.’

The typography in the book sets off associations in different ways: sometimes the word is a direct visual representation. For example, the word ‘cup’ looks like a cup. Other connections are indirect and lateral. A smelly sock is suggested through texture, a rocking chair is its movement, a bee creates sound, and the colour blue bubbles through water.

A simple, punchy verse that was so distinctly visual in itself seemed to ask for a simple, graphic treatment. I chose to go for a typeface with multiple weights. The only multiple weight typeface I had on my computer at the time was Arial and we certainly couldn’t afford to buy a new one so the decision was quickly made. The book needed to be low-cost – we couldn’t afford for this to be an expensive production. The book was printed on a single-offset machine in red and green. We simply worked with the restrictions we had and searched for inspiration within them.

Anything but a Grabooberry by Anuskha Ravishankar and Rathna Ramanathan was published in 1998, and reprinted in 2002 and in 2004. It won a White Ravens Special Mention in 2000 in the category of ‘World’s Best Children’s Books. The last time I checked there was only 1 copy available for sale on Amazon.