Let your dreams fly.

Wow. I've come back to this space after so long. (And to add to the drama, I'm using a different font, different from my usual.) So, hi.
I’ve disappeared for so long and you’ll know why! I want to share with you something I’ve done over a couple few months. As most of you know I’m studying Typography, and this year I got around to designing an illustrative typeface. Inspired by a German illustrator and graphic designer, Olle Eksell, I made this typeface – Bird Watching. It was a wonderful, fun process designing this typeface and I HAD to apply this font somewhere. So I designed a vest and bag and these posters for my typeface.
(You can have a look at my portfolio here)

Font poster – Alphabets A-Z upper case and lower case, 0-9 and punctuations.

  

The vest and the tote.

It was really exciting to bring together Typography and Fashion. There couldn’t be anything better than that for me. I feel like a proud mother who gave birth to a beautiful illustrative (ha!) typeface. What’s better than having MY creation being carried and worn by stylish women? I’m still in the process of getting them printed and stitched, I havn’t priced them yet. In about a month’s time, I’ll post the price, size and details to purchase. None the less, I’d love to have a feedback from you. Would you like to buy these beauties? :)

Sometimes, you really feel so proud about the work you do. Not because you think there’s no one better than you (mind you, that can never happen), but because it’s something you do yourself, a relation you have with yourself. If there are any mistakes made, you learn. If there are moments of appreciation, you pat yourself. The process of learning is a never ending one, I’m lucky enough to know what I’m passionate about, to know that if life beats me up – art will fix it.
But sometimes, you have a rough patch when you think you’re not talented enough, you’re not brave enough, you’re not lovable enough, you’re not smart enough – I carefully chose to call it a phase and let it pass. And those of you reading this, facing this, please don’t call it a phase. A phase is created by you, it doesn’t just come. The problem is, you’re setting high standards for yourself. You expect more from yourself, more than what you’re capable of. This will pull you down, and make you doubt yourself. And no, you DON’T want to go in that dangerous area. Workaholics out there, cut yourself some slack. Go on a holiday, read a book, do what you like, SLEEP. I forced myself to a week long break (because of the circumstances of being unwell, but well, I got myself to take a break, y’know?) I lazed, I read a book, I ran, I ate everything I kept restricting myself from eating, I slept like a damn horse, I ignored calls from haters, I pushed away all my work, I did not think I was losing any sort of opportunity – like how my otherwise delusional self would think. If you’re good at what you do, at all times, opportunity will bang on your doorstep till you take it. And once you know you’re capable of balancing life, go back to it. I can admit I havn’t reached there yet, but soon enough. You can’t hold your dreams tight and expect them to stay with you, while you sit, fearfully. You have to let your dreams fly, and fly with them.

Happy weekend beautiful people and Happy Women's Day, you wonderful women around the world.

Please drop a feedback about the vest and tote, it will be very helpful. :)

Stay in touch with me on twitter and facebook.

  Until next time,
Bises :*

Artyheart turns TWO!

Artyheart turns TWO! And here's a little something I made. 20 reasons to love Artyheart. *grin* Share the love!

 

For reading all 20 in detail, click HERE

I would be nothing without you, so thank you. So much. :)

Have a safe & happy new year! Happy holidays!

Until next time,

Bises :*

For the love of Typography 2

Hello! Today,I'm going to share with you one of the best experiences. About a week or so ago, my college allowed us to conduct seminars and workshops on Typography. It was such a brilliant experience, my friend & I held a fun music-typography workshop called 'Lyrical Type'

Here's the poster we made to advertise for our workshop, followed by the poster [not made by me] of the main event.

The seminars were such a hit, everyone did well. We compressed months of research in 20minutes presentations. So, hard work paid off. Yay :D
The workshop we(Kunj & I) conducted went really well too. I'll give you a gist of how it happened. 
It all began in the beginning of this year. We discovered our love towards lettering, we kept doodling and scribbling for each other, made funky art, drew crazy quirky typefaces & developed our own styles. We have a very similar style but still distinctively different. And when we heard about getting a chance to conduct a workshop, we jumped at the opportunity.
Our main goal was to spread the love for lettering, to give people the freedom to do what they like and enjoy it at the same time. All through these years, we have learnt design rules that we follow. So we wanted to help people to break out from that box. Do what you want, go all over the paper and most important - enjoy what you're doing. Only when you truly enjoy what you're doing, being absolutely fearless, will you make good designs.
Lyrical Type- Inspired by a similar typography workshop done before, we decided to conduct this workshop. We were really pumped by the response we got at the registration, there were so many people who wanted to attend our workshop. From art to non-art students, graduates, graphic designers, juniors interested in Typography & so on.

At the registration desk

We spoke to our bunch of 19 talented participants about Typography and Lettering in general, how we want them to relax, enjoy the music and do what they want to do, we showed them lots of well designed lettering styles for inspiration and gave them little tips about layout and colour balancing.

   

We chose a song [New Shoes- Paulo Nutini] and gave each participant 2 lines to make a good layout on. The workshop was for 4 hours so they had plenty time to make rough sketches & finalize a good layout. It was a great experience to be teaching instead of being taught. Each participant was enthusiastic and excited to make good designs. Teaching indeed teaches you a lot.

 

My best friend Andy, an illustrator, came all the way from UAE to attend my workshop. Yay! :)

 

 

 We wanted to open their minds, be able to explore more and to express exactly how they want to. It was such a success! :) The food was so yummy too, especially the cheese corn samosas!

 And that was an end to a fabulous day, we put together everybody's layout that night and made a video. 

View it on youtube, you can leave comments too. :)

It was such a great experience and I cannot wait to conduct many more workshops! I hope it made a good impact on all the participants and they never forget the workshop. It wouldn't be possible without the help of our Typography Guru, Mrs. Manasi Keni, who helped us to reach where we have, my college to be overly cooperative, the wonderful participants to be as interested as us & the photographers (Omkar,Pratik,Rohit & Amish).

This is the feedback we received from some of the participants

And that brings an end to another busy month. Phew! How did you like my workshop? :)

[What I wore: Pink shirt - AJ Store, necklace - bangkok, jeans - ONLY]

Until next time,
Bises :*

CMYK

Let me tell you a story today. The story of how I realised there's more to colours than my box of 12 crayons oil pastels. (Never used from the back, paper carefully torn only when needed.)
When I was little, I was the quiet inquisitive child, the curly headed girl with hair in her face at all times. I would always sit in a corner and draw, sprawl on the balcony floor counting the cars passing by (still do that), or just sit in a crowded room and observe people, listen to their conversations, judge them(still do that in buses and trains). My favourite eavesdropping sessions would be those around my parents. Their conversations would always crack me up, help me learn something or check for new words in the dictionary. But on many occasions, I wouldn't understand what they're talking and wonder what the hell is cyan,magenta,yellow,black. I mean I knew yellow and black were colours (magenta then was a darker shade of pink for me and cyan remained unidentified.)

Mom: 60 cyan will look better, right? Dad: Most definitely!
Dad: I bought a new shirt, its in the bag, its 10 cyan, 65 black. (Couldn't he just say teal? It would be so much easier to look up the dictionary!)

My box of crayons were limited to 12 shades, alright. I knew there were many more shades of colours, but why are numbers associated with colours?
And a couple of years later, when we learnt computers in school, we were introduced to Photoshop. Knowing my habit of wanting to know everything about something new, I stayed up nights and spent time editing one photo of myself on the software. And that is when I understood... CMYK. I explored more, kept creating new things, kept designing. A few months later, I knew what I wanted to be in life. And here I am, on my way up the ladder. :)

I decided to share this story with you, when I tweeted a couple days ago.

 How I love my parents!

2days ago, I decided to wear this hand-me-down by my mom. She purchased this from Kashmir during her college days. The embroidery is hand done and thats what makes it more special. I wore it on my black shirt and went to college. My classmate (a budding photographer) had bought his camera & this called for a quick shoot!

 Jacket - Hand-me-down by mom, bangles - vintage, shirt - AJ Store, leggings - westside, flip flops -west view.

 

 Photography by Bhushan Jain, photos edited by me.

Stay in touch with me on twitter and facebook.

Until next time,

Bises!

Shirts! Shirts! Shirts!

Shirts shirts shirts shirts! How I love shirts! I've been eying, buying, designing and stitching shirts! I've stored so many beautiful pieces, here's a few of them.

 

Photo credits : All over the internet. If anybody claims to know any photo owner, please link me so I can credit them.

Probably why I like shirts...

And a few posts where i wore shirts...

Why I really like shirts :

1) I love anything with buttons
2) Wear them to a formal meeting. Unbotton a few buttons from the bottom, tie. Head out to have some fun!
3) I really love folding up my sleeves.
4) My large collection of statement necklaces get noticed more.
5) Shirts never look shabby!

Charlie Harper has been such a big inspiration. I've always loved his bowling shirts & made mental notes to design a Charlie Harper inspired shirt. And then I did.

Will do a post wearing this shirt soon.
Also, the weather in my city is getting so chilly and cold (which never usually happens) & I'm so excited about this! Time to wear layers of clothes! Yay! :)

Are you following me on Twitter and Facebook ?

Until next time,

Bises:*