Week 19/2024

I am bone tired and the week hasn’t even begun. But I want to take a moment to mark the fact that this is my twenty-sixth week writing these notes. Sure I missed a fortnight due to a family health scare, but I am rather proud of sticking to this habit for half a year.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Most of last week was a daze as I was trying to catch up with work. I felt over-extended, fragile and desperately needing a break. I started work on the first round of a new lettering commission, and began putting things together in a presentation for the client. In the last couple of years, I’ve got better at communicating what I am doing during meetings and I want to keep that up. I have a nagging feeling that exchanges with this particular client could prove to be challenging so I really don’t want to miss the mark in my preparation. I also did some more work on a project that started a couple of weeks ago, expanding the character set and refining the composition and illustrations. Despite feeling quite stuck, I kept at it longer than I usually would have and I think I made some breakthroughs.

2.

Despite myself, I prepared and shared a quote for some graphic design and typography work to go with a couple of typeface families I am designing. I am desperately craving a break from work, but it seemed too good an opportunity to let go. I would, after all, love the chance to make my typefaces sing, if I can.

3.

The highlight of the week was my super short trip to Bangalore. I was there for less than two days, just enough time to attend the speakers’ dinner for City Scripts, facilitate my workshop at the festival, and grab coffee with some friends. I was quite nervous about the workshop because it was a new idea, but I think it went well enough. In hindsight, I feel like my introduction could have been more focused on what we were doing rather than on the general shortcomings of the design canon. I also wonder if I can introduce some materials in the workshop that help participants understand the history they are reinventing a bit better. It was excellent to have the Aksharaya calligraphy manuals on hand, though, and I am thankful that Sarang was able to send me a new set at very short notice. The folks at IIHS had already set up my little exhibition before I got to Bangalore and it was gratifying to be able to see it in person. When I went, more than half the free film zines that were up for grabs were gone and that made me super happy. There was so much excellent stuff happening at the festival, and I wish I could have spent more time there attending talks and panels, and meeting folks.

4.

I finally met Pooja and Yadu at the festival, and ended up spending quite a bit of time with Yadu and Namrata at the dinner, which was lovely. I also got the chance to have a small chat with Heta Pandit, and I met Hari, who works with her and helps run the Champaca store in Goa. Hari immediately reminded me of one of Amber’s closest friends and that was nice.

After the workshop, and before heading off to the airport, I squeezed in a coffee with Noopur and Kenneth. Even though Noopur and I worked together on making the Pixel/Play workshop happen last month, we hadn’t had a chance to just hang out and chat, and it was wonderful to be able to do just that. While at Nerlu Café, we ran into Aarika, Pratul and his parents, which was a happy coincidence. I hadn’t been able to figure out a way to meet them on this trip, and in a way our serendipitous run-in was even better than a planned rendezvous. It made me feel that even though we live in different cities, maybe that is not so far after all.

With Pooja, Namrata and Yadu at City Scripts

5.

The two solo flights I took were the perfect time to get some reading in. On my way to Bangalore, I read Jordan Mechner’s graphic memoir Replay. I was hesitant to read about the holocaust right now, but he tells the story of his family beautifully. I only wish there was more about his game making journey in the book. I sort of made up for that by reading Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on the way back. Video games and game design has been on my mind a lot lately, and for good reason. Rhea and Prateek released the demo for their game Fishbowl last week, and I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen to go play it.

Week 18/2024

I started the week on the back foot, succumbing to a fever on Wednesday afternoon. I had been feeling off-colour for days so it wasn’t unexpected, but it sure was badly-timed. For weeks now, I can sense that I am over-worked but there are a few projects simmering away right now, so an overhaul of the balance of things will have to wait at least a couple of months.

Running a part-time independent practice is hard, and I think it becomes harder when there are multiple small-to-medium sized projects running together rather one large one. The code-switching between projects keeps becoming progressively harder, even if they technically require the same number of work hours. Make no mistake, I am very grateful for the work that has come my way in the last year or so. They have all been projects that I whole-heartedly wanted to do, but keeping so many balls up in the air has been tough, and has become tougher as the months have gone by. It has also taken all the time away from my self-initiated work, like the newsletter and zines. I realise that it is all a champagne problem, especially because I already have a stable income irrespective, but I want to build better frameworks for myself for the future. Rest and play are more important to me now than they were, say, ten years ago. As is quality time spent with loved ones.

While I was sick, I listened to quite a few episodes of Hello, Type Friends and Ohno Radio. Hearing about other folks dealing with similar challenges of work-life balance and building financially and creatively sustainable practices was a small comfort.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Right before I fell sick, I was able to announce my workshop at City Scripts on social media. Quite honestly, I was overwhelmed by the response I received, and it made me feel like I, perhaps, will be able to run this workshop more than once, which was my hope for the idea.

2.

Alongside the workshop, I am also putting together a display of photographs and provocations from India Street Lettering in the form of a small exhibition, which will also have a station to watch Letter by Letter, the film that Harshay and I made about the street lettering around MG Road. Thankfully I had done most of the preparation work early so I was able to send off the exhibition material to IIHS on time.

3.

I had a couple of dental appointments. The one that I was dreading went absolutely smoothly, and the one I was wholly unafraid of had a hiccup. So it goes, I suppose. I am supposed to go back one last time this week to round off all the overdue dental work I had been postponing.

4.

On Saturday, the wood type I had purchased last week arrived. It all came in one carton and mixed up, so I have to slowly make time to organise and catalogue all of it before I can think of a fun mini-project to do with them. Maybe it can be something that my Dad and I can work on together.

5.

Some of my working hours this week have gone into drawing alternates and writing OpenType features for a script face that I am working on. Working on that was a sobering reminder that my health is not quite back yet.

6.

I spent an excruciating couple of hours doing tax-related errands: resending documents for my digital signature renewal, addressing my accountant’s queries about the book-keeping from the last financial year for the upcoming tax filing, and preparing materials for the monthly GST filing. Over the last two years, I have tried to be as meticulous about these things, trying not to let this administrative work get sidelined entirely. I have even tried to find some joy in doing it was a monthly ritual where I bring order to chaos. But it just has not stopped being a gigantic pain that I constantly feel behind on.

Week 17/2024

It is summer, the general elections are in full swing, and I find myself buried deep in work.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

The highlight of last week was finding a great dentist in the neighbourhood. The dental clinic of the doctor my family used to visit before the pandemic had steeply deteriorated on the hygiene scale, so we were in a fix. Both Amber and my Mom also suffer from travel sickness so it was imperative to find someone nearby. We tried a new doctor on the recommendation of a neighbour, and she turned out to be very kind and competent. Silly as it sounds, I am scared of dental interventions so the next few weeks are going to be about summoning the courage to get a couple of overdue treatments.

2.

On Friday, we voted. Surprisingly, there was a polling centre in the club house of our colony so it was a particularly easy affair. Later, Amber and I joined my parents for lunch out. We are building a new tradition of driving to Delhi to get some food after casting our votes.

3.

I purchased three sets of Latin wood type on a whim. Someone winding down their print shop in Bangalore reached out to me asking if I would be interested in virgin wood type they were looking to sell. I wasn’t entirely sure, but Amber encouraged me to get them even if I didn’t have concrete plans for them yet. I’ve been reading about how I can make most of wood type without a press, and I’m excited to see how I can combine them with linocut and LEGO printing.

4.

Towards the end of the week, I made a push to complete the character set of a design for a typeface commission, and I was able to share a beta font with the client.

My workshop at City Scripts 2024 was announced. I’m debuting a new idea at this workshop, initiating a collaborative speculative conversation that explores how Latin letterforms could look if we break away from limiting Western traditions, and consider how they may react to Indic influences. It has been a lot of reading and note-taking to prepare for the workshop, and I hope to have all my material ready by early next week.

On Monday, I had the first design meeting for a lettering commission, and I am very happy that the client not only liked the options I presented, but also picked the direction they would like to use.

Work has been intense at TypeTogether. I have two completely different kinds of tasks of equal priority running in parallel, and I’m not ashamed to admit that code-switching has been difficult sometimes.

5.

I dragged myself out of my reading slump on Sunday to pick up Mirion Malle’s So Long Sad Love. Graphic novels are my trusted remedy for reading blocks. So Long Sad Love deals with the challenging issue of learning that one’s partner has harassed someone in the past. It is beautifully written and drawn, but I felt that it ended abruptly and on too positive a note.

Week 16/2024

The ups and downs of last week kept me from writing these notes so far, but better something than nothing.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

It was a rough week emotionally. I was hurt by a friend’s actions, and my attempt to communicate that to them failed spectacularly.

2.

In better news, I learned that Primarium won a couple of prizes at the Indigo Design Awards: one for digital design for social change, and another for the design of its website.

3.

I bought new ink pads, and spent Sunday afternoon making a couple of modular Devanagari prints using LEGO.

Amber and I’ve been able to make something of a regular swimming schedule. That night after our swim, we realised that a local pizza place had set up a temporary oven just a few paces away. They were making fresh, if somewhat boring, pizzas. Still wet, we ate hot pizzas by the poolside.

4.

It has been steady work on the Matra Type front. I finished drawing the first drafts for a lettering commission. For another one, I’ve been involved in a protracted conversation to get the paperwork in place. There is a yet-to-be-announced workshop and display I have to put together for mid-May, and I got started on its skeleton so I can prepare material and ship things off to the venue well in advance.

Week 15/2024

I find it tough to get back the week notes train on time once it is delayed, so I am only sitting down to write these two days past when I should have.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Along with Amber, I spent most of the week of the 10th in Bangalore. I was there to teach two workshops: one at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, where incidentally, Prateek studied; and another public one about pixel type at the Underline Center. With the first one, I tried to share my own experiences and methodologies behind documenting and studying street lettering in India and making zines with the students.

It was a bit of a task to carry books and other material all the way from Delhi for these, but I think it was ultimately worth it. One of the participants of the pixel type workshop messaged me later to say that it was like living through one of my newsletter issues as a live experience, and that really made my day. Of course, this particular workshop would have been impossible without all the support that Noopur provided in the run-up and on the day, as well as Rasagy, who played both host and helper. It is truly amazing what you can do if you have supportive folks to bolster you.

2.

Despite being on a pretty hectic schedule, I managed to squeeze in some time to meet folks in Bangalore — coffee with Pranav one evening and Radhika another afternoon, dinner with Pratul and Aarika, and meeting Namrata, who was sweet enough to drop by towards the end the pixel type workshop to say hello.

Amber and I ate at some of our old favourites in Indiranagar like Chinita and Paris Panini. We also tried the Goan fare at Klaa Kitchen, where we grabbed not one but two meals.

On Sunday, our last day in Bangalore, we spent a quiet morning at the relatively new Museum of Art & Photography. I was interested in catching their latest exhibit on postcards from the 20th century. It was small and intimate, and while I would have loved to learn more about the design and production of the postcards, I quite enjoyed it. The highlight of the visit was being able to experience Jim Lambie’s installation Zobop.

3.

The last couple of external presentations at our weekly TypeTogether meetings have been pretty great. We had Petra Dočekalová talk about a script typeface development project, and Abeera Kamran about Urdu typesetting and Noori Nastaliq. I find it tough sometimes to soak into the talks we’ve been having because they are sandwiched between work, but these two really stood out.

4.

Once back, I’ve really had to hit the ground running with work. My days have been filled with a lot of bézier-wrangling. I had a bit of my cervical rib related arm pain resurface, and I’ve been feeling anxious that the two might be connected. Anyway, swimming helped, and I am hoping that it was a one time thing.

Week 14/2024

I’m writing this delayed edition of week notes from Bangalore, where I am visiting to teach a couple of workshops.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

I shipped the last order of the India Street Lettering zines placed from my shop. They are now officially sold out, save for the copies at The Bookshop Inc. in Delhi, and the ones that will soon become available at Champaca Bookstore in Bangalore. In more troubling news, I seem to have misplaced the set of three zines I had saved for myself. They should be somewhere in the house, but Amber and I just can’t find them. As a result, we spent a very stressful Saturday morning.

2.

All tickets for Pixel/Play are sold out. It has been a ride preparing for the workshop over a week in advance and carrying most of the material and books with me to Bangalore. I love being between cities, but the logistics are such a nightmare.

3.

I had the kick-off meeting for a new lettering commission, and the fourth development update meeting for a different typeface development project. On Monday, I found out that the third project I had pitched for last month has also come through after several rounds of scope changes and budget negotiations. It is going to be a busy summer.

4.

I arrived in Bangalore on Tuesday, and my luggage didn’t immediately arrive on the baggage claim carousel. The suitcase had an AirTag in it, which showed that it was very close to the carousel, even though we couldn’t see it. It took almost an hour to get the airport officials to turn the belt on again, and as it turned out, the bag was somewhere on the belt, invisible both at baggage claim and downstairs where the bags are loaded. Someone had switched the belt off before the last bag even made its way upstairs. I was so thankful for the AirTag without which I am not sure how we would have found the bag so quickly.

Week 13/2024

I am writing this week’s notes begrudgingly, but that is bound to happen sometimes. It is the cost of keeping up with a habit, I suppose. It has been a sluggish week. Even though I’ve been on my toes for most of it, it doesn’t feel like much has happened at all.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Last Friday, we announced the workshop I’ll be running at the Underline Center on April 13. The workshop is called Pixel/Play and will focus on appreciating pixel type in our environments, making them using analog materials and discussing what makes well-designed letterforms work. It is a riff on the workshop I facilitated at UXNow in January. The format is now a bit shorter, and I believe there is better focus and prompts. I’ve added a couple of more books to the collection I shared in Delhi, as well as some photographs and typeface samples. I spent lots of time in the week either preparing for the workshop, or preparing material to advertise it on social media. Noopur and I were quite anxious about selling tickets for the workshop, but I am glad we’re already 90% full, with only a couple of seats left to claim.

2.

There were a couple of plans this week to work alongside friends, but they both fell through, so I’ve been feeling a bit low.

3.

I am back at a writing assignment that has been simmering on for months. I hate how a break in work has severed my connection with the subject matter somewhat. I am feeling, for the lack of a better word, uninspired. So I’ve been doing what I do in these situations, writing whatever comes in my head anyway, knowing that a full page is better than a blank one, and that ideas are bound to come together if they are sketched out first.

4.

I submitted by final assignment for Provoking Type on Tuesday morning, and attended the last session of the course today. I’m still reflecting on what the programme offered me and what I could give back in return, but one of the more practical things that I know now is that I am too old to commit to learning weekly in the middle of the night. My sleep and food schedule is more precious than I give it credit for, and I need that to work for my health.

5.

Our local pool opened for the summer on Tuesday, and Amber and I managed to sneak in a swim first thing in the morning.

Week 12/2024

It was a hectic week, against all plans to the contrary. But I have a fresh haircut, and there are spring flowers dotting the house, so there are reasons to feel optimistic.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Saturday was intense. We left home at half past seven in the morning to make our way to Mehrauli to attend a heritage walk facilitated by Sohail Hashmi. And then came back to host a lunch for six. Amber cooked an excellent keema pulao. Lunch turned into dinner, and our guests only left a little before 10:00 pm. An excellent, excellent day, but gosh, were we tired by the end of it.

The lunch was in honour of Holi, and of Mayank and Tanya, who are visiting from Shey. We hadn’t seen them since they were last in the plains around this time in 2023. Harshay and Purneetha joined us four, and we had a quorum.

Last week, we had trekked to a part of the city I had never visited before in search of a halwai that we order sweets from. Amber swears by their mithai, and we went looking for them to try their gujiya and get some snacks for Saturday. It only took three hours, but we found their cloud kitchen (the pandemic has shut their proper sweet shops down) and brought mathris and gujiyas and kachoris, which were, ultimately, a hit. The Leh contingent was particularly into them since they miss this food back home.

The theme of playing host continued through the week as Mayank and Tanya came back to stay overnight on Sunday, and then on Holi evening, we invited my parents over for some homemade pizza.

2.

The last couple of weeks have been an exercise in managing my anxiety since I’ve had a lot of online meetings on the cards, especially with folks I don’t really know.

On Wednesday, I had a sweet chat with Pranavi, who had reached out to me a couple of weeks ago. It is nice to have another type designer in the city, and we spent a leisurely hour talking about how one might go about building a career.

Also on the calendar that day was a call with Bharath to discuss his fascinating finds of graphics related to the Indian railways. He had such gorgeous material to share with me, and pointed me to a lot of reading resources to build context around what I was seeing. It is a busy few weeks ahead of me, but I hope to dive into the material as soon as possible, and hopefully, Bharath and I will be able to work on them together.

Noopur and I spoke to the folks from the Underline Center to finalise the spot as the venue for my workshop in April. Things for that are slowly falling into place, and I hope to make the announcement for it in the next couple of days.

3.

Prateek and I took time out to discuss some development work and changes to India Street Lettering. The website has been dealing with low speeds and some spam, and needs a bit of TLC. While I was not in a position to do said cherishing, I did upload about two dozen new photographs from Panjim and Mapusa to the archive.

4.

I spent several soul-shattering hours catching up on all things tax-related.

5.

It was a bad week migraine-wise. I battled one on Saturday afternoon when the house was full of guests, and sat at the precipice of another one most of Monday and Tuesday. I was too worn out, as a result, to be up at 3:30 am to attend this week’s Provoking Type lecture. There’s only one week of the course left now, and in the next few days, I must finish up my final project.

6.

Despite everything that has been going on, I was able to prioritise a bit of play. I made a prototype for a new zine format I am experimenting with, that I hope to use for teaching. After a few failed starts, I managed to make some typographic cyanotypes. And I got started on a new LEGO letterpress print in Devanagari.

Week 11/2024

The seasons are rapidly changing and the city is awash in semul flowers (red silk-cotton or Bombax ceiba). I ate my first mango of the year, perhaps too early. And thanks to our brand new Aeropress, which joins its compatriots — the recently acquired moka-pot, the seasoned cold brew pot, and the almost-decade old Chemex — in our kitchen, I drank the most excellent cup of coffee this evening. Life is, as they say, alright.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Two of the prospective client calls that I was excited about last week have resulted in solid projects. One is a lettering assignment, and the other a workshop. The conversation continues for the third one, and so I remain hopeful.

I’m also talking with Noopur to organise a workshop in Bangalore next month. If all goes well, that should get figured out by end of the week, and I’ll be traveling soon for this and a couple of days of teaching at NIFT Bangalore.

2.

My lecture at Practica finally happened last Thursday. Teaching online is tough. You never know how the students are taking it all in. I believe I was able to share some useful methodologies and perspectives with them, and I’m grateful to the folks who spoke up after the lecture to share how my feeling of cultural otherness resonated with them, and asked questions about my research methods when studying local design histories where pickings are slim.

It is a peculiar feeling being both student and instructor at the same time. Not two days before this talk, I was attending a lecture by Silas Munro that covered similar subjects.

3.

On Friday we celebrated Harshay’s birthday with lunch at Poochki Table and a visit to the Raghu Rai exhibition that is on show at the KNMA. None of us had been to Poochki Table since our last visit a few weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020. It was for a celebration then too, and I like how we have made warm memories in this place. It was sunny but not terribly warm, and we were able to dine al fresco in their patio. The food is still as nice I remembered it, and they’ve added freshly made potato wafers to their menu, which were excellent. To top it off, Purneetha brought a really nice cake from Chez Adoline.

The Raghu Rai exhibition was tepid: the photographs were great, but the curation left a lot to be desired. One bit that stuck with me was a quote by Rai about how poignant photographs emerge when you invest in a place that you’re interested in through studied discipline. It made me think of patch birding, and increasingly I feel like I want to do most things in life with that philosophy.

4.

We finally had a proper weekend after ages, and ended up spending almost none of it on rest. With a spur-of-the-moment decision, we went back to our weekly routine of going out to buy groceries in person, rather than ordering them from the store. And since we were in the neighbourhood, we sneaked in lunch at Nature’s Soul Kitchen. Amber and I both ate our favourites, and talked about how much we would miss this place and its food if we were to be away from Delhi.

On Sunday, Purneetha spent the day at our place. We made cyanotypes, chatted non-stop and went for a long walk. It felt like a mini-vacation.

Week 10/2024

This past week was a pleasant change of pace, what with travel taking up most of it. I’ve also been a bit better at soothing myself about potential changes that might dominate our lives in the coming months. I can’t say that I’ve made friends with the uncertainty, but it is no longer keeping me up at night. On the other hand, I’ve been thinking a lot about small adjustments I need to make in my life so it becomes less rushed and more fulfilling. So all in all, it has been a pretty reflective few days.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

I spent most of the week in Udaipur, where I was visiting my friend Ambika and participating in activities at LAB59, an artist-led practice, research and community space that she is running alongside Nanditi and Agat. My trip coincided with Anushka’s time as a resident at the lab, and so they kickstarted things with an informal convening called cmmn.rm (common room) where Anushka, Agat and I shared a little bit about our respective practices.

My planned activity at LAB59 was an exploratory type walk around the old parts of Udaipur. While I helped a motley group see the details of the letterforms we saw there, Amber recorded them as photographs and Nanditi documented the sounds from the same locations. After that, Ambika, Nanditi and I brainstormed how we might put our collective skills together to create an experience that captured what we saw and heard during the talk. We came up with and discarded a few ideas before zeroing in on what we’re working on now. There wasn’t enough time to complete our project during my stay but we built a small prototype, and I hope that the finished work will take shape soon.

2.

The trip gave Amber and I a chance to sample plenty of local food: we ate a thali at Traditional Khana, where the highlight was chakki ki subzi; sampled kachoris, poha and jalebis from Jogmaya along with special mirchi wade from a shop a little outside the city; tried papad and methi ki subzi at Dhabology; and had a breakfast thali at Tapri Niwas with the thinnest, crispiest jalebis one could imagine.

We also spent an afternoon with everyone from LAB59 at Jajam. I am not much of a co-working space kind of person, but the setting was quite beautiful, and with friends around, it was fun to spend time working from there.

3.

An account of this trip would be incomplete without mentioning Yugen, Ambika and Agat’s six-year old. I had last met him properly before the pandemic, when he was still a toddler. And unsurprisingly, he is completely different now — so full of energy and always ready with clever remarks. There aren’t many children in my life, so it always feels like a revelation spending time with one.

We also hung out with Purneetha’s brother and sister-in-law. Most of the delicious food we ate came down to their recommendations. They were very kind not only with that, but also with taking us to some of these places, and generally making us feel very much at home in Udaipur.

4.

Once back, I had a meeting with TypeTogether colleagues who are all working on a multi-script typeface project. It was fascinating to see everyone’s approach and methodology, where they intersected, and how they diverged. My part in this project is an ambitious one given our timelines, and I am expecting to get a lot of the foundation for it laid in the next week or so.

5.

I’ve had a couple of enquiries for new projects on the Matra Type front, and had two excellent meetings on Tuesday. I also sent off another proposal to a prospective client today. I have my fingers and toes crossed that all these projects come through — each has something challenging and fun to bring to the table.

6.

I was bummed this morning to miss part of Silas Munro’s lecture during my Provoking Type class. The clocks turned in the US, and I didn’t have a calendar invite that reflected that. Running online events is hard, even more so with a global audience, but I would have liked if the organisers had been more thorough.

I turned in my reflections on last week’s reading: Grace Lee Boggs’ These are the Times that Grow our Souls. While I was disappointed that the very first assignment in the course centered the American experience, the essay gave me a lot to think about, in particular, the disillusionment that many of us feel with the dire state of democratic apparatus on the one hand and the inefficacy of our protests on the other. I am really looking forward to doing this week’s homework — an exercise in collective poetic research — which was prompted by Munro.