Week 6/2024

This week has not been good news, health-wise. I was hit by a nasty bout of insomnia, and got only 20 minutes of sleep on Friday night. That derailed the next few days entirely. And just when I began to recover, an annoying tooth ache reared its head.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Last Wednesday, Purneetha, Harshay, Amber and I spent an afternoon making things together. I convinced them all to try out my latest obsession — LEGO letterpress — and they were all so ingenious and creative with what they tried. Purneetha selectively printed plain origami paper to make birds with; Harshay made a glitchy looking monogram; and Amber reduced the spirit of the Chrysler Building into the limited blocks we had. Make art with your friends, I can’t recommend it enough!

2.

I spent a lot of my otherwise free time in the week preparing for my guest lecture for the Latin Two programme at Practica, which was supposed to be yesterday. As it turned out there was a mix-up at their end, and the lecture is actually in March. At least I’m ready for next month, and won’t be scrambling in the days running up to it.

3.

On the weekend, Amber and I went to see Jasjyot Singh Hans’s exhibition, Sit Properly, at Pulp Society, and it was fantastic. Jasjyot was there himself, live drawing. He was incredibly kind and soft-spoken, and so generous with conversation. The same day I also dropped off a small consignment of India Street Lettering zines at The Bookshop Inc.

4.

The highlight of the week, perhaps, was the tour that Amber gave me inside Tara Apartments, a housing complex designed by Charles Correa that sits in the heart of Delhi. Amber had spent some time in a family home there when he was younger, and I loved hearing his stories, as much as I enjoyed getting a closer look at this Correa masterpiece.

Week 5/2024

And just like that, it is February. I feel like I spent all of last month just getting into the groove. Last week, I finished off my most pressing deadlines, and did more admin tasks than I would have liked. There are a lot of different things going on at work, and I’ve been struggling with code-switching.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

On Tuesday afternoon I sent out a new issue of my newsletter. This one is about pixel type and needlework, and I show a handful of books that feature woven, embroidered or knitted letterforms, which could just as well have been pixel typefaces. I’ve been interested in this connection for a long, long time, and I also wrote a little about a couple of workshops I’ve facilitated that tinkered with this idea.

2.

Running an online shop is hard. I spent half a day doing inventory, which had become impossible to postpone because a couple of bookstores I love agreed to stock the India Street Lettering zines. Then I got the zines ready for the stores by wrapping them in sparkly tissue paper that I am very pleased about. And then there was making GST invoices for past orders in the specific format that my accountant requested. There is only a small number of zines left, and I am excited to send them all off to new homes so I can concentrate on making something new.

3.

Last Wednesday on my day off from TypeTogether, Amber and I decided to play hooky and head out to lunch at Café Lota. Off late, I hadn’t kept tabs at what was happening at the Crafts Museum, so I was happy to find that there was an exhibition about ikat textiles that was going. It dovetailed so perfectly with what I had been writing and compiling for my newsletter, and gave me the push I needed to get it ready for publication. I decided to give India Art Fair a miss this year, so it was doubly nice to catch an exhibition the same week.

4.

Amber and I went birdwatching after more than a month. Just a stroll in the neighbourhood park, but it is winter so we saw almost two dozen birds in only 45 minutes. The highlight was the big group of red-naped ibises. Two winters ago, the park was home only to a pair of them, but their numbers have really grown. It was also nice to catch some wagtails before it is time for them to migrate away.

5.

I posted my 500th photograph on India Street Lettering — what a thrill!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this project and Instagram. I never made a dedicated handle for it, and I find it increasingly dull to post the photos on the app. But given that most folks seem to be consuming everything on social media, I sometimes wonder if anyone ever finds what I publish on the website. The website has its advantages — tagging and annotating, for instance — that mean a lot to me, and help me make sense of the photographs. For me, this documentation goes beyond nostalgia, or a thirst for the aesthetic, or even the desire to capture every iconic sign. I want to make connections, discover new paradigms of letter construction and typography, find patterns within and across cities and neighbourhoods, and embrace new ways of seeing letterforms that does away with elitist ideas we learn in design school. Instagram just doesn’t feel like the place for that. But is it the place from where I can introduce more people to this intention? Probably.

6.

Months after I wrote it, my essay about the behind the scenes work for Primarium went up on the TypeTogether blog. This project was almost two years of my work life, and I feel quite proud seeing it come together as well as it has.

Week 4/2024

I started off this week very overwhelmed and tired, and ended it being under the weather. So I cut myself some slack — emailing a couple of clients about delayed deliveries, focusing only on what’s urgent, and taking it easy on my personal projects.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

I took some time out for creative play on the weekend once I was feeling a little better to get in a more positive frame of mind. The result was making a LEGO letterpress print to celebrate achieving my new year’s resolution from last year to eat hundred different culinary vegetables (or their cultivars). I am using ink stamps rather than a roller and ink, and so I am constrained when it comes to the maximum size of the printing block. For a print a little smaller than A4, it took twelve square blocks of 2.5 inches side. As a result, I had to do some amount of planning to translate my design into blocks and make sure everything lines up. Though tough, the whole process — from making the design on Glyphs a couple of weeks ago to the printing and finally scanning the print back and playing around with it digitally — was very fun.

2.

After what feels like ages, Amber and I spent some time with Purneetha and Harshay. It is amazing how much time spent with friends will buoy you. The four of us have a lot of plans to take time out for making art together and trying out new media and techniques, and I hope that some of them come to fruition soon. When we met, we also paid a visit to the new The Bookshop Inc. Even though I didn’t pick up any books, Amber did, and I can see myself reading at least a few of them.

3.

Which brings me to, I started reading my first book of the year — Letters to a Writer of Colour, edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro. I’ve been in a bit of a reading dry spell lately, and so it was doubly nice to immerse myself in the book. Only about a quarter of my way through, and I am already a fan.

4.

I began working on the second of a three-part essay series I am working on for a client. We’ve lost a bit of momentum for this work, so the going has been a bit slow. My poor health didn’t help much either. If all goes to plan, I’ll have a draft ready for the editor in a few days.

5.

I had the first design meeting for a new typeface design project, and it went off very well. Now onto lots of drawing!

Week 3/2024

My 2024 was off to a bumpy start with a family health emergency that swallowed the first ten days or so whole without a single care. It has been a game of catch-up ever since, and it is only today, on the 24th, that I’m sitting down to write.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Things got better just enough that I was able to conduct my workshop at UXNow in mid-January. I’m always somewhat tentative when I facilitate something brand new, but I think the participants had a good time (I might make this workshop a teeny bit shorter next time, though). We looked at books, created letters with stickers and paper weaving, and made prints using LEGO blocks.

2.

A bunch of new projects are kicking off at TypeTogether and on the Matra Type front, but I can’t talk about any of them in public yet. What this means, though, is that it has been all guns blazing work-wise, and I am hoping that by next week, I’ll be properly up to speed.

3.

Last week, I made a lot of progress on the next issue of my newsletter, including setting up a little photo studio in the living room to photograph all the books I am talking about. It is mostly ready to go out next week, just some more photos and announcements to add.

4.

I braved the cold and fog on Saturday to go to Daryaganj for some scouting for the next batch of India Street Lettering zines. A semi-successful outing that one because I think I have captured one of the subjects well enough that they can now be featured in a zine. This crumbling neon sign also caught my eye, and I was glad to photograph it before it is gone.

5.

I announced international shipping for my shop, and a batch of zine orders from the US and Europe are being sent off today, which is very exciting.

Week 52/2023

I was technically on holiday all week, but some small things continued to simmer in the background. A lot of that had to do with starting the new year with as clean a slate as possible — clean studio, clear to-do lists, and a new computer.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

One of the tasks I just couldn’t shake off in the holidays was the preparation for my half-day workshop at UXNow later this month. I was afraid that unless I thought things through in advance, I won’t have sufficient time to buy all the material, prepare worksheets and get any printed paraphernalia made. That wasn’t wrong, to be honest. I tried to keep my focus on trying out the activities I am planning for the workshop, so I would do some creative play as the year winds down, rather than pretend to relax, all while stressing out. I did some paper weaving after years, and it was fun. The most exciting, of course, was to do a bit of LEGO letterpress. The results were quite satisfying and the process wasn’t as hard as I was expecting. I am looking forward to planning some new personal projects that use the technique.

2.

I have a new M2 Macbook Air, which is replacing my previous M1 machine. My last laptop was a bit of a disappointment — it became awfully slow with only a couple of years of use, and started to come in the way of my working at the pace I’d like. I have my fingers crossed that this new one will be different. Instead of transferring everything using Time Machine, I decided to start afresh with this laptop. This was straightforward enough aside from all the junk I had accumulated in my Downloads folder over the years. Going through those files was like a bit of time travel, and it threw up a lot of memories, terrible and joyful.

3.

After losing the steam to do them while I was traveling non-stop, I re-started my morning pages practice. I believe it made me feel more centered over the summer, and I hope that experience will continue.

4.

Inspired by our trip to Sunder Nursery last week, and by Amber, who has started doing drawing exercises everyday, I picked up my drawing notebook a couple of times. I’ve always wanted to draw and colour with oil pastels, but feel scared of the mess they create. Putting that fear aside, I just, sort of, dove in. And I’m very glad I did.

Week 51/2023

It is Boxing Day, and I’m hitting publish on this week’s notes as I get ready for a day of watching cricket. Where I was itching for little household errands a couple of weeks ago, now I am saturated. I wish the house would just take care of itself, and take care of me too while it is at it.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Amber and I joined my cousin, Aditi, and my uncle, Alok, on our maiden trip to the Surajpur Wetlands. The wetlands are just 40 mins away from where we live, but everything we had read had always painted a very dreary picture of the place. And so, we’d never made the effort. The trip turned out to be an adventure because when we arrived at the gate marked on Google Maps, it was locked. No amount of banging on the gate led to any response (even though that is what the helpful neighbours told us we should do). With some rough directions, we left in search of the other gate. We almost gave up and drove to Okhla Bird Sanctuary instead, but thankfully, a last ditch effort took us to the right spot.

The wetlands were surprisingly well-maintained, and we saw about forty birds in about two hours of leisurely ambling around. I was very happy to see a large flock of bar-headed geese up close. I’ve always found them to be beautiful creatures, but had never had the good fortune of seeing them very well.

2.

Most of the week was eclipsed by the mammoth task of cleaning and organising our primary bookshelf. It lines one long wall of my studio and houses the majority of our combined books. You won’t believe how long it takes to pull down 1300-odd books, dust them, check whether they are properly cataloged and then put them back where they most belong. We were at it for days. This annual tradition always starts with a lot of excitement and ends with us being bone-tired and questioning why we ever bought a single book.

3.

This year we started the bookshelf cleaning with my collection of Pelican books. Because of the aforementioned excitement, I decided that I would take the opportunity to photograph all their covers. A makeshift studio was built, the tripod set up, and the camera connected to its phone app. After a couple of hours of sitting cross-legged on the floor and pressing shoot after placing each book in the right spot, I was done. I’ve been meaning to do this for years, and I’m glad to have finished step one. I hope that I can find some time late in January or early February to clean up and organise the photos. I couldn’t resist working on a few yesterday.

4.

As the last of my “work tasks” before the year ends, I sent out an issue of my newsletter on Tuesday. This issue was co-published with 3 Sided Coin. For the main essay of the newsletter, I wrote about three recent Devanagari typefaces that broaden our imaginations of the script. This essay is available in both Hindi and English. With that, I also shared some Air India first flight covers from my ephemera collection, and mused about faux-script lettering.

Week 50/2023

I’m back from what I pray and hope is the last trip of 2023. A fantastic few days in Calcutta that were booked months ago before we knew how hectic the end of the year would get.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

I finished the last of my work, meetings and emails before the holidays — some boring, others exciting. But that’s all for the new year now.

2.

One last newsletter issue will be coming your way before I shut shop for 2023, and I spent some time putting the final touches on that. I’ll send it this week, so if you’re interested and not signed up, today is a good day to subscribe.

3.

I started preparing for a workshop I’ll be facilitating at UXNow in Delhi in January. It has been a long time since I’ve done anything like it but I am looking forward to playing around with pixel type. It is always so much fun to introduce new folks to how letterforms are designed, and I hope this will be no different.

4.

While in Calcutta, I spent lots of time photographing street lettering. I had some concrete plans to capture some signs for upcoming zines, but there was also ambling around and discovering what the city has to offer. The latter was helped by an afternoon with Ankush, Karthik and Arindam of Friday Kollective, who offered to show me and Amber around. We walked for as long as our legs would carry us and ended the evening with delicious mishti.

Expect an avalanche of new posts on India Street Lettering in the coming weeks as I sit down to organise, edit and publish all the photographs I clicked in Panjim, Mapusa and Calcutta in the last month.

Week 49/2023

I am writing this post embraced in the warm afterglow of an excellent weekend spent in Bangalore. I still have trouble believing that Harshay and I made a movie and people saw it, then there was the exhibition — a first for my project India Street Lettering, and oof the zines, scores and scores of you got yourself a copy, wow! None of this, of course, would have been possible without Amber, who likes to kid that everyone must believe he is my intern, but is, in fact, the best partner one could ask for.

My parents decided to come down for the screening and exhibition, and it was incredibly fun to have them there, and introduce them to our old life in Bangalore, and to our friends who live in the city.

Writing this week’s notes, which are being published late as it is, is proving to be hard. I seem to have forgotten most of last week in the excitement of the weekend. But here it goes, anyway.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

At the Experience BIC festival, we were lucky to see an exhibition of Paul Fernandes’ work and attend a walkthrough with him. Paul was so gentle, kind and funny. I left with a renewed appreciation of his work, knowing how personal it is to him. He talked about drawing Bangalore in a way that allowed others to weave in their own memories, rather than imposing a vision that was only his.

2.

My favourite movie at the B•LORE Short Film Festival was Naveen Tejaswi’s Imaana. It told the story of his village and his undying love of aeroplanes, and left me so moved that I couldn’t help but cry. If you get a chance, please, please watch this film.

3.

Earlier in the week, I transcribed and edited the first draft of an interview I conducted a couple of weeks ago for an object history that I am writing. It really is a testament to how much my mental health has improved piece by piece that now I can suggest an interview to a client, rather than shirk away from one.

4.

I also had the unenviable job of reviewing an in-progress typeface for a consultancy I am doing. Of all the writing I do, it is probably these notes that I find most challenging. I would much rather talk and explain. Setting that preference aside, I put my head down and prepared a document with feedback and sent it off before I took off for Bangalore.

Week 48/2023

With all the travel I’ve done in the last few months, I’m really beginning to miss the small rituals that make up every day home life. The truly mundane things, like making the glass water bottles sparkle and re-organising the credenza drawers. Still a couple of weeks before I can hang up my boots for the year and slip into quiet domesticity, so I’m making the small wins count until then. Wins like a late night, trans-Atlantic phone call with two of my favourite people. I can’t remember when I last laughed that much, or felt so understood.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Over a couple of hectic weeks this summer, Harshay and I made a short film about the typographic charms of Bangalore’s M.G. Road. We did this using only previously-captured footage and photographs of the neighbourhood due to lack of a travel budget. This was no mean feat, and honestly, made possible thanks to Harshay’s ingenuity. The exciting news is that our movie is screening at the B·LORE Short Film Festival on December 10, as part of the Showcasing History cohort. If you’re in Bangalore, please come for the screening and say hello to us: we have some shiny poster zines to give away.

Along with the screening, I’m also exhibiting a small collection of photographs of Bangalore’s public lettering at the Bangalore International Centre during the Carnival of Culture happening on the same weekend. It was so unnerving to select photographs and write texts for the exhibition. The thrill and fear of showing one’s work never goes away, I suppose.

2.

Given the events that are coming up and the many well-intentioned reprimands I received this year about not having any business cards, I finally sat down to make myself some. The last time I had any fun doing that was almost a decade and a half ago while I was still in university, and had Ambika by my side to indulge every silly idea I could muster.

I was, at least, a little bit excited by the prospect this time around, because earlier this year I drew a new logo for Matra Type that (surprise!) I am still happy with. I wanted the cards to be tactile, so once the design was in place, the printer and I experimented with screen printing. Sadly, the result wasn’t quite what we were hoping for. So now I am waiting to see what they will look like with a touch of embossing instead.

3.

Work has been quite rewarding lately on the writing front: I have been working on a couple of bilingual projects, which is a first. For one of those, I decided to write the original draft in Hindi and then translate to English, instead of going the other way around, which might have felt more natural. I did the translation this week, and overall, I am happy with what we were able to achieve. Writing about design and typography in Hindi is hard, but I hope that the more I do it, the more comfortable I will become with the vocabulary and tone.

4.

I finally signed the paperwork for a new project I’m really looking forward to working on. It only took seven months (!) to get all our ducks in a row, when the time to do all the work is, in fact, shorter than that.

Week 47/2023

We traveled back home this week, and before we could settle in, we got bad news: Amber’s grandmother passed away. She was 96 going on 97, and had a very particular brand of joie de vivre about her that one can only hope to emulate. Amber traveled to be with his family for a few days, while I tried to make sense of pending housework in his absence. It is not how we imagined this week would end, but that’s life.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

1.

Earlier in the week during the regular TypeTogether call, our new intern Sondos Abdellatif, shared her undergraduate degree project, Qeyas, with the team. Qeyas was conceptualised as a basic tool and set of guidelines for digital publishers that work with Arabic in order to help them create properly typeset layouts for online use. During her presentation, she talked about not finding any books about contemporary Arabic grids, layouts and typesetting, and what a challenge that was. Her complaint really struck a chord with me, in the context of what we experience with Indic scripts.

2.

Reopening my online shop has come with tonnes of extra administrative work that I abhor. For a few months now, I’ve been trying to set up international payments because there has been a lot of interest in buying the zines from outside India. The bureaucracy and poorly-documented technological solutions have been very discouraging. While we were still in Goa, Amber and Prateek helped me get some building blocks in place, and I have my fingers crossed that this will get resolved soon.

3.

Jane, who I didn’t get to meet in Goa this time, sent some newspapers she had collected for me on her travels along with a surprise: an old Letraset catalogue. I’m curious about how she got her hands on it (a story, hopefully, for another time) and can’t wait to go through the catalogue properly when I have some time.

4.

Most of all, this week has been about preparation: for my trip to Bangalore, especially the new printed things I want to carry with me; for an interview I have to conduct in coming days for an essay series I’m writing; for my next newsletter issue; and for completing TypeTogether’s year-end publishing targets for Primarium.