Povera Italia

This was a project on Complexity done under the Density Design Lab (Communication Design) at Politecnico di Milano, Italy during a semester long exchange program. Very very unlike the work I've done so far, but I'm glad I got to work on this side of Graphic design as well.

Poverty is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon. Six dimensions of poverty (Food, Housing, Education, Leisure, Health and Occupation) were analysed in the context of Italy, to create a clearer perspective on each topic. The final products were a complexity map and a video for each of the dimensions. When viewed together one can connect them to generate a bigger picture of poverty.

What my group worked on were the complexity map and video for Food and Poverty in Italy.

This complexity map compares fruit and vegetable distribution systems in Italy to understand the relationship between added services and increase in prices. It also identifies problem areas, creating scope for improvement of the existing system.


size: 70cm x 100cm
To view the map in full size, go here.


The animated video takes off from the complexity map, presenting two different fruit and vegetable distribution systems in Italy. While continuing to elaborate the service-price relationship, the video also looks at the pros and cons of each system, explaining the values that
each of them stand for.

duration: 2 min 20 sec

Choice from Shreyas R Krishnan on Vimeo.

Santa Pig meets Santa Piglet

Old sketch, but still. Kaveri came home yesterday. I had to bribe her and Jasjyot, my poster-elves, with the promise of praaper Italian espresso. Jas fell sick and ditched, but Kaveri made it, and was very fascinated with the moka and the pasta.



She also got me a very byootiful-oh-so-pretty pencil. I louwe it. I intend to hijack the place she got it from, once she reveals its madras location to me.

Summer stalkings

A bright new notebook, a bottle of ink, an old nib and not-so-secretly stalking people at home.
Not to mention the endless news and ads on TV.

Back to the heat

post-pedicure, I DO have sparkly blue nails

me drawing me drawing me

Poster-elf #1

Jasjyot, at night mess. He wanted a hot pink background, but I thought this was sufficiently bling.
And yes, he really was singing that.

Disclaimer: For all you people who want to comment and let me know that I've written 'Sauce' instead of 'Saas'-
My Hindi spellings suck. I know.

Events

First few days back at NID, over a couple of months ago.

a sunday at Akhila's place

Ganesh-Kumaresh concert at the amphi. Avi and I tripped immensely causing Sarah to declare that if she ever had kids, she'd send them down south to 'get some culture'. tee hee.

ultimi giorni

Last days and pages at Milan

at lorenzo's place

last day at Duomo

on Malpensa Express

Malpansa Aeroporto

The Predip

A pre-diploma display, or simply a 'predip' is a display of all the work that a student has done in their time at NID, usually put up in their final semester before commencing the final diploma project (or just 'the dip'). Although it has not been compulsary for many years now, every year some students do still (thankfully) have predip displays.

My first few semesters at NID were spent in self doubt. I was never confident about my work, nor did I believe that I was capable enough. I had wondered many times how I managed to be at a place like NID. The first predip I saw, Ruchita Madhok's I believe, made me determined to be a little more true to my work. I decided then that I'd put up a predip, in the aquarium, and I'd put up everything. Although I continued to go through the remaining months of that year as...er...floaty as I had been until then, looking at that display and some others that followed soon after, did make a difference.

Eventually, something in me woke up, and there was (to me) a perceivable change in the way I looked at my own work and the way I carried myself. The presence of some people who were on campus from that point onwards, helped me even more. I have been lucky enough to be able to involve myself in rgb- India's first inter-college design fest (which took three long years to be realised); as a member of SAC-the Student Activity Council*, and as a member of the NID Filmclub managing committee.

*SAC has since been renamed as the Student Activity Committee.



Looking at 4 years of one's own work immediately puts everything in perspective. I wish I had done so much more in the past few years, but then, the future is what I need to look at now. I have no delusion that my display was amazing or that I have great work. Putting up the display was keeping a promise that I made to myself, and an attempt to keep a dying tradition alive. I hope the coming batches decide to share their work with the community as well.

(There, I have made amends for the retro that I never put up)

Iyer offered to make the poster and headers, "the branding" as he called it. I had 'branded' a shared display that he and Sid had put up, in my third year. A full circle it has come :) Iyer has the poster and all the headers up on his blog.
Posters for Iyer's and Sid's predip display "Something Fishy". Here and here.

Apart from Iyer, Kaveri and Jasjyot, my erstwhile poster-elves made another bling-bling poster.

Here are the rest of the pictures of the display.
Aquarium, NID
9,10,11,12 April

Thank you list, that Mridu and Lee made.
They felt the Italian connection had to be established at some level, hence the 'Grazie'.
Although it just resulted in every visitor to my display asking me "ey what does gray-zee mean?" hehe.

The Furnished Room

Priyanka Chhabra's short fiction film The Furnished Room, based on the story by O.Henry, is being screened as part of the Fokus section at the 38th Sehsuchte International Student Film Festival in Potsdam, Germany. She'd asked me to make her a poster and a postcard that would carry the synopsis of the film.

I've used stills of butterflies that Priyanka made using beads and laminate sheets.

(yes me, and butterflies. They always manage to work their way in. aaah)






You can visit the 38th Sehsuchte International Student Film Festival's website www.sehsuchte.de for the schedule.