Graphic Design Portfolio Aahana Miller

about

Aahana completed her Master of Architecture at The University of Pennsylvania (PennDesign) with a Minor in Historic Preservation. This complemented her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design, which focused on adaptive re-use.

At PennDesign she was the Director for Penn Student Design, liaising with graphic designers to produce creative materials for various marketing projects. She was also the Graphics and PR Chair of PennDesign’s Women in Architecture group, an organization that aims to increase the incidence and visibility of women in the architectural profession.

She strives to incorporate a unique amalgam of her Indian roots as well as her contemporary education into her design style, aiming to synergize an eastern cultural ethos with modern living.

Currently, she is Principal Architect at ABM working with her father Alfaz Miller, designing a wide range of commercial, residential, retail and institutional projects With her experience in Fine Arts and Graphic Design, Aahana brings some freshness to the style ABM has been known for.

Apart from the many awards the firm has received, Aahana is on the 2023 Forbes India The Bold Club - The Design Next Gen ’30 under 45’ list. She also curated the Urban Design and Architecture Vertical of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2023-24.

Layouts

ReAction

As the Graphic Design Chair of PennDesign Women in Architecture I designed the graphics for their workshop “ReAction’.

The word ReAction is designed as 3D extruded text which bleeds into the page creating an angular divide between the top and bottom.

Red and white is used to make the graphics stand out.

ReForm

As part of the PennDesign Women in Architecture Graphic Design committee I assisted in creating graphics for the group, like this Save the Date invite for a Symposium ‘ReForm’ held in 2017 .

Women in Architecture

Posters and graphics designed for PennDesign Women in Architecture, to be vibrant and eye catching..

New Museum Store

Various product graphic design for the GVK New Museum Store at the Mumbai International Airport. The idea was to use the artwork at the Airport Museum and adapt it to various products to sell at the Store.

Concept A: Taking a piece of art and manipulating its look so that it looks indistinguishable from the original, yet retains some of the elements from the original piece.

Original work

Original work

Lamp Shades Bedding

Concept B: Breaking up an artwork and graphically reassembling it.

Concept C: Creating a set from an artwork by dividing and combining. Box Tin

Food For Thought

Banners designed to promote food workshops are the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. Each one is simple, yet colourful to attract audiences on Facebook and other social media platforms.

Vittorio

Banner options designed for Vittorio Olive Oil, keeping the color palette olive greens paired with oranges and yellows.

Logos & Branding

Monogram

Design for two monograms of my initials ‘AM’. Being an Architect, I designed the first so that the initials form a house. The second consists of two optical illusions- a penrose triangle followed by the column illusion. A combination of these two give an architectural and monumental feel.

Logo design for a company called ‘We Khoj’ (translates to We Search), which explores ideas of searching. After several iterations the final logo represented the idea is that after searching when you find something you circle it.

Text in the center of a circle resembling the “universe” signifying that the “khoj” is infinite

Simple circle with silhouettes of objects

the ‘O’ has been replaced with a globe

South Seas Distillery

Design for a logo for South Seas Distillery. The client wanted the logo to look like a crest. The logo options play with elements found in a distillery like a pot still or a barrel paired with crest-like elements like a crown, shield and wings.

This logo was for a freight company, using algorithms to pair trucks and shipping companies. The client asked me to design a logo based on the concept “Use Dipper at Night”, a slogan used the back of delivery trucks. The logo went through numerous iterations and was a challenging but fun project.

Playing

Using the word dipper with tire track underlays

Using the word dipper as truck headlights

on the word “Dipper” as the big dipper constellation

Logo design options for a Spa named Olivia’s Lake. The design takes inspiration from nature and uses colors that are bright but soothing. Options vary from using text to graphic icons, paired with font options.

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia’s Lake

Olivia's Lake

Olivia's Lake

Olivia’sLake

Olivia’s Lake

Secret Sanctuary

Logo design options for Secret Sanctuary, a Resort and Spa. The client wanted two options- One where the logo was the name of the resort and the second with a tree with the name of the resort in a smaller font. The following options were presented using colors that were pink and green.

Secret Sanctuary

Secret Sanctuary RESORT AND SPA

Secret SanctuaryRESORT AND SPA

Secret Sanctuary RESORT AND SPA

Secret Sanctuary RESORT AND SPA

Secret SanctuaryRESORT AND SPA

Secret Sanctuary RESORT AND SPA

Secret SanctuaryRESORT AND SPA

Secret Sanctuary RESORT AND SPA

ABM Architects Branding

Letterheads, envelopes, business cards and CD stickers designed for ABM Architects. The square logo is placed on the top right of the letter head and business cards. For the envelopes a red band runs on the edge and folds over to the flap of the envelope. The CD case envelope is red with white text and the CD sticker designed with a red block grid pattern.

NM Business Cards

Design of business cards for Dr. Nishita Mehta. The layout is simple and text aligned to read clearly. The use of a sea green adds a hint of color to the card without distracting from the design. The image on the right is the final design, however alternate designs were explored.

Enijimondo

Design for packaging for artwork developed for Enijimondo. After trying various options for the box, the client chose two options which were then developed for printing and production. 2013

OPTION 1: Box with handle which fits into slot

OPTION 2: Magnetic Flap FRONT BACK FRONT BACK

David’s Dangerously Delicious Char Siu

Design presentation for a food kiosk for Chef David is a simple clean template using the brand colorsblack, white and pink. Axonometric drawings were used to represent the design elements

Baroda Crossway

Brochure design for Baroda Crossway an upcoming high street shopping center in Baroda, India. The brochure combines text, images and axonometric drawings.

Penthouse Interior Concept Presentation

Presentation layout for a penthouse apartment design. The left side shows the material palette chamfered at an angle with design concept note. The right side shows the inspiration images arranged in a simple grid.

Banking Manual

Design of a banking manual using furniture detail drawings laid out with titles and headers highlighted with a red band.

Conference Center Presentation

Layout for a concept presentation for a hotel conference center / meeting space. The design of the space being simple but elegant, the layout reflects that using a charcoal grey background with gold border highlights.

The City Story

A collaboration with Aashti Miller, this was an exercise in mapping two major cities - Mumbai and London for The City Story. After tracing out both cities we experimented with various graphical representations.

Kala Ghoda Map

This map was hand drawn by Aashti Miller and composed by me especially for the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2015.

Fleur De Lis Map

A newly opened Salon in Mumbai ‘Fleur De Lis’ asked me to design a map so that customers were able to locate them. The map is a simple and clear monotone line drawing of Mumbai emphasizing the Salon at Worli. The map was designed in such a way that it could be folded; on one side are the services they offer and on the other is the map.

Projecture Infra

Website design for Projecture Infra a contracting firm in Mumbai. This one page responsive website is designed using the turquoise logo colors with a simple white and grey color scheme.

www.projecture.in

Penn Band

Website redesign for Penn Band at the University of Pennsylvania using the red and blue colors of the university. Link

Brinda Miller

Website design for Brinda Miller to showcase her artwork. The background is black so that the artwork stands out.

www.brindamiller.com

ABM Architects

Website design for ABM Architects using the logo colors which are red and white and complementing those with a black background.

www.abmarchitects.com

A Managing social media pages for ABM Architects. www.instagram.com/abmarchitects www.facebook.com/abmarchitectsmumbai

ABM Architects Social Media

‘Jaldi’, meaning quick, was the design of a logo and app interface. The final logo depicts a lightning bolt reflecting the meaning of the word Jaldi. From that the app interface was designed for an Android phone along with instructions on how to download and install the app.

Font face used: Lato Regular and Lato Light

Logos and icons for www.almirah.co. The website is a secure file storage website. The logo design plays with the image of the ‘almirah’ (old cupboard).

Architectural Illustration

Chaos Theory

The concept for this drawing is “chaos theory”, which examines and redefines the existing function of interstitial spaces. The grasshopper script that generated the digital diagram was first used on puppets. This script was then applied to interstitial spaces to follow the puppet’s trajectory.

Mon Oncle

From the film Mon Oncle I extracted the protagonist Uncle Hulot’s movement through his home, moving upwards. I then displaced and mapped his movement through designer Russel Wright’s home. I found the Uncle Hulot enjoys multiple level of spacial organization and subjective to his interaction with the home. This is diagrammed as colourful illustrations.

Mapping movement on the site

Mapping movement in Wright’s home

Mapping movement in Hulot’s home

Served and Service

Creating a manual to define ‘Served’ and ‘Service’ spaces through diagrams.

Symphonious

In its constantly (d)evolving meanings, Building Ruins aims to generate an archive of objects and ideas by RISD practitioners that demonstrates the inherently interrogative nature of artistic endeavours. Through the archive, the curatorial ambition of the show is to present enquiries embedded within the practices of RISD alumni in India. It takes a closer look at their investment in the range of materials, techniques and processes that they constantly engage within their everyday.

Building ruins manifests itself in an architectural section perspective drawing. The drawing depicts the mashup of two buildings – An old English building that is now demolished creeping over a contemporary multi-storey home. Overlaid with images generated by a neural network AI software, the images bridge the new and the old, and builds into the ruin. The drawings are a digital representation that uses 3 dimensional models, 2 dimensional line work and collage.

aahanamiller@gmail.com | www.aahanamiller.com