Myntra is one of India’s leading names in fashion e-commerce. I worked under Myntra’s LookGood team and learned various aspects of visual communication in fashion content and style solutions. It is interesting to understand and visualize different design aesthetics of each story while keeping in mind Myntra’s overall design language. For my portfolio, I’ve picked 5 of the most interesting stories I worked on as part of my graduation project.
I did my summer internship 2014 with Quirk Box - it is a fun, art based fashion label loacated in Pune, Maharashtra. On my first day, I was set on the task of ideating and experimenting with different kind of illustration styles in order to create back drop for fashion photographs inspired by the styles particular to each fashion capital. The idea was to create a fun and quirky illustrations to complete the look of the garment styled, according to the theme. For different looks of the cities, I pulled out iconic and popular elements from each city and layed them out neatly, keeping in mind the model is going to be standing in the middle of the art work created. Cities covered: London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Delhi, Bombay. Can you guess them correctly? Inspired by the artworks made in the ‘City Illustrations’ project, my mentors, Jayesh Sachdev and Rixi Bhatia, steered right into conceptualizing the artworks of a new collection based on the various monuments and iconic buildings of the world. Ensembles carrying the final artworks were presented as part of the Vogue India Fashion Fund 2014 and won second runner’s up position. (Featured in Vogue November 2014) The collection was also a part of Quirk Box’s ‘Wanderlust’ showcase for Lakme India Fashion Week, Spring-Summer’15.
UNCOLOURED ARTWORK
WORK IN PROGRESS
FINAL ARTWORK
QUIRK BOX GOLD SS’15
LAKME FASHION WEEK SS15
When Quirk Box started out, it made a series of collections based on ‘minions’. Minions are inspired from the popular Japanese Manga culture. These collections gained immense popularity with the young audience and went on to become Quirk Box’s trademark. I worked on a new collection featuring minions as robots, called QuirkBots. This collection was exclusively designed for the phone covers of Micromax Canvas mobile series, as part of Vogue India Fashion Fund 2014, Micromax being one of the major sponsors of the event. The developed pattern was proposed to be used later for the Quirk Box ‘Street Wear’ merchandise.
WORK IN PROGRESS
WORK IN PROGRESS
FINAL ARTWORK LAYOUT
MOBILE COVER MOCKUP
As a part of studying and understanding how branding works, I chose to work on a goddess who was irresistably beautiful, well known for generating envy and every man, woman and god’s object of desire. Aphrodite. Aphrodite is the goddess of love, lust and beauty in Greek mythology. She was born when Uranus (the father of the gods) was castrated by his son Cronus, who threw the severed genitals into the ocean which began to churn and foam. From the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite, adorned with pearls, scallop shells and clams. The logo is inspired by the Greek Key, a visual representation of Aphrodite (let’s just say, she was a bit obsessed with herself and she’d hate to not have herself on her own logo!), whose hair curls up to become sea waves, as she was born from the sea foam. The font used is inspired from the keywords such as feminity and class. Apart from designing the visual identity, letterhead and visiting cards - I also designed an umbrella inspired from her personality, keeping visual elements of her identity in mind.
BRAND LOGO
BRAND STATIONARY
UMBRELLA INSPIRED FROM APHRODITE
NH7 weekender - the happiest music festival, as it is popularly known, brings together the best of music, culture and celebration. I’ve been continuously inspired by the burst of enthusiasm and togetherness it brings out in people. It is dreamy, whimsical, free-spirited - with a sense of nostalgia attached to it. Building on these words, I conceptualized a theme that would best go with this event Bohemia. I’ve made use of pen, ink and watercolours to bring out the laid back, easy, free-flowing lifestyle of the people who follow Bohemian culture.
A group of friends sat down to lament the apparent digitization of today’s reading habits. They decided to make a little world where you, everyone and I could sally to. Perhaps, a bookstore where you could unwind and read a book or two. To be inspired is so difficult: Pondering over a thousand possible topics and themes, events, exhibitions, products, issues whether hypothetical or real; were all imagined, conjured and thought of. But then a different approach was undertaken. We thought of starting with a line. “…and the rest is rust and stardust.” -Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita We just concentrated on this line. We left the bigger understanding of the words in the poem and went about looking for our own interpretations - When we read books, we are truly in a world that we weave for our own. Our dreams and imaginations and wishful thinking. What we leave behind is rust - the routine mundane, our worries, our responsibilities, our negative thoughts. Flitting Fables, the bookstore, is our conjucture of reality meets fantasy. The logo is a free flowing handwritten lettering, with three books in a fleeting motion, enforcing the experience of escaping into the world of fantasy, through reading. The live installation - the decorated chair depicts everything in this thought and shows a g radual turning from the rust to stardust, with a floating weightlessness to enforce the element of imaginations and dreams.
STORE LAUNCH INVITE
BOOK DISPLAY
LIVE INSTALLATION
Imagined, conceptualized and created by a team of two, Wanderlust is a pop-up store inspired by the love of travel. The concept revolves around a huge, huge suitcase which stores all little wonderfully quirky collectables from a wide range of fashion and lifestyle Indian brands (the hypothetical store is like a M.B.O. - Multi-Brand Outlet). It’s like a suitcase full of love from India that you’d like to carry around with you all over the world. The pop-up store is impromptu and is easy to install anywhere.
THEME POSTER
POP-UP STORE
CLOSE-UP OF THE DISPLAY
The blues. The greens. The crashing waves. The deep rumble within. The soft sand beneath your feet. The lovely sea-shells. The quaint calmness. We chose the theme inspired by the sea, to display the macaroons - to create a dreamy, delicate experience usually associated with this marvelous French confectionery. The macaroons were made using play-dough, for representation purposes (no food items were harmed or withheld from the pleasure of being eaten for this display). A thin string of pearls was placed to create a sense of connectivity and motion, while playing around with different levels of heights to create interest and eye movement. The display was a collaborative team effort of three people.
MACAROONS DISPLAY
CLOSE-UP OF THE DISPLAY
After learning the essential tricks of trade in Fashion Communication, in the final semester of college, I felt a little more explorative - I took up glass moulding and surface ornamentation as one of the common elective subjects. At the end of the semester, we were expected to put up a display of all the things we made throughout the course of the subject - and this is where my real loyalities showed colours. Taking after my ardent love for travel and all things whimsical, I made my little collection of products, placing it in a similar dreamy and fantastical environment.
OVERALL DISPLAY
GLASS PAINTING AND SAND BLASTING
HOT AIR BALLOON
DREAMCATCHER
AURORA She is the break of dawn, the illumination in the dark, the vibrant spread of vivid colors. She is her own, she is fierce, she is soft, she is a contradiction, she is a work of art. She is Aurora. Her skin displays the luminosity her mind possesses, her eyes an electrifying insight, she is the spread of magnificence on a dark night, An artist’s delight, a poet’s imagination. She is Aurora. She is the beauty in the twilight, the assurance in the alright, she is strong, she is fragile, as we said, a contradiction, a mystique, perhaps. Yes, she is our Aurora.
ASTITVA In this series of photographs, I explore the simple, yet brilliant charm of feminism. Of existance. Of finding oneself.
CANDY FLOSS They look like they just stepped out of the freely colourful world of candies, coated nuances and sometimes a vintage flavour in their pastels, but nevertheless capable of infusing us with energy and reawakening dreams.
THE RETURN OF NIZAMS Nizams have led an easy, laid back life back in their days surrounded by their endless servants in their huge palaces. But Hyderabad has changed over the years -- it has drowned itself in the automation and reincarnated. So, what happens when the Nizams come back to the city they left behind? Let’s find out ..
MUGHAL-VINTAGE MASHUP Taking elements from the two very distinctive eras - Mughal and Vintage, we created a mashup look inspired from both. Combining the royal Mughal attires of fine embroidery, with free-spirited and hassle free sexuality of the Sixties.
A VINTAGE DREAM The charm of lazy, laid back days. The flirtuous, care free elegance. Those days are done and past. I must look through my magic lens, to make them come alive once again.