Palimpsest Seminar Posters

I take a lot of pride in these works as everything from the photos to the arranged detailing is shot by me using my own Canon 2s 1s which I think is a great camera to own. Only the third one which is the cover of the folder distributed at this international conference has a photo shot earlier by Ujjal De for an entirely different assignment. Other promotional materials were also designed by me. There are other variations of the poster as well but I selected these two for their inherent contrast. The brief was just that. Great fun.

Film Theory

Still unpublished but in the pipeline... I am not entirely satisfied although the publisher is quite happy with the cover. Out of the box film book covers are always tough to do. The shot of the hand is mine. I tried to give a different background with blue brushstrokes. However, what I envisaged in the beginning I failed to execute - that's a confession.

The Posters 2

Freud and Lacan deconstructed...

Seminar On Freud and Lacan - The Posters Part 1

These are all part of the hugely successful Lacan Symposium held at Jadavpur University when I was a student there. I still think Santanu Biswas (always Santanuda to me and one of my fav teacher) gave me a lot of liberty in conceiving and executing the posters. I took the words "Freud's French Revolution" and played around them. The first one is a blend of real Artaud performing with the painting "Murder of Marat". The second one is a take off from Delacroix's iconic painting incorporating Freud's face in one of the revolutionaries while the third was a beeped blurb spoken by Eiffel Tower itself.
Ofcourse it is a five letter word: F R E U D.

Freud Redone

This is not published but a redone cover. I am fascinated by the "Introducing" series pioneered by Icon Books England. The graphic novel format was a great way to make the readers acquaint themselves with new ideas and concepts. My favourite is The Beginners guide to Holocaust. In the above cover, I wanted to catch the fun element at the conceptual level. The cartooning skills are mine and I thought it came out very well.

Rhetoric of English India

This is an important academic book and the Indian edition is a welcome respite from the costly foreign editions. Being a lecturer in English I felt very happy when I received the brief to do the cover. I settled for a minimalist cover with lot of open spaces to ponder about.

The Guide

The Guide is book that I teach in the undergraduate courses. Most of the books of RK Narayan has very stolid cover although the possibility is immense. I seized on a key metaphor of the journey ( which also double up as "The feet of the Guru") for this minimalist cover.

Waiting for Rain

I attach a lot of emotional value to the cover for a lot of reasons. The picture of the girl is my sister and I think my shot captures her soft inner beauty very well. The picture also fits the theme of the cover. The other picture is from Satyajit Ray's "Pratidwandi" - a film on the angry young generation of 1970 s Bengal, one of my favourites. It was also one of the first cover I did for Penguin India.

My Temporary Son

I was warned that the writer is extremely meticulous about what he wants. There were visions and revisions and further revisions till I got what he wanted. I like the pair of eyes in the cover and had a tough time to blend them creatively with the backgroud texture and lighting arrangement.

Island of Infinity: Marina's Dream

My first Puffin book. Although the book is for grown-up kids I didn't approach the design that way. I just saw it as another cover for a very interesting adventure tale. It is a work that involved a lot of detailing. Done entirely in Adobe Illustrator, the design is perhaps one of the most time-consuming work done by me till now.

Thoughts

Hey I am proud of this one. We can call this "Our Magazine". This was designed when I was still a student at Jadavpur University. We didn't have money neither the foresight about the market. It sold too well - infact so well that by the end of the Book Fair we didn't have any copies left. Even not one for myself. Later I picked one up from the old magazine stall at Golpark, Kolkata where the life of every magazine seem to converge with almost ruthless regularity.

Covers of Bengali books

It is a fact that very few Bengali books could match the production standard of the more costly English books but it is also true that most of them have thought-provoking covers. My idol in Book designing is Purnendu Pattrea who excelled while designing solely vernacular books. Krishnendu Chaki, Debashis Deb, Pronobesh Maity, Hiran Mitra, Subroto Chowdhury - all of them primarily design Bengali books but their work is world class. Keeping those work in mind I still have a long way to go. These two book covers are oil painted although the font is done in computer.

First Proof 1

Everybody loved this cover but I still think some of the options were better. Special thanks goes to Ujjal Dey, the photographer who meticulously carried out my idea with finesse of a professional. The flip back cover was an idea that came from Penguin so I cannot claim any credit for that. Overall I think it was the refreshing colourful look that hooked everyone.

Padmarag and Sultana's Dream

This book is a classic in Indian literature and I am glad that Penguin India has published its translation. It has been a long wait and the book was almost forgotten. I did the cover painting which is tribal in style but modified to suit the content - that of a feminine utopia. It is a subtle change and I think the idea works. It preserves its unique Indian feel and combines the intricacy of its inherent storytelling fervour.

Olivia and Jai & its sequel

The covers that convinced me that I can take this hobby commercially. I was not at all used to these kind of fluffy Raj romances and when the brief of Olivia and Jai came from Penguin India I was literally scampering for cover. Ajanta made me believe that I could do these kind of "pulpy" classical cover. Even Bena loved these. Surprise! Surprise! Sometimes you wonder what you can do with a little bit of support!! The sequel was a tougher one but I think the red colour singed everybody. It is the colour of my blood.

Calligraphy based covers

I love calligraphy and seek to learn it some day from experts. Still I try to dabble with the subject and sometimes come up with fair results. These two covers are font-based along with some interplay of open spaces. However I tried to impart a definite calligraphic-pattern to the arrangements of the letters.

Hundred Years of Solitude Cover drafts

It is a pity that these covers were not published. I actually gave it a try after Penguin India wanted me to send some tentative options. Each and every word that I read in the book (one of my favourites!) came out on computer screen with a creative burst of energy that I fear I could not replicate. These two options are part of my portfolio permanently and I have since developed an emotional attachment with these two cover options.

Mosquito and Other Tales

Here is one cover I am extremely proud of. This is an assignment for Penguin Books, India. Done in Adobe Illustrator it was conceived and executed in half an hour after numerous botched attempts. I must also thank the perseverance of Ajanta(as always!) and Diya at Penguin for bearing with those horrible tentative options. The book is also a must read - a wonderful translation of Ghanada stories which are so popular in Bengal.

Cultural Studies

This cover needed an academic look yet I refused to get bogged down by the original brief. I am fascinated by graphiti on the walls and tried to imitate that look with some deft brushwork. The picture at the back is a streetposter of a tribal girl with sunglasses that goes well with the eclectic content of the book. The reason I am posting this cover first is because it is an acknowledgement of the persons behind my career as a graphic designer - Nilanjana Gupta, the author of the book and teacher par excellence and Sachin Rastogi, the dynamic publisher of Worldview Books who gave me a chance when I was so raw.