Project documentation

Promotional material for Kabir Festival Studio 3: Documentation

Gargee Thakkur / PGDPD Graphic Design /S1001114

Acknowledgment My profound thanks to Tarun Deep Girdher who guided me all throughout the project.

I would also like to thank my friends and family for their love and support.

Contents Introduction

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About the festival

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Client's brief

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Understanding the subject

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Dealing with form and content

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Form explorations

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Final form

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Grid and layout

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Visual explorations

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Final output

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Introduction Studio 3 started under the co-ordination of our faculty ‘Rupesh Vyas’, with the 10 weeks duration. Project had no theme and was totally open for us to make our own choices. Till now with a basic understanding of what various media come under graphic design and my interest and curiosity I was keen on exploring publication. To narrow it down to one subject the decision of doing a publication under the theme ‘music’ was taken. The idea was to explore publication as a media which gives an essence of the subject ‘folk music’.

During this search for the project, one of my classmate Dhwani mailed me the link called which was about a music festival based on Kabir’s poetry soon to happen in Mumbai. I found an opportunity to explore both my interests ‘publication’ and ‘folk music’. I mailed them suggesting if I could be part of it and help with any sort of publication for promoting this event, a compilation of songs of Kabir along with bios of the performing artists and program schedules, etc.

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About the festival The Kabir festival Mumbai’ (www.thekabirfest. com) is been inspired by the Kabir Project (www. kabirproject.org) headed by Shabnam Virmani -a documentary film maker who after the Godhra riots traveled with folk singers who have sung the music of Kabir for generations. Kabir Festivals have been held in several cities of India and abroad.

Client's brief The purpose was to make a booklet or any other form of publication which gives information of the performers that can be distributed among the audience who attend the festival. The booklet may include infornation about the artist and their instruments and repertoires.

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Understanding the subject Going through the links of the artists sent by the client gave me an overview of what the performance would be like.

YouTube happens to be the source for me to know few of the artist performing during the festival. All the performers have distinct characteristics with one common thing which binds them together ‘Kabir’s poetry’. The content was though the same for all but it differed with particular genre in which the poem is been sung.

Since there was variety in terms of music and the performers, the output could be treated in the same way. Every page or section could have a different approach but at the same time there has to be a binding element which unites it without making it chaotic.

To visualize, I listed down the following to get an idea of how the final output would look like: The base is Kabir’s poetry layered with different genres of music, sung by variety of performers in their own way to communicate Kabir’s message to the audience.

A unique amalgamation of different genres with Saint Kabir’s poetry. It’s a fusion of the contemporary music and Kabir’s classical, sufi sayings.

My doubt was that being a graphic designer how to prioritize upon the following: The client The audience you are going to address The content ( Kabir, the performers and the organization).

The substantial amount though has to cover Kabir and his poetry since the event was about him.

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Dealing with form and content In a client project like this where even the client is sometimes uncertain about the content since the changes keep happening regarding performers and their respective repertoires, it gets a little tricky to come up with the form. A form could be explored on the basis of the given content. I had a rough idea of introductions of the few artist/performers, there pictures and the repertoire of two of the total performers. A booklet of each artist would be too big as there was limited content.

A foldable paper poster seemed a better idea where there could be intros of the artists and on the other side could be used as a poster which could be put on a display board and viewed and valued later on after the events also. But because of the vague content and an unclear idea of the number of performers, it was difficult to decide on the sections in the poster.

Later in the talk with the guide, it was suggested that when there is such uncertainty then another approach could be taken. So instead of organizing all the content in one poster, a number of small postcards with an extended information leaf at the end could also be made.

So even if there is any last-minute change in the number of artists, then another take away could be developed later without making any changes or interference in the previous layout.

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Form Explorations Initially a lot of forms were explored and finally arrived at one which was feasible, easily foldable as well as interesting.

The idea behind this was that when the paper is pulled open by the audience unfold and find information about the performers inside the folds, while the top is covered with the word ‘Kabir’.

Another exploration was a poster which on folding takes up a shape of a ‘topi’ (hat), which gives a feel of the wisdom hat.

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These were much simpler forms. Easy to fold and less complicated. But putting everything together in one page would have made the layout very chaotic and this layout would also limit visual explorations because all the artists an their description would share the same given space and to maintain the uniformity the visual language should be uniform which was not the idea I had in my mind. The individuals had their own characteristics and I wanted reflect the same through some difference in the visual language.

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Final Form This was the form I arrived at.

As per my guide's suggestion, I came to this conclusion that in an event like this where you cannot handle the post production and you have least idea of how your form is going to be handled, so to be on a safe side and to prevent the output from ruining complicated folds should be avoided.

There were a total of eight artists in all. So the form was such that at each side covers one artist and one ront back page would cover four artiststwo in the front and two at the back side, which could be torn from between and can be used as posters which do not remain in the shelves but act as a reminder.

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One side of the prototype

Unfolded prototype

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Grid and Layout Final grid settings were done in way that the each column was one fold. Design decisions like paper size and printing were taken keeping offset printing in mind.

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Background

The Kabir fest 2013

Logo Title

image

Mooralala Marwada Mooralala Marwada is a folk

He started playing the manjira

singer from Kutch district of

at the age of six and learned

Gujarat in western India, and

the traditional folk songs of

sings the poetry of Kabir along

the region. He is the eleventh

with other poets such as Mira,

generation from his family to

Ravidas and also the Sufi Sindhi

sing the traditional bhajans.

poet Shah Abdul Lateef Bhitai.

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body text

Visual Explorations I explored a few visual styles of the characters and textures which I thought represent the rawness of the festival and the personality of the individual performer and came up with the following: Portraits

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Textures

All the portraits were done on cartridge sheet trying various mediums such as poster colours, dry pastels, waterproof ink, etc. And a lot of textures were explored using different papers and mediums like photocolours, waterproof inks and poster colours. The approach taken was to give an impression of the performers not making it realistic and leaving it to audience to imagine.

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Final

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for more information visit: studiothreekabir.wordpress.com for viewing other projects visit: www.behance.net/gargee