German Records

It has been a while since Ulti Chappal got an update. Apologies. I now am a multi-blogger, as I record my experiences in Europe, through two major blogs, one personal and one on a more professional and learning aspect.

The personal blog called Die Gilbe Post literally translating to The Yellow Post (a direct reference to the Postal Systems in Germany) was designed by me before I left India for Germany. Its a record of my experiences and fun things during my stay. The header is of an old Agfa envelope (almost vintage) that my mother found and kept safely for me.

The Agfa Envelope

Details on the the Agfa envelope

Details on the the Agfa envelope

The header didnt take too long to make and I enjoyed the process thoroughly.

Final Header

Screen shot of the blog

Read Die Gilbe Post and be part of what I experience!


The Design Diaries is my observational and learning record from all frontiers. I intended to share my academic work done as well through this. Its a wordpress first, and I look forward to some interesting times with it! I decided to not mess with the header, keep it plain and simple and explore as things move on.

Screenshot of the blog

 Read The Design Diaries and feel free to leave comments!




Colour for this chappal: Black, Red and Yellow.

A Brand New Identity

In order to communicate and build relations, for my next venture, I decided it was important for me to have my own visiting cards. This decision was taken long long back, but I never got around to doing it.

Until recently while printing my documentation at the printers, I was tempted to make my own card. And after putting my mind into it for fifteen minutes, I came up with my own personalised card.

The front has very few details, with a symbol depicting communication, and wants to look and sound like 'Lets Talk'. The back has a QR code for my blog and other contact details. The colour of the card is orange and white, orange because it could stand out with other white cards (in someone's wallet) and also it being associated to India. The cards were printed on 300 GSM Matt Card paper and finished with a round cut edge.

One of my first professional-to-be-used designs. 

I hope I can share these cards soon!

Colour for this chappal: Orange

Tribal Museum- A Narrative

As a second outcome of my earlier assignment, based on the Tribal Museum, I thought it would be nice to have something that tells a narrative with turns through a paper format.

I decided to go ahead with a piano fold style, hand painted version of the narrative. The narrative is through the eyes of a young boy who is looking at the Museum as though coming to life.

There were quite a few pencil explorations and I finally settled for poster painted, Pithora styled illustration on a textured brown paper, for an earthy feel.

Here is how it looked finally:


                          

So much fun doing this!!

Colour for this chappal: Earthy brown!

Picture Books

Part of the visual narrative course, where an assignment involved creating a story within 5 frames, I initially struggled with coming up with a story, but finally managed to so.

The brief was to pick up five natural and five manmade objects and create a story around them. They had to be two different stories and without text, had to convey what was happening.

My initial attempts were not even close to being successful, but gradually things looked up. The assignment stopped at making just the frames, but I was keen to take it forward, so I developed them into printed picture books. Thats what I think does a little bit of justice to a story!

Here are my final frames of my stories.


The man-made object story is titled 'Why is Paula Scared' and is the story of a young girl who is haunted by her imagination but is also surprised by it!.

The natural objects story is titled 'Trees of Life' and is an attempt to tell one how time can change things for anyone.

Here are how the final books looked like. They were a joy to make. Printed to line textured yellow paper, 170 GSM.

Oh what fun! and what joy!

Colour for this chappal: Pale shades of watercolours!

The Tribal Puzzle

A recent assignment at NID, part of the Visual Narrative course was to come up with a narrative for a specific place in Ahmedabad.I chose the Tribal Museum in Gujarat Vidyapeeth and decided to do a narrative on it.


The Tribal Museum is a world of its own. Its like a secret that you'll never think existed! Situated in a small corner of the Vidyapeeth, its greets you with a tribal features and architecture. There are enclosures that showcase the life of the Gujarat tribes and the way of their living. These enclosures are inside and outside. The interior is a two storied building done neatly and carefully. The museum gives information pretty well about the tribes. Their lifestyle, everyday living, objects they use etc are all shown with various installations. 


If you're lucky you'll get a guided tour too! 


To take this assignment further, one of my approaches was to see it through the folk art that is practised by these tribes. I decided to have a narrative that is interactive. It would be great to try a game or a puzzle of sorts so that the viewer is actively involved. After much thought, I decided to go ahead with a folk art style puzzle that showcases  a day in the life of a tribal village.


The concept is pretty simple, with a narrative of the village through folk art, almost like you are entering the village in its full fervor and life! The execution has been done on Mill Board (4 ply) and then hand painted with poster colour. The entire process was more fun than ever and it was great to see it getting built. The whole idea of putting a story together was something I was aiming at.




To make the Puzzle look slighty more interesting, I decided to put it in a bag, so I custom made a jute bag for the puzzle. Although, slightly rough, the bag is to be used with a paper envelope for the puzzle pieces. It fit well and served the purpose too!


Pictures of the final executed puzzle and the bag

The entire exercise was fun and AWESOME!


Special thanks to: Soni Bhai, Roshini, Alpika,  and Jaimeen
Super special thanks to Manasi for the help and the photographs


Colour for this Chappal: Earthy brown

Illustration Friday- Suspend

There is  an old picture of my Grandmum with her two pigtails and a 'bindi'. Oh how gorgeous she looked in that! And I could only imagine how her long, luscious, thick plaits would be when she walked about briskly around the house.

My entry for suspend, this week, is in memory of my beautiful Grandmum. I wish I could have seen more of her!


Colour for this chappal: Red

'Refresh'- Illustration Friday

Nothing is more refreshing than looking at trees, imagining to swing on them and then drawing just that!I love trees, and they always calm me down. They are full of energy, and every branch has a story to tell.  The trick is to close your eyes tight and quickly look at a green tree to get you all charged up!

Trees and their beauty. Ever so refreshing!

I tried my favourite technique of watercolour and pen. So much joy!

Colour for this chappal: Green. 

Space- Illustration Friday Entry

There was this one time, when my Mum threw my sister and me out of the house because of something we did. Dee was 14 and I was 8, I'm pretty sure it was some petty thing but Mum was furious! And we had no choice but to sit outside in the dark. We looked outside, far and beyond and talked about everything under that brilliant blue sky and twinkling stars. It was our 'space' and our time and something I will never ever forget!


I tried a full watercolour wash and a texture technique. An amateur attempt, but a good exploration!

Thank you Jishnu for the moral support and help!

Colour for this Chappal: Sky Blue!