MAKERS OF INDIA series

I often try out various expressions for the projects I work on. This particular series on The Makers of Modern India, I tried to give the whole title a vintage old world feel. Since it was a series about India, I also wanted to use the colors of The Indian Flag and I used swirls of ribbons as the linking element of the sequence. It was pretty simple in design and approach but over all I liked the way it came out

BATTLE FOR INDIA

The Battle for India storyboard:

THE ROYAL WEDDING DESIGNS

It was a television event that everyone wanted a piece of. In India too, the Royal Wedding of Catherine and Prince William generated a lot of interest and every TV station worth their salt was doing specials on the Royal Wedding. When I was assigned this project, I clearly wanted to avoid the deep dark colors of black and deep reds/blues/purples. I wanted something softer..more elegant..something that spoke in terms of its simplicity and not opulence.
I took one look at the picture of the couple in embrace and I had found my color palette of soft creams, peaches and gold. I added the gold of the wedding rings, and the richness of the red in the end titles instead. I used a whimsical floral motiff and some fairy tale like colours and my simple yet elegant title sequence and designs were ready for the show on the Royal Wedding.

The story board of the Royal wedding title sequence and the graphic plates follow:

SHOW BACKDROPS

I like experimenting with bold graphic shapes and color saturations. Every project is different and every situation calls for a different thought on Design. I did these two sets of show backdrops for two very different shows.

Panal 1 showcases the backdrops for the STATE OF THE NATION series, where I used only the colors of the Indian Flag, Saffron, Green and White and interspersed them on a rich deep blue base. I wanted to use black to the very minimum as the color black has many a negative connotation in the Indian visual context.

Panal 2 was the backdrop of the Indian Election set,where I used the criss-crossing lines of gold against a rich red base. I also added glass cube like elements to suggest the rise and fall of fortunes in the great big political game

SHOW BACKDROP FOR STATE OF THE NATION 

BACKDROP FOR BATTLE OF THE STATES

DREAM TEAM DESIGN

Designs for a special show on the Cricket world cup 2011...the storyboard for which follows. I used a deep smoky blue to depict a dream like backdrop and used a chamfer box like element to use the logos of the cricketing countries and a swirl to thread them all together.

Using White

White is technically the mixture of all colors, but i absolutely love the use of white. Be it in print designs or for television, white is the color I gravitate to. White looks best in designs which have a 2 Dimensional feel to them, but white on white, white with silver or white with a hint of another bright color can bring to live even the most mundane of subjects. The thing with designing with white is that less is always more to maintain the purity of the white. White can be used both as a positive as well as the negative element of a design.

Creatively I love using white with a hint of another synthetic looking color like a bright aqua blue or a deeper vermilion. Recently I did a series of designs for a show on the rising inflation for my TV station. The show was to highlight rising costs of living, escalating prices of essential commodities and fuel and I chose to build my designs on white. 

I began with the basic white and added a grid and a shiny mirror like surface as a base. I used deep grey and silver accents on my foreground elements and added silver text and a bright chroma glow to highlight. The threading color in my all white-grey backgrounds was the use of 3 dimensional graph lines and arrows in the primary colors of blue and red. In an all white glossy yet subdued background..the viewer's eye would first fall on the red and the blue before moving to the other elements.

I deliberately chose an off center arrangement in the layout to break visual monotony and created dynamics in an otherwise simple space. The final text was also kept relatively simple with the word "inflation" getting more prominence with its size and color.

Designs of the title sequence storyboard and graphic templates follow:

Title Sequence storyboard animation of the show " Inflation: the silent killer"

End frame with the show title

Design templates for the show also follow the same style and principles

A single window anchor box

A two-way box graphic plate with the anchor and a guest

Using the Primaries: REDS and BLUES

I designed these panels for the newsroom studio backdrops. They would form the base of the news studio and show up in part in the camera frames behind the news anchor. My brief on this job was to use the primary colors of Red and Blue. 

Red and Blue are extremely camera friendly colors. They play up the intensity of the studio lights and blue particularly creates the illusion of depth and can bring about a variety of expressions. Red in particular is a favorite of Indian TV stations. The vivacity of Indian tradition and culture is perhaps best defined by the bold and powerful red. It is strong and can demand attention of its audience. But primary colors are dominating to the eyes. Each holds its own in the defined space so it is a tricky situation to create blends of reds and blues. 

These panels were very large in size..most of them were over 12 feet and some long ones even went up to 45 feet in length. The theme was to keep the color tone and motif as generic as possible. Putting in imagery would date the panels as they were to be used for a variety of shows. 

I started to build up my design on the simple principle of linear shapes with intersecting lines and tones of blue which was more soothing to the eye. I used slanting lines to visually draw away from the perpendicular symmetry of television and used just a hint of red to break the monotony of blue. A golden highlight cut across the rich colors to bring visual relief and offer some sparkle in the design. In the thinner panel on the left I used highly reflective cylindrical shapes in the same harmonious blue tone. My design direction was simple...to use primary colors yet diffuse their intensity by varying proportion and balance.

Panel 1: newsroom studio backdrop

Panel 2: newsroom studio backdrop

Panel 2 is more of an example where i used more red as the dominating color. The cylindrical design gained more prominence when rendered in red and hints of silver. The gold streak cutting through it broke the monotony of the red haze.
Panel 3 is also a variation on the same principles

Panel 3: newroom studio backdrop

So my principles of using the primaries is to use a black or a white as a bridging color. Add a highlight for sparkle and never create a direct blend between the two. Always use a buffer zone of a neutral in between. Choose a dominant color and recessive color and vary their use throughout the design. The primary colors can be so right when used with heart and can create drama whenever there is the need for high contrast and attention.