Lalit Vikamshi

Lalit Vikamshi hails from Nagpur and is fascinated by polka dots. Here's what he said about his work, " Long hours of doodling brought dots to my work, and then I translated these geometrical expression less dots into emotional optical art. Every composition holds up with different sense of joy. "

Dhruv Ramnath

17 year old Dhruv Ramnath doesn't use a digital camera and that's exactly what makes his images so special. They perfectly capture idle childhood in sepia tones and are beautifully textured by little flecks of imperfection. Dhruv lives & studies in Bangalore. Go to his blog and say hi.

Saad Akhtar

Saad Akhtar , the creator of Fly, You Fools , sent me a link to his 4 month old web comic and I found it quite amusing (albeit a little caustic). Even as an 'insider', I sometimes wonder about some conceptual art. More here.

Lokesh Karekar

He had me at loco.

Lokesh Karekar's artistic skills are nothing short of superb. This J.J. Institute of Applied Arts alumnus knows a thing or two about design. One look at his stylized Indic script illustrations or even the rendering on his desi-hip t-shirt brand locopopo, is all you need to be convinced of this fact. In a sublime mix of austere line drawings and intensely hued folksy vectors, you see a glimpse of Karekar's visual identity. When quizzed about what inspires him, Lokesh dutifully pays tribute to his city Mumbai , amongst other things.

Your work is multi disciplinary , can you tell us more about what you do professionally and what kind of work you do at a personal level ?

Now its all mixed up, for me there’s a fine line between both.I don’t differentiate between my personal and professional work.I do pure design projects like identity design to creating Illustrations for brands, books, magazines and products etc. (Vodafone and GQ magazine)

Personally I do lot of line-art, T-shirt designs for my locopopo tee brand. Doodling or sketching up design ideas in my sketch book keeps my mind fresh as an artist. I am also planning to distribute my products to small designer shops.

Whatever project I do, I do it with a personal style and flavour. I think that’s what my clients like about me and they approach me for my personal design approach and style.

What is your design style?

I think my stuff is very simple, happy, sometimes bright and vibrant. It has a modern twist to the subject and touch of humor to the design.I enjoy experimenting, trying things out rather than having a fixed formula to work.I like to try new techniques to enhance the project like paper-art, clay-modeling etc.

My design approach is very young, bold and modern + Intricate, linier hand drawn + playing with colours + Good balance of shapes and forms.

You majored in typography, why the fascination with type?

I love type.I see typography as a design with discipline.I enjoy the process of creating typefaces and playing around with type and balancing forms with aesthetics.

What are your inspirations professionally and creatively?

I am influenced by bold, saturated and intricate local Indian design culture.

Also love Modern contemporary design styles and colours. I love holidays, clicking pictures, folk art, vintage posters, miniature art, local food, cutting-chai, local hand painted typefaces, taxi art, fashion, busy bazaar of colaba, Electronic and Indian-classical instrumental music, cloth printing blocks, etc.

What gets you in the creative mood?

My sketch book, good music, good food, beer, big blank sheet of paper and pen.

What is the future looking like, for Lokesh Karekar?

I would like to see my work on various applications like on products, furniture, spaces etc. I want to do more fun projects as an individual artist. And also want to explore new things.

What would you like to say to the readers of MASALA CHAI and to future graphic artists ?

I think new graphic artist should look at new areas of design ,like design for fashion, design for products, design for accessories etc; rather than restricting themselves to only print or web design.

More at locopopo.

Aarohi Singh

I am in Kerala , stuck with no internet so this has to be speedy ! Check out Aarohi's exhibition from the 21st - 23rd of Nov at the Leela Galleria , Banglore. More info at her website.

Schandra Singh

Schandra Singh's name at first glance , is confusing but when you learn of her parentage , it seems clever. Born to an Indian father and an Austrian mother , Schandra lives and works in Poughkeepsie , NY. These images are from her latest series The Sun is not Ridiculous. More at her website.

Hemant Anant Jain

Please Click for detail

Hemant Anant Jain's blog is made of awesome. Fine that may not be the most articulate way to describe it but thats pretty much what his illustrations are like. Not sophisticated but they work. Wonderfully so , because Hemant is an ace writer. After sitting down one day and going through basically every post, my love for the planet was rekindled, my alarming indifference to my country was brought to my attention and best of all , I was inspired to draw/write myself. Oh and his illustrations aren't all that bad, some of them are quite charmingly humourous. I told Hemant Anant Jain that if he wrote a book, I would buy it and I meant it.Go be inspired.

Nitesh Mohanty

Nitesh Mohanty sent in his photographs & I thought they were very interesting. This is what he had to say about them,"I try to capture art through textures, that exist all around us,yet sometimes we fail to notice the beauty they exude. For me textures emote, sometimes with soft child like joy, sometimes with the grime & brutality."

Mohanty has a degree in Textile Design , runs his own design firm called IDESIGN and lives and works in Mumbai

Dumith Kulasekara

These images hardly do justice to the gorgeousness that these paintings are. Interestingly enough these paintings from Srilankan artist Dumith Kulasekara's latest series is titled Trauma. The artist explains , "My work describes the anxiety caused by losing the value of culture, of human relationships, friendship, brotherhoods, and spirituality. " Also, it's pretty hard to miss all the visual allusions to gender/sexuality. More from Mieke's incredible blog.

Laid

These sheets are a few years too late! I would have adored them in my adolescent , rebellious years but I still dig the one with the giant skull! MTV along with Portico NY has launched a fabulous home furnishings range , the first of which is Laid. Nice! Get them here.

Gaurvi Sharma

I've featured Gaurvi before. Back then she lived in Japan. Now, as she's made the move down under, she bids Sayonara to Tokyo.

Doshi Levien

Quirky design couple Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien once again awe and entertain with their first large scale installation titled Myth and Material in New York last month. The installation featured their 'culturally hybrid' products typical to Doshi levien, designed for the Italian brand Moroso. The star of the show was the pebble shaped couch so poignantly named, My Beautiful Backside, the design for which was inspired by a brightly hued miniature painting. Psychedelic graphic cut outs and motifs occupied the walls while rangoli inspired rugs were laid out on the floor. The installation also featured the 'Charpoy' daybeds flanked by cushions covered with vintage embroidery of Indian household staples like chai strainer and sewing kits.

I love their Industrial-meets-Indian style. Their creations constantly blur the lines between design and art. For more , visit www.doshilevien.com.

Shreyas Karle

"Shryas Karle uses absurdity as a metaphor to reflect social situations. He humorously mocks the ironies of reality. Subjects are converted into ideas that are conceptualized into projects. He seeks to involve the viewer to participate in his work; encouraging their own thought filtering process." Cute. Karle works from Bangalore. More here.

Shilpa Chavan

Shilpa Chavan's look book has been lying in my inbox for over 2 weeks now and in trying to organise a perfect line up of posts , it kept getting pushed back. But here it is finally , I've added images of her Lakme Fashion Week show as well. A part of me is glad that I waited because she had on such gorgeous pieces during the show . It's so brilliant how she uses such regular everyday things to make these one off crafty almost sculptural pieces. I especially loved her shrugs one of which is pictured above. For those of you who are seeing her work for the first time , I urge you to spent some time at her website or a previous post on her here. You'll be blown away. Shilpa is based out of Mumbai & London. Images from Shilpa's Look book and here.