In my free time, I volunteered for humanitarian non-government organization The Art of Living Foundation whose mission is to create a stress-free, violence-free society. It was founded in 1981 by spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and is now established in 156 countries across the globe. As a volunteer, I mainly designed posters and flyers for the upcoming 'Yoga and Meditation' course in Seattle area.

Following are the few print samples of posters, flyers and bookmark designs that were used for the general public to create awareness about importance of meditation and how it can be used in everyday activities to deal with stress.

(Click on the individual images to see them full screen)

Result & Reflection
The Art of Living flyers and posters are being used across U.S. to promote meditation worksops in different places.

I really enjoy exploring different ideas to create posters for the people. My goal is always to delight them and convey something meaningful. I got a great response from people who told me that they really liked the poster and would attend the workshop. It reinforces the fact that design has a huge impact on the way people perceive things. Our responsibility as a designer, is to take that seriously and bring in the positive change.

This poster was 4 weeks individual assignment for "Instructional graphic design" course that I took in summer 2013. We were required to draw simple representations of 100 man made things within one-inch square area using any tool/technique and prepare a poster for print. I drew 100 design patters for my poster and presented it in the form of a quilt. I selected nine fabric patterns of different cultures (China, Polynesia, India, etc) from a book 1000 design patterns and traced them manually on thin sheet of paper.

This poster was a part of 2 week assignment for "graphic design" course that I took in fall 2013. The requirement was to individually convey a social message in the form of a 3/3 feet poster for print with no restriction on colors and typography.

For this assignment, I designed a poster to depict Facebook addiction from a critical perspective. I tried to portray a situation of extreme mental dependency on social media by using metaphor of a first aid kit that has 'notifications and likes' in the form of tablets along with blue liquid syringe. The most challenging part of designing this poster was to come up with intriguing metaphors that made viewers think. A class critique session was conducted once all the posters were printed in which the social cause poster got a good feedback.

This project was a part of "instructional graphic design" course that I took in summer 2013. The requirement was to design and produce a self-published illustrated instructional book demonstrating a procedure with minimum 16 pages and 8 illustrations.

The topic I chose for this project was M.A.P - Masters application process for Indian under graduate students. The book consists of general steps an Indian aspirant need to take in order to pursue master's degree from American university. It is aimed at giving a broader perspective of the lengthy admission process which often gets confusing and is inspired from personal experience.

I started this project by preparing a script for the book while simultaneously sketching for its designs. For content generation I did secondary research on application process and listed the steps based on my experience. Keeping in mind the target audience, I re-iterated the content and shaped the design of book. I decided to illustrate instructions in the form of a story and introduced a character - a master’s degree aspirant student, for readers to empathize. Next thing, I drew little figures to give a personality to the book and designed visual cues. Lastly, I printed the pages and bound them together to create a physical copy of the book. A public exhibition was arranged showcasing instruction books in the class and ‘M.A.P’ got a good response.

Duration: Four Weeks      Tools: Adobe Photoshop and InDesign