My Journey so far...#1

New Delhi is a somewhat fast pace city, while Lucknow is more of "itminaan pasand" or leisurely, also my taste is more conditioned for Lucknowi food. But nothing can grow in comfort zone especially for art and design scene, New Delhi is far better.

That art guy in your class!

I was born and brought up in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a historic city in North India. Initially a science guy I liked the beauty of life sciences, drawing diagrams was definitely my thing, but apart from that I also enjoyed drawing skulls, swords, guns and other "cool" stuff in free time or on my exam question papers.

I mostly liked to draw from imagination however occasionally used to copy references to test my skills but never really started my official art journey only until I decided after my school that I want to pursue graphic design and not life sciences as my career. Why graphic design one may ask? When I was in 7th standard my mother said "you are good with drawing, join some animation class for Summers". When I enrolled they said that you need to learn graphic design first. However for them graphic design only meant learning of software. So it was definitely not the real thing but something is better than nothing. So I really enjoyed working on software like Photoshop and Illustrator. But I didn't like the Adobe Flash Professional (now Adobe animate) so I decided to settle with the former two. Then from 7th standard to my intermediate, I had a lot with Photoshop, had photoshop chaos phase during my school time only. I used to make name stickers and collection cards (by downloading and pasting PNGs of course) and my nephew used to sell those in his school, it was a not a bad source of pocket money, before anyone points about copyrights and stuff, I was a 7th standard kid who barely had any knowledge of all that so keep calm and continue the reading.

Then came the point of decision when the developing parallel boat was looking far more promising than the life sciences. And I got great support from my mother. I was so unaware I told her that I will sit in some cyber cafe or those digital print shops to learn graphic design. But she searched and told me about degree colleges, and coaching classes to prepare for design exams and all. So I took a gap after finishing my school and prepared for design colleges, didn't get into any but got selected in the fine art course at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. So it was not technically a design course but it was BFA in applied art, somewhat related to graphic design but inclined more towards advertising instead of logos and branding in which I was more interested in.

Art college life, Lockdown and the Cretalyst...

Artists everywhere, all determined and passionate, grinding hard in their respective fields. It was an environment that made me never look back. I improved my art basics and I was in peak of my happiness and then came the lockdown.

Away from friends and fun, lockdown had severely disturbed a lot of lives. However for an introvert like me it was a super long comfort zone to sharpen my skills. I used to do calligraphy almost everyday and with basic skills in fine art, I used to combine the two to produce some unique art which gave me some attention in social media and helped me connect with other calligraphers and greater national and international communities. Lockdown was the same time when I got sufficient time to work on my personal branding, so Cretalyst was born. An alias which was not entirely me but what I wanted people to see. A name and a logo, it was kind of a childhood dream came true.

Due to my social media consistency and unique style I started getting international commissions in calligraphy as well as logo design projects somehow, and that was the biggest thing to boost my confidence. I was still a student but had become a professional artist/designer in somewhat real sense.

Some achievements and work-life...

With all this I got opportunity to join great alliances like the calligraphy foundation and also became a part of Calligraphy Masters Crew, a group who's YouTube videos sparked my interest in calligraphy. I won competitions, hosted giveaways and challenges. It was a golden time. Then when lockdown was over, college reopened, my lost years of college life were waiting for me. Then I did my master's from the same college in same discipline and during the same time got featured in Inktober 2022 as well as in the Typism Book 9.

I try to reassess my priorities frequently and for me freedom and comfort is very essential. Apart from all that work and stuff I like collecting beautifully designed playing cards and mechanical pencils. I will write more about my playing cards collection in future.

Currently I am teaching graphic design and typography at a university so studies are so far a continuous part of my life in parallel to the Cretalyst where I recently have worked for some great clients like US rapper A$AP Rocky and Vrindkavi. I wish to grow in both areas slowly but steadily. There is so much more to share, and I'll keep writing new blogs so keep visiting Cretalyst!