Cataplisms is a project by Dark ‘n’ Light, an online magazine that explores science, nature, social justice and culture, through the arts and humanities. Curated by Cara Tejpal, Cataplisms meets at the intersection of cats and capitalism to explore the world through a feline lens.

My contribution to the project was a cheeky identity system that pairs playful Art Deco inspired lettering with a succession of cat illustrations that complement different themes explored through this effort. The goal was to create a visual interpretation which was witty and mischievous, but didn’t resort to stereotypical portrayal of cats. The caracal, with its large tufted ears, provided inspiration for the Cataplisms cat. The lettering struck a fine balance between elegant and light-hearted, and created a canvas for the illustrations to shine.

In addition to the primary identity scheme, I designed logos for two main sub-categories under Capitalisms: Cat Fight, pairs of essays that debate a given subject, and Herding Cats, a series of thematic short films.

Before we zeroed in on this design direction, a couple of other options were also explored. Typographically, these experimented with Latin lettering drawn with a Devanagari pen angle, or with reverse contrast.