It is summer, the general elections are in full swing, and I find myself buried deep in work.
WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING
1.
The highlight of last week was finding a great dentist in the neighbourhood. The dental clinic of the doctor my family used to visit before the pandemic had steeply deteriorated on the hygiene scale, so we were in a fix. Both Amber and my Mom also suffer from travel sickness so it was imperative to find someone nearby. We tried a new doctor on the recommendation of a neighbour, and she turned out to be very kind and competent. Silly as it sounds, I am scared of dental interventions so the next few weeks are going to be about summoning the courage to get a couple of overdue treatments.
2.
On Friday, we voted. Surprisingly, there was a polling centre in the club house of our colony so it was a particularly easy affair. Later, Amber and I joined my parents for lunch out. We are building a new tradition of driving to Delhi to get some food after casting our votes.
3.
I purchased three sets of Latin wood type on a whim. Someone winding down their print shop in Bangalore reached out to me asking if I would be interested in virgin wood type they were looking to sell. I wasn’t entirely sure, but Amber encouraged me to get them even if I didn’t have concrete plans for them yet. I’ve been reading about how I can make most of wood type without a press, and I’m excited to see how I can combine them with linocut and LEGO printing.
4.
Towards the end of the week, I made a push to complete the character set of a design for a typeface commission, and I was able to share a beta font with the client.
My workshop at City Scripts 2024 was announced. I’m debuting a new idea at this workshop, initiating a collaborative speculative conversation that explores how Latin letterforms could look if we break away from limiting Western traditions, and consider how they may react to Indic influences. It has been a lot of reading and note-taking to prepare for the workshop, and I hope to have all my material ready by early next week.
On Monday, I had the first design meeting for a lettering commission, and I am very happy that the client not only liked the options I presented, but also picked the direction they would like to use.
Work has been intense at TypeTogether. I have two completely different kinds of tasks of equal priority running in parallel, and I’m not ashamed to admit that code-switching has been difficult sometimes.
5.
I dragged myself out of my reading slump on Sunday to pick up Mirion Malle’s So Long Sad Love. Graphic novels are my trusted remedy for reading blocks. So Long Sad Love deals with the challenging issue of learning that one’s partner has harassed someone in the past. It is beautifully written and drawn, but I felt that it ended abruptly and on too positive a note.
