ADDED JANUARY 13, 2010 The image above was taken during a Deaf rally at India Gate, New Delhi. The National Association of the Deaf is an Indian non-governmental (i.e. non-profit) organization affiliated with The Deaf Way Foundation and ASLI, operating at the policy level (whereas Deaf Way interfaces with the public; mostly through educational programs). NAD is doing great work and indeed leads the field of the deaf rights movement in India. Visit their site here.
As part of the work with Deaf Way, I had the opportunity to engage in some very challenging but ultimately highly rewarding projects with NAD. Below is some noteworthy work that was done.
Event Banner NATIONAL DEAF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT SEMINAR, 2008
With less than a week before it would happen, I was notifed that this first ever seminar of its kind in India had suffered a setback: the usual artists for the organization were suddenly unable to create artwork for the event. This would require not only creating the banner and ID cards within a few hours, but also that I'd need to coordinate with NAD staff and the printers before the deadline. Fortunately staff coordination would be easier as my Indian Sign Language had improved was now good enough (but only after a year). Also fortunately, there was a photograph featuring women I'd been dying to use in a project for about as long.
Though 12 feet (3.66 metres) in width the banner would need to be simple in execution for the sake of expediency. The original photo was put though Photoshop's fresco filter, then into Illustrator for a live trace (allowing me to blow the image up without pixelation), text laid on top in InDesign then PDF. I felt that we'd captured the intensity that had attracted me to the image in the first place — with some style no less. More satifying still was the client's verdict: "the banner is hot"!
Event Identification Cards NATIONAL DEAF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT SEMINAR, 2008
Everyone was happy with the banner, but we weren't out of the woods yet; the event needed to staffed and ID cards needed to be made as well. Again, fortune smiled down on us. There were three types of participants that required cards: volunteers, delegates and officials and three women in the banner. In terms of ideation, all I had to do was figure out which subject looked the most like a volunteer, most like a delegate and which had an "official" air. Obviously, these reasons are arbitrary but I chose the woman the centre as the official for her stoicism, the woman on the right as volunteer for her raised hand (as if volunteering) and open expression. The figure on the left with the passionate expression would be Delegate. Apparently delegates are an intense folk.
To wrap up I juxtaposed the subjects in the image from the banner behind the text for each respective card. Small in size, the cards were then imposed with bleed on A3 paper (16.54" x 11.69" or 41.35 cm x 29.23 cm) and literally run down to the print shop on a pendrive.
