Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Creative Cravings







Towards the first
half of this year, there was a challenging assignment.


How to create a website interface for a boutique patisserie par excellence?


A pastry chef called Kishi and a company called Foodaholics. When I first met her at a party, I mentally resolved to go through the entire range of her offerings before I even sat down to do any problem solving. Soon we were exploring over meetings and eatings – her business model, her pricing (a little on the higher side) and her range of desserts (cakes, frozen desserts, puddings and more). Drool, Drool, Drool .

We finally sat down to understand, how her orders came in, how much time she’d take and how would deliveries happen – in a country where temperatures are always on the higher side.

Her USP is her unusually fresh list of ingredients and trimmings – imagine alphonso pulp, marzipan stars and edible gold on your cakes and you’ll know what I am arriving at.

So we moved from an introduction from her – a unusually thick round of media gallery to her company, her range, how to order, a hidden promise of a reward and finally payment options and contact details. Best of all, the chef insists on knowing more about the occasion, number of people and the kind of people who are likely to be in. The desserts could then be customized to your needs.

You could ask for a completely exotic combination or choose from a list of common flavours with a twist.

We even added a speak-up how you like it and hooked her blog up, where Kishi updates her followers with her doings through the times. Added a quality assurance section – catch the calorie-conscious and work on allaying their apprehensions.

She is on Twitter and Facebook too – but my warning for fellow foodies – you will have to exercise and work it all off – and the addiction will still not wear down.

The website and Kishi both, are doing decently and the pictures and the design alone will get you hooked – don’t watch on an empty stomach or you’ll find yourself looking for excuses to order and the flavours to order from the list.

Bon Appétit

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Ethics and Ethos


Nothing remarkable about this job, would you say? And you are right, except for the fact that this job was done almost 4 months after the promo actually happened. The first time in my 12 year career, that I create a dummy like this. Apparently for accounting purposes. If you are shaking your head at the silliness of this, there's more...It had 2 round of corrections and revertals - after which it also got printed digitally. And duly filed.

What a Wonderful World




The problem with Eye-Q , a Gurgaon based chain of super-speciality eye hospitals was simple. They wanted walk-ins, they wanted brand recognition,away from the me-toos. But they didnt want to spend money. This image of a grandad and his grandaughter clinched it for us. Long enough to loosen their purse-strings for a charity drive as well as Free Clinic dates for children and the silvers!!


Bajaj Misallianz

Hmm! This was my first large scale brush with the DM world. Apparently the client believed that he could get a database aaanndd, get people to fill forms and buy insurance online. The car owners thought otherwise. This exercise was tested in Bengaluru and got horrific results. By the time, we wisened up and geared ourselves for round 3, the client's faith and patience, both, had run out!

Mercury Rising



This one was a Bangalore branch job. Very rushed. Needed to make a sequel to Arrow's promotion of December - for Aristocracy Loyalty Clubmembers.

The Client didnt like the colour combo and eventually it went as white lettering on a black background, minus the chillies!!

Monday, March 16, 2009

The fragrance of recession

By December last year, we could sense that the busiest month of the year was unusually quiet. This happened as an internal exercise and the fact that at least 3 of us in creative were serious bakers and cake lovers

NHPC Work







This was an independent assignment. One where the art guy surprised me