Why blue is the warmest colour

The images were fake, but the point they made wasn’t. The blue tarp is a ubiquitous part of the city (and other parts of the country) as soon as the monsoon arrives each year. From shanties to modest apartments and swankier high-rises, eateries, clubs and roadside stalls, the blue tarp cuts across class lines and geography.

It was this seemingly commonplace object that inspired Mumbai-based visual artist and illustrator Sameer Kulavoor to create BLUED, a self-published book. BLUED has won its creator (who founded the studio Bombay Duck Designs) a prestigious Black Elephant at the just-concluded Kyoorius Design Awards.

“BLUED book is an illustrated documentation of the excessive usage of blue tarpaulin across India,” says Sameer of the project that’s won him the honour. “It (blue tarp) is omnipresent but surprisingly, no one notices it. For me it was not just about the material but also how people use it in the most creative ways to solve day-to-day problems. The blue tarp phenomenon is symbolic of our amazing DIY and jugaad attitude.”

Another of Sameer’s works that was also based on a similar principle, that of taking an everyday object and highlighting its ubiquity was the Ghoda Cycle Project. Drawing the humble bicycle in monochromatic tones, the uses it is put to (either a load of quilts heaped upon the carrier or LPG cylinders being transported) are rendered in bright hues in the illustrations. Zeroxwalah Zine is another interesting project in this genre.

Sameer says that seeking out these recurring patterns and motifs from the environment around him comes naturally. “I am intrigued by urban culture and streetlife and its connection with design. I enjoy the process of documenting things that I find interesting. It is not a conscious decision and there is no formula,” he explains.

While BLUED and the Ghoda Cycle Project have taken the form of books, Sameer’s other work spans a variety of media. There are the iconic designs he has been creating for the Bacardi NH7 Weekender music festival for a few years now, animated videos for the band Pentagram’s tracks Lovedrug Climbdown and Disconnected, and album art for bands Zero and Something Relevant.

Says Sameer, about the varied scope of his work, “For me, the ‘subject’ drives the content and output. ‘What I am doing’ comes before ‘how I am doing it’.”

Sameer and the BDD team are currently working on the designs for this year’s NH7 Weekender and a couple of other projects that he promises people will hear of in a few more months. What does being able to do this work mean to Sameer? “It means a lot to sustain yourself without losing your voice and doing the kind of projects you want with like-minded people,” he says. “And I think we’ve managed to create and sustain a unique voice amidst all this clutter.”