In the seventh chapter of the premier league of Indian Architect in Ahemdabad recently, Tamil Nadu took the first position in the ‘Design Poster’ contest. The TN Bulls’ poster in a self-sufficient format was the winner. With architects from 18 states taking part, the state got the third position in the cricket tournament. The state teams had been at work for a solid year as they got down to the task immediately after TN team lost in the Assam chapter last year. All the team members from different places like Salem, Tiruchy and Chennai used to meet and undergo rigorous practice sessions through the day.
“I was going to only be the newbie to the team,” said Mohseen Baig but he was the ‘man of the match’ for TN in Gujrat chapter. The Indian Institute of Architects (IIA), founded in 1917, has been conducting the premier league for years now. The Tamil Nadu teams felt they had paid a tribute to the state’s rich history and culture in winning forum’s logo and poster designing. “We used to assemble in Pondicherry as it is almost to all TN towns every Saturday or Sunday and work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m,” shared Mohsheen, who designed the poster for the team TN Bulls (KAALAI).
The specialty of the logo was the self-speaking design, with the KAALAI (bull) holding up TN’s traditional architecture in the form of a building. Poster design was in the form of negative space in the poster(white space) focusing on tradition in its depiction, the tamer involved in ‘Jallikattu’ shown to be keen to hold back the bull, a theme dominant these days in the state’s culture. Other ideas portrayed were ancient temple architecture and the inevitable Bharatanatyam pose of a practitioner of the state’s fine art. The students managed to capture the essence of Tamil culture with couples in traditional costumes and an array of coconut trees all captured in a singular setting.
