The creative process behind advertising, graphic design and photography is the focus of this blog. That doesn’t mean that every aspect of creative process is discussed. I may air my opinion on whatever I choose from a random selection that needs creative scrutiny. It goes for film, graphic novels, illustration, faith and life in general as well.
© 2020 Mathew Mathew All rights reserved.
THE SODA SHOP: 12/12/2035
Christmas rush was already in full swing as I reached the KSRTC bus station in Ernakulam. Getting in the afternoon Fast Passenger bus from Ernakulam to Thekkady was really a stretch.
When the conductor called for tickets, I reached into the backpack pocket for the wallet and almost lost my mind — there was nothing where my wallet should have been.
I searched the backpack a couple of times but came up empty. Without money, my journey was as good as over. The conductor was very considerate. He told me to get down at Kottayam and try my luck. I had no words to thank him. I just sat down and cursed the pickpocket.
I got off the bus at Kottayam with a feeling of being stranded in a town I knew but did not belong. Desperate moments like this demanded desperate measures. Asking for money (begging) was the only measure I could think of.
Across the road, there was a new soda shop run by an American franchise called Terla’s Kerala. The owner, a chubby White guy in a blue shirt, was counting money near the soda fountain. His shop was the kind most people noticed unless they were in a hurry to catch a bus.
I walked up to him, embarrassed and desperate.
“Sir… I need your help. Will you please lend me fifty rupees,” I said quietly. “My wallet was taken by someone. I have no money to get home. I will repay you when I return this way in a week.”
He looked at me, his eyes soft but assessing. Perhaps he had heard such requests many times. Perhaps he had learned to read the difference between lies and truth.
Without a word, he reached into the drawer beside him, took out a fifty-rupee note, and placed it in my palm.
“Don’t worry,” he said with a smile.
There was no sermon, advice, or rebuke. He just trusted me.
I don’t know how or why.
I thanked him and caught the next bus. Though the fifty rupees bought me a ticket to Peruvanthanam, the man’s kindness carried me much farther.
Days later, I returned to repay him. He smiled as though handing over those fifty rupees had been nothing; just another small kindness in a life full of them.
That day I understood something simple yet profound: People don’t help others because they are rich. Even when life is hard, the ability to help someone else brings a sense of pride, purpose, and self-respect.
Baking a cake is something; making it look appetizing is something else!
That’s what makes food photography click.
For those passionate about authentic Indian cuisine, particularly Kerala-style cooking, www.mymotherskitchen.tv gives you access to Leela Mathew’s vast collection of recipes, covering everything from starters to desserts.
Check out this insightful interview with Leela Mathew on LinkedIn (https://lnkd.in/gDJba5zh) and meet Leela, the passionate cook and storyteller behind My Mother’s Kitchen. A dream nurtured for years finally became a reality four years ago when she launched her YouTube channel to bring authentic Kerala cooking to the world.
Where the mind soars with the eagles
When you let your subconscious mind to do the walking and talking you end up creating something unexpected and out of the ordinary. This sketch of a place I have never dreamed of or visited is the work of the subconscious mind.
The Subconscious Mind
Into the storm
Monsoon storms have rarely stopped a Kerala fisherman from taking his boat into the sea. Especially when there’s plenty of fish to catch. For him waiting for the storm to clear is never an option. Though it may appear to be a risky venture, for a seasoned fisherman it’s an opportunity that comes knocking once in a Monsoon and not many times a year.
Do pictures impact the narrative?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It all depends on the picture and the person looking at the picture. Chances are that some pictures convey the idea without wasting a lot of words. It’s a given in the advertising industry that images help communicate thought and emotion in a way that words on their own may not do.
something special in an Indian kitchen: https://www.facebook.com/mymotherskitchen.tv
A Canyon
Sometimes it happens spontaneously.
This sketch is such a spur of the movement creation.
No planning was behind this one.
I think it turned out to be whatever it was supposed to become.
St. Mark’s Square, Venice
WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATION ON ARCHES AQUARELLE WATERCOLOR PAPER
No visit to Italy is complete without Venice on your itinerary.
Venice was our first stop of a two-week group tour of Italy in October 2018. Venice, the capital of northern Italy’s Veneto region, is built on more than 100 small islands in a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. It has no roads, just canals – including the Grand Canal thoroughfare – lined with Renaissance and Gothic palaces. The central square, Piazza San Marco, contains St. Mark’s Basilica, which is tiled with Byzantine mosaics, and the Campanile bell tower offering views of the city’s red roofs.
The Gothic pink-and-white-marble Doge’s Palace sits on the east side of the piazza. Before the Christian holiday of Lent, this area becomes the epicenter of Venice’s Carnival, where partygoers dress in elaborate masks and costumes. A gondola ride away are the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, an influential gallery of modern art, and the Galleria dell’Accademia, a museum of Renaissance-era and Vedutisti paintings. The covered Rialto foot-bridge leads to a market that supplies many of the city’s fish-focused Venetian restaurants.
It was one of those hot January days in Bangalore. The advertising agency
where I worked at that time was in Unity Buildings on Mysore Road. After having a bland vegetarian lunch at Kamath, there was hardly anything else for me to do other than wandering with the crowd that window-shopped the many shops that hugged the lower level of the complex.
A young man, may be on his lunch break, approached me and casually asked for the water bottle I was sipping water from. I politely refused him and told him to get one for himself from the deli nearby. He left without saying a word. But he was back in a couple of minutes and made the same demand! Again,
I told him to get his own water bottle. He left without saying a word. To my surprise, he was back without a water bottle and insisted that he had to have
my water bottle!
I was more amused than amazed. I relented to his demand, finally. He took the water bottle and walked away without saying a word. It appeared to me that he was probably testing me in a very mysterious way.
Even though it was only a dream, it kept me thinking about it for days before
I decided to decipher its message. And the answer came from two reliable sources without any delay:
“It is better to give to the poor than to store up gold. Such generosity will save you from death and will wash away all your sins. Those who give to the poor will live full lives, but those who live a life of sin and wickedness are their own worst enemies.” (Tobit 12: 8-10)
God blesses those who come to the aid of the poor and rebukes those who turn away from them: “Give to him who begs from you, do not refuse him who would borrow from you.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2443)
Perhaps I wouldn’t have found a better interpretation of my dream from any
other sources!
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Quarantine
Ouseph Varkey, a hardworking farmer from Thekkemala, Kerala, dies from COVID-19 after spending weeks in quarantine at the MMT Hospital, Mundakayam. His death, though a peaceful one, was far from happy. Despite the fact that he was not a very religious man and died in isolation, but found solace because of his faith and hope: faith in God and hope in the life after death that Jesus has promised everyone who followed his words:
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
The journey to Heaven was a quick one. There were no check posts, sanitizers or masked angels. He was escorted by a beautiful maiden to a place that was magnificent beyond words! Hymns of praise and piety filled the whole place. It took a while for Ouseph to settle down and get absorbed in the whole heavenly experience.
Wow! He couldn’t believe his eyes. Jesus, accompanied by some of the very same people he left behind at Thekkemala, was coming towards him. But how come Chandy, the local rowdy and illegal drug dealer got to heaven and walk with Jesus? Ouseph couldn’t get a handle on what was going on around him. Perhaps he was dreaming or in a trance or hallucinating from the drug that ran through his veins at the hospital. Ouseph closed his eyes and tried to recollect the events of the immediate past.
“Ouseph, welcome home!” Ouseph got startled and opened his eyes. Standing before him was a smiling Jesus with a glittering crown in his hands! “There’s hope for everyone who has faith. Your past is not an issue if your intentions for your future are aligned with my teachings.”
Ouseph fell at Jesus feet and extolled him.
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Creativity in Times of Stress
How would a creative person (artist) like me cope with a pandemic such as
COVID-19? Doing what comes to me naturally is perhaps the best way to deal with it when fear and stress seem to be taking the upper hand.
My attempt at addressing the situation need not be the same for most designers. For a person like me whose main area of creativity was in advertising and graphic design, doing something totally different could have been a problem if I were not already doing illustration and photography. Since my interest in watercolor painting was far more older than my graphic design, the quarantine is perhaps a blessing in disguise.
“Just do it!”
Nike
Some of my recent sketches are featured below.
Comments? You’re welcome!
An Apple a Day!
“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.”
~ Bernard M. Baruch
The illustration of the apple shown is my way of looking at it digitally.
Please feel free to interpret “THE APPLE OF MY EYE” in whatever way you want.
The apple is one of the most quoted fruits in the history of mankind. And perhaps the only fruit that got a bad rap on the very first day of its introduction. The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden is now the most desired and venerated fruit of all. Small wonder why every business in the world has something to do with Apple these days!
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Brand Identity Design
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.”
Paul Rand
Of late one hears a lot about branding. Is this a new phenomenon or an old wine with a new label? Branding has a lot to do with human perception than just design. Successful brands ride on the strength of fulfilling consumers’ expectations and occupying a place in their minds.
That’s about products and services.
But what about the brand called “You/Me”? Me is a brand that’s as old as Man himself. Which means Man was a brand even before Eve was introduced! Long before all the hype about branding began Me was in vogue. But the question is, does Me gets branded enough to stand on its own? It’s a question worth asking yourself. “Am I doing everything in my power to brand Me enough?”
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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!
I don’t think the above adage works very well with writers, especially with advertising copywriters. Most of the copywriters who I have worked with would rather take a bullet than betray the words they have penned. And most of the time they would stand by their words! They also had the notion that their words really did play a big role in selling more products and services.
That’s their side of the story.
But there is another side to that story: the story most straight-thinking creative designers would like to tell anyone who would like it hear it. I would say it’s my story too!
When it comes to advertising, marketing, branding or whatever term you may use for selling, I still believe in saying it with pictures. Pictures come first. Words come next. And of course, good advertising is always a combination of both.
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