Graphic design: Playing cards used to depict unity in provincial diversity

Graduating theses highlight intellectual property rights, children’s education, and bipolar disorder.


Sonia Malik January 22, 2012

LAHORE:


Irfan Asghar has designed a deck of cards with each of the four suits representing a province of the country in his master’s thesis, Revisualisation of Folk Culture, on display at the National College of Arts.


He has used modified spades cards with niswaar and paan patterns to represent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, hearts cards with ajrak patterns to represents Sindh, diamonds cards with coal and other minerals for arid mountain ranges of Balochistan and clubs with Multan’s renowned ceramic pottery designs and cotton buds for the Punjab.

Asghar, who has passed with honours, has depicted the Queen and the King with characters from well-known folk tales – Yousaf Khan and Sherbano from tales of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sassi and Punnu from Sindh, Hani and Shah Mureed from Balochistan and Heer and Ranjha from the Punjab.

Explaining his choice of a deck of cards for the thesis, Asghar says card playing is a popular pastime and cards are found in most households.

Ramsha Baloch, another graphic designer, has taken 59 photographs for her thesis titled Space of Polarity and compiled them in the form of a book.

She has used quotes from her interviews with patients of bipolar disorder as captions for the photographs. She says she has tried to “explore different aspects of the bipolar disorder through these photos.”

One of the pictures shows sheep in the Shah Jamal area with the shepherd keeping a watch on them. The caption reads: “support is not only guidance for me, but also gratification for you.”

“It took me some time to make patients feel comfortable and share their experiences. But it paid off in the end,” says Baloch, who has passed with a distinction. She also interviewed several psychiatrists.

Baloch says she has a personal connection with the disorder. “Someone very close to my heart suffers from the disorder,” she says.

She has already sold two copies of the compilation for $180 each.

Saadat Hassan, 25, a native of Azad Kashmir, has developed computer keys and software for Pahaari, a language widely spoken in Azad Kashmir, in his thesis.

He has designed fonts for 44 letters of the language which is written in Arabic script.

“I feel I have been very fortunate in getting the opportunity to study at NCA. I chose the thesis because I wanted to do something for my people,” he says. He says many people in Azad Kashmir understand only Pahaari. Besides, they can read Quran. With the software he has developed, he hopes, the language will be taught in local schools and colleges.

Hussain says a visitor to the exhibition had shown interest in purchasing the software and posters for the 44 letters.

Anum Asghar has designed eight posters with distinct pictures and messages on each of them, a magazine ad and a model invitation card for parent-teacher meeting for her thesis that has won her a distinction.

She says she has tried to convey that parents and teachers should be careful not to impose unrealistic standards on children. “Such attitudes can be damaging,” she says.

She says the posters are based on her observations of kindergarten children in campuses of the Lahore Grammar School and the Beaconhouse School System.

One of the posters shows a zero out of ten in red ink. The caption reads: “the number is not an element in raising an intelligent child”. Another, titled Masked, shows an apple wrapped in orange peels.

Faiza Farooq’s thesis titled Ctrl +C is meant to raise awareness about violations of intellectual property rights.

One of the designs depicts a brain with CTRL +C written all over it. “It shows the penchant for copying and replicating someone else’s ideas,” she says. The exhibition will end today. Of the 17 graphic design students who displayed their works, seven have passed with distinction and two with honours.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22nd, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

Usman Khan | 12 years ago | Reply

communication designers are awesome. Keep up the good work =D

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