The Power of Design
Yesterday, I called my friend and the first purchaser of my book Pree Kolari to check if he had received my book of poems in the mail. He asked me to wait:
“Let me check….(opens the door)…I’m going to walk over to the mailbox….hey there is a packet here.” (mild excitement)
“Yessss!!! It has arrived. (curiosity filled excitement)..let me open the packet.”
“Wow!! wow!!! Uday..it looks so cool..(I hear heavy breathing)”
(I can hear the sound of the browsing through pages)
“Hey girls!…look at this book…. Uday uncle wrote this book…you’ve got to read it. ( showing it excitedly to his daughters)
“Uday..I’m going to keep this book right next to Jonathan Livingston Seagull on my bookshelf. Its that kind of book. Congratulations. ”
“ Right away I am going up to my bedroom and lock myself up to read the book.” (excited voice).
The same day another reader wrote on my Facebook wall, “I love the surrealist cover of the book and the use of a tree in it- It creates intrigue. A tree to me means the essence of life”
Both the reactions reminded me of the conversation I had with the designer of the book Mookesh Patel when he was interviewing me to understand my interpretations of what the poems meant to me from a design perspective. I vividly remember saying to him,
“My innermost feeling is- the poems belong to the same category of aspirations as Johnathan Livingston Seagull’s search for freedom and exploration.
In fact, the day I decided to compile my poems into a book, I pulled out Jonathan Livingston Seagull and started building a prototype cover with the same dimensions and design language”. Mookesh asked me- “what are the qualities and characteristics of the visual language that resonates with you?”
My answer was, “Calmness of Johnathan Livingston Seagul, Intrigue of a Comic Book, and a little bit of surreality of Andy Warhol, and Salvador Dali.”
The reactions I received yesterday from the readers testify to Mookesh’s ability to internalize my own meaning-making process and blending it with his own creativity. Thanks, Mookesh. That’s the power of design.
