© 2009 :: tiffinbox

This illustration was part of a larger cover idea for the magazine ‘The Brand Reporter’ by afaqs. The Jun 16-30 issue had a cover story on media houses diversifying into event management. This poor chap lost to the other concept we had given.

When I first received THE call from WWF offering us a project to design a brochure on the topic of high altitude wetlands, I almost dropped the phone. Similar waves of pleasure gently hit us repeatedly through the next 2 months to its completion. The costing wasn’t an issue, since we would have done the project anyhow.

The initiative goes by the name Saving Wetlands Sky-High! or SWSH in short. Under this project WWF is striving for conservation and sustainable management of the high altitude wetlands in the 5 Himalayan countries of India, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Bhutan.

A note of personal achievement before I start talking about the design:
We have been to 6 out of the 13 wetlands currently under the focus of this project – Tsomoriri, Tsokar, and Pangong Tso in Ladakh; Nako Lake and Chandratal in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh; and finally Tsomgo in Sikkim. Two were missed by a whisker: Gurudongmar in Sikkim (cause we had polished off our vacation fund by then) and Manimaheshwar (cause of lack of planning and proper winter clothing). A note to self: 7 more to go! And well 4 more countries.
One of my photos got used as the back spread for India. Not the tiny inset ones, but the big one.

Gradually, through the days, the design was converted to a folder-insert format as opposed to a brochure in order to make it more flexible in terms of addition of information later on. The outer cover is a simple folder with 2 flaps, one with a map and the other with some excerpts from the introductory text. One can see the intro text on the left side, while the right side holds all the inserts. There are 6 inserts in total, one each for all the five countries and the last one on the topic of regional programme. Each insert carries the name of the country in bold, flanked on the right with a bird or animal endemic to that specific region. Along with that, what forms a part of the template is a blue box at the bottom with another symbolic icon from the country. The reverse side has 3 photographs each, with a more topical information on the specific wetlands.

From our end, we considered this project a lot more personal than measuring it about its cost effectiveness. It wasn’t asked of us, but we rummaged through all possible encyclopedias on birds and animals, looked through zillions of ineffective photographs and zeroed in on a few successful ones. After each stroke of curve, we tilted our heads back to admire the difference. Chewed off our fingernails till we got to see the printed version. And whenever we got a visitor, we rushed to show it off, with the happiness of flaunting a newly acquired toy.

Why? This is a question that won’t have a logical answer, but perhaps I can answer it with a few more questions. Why did I spend Rs 4000 on trekking boots, and not buy instead of it four shoes of different kinds? Why do I want a cottage in the Himalayas overlooking a lake? Why don’t I have 40 thousand rupees in my bank savings, but a drive of 40 GB on my hard disk dedicated to travel photographs, fast approaching its capacity?

…and the final product has in fact surpassed our own expectations.