Eureka!

A week back, I had been to a lesser known hill station called Nelliampathy situated in Kerala. The occasion was my parents’ anniversary and as I couldn’t remember the last time I took them out (except to the multiplex), I decided to organize a short road trip. Accompanied by a close family friend of ours, we left late in the morning and got to the destination by around afternoon. It was on very short notice they accepted to join us on our day’s trip. I hadn’t looked up the place on the web and was basing the entire journey on the experience our neighbours had, a few weeks prior to ours.

The place was insanely beautiful; the weather, cool; air, pure and landscape, lush green. We had the time to visit two of the spots frequented most by tourists. All of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. On the flip side, I was constantly whipping my iPhone out to capture the landscapes and spots I thought were unique to the place and of course, to take the occasional family portraits for keepsakes.

I've spend the last two days thinking up names for two businesses. One, a restaurant that specializes in serving curry, rice and chicken varieties, and the second, a coffee brand incorporating themselves from being a sole proprietorship business. I nailed the restaurant, but am still looking for something the coffee guys will agree on, amidst a lot of confusion. This makes me wonder, is it worth one's while to spend two days racking brains over naming a professional entity?

Although a memorable brand name makes or breaks the brand (sorry about the cliché overkill), experience tells me it isn't quite the entire picture. If the team behind a business are bent on taking their business leaps forward, a memorable and perhaps creative brand name will do them an insane level of good.

Paul Walker's death came as a shock to me as it did for many others. I followed up with the news rather late and happened to read an article on IMDb titled "RIP Paul Walker, Who Was Two Weeks Away from Sharing with Audiences the Finest Performance of His Career". As I was going through the article I came to realize the film mentioned in the article, Hours, was one that I had downloaded a day or two back. For some reason, the situation flooded me with a sense of uneasiness as well as sorrow.

I watched the film the next day. It indeed was a polar opposite to the kind of the roles he took up in his previous films. The character required him to be highly emotive and deeply convicted to be able to pull the part off. There were times in the film where I shared an equal amount of anger and frustration at the predicament Nolan (Paul Walker) was constantly put in.

Having seen some of his other performances (a negligible number compared to the amount of films he's been in), I can safely say Paul's performance in 'Hours' is definitely one of the finer roles he had taken up in the course of his career.

You will be remembered forever, Paul.

My first major project was a cafe that came up next to my workplace. The cafe revolved around the idea of biking (motorbikes, to be specific). Although I wasn't inclined the least bit to bikes and motorbiking, I took up the task with great enthuse. We did great work but the cafe didn't turn out to be so. It was an utter flop, just to put it out there.

I had also partnered with my friend Vijay, to handle all the clients (design projects) we were working with at 'dffrnt'. I enjoyed the interaction and the occasional pursuing and convincing the job entailed, particularly when clients were unsure about certain decisions. It was entirely different from my daytime job, where I wasn't authorised to interact with clients on a regular basis (not at all, actually). We had a brief fallout but partnered again in spite of that.

Some of the more interesting projects at work were a pizza joint we needed to brand, a state-of-the-art library we had to design artwork for and a new brand of consumer product we did up from scratch.

On the personal side, I caught up with a dear friend of mine after a very long time. Somebody I'd been wanting to meet but never got around doing. A friend who had been through a lot of personal tragedy since the last time I was with him. After what seemed like a long wait to hear him say he'd gotten up on his feet, he finally did.

Months of lethargic food habits led me to the beginnings of a (fairly noticeable when I'm undressed and walking around) paunch. I got poked around at home and after a rather funny incident where my uncle from Singapore caught me walking around with an untucked tummy, calling it "obscene", I decided to purchase a mountain bike and ride that to work and other places I go. It also seemed to fit in well with the notion everybody has/had of me as "eco-friendly".

Well, the name is Captain Planet.

After years of taking to the bicycle as my primary mode of transport, I have to say, I feel lively as ever. Isn't it awesome to just zip past vehicles stuck in traffic?

I'm back to author this blog after quite some time... say (almost) a year. A lot has been going on these past few months. To begin chronologically, I landed a job at this ad firm in my home town, after a long period of unemployment. I can say I've been performing well, but nowhere close to what I would need at a more demanding workplace.

I've been thinking, my job as a creative (copywriter, to be more specific) requires me to put down thoughts and ideas on paper, and that's precisely the only activity I've been shying away from. I'd like to call it a "long term creative haul". I feel I need to be able to articulate my thoughts far and wide, by not constricting myself to a given mental space. My style of writing must be different from when I began writing here, but nonetheless I feel I'm just starting off... all over again. This time around, I intend to continue the writing process.

A thought that lingers on my mind (each day) will have to be the subject of my writing. The point of the whole exercise is, as I said, to be able to articulate my thoughts and put it down on paper (of course, when I say that I mean either typing or tapping) whenever I feel like, no barriers held. I shall call this "writing my mind".

Recalling events of the past year to complete the chronological order of things would be my next task... perhaps my next post too. Here's a quote (I think is brilliant) that stuck with me long after I read it.

The lightning spark of thought generated in the solitary mind awakens its likeness in another mind.

-  Thomas Carlyle

I’m a huge Steve Jobs fan, but this wasn’t always the case. I grew up with PCs - school, home, and college - and was a technophile since childhood, lusting after cool tech, from T-Bone and Razor’s wild gizmos (SWAT Kats) all the way to the Tricoders and LCARS (Star Trek)… but even then, PCs never caught my fancy.

This changed when I entered college, which was when the “Resurgence of Apple” was fully underway with the launch of the iPhone. Apple isn’t a household name in India and the Macintosh craze hadn’t caught on back then. In spite of this, I was aware of the man who was behind Apple since its inception. The murmurs set in motion by the seminal iPhone launch got me curious about the company and I began studying them. That was when I ran into Macs and it completely changed the way I looked at PCs. Coming from a world of dull drab boxes, the organic, translucent and colorful iMacs were mind-blowing, and for the first time in my life, I thought PCs were actually cool. Once I got a taste of the gorgeous iMacs, I dove into everything Apple, hungry for more. One thing led to another and soon I found myself in front of a Steve keynote.

Watching Steve’s keynotes opened my eyes to a lot of new things, the most important of which was “attention to detail”. I started to appreciate good design and began to grasp the subtleties behind well-designed products and services. From the cool details that people often overlooked, like the “Crazy Ones” text inside the TextEdit icon, ellipsis in the middle of long file names etc, to the “One more thing…” of Stevenotes, the constant controversies and the stream of new and exciting products and updates, I delighted in everything Steve and everything Apple, so it wasn’t long before Apple products became a huge part of this PC guy’s life.

When Steve passed away last October is when I realized how much I missed him, and since then I’ve been collecting tidbits about his life from all over the web. I’m still discovering more each day and organizing them here in this website called iDiari.es, sort of as a tribute to the biggest inspiration of my life. iDiari.es is an account of all the little but fascinating experiences people have had with Steve. If you have any stories to share, please do, and I’ll add them to the site.

Hope you enjoy iDiari.es as much as I did making them.

Beginning the year with a  beautiful read. 

Written by Kas Thomas, a technology evangelist at a Silicon Valley firm, it narrates the events that led him to fall in love with a schizophrenic. "Totally taken by her", in his exact words.

Yesterday, my true love, Sally, had a psychotic break and went into the (mental) hospital, where she'll probably be for the next two weeks. Today, I'm writing as a means of therapy. Therapy for me. I knew going into this relationship that it would entail ups and downs, and hard work. I've never been as "all-in" as in this relationship. I'll stick by Sally for as long as she'll have me. I'll stick by her no matter what.

1. Live Christmas band on Wheels for Vodafone Kerala Ideas for a live float parading the streets of major cities in Kerala.

2. Magazine dedicated to Rajinikanth on his 62nd birthday A special edition that chronicles the life and career of Rajinikanth, published by The Hindu on his birthday, 12/12/12.

3. Print ad for the iPad edition of The Hindu A simple ad that conveys the release of the iPad app by the publishing house.

4. Campaign for Sportstar Magazine An award winning campaign for the Sportstar Magazine along the lines of "It's not crazy, it's sports." or "We speak your sport." campaigns by ESPN.

Picasso once said,

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” 

Inspired beyond measure.

1. Activation ideas for Fryums. What used to be 'snack ready' (Fryums Yummies) is now a 'deep fry to consume' snack from the TTK Group. They are kick starting the brand with a prospective idea of 'mom made fryums' or 'mother made fryums', targeting kids.

2. BusinessLine Cerebrate Quiz - Artwork Ideas A quiz to test your business knowledge, with clever artwork to put it out there. For example, www -> Google -> AdSense -> Rope (tug of war) -> Facebook -> Like, linked together in the same order to tell a story.

3. Print ad for the Chennai International Film Festival The 10th edition of the Chennai International Film Festival, focusing on art films and cinema in Chennai.

4. Scratch video for StyleSpa Furniture

"Furniture that fits you". A scratch commercial to drive the point home.

5. Short for the Chennai International Film Festival

A short that has to convey the theme "Slice of Chennai" in under two minutes.

1. Gather signage and outdoor media for the GMR Aerotropolis project. Direction signages, wayfinders, promotional material, transit ads, creative ads for bicycle & parking lots, bus stops & benches, street lamps etc.

2. Event to get the Vodafone employees to learn more about or market 121 offers.

My suggestion was to get various hairstyles printed as hats (refer images below), and have the store employees wear them (blouses likewise). I was sure people who visit the store would question the employees about the hats. They in turn could take the opportunity to educate users on available 121 or 'Made for you' offers.

3. Print ad for The Hindu Business Line quiz.

Some of the thoughts I translated to ideas were,

a. Departure of senior executives from Apple and Microsoft; Scott Forstall and Steven Sinofsky respectively.

b. Black friday synonymous to the shopping season.

c. Acquisition of Cadbury India by Kraft Foods which in turn was renamed to Mondelez International.

d. A print ad with the copy "Take time to sharpen the saw." on an interesting image.

e. Cloud computing

f. Cleantech being sought after. eg: Harvesting renewable sources of energy.

g. Face off of the highly anticipated consumer tech yet to hit the market in 2013.

h. Rise in entrepreneurship and startup communities. 

SAMSARA, the third masterpiece from director/cinematographer Ron Fricke and producer/co-writer/co-editor Mark Magison was shot over a period of five years, in close to twenty five countries. I would, for sure, travel to anyplace in India to watch this film at 4K or on 70mm.

Unfortunately, Tom Lowe, the director of another film extraordinaire "Timescapes" commented, "As far as I know, there are no 70mm prints being made for Samsara". He goes on to say,

This film is an absolute masterpiece. Quit your job and crawl over broken glass for 600 miles if that's what it takes to see SAMSARA in a theater! Seek it out in 4K if you can.

I was asked to work on a few things last week, one each from creative, client servicing and film-making. Let me start with the vox pop for The Hindu's Classroom ad. The commercial pokes fun at the uncouth parliamentary behaviour one can find during their sessions, mimicking the same in a classroom full of college students. 

The line towards the end, "Behave yourself, India. The youth are watching." nails the motif this ad intended to convey.

I found a few students from Loyola College and Pearl Academy of Fashion who were willing to talk about the ad. Who am I kidding! It was a forceful effort. Additionally, I shot a few agency folks give their thoughts too. Youngsters, of course.

My perception: The ad targets Indian politicians (to set straight their manners) as well as young citizens to take part in politics, something not every viewer comprehends.

Voltas, an engineering firm which deals with air conditioning and refrigeration reported a decline in sales of their "all weather" AC's. I was asked to do 'cold calling' (dealers and distributors) in order to determine what the factors for the decline were. 

What did I learn from all those calls and the one visit to a 'Voltas World' brand shop?

1. All the dealers reported the city was not in need of an "all weather" variant. People used air conditioners during the summer season as the heat is generally unbearable, while the winters are moderately cool, thus enjoyed by all.

2. Competitors with better models and prices.

3. A few years back, there were only three major brands dealing with air conditioners, namely, Blue Star, Carrier and Voltas. This is not the case now.

4. Power consumption of the "all weather" variant; Electricity tariff rates having gone up results in increased power bills.

5. Taxes levied; All the air conditioners are imported from China.

Lastly, on the creative side, I was asked to work on a television commercial script for a new service (set-top box provider) that is yet to be introduced in Kerala.

I suppose the client had two things to say. 

1. USP: Better channel packs/packages.

2. They wanted to play on the fact that Keralites, or Malayalees rather, are an argumentative bunch.

I did a script which took only the former into account. So I was told to think up one more, this time with a plot, a defining instant and the latter in mind.

1.  A cloud integration service An app that integrates access to various cloud services (Dropbox, Skydrive, Box, Drive) providing the user an easier way to move data between the cloud without having to save a copy locally on the hard drive.

2. A collaborative real-time text editor. A service similar to Google Wave or Typewith.me for real-time text editing on the phone. This enables any number of users to edit or collaborate on a text document simultaneously.

Yesterday, I came across this introductory video for a London-based startup. Summly is a service that let's you look for relevant information in the vast landscape of the world wide web. It summarizes all the information on a page/article in 400-words, letting you quickly scan the highlights. The app utilizes concepts of natural language processing (NLP) and machine translation to create algorithms, which aid the summarization process.

What inspired me? The guy on the left... he's just 17-years old. It made me wonder, "What was I up to when I was that age?".