CREDITS & Ingredients
Great design is rarely a solo act—it’s more like a high-stakes potluck. This page is a dedicated high-five to the type designers, open-source heroes, and creative minds whose work provides the scaffolding for my own. From the sharp teeth of a specific display font to the invisible logic of the code, here is the "nutrition facts" label for everything you see here.
by Maksim Nikiskin
A sharp, expressive display face that feels like a collision between ancient folklore and modern brutalism. Its "dragon-like" jagged serifs (true to its namesake) provide the perfect architectural edge to the headers throughout this project, proving that typography can be both a structural tool and a bit of a monster.
by Alexandre Liziard & Etienne Ozeray
The steady, reliable backbone of this site’s body copy. Despite its functional "straight man" energy, look closer and you’ll see it’s entirely curveless. This angular, geometric grit makes the long-form reading feel modern and intentional—proving you don't need soft edges to be approachable.
Swami Haridasa, a singer and poet of high order, is seated in his hermitage at Vrindavana, a verdant environment full of plants, trees, flowering shrubs and creepers. The place is a quiet one and suited best to one’s absorption in a musical performance.
Shaven-headed Swami Haridasa has a lean body with a divine glow on his face. He is bare-bodied, covering the lower part of the body with a white traditional Indian cotton dhoti. He is holding a tambura in his hands and is engrossed in his divine music.
Tansen, a disciple of Haridasa, is seated at a little distance, facing him. Mughal emperor Akbar is hiding himself behind a grove of banana trees. It is said that Akbar, the Mughal Emperor, once asked Tansen if his guru would come to his court. Tansen replied that his guru would not oblige the great king. Akbar then decided to visit Swami Haridasa at Vrindavana and enjoyed the music of this great saint-musician.
After his return to Agra he asked Tansen why in his music the melodious touch was missing which was there in his guru’s melody. To this, Tansen replied, “I sing for the king of the country, while Swami Haridasa does it for the king of kings, the Almighty, hence the difference.”
The general composition of the paintings is well balanced. Space is masterfully adjusted to the rhythm of the composition and colours and lines are satisfactorily unified. The form of the painting is charming in its great simplicity. The spirit of the grove, the mysticism, peace and serenity of the scene are admirably reflected in this painting.
Although the painting depicts the occasion of the marriage procession of Dara Shikoh, the beloved though ill-fated son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, the painting was made almost a century after the event. Reminiscing about the magnificence of the Empire during its zenith, the painters in an era of a fading Mughal Empire copied many paintings of the erstwhile ‘high’ period. This painting is also a copy of a now lost painting, probably from a dispersed Padshahnama, a chronicle of the life and times of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.
The copy however betrays the style of the painters as schooled in the idioms and exposed to new ideas of rendering space and perspective current around the mid eighteenth century. Space in the painting is unfolded in a tilted foreground and the background and deeper space and distant figures emerge in planes parallel to the surface of the painting.
Dara Shikoh is depicted at the center of the painting mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, with a veil of pearls (sehra) covering his face, customarily worn by a bridegroom. His steed similarly wears the sehra. A bejewelled turban draped in strands of pearls and a large plume covers his head. Dara Shikoh holds the reins with one hand, and with the other, a handkerchief. His father the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan rides next to him, distinguished by a pale blue and gold halo that encircles his head. Following them is a procession of nobles who ride on horses.
The riders are accompanied by a crowd of men that carry lighted candles sticks in large glass jars, on tall bifurcated staffs with candles mounted on either ends, or as single flaming ones.
Others in the crowd play musical instruments, sing, dance or simply pray. On the top left, four elephants carry female musicians and the drummers who beat the large naubats on the happy occasion. On the top right, in the far distance a magnificent blaze of firework display takes place, with streamers, barrages, Roman candles, and rockets lighting up the pitch-black sky with gold, and clouds of smoke softly wafting downwards.
The artist exhibits his virtuosity with the play with light and the detail and precision of line in rendering figures and forms.
The hard outlined faces and bodies, a tendency for linearism where the figures are flattened, yet depicted in great detail and the distinct style of rendering fire and light in a more naturalistic fashion are all traits seen in the late Mughal style painting during the mid-eighteenth century.
Folio from the "Lambagraon" Gita Govinda (Song of the Cowherd)
This event is when Rama encounter’s the monkey kingdom during his forest exile. Despite Rama’s assurance, Sugriva, the monkey king, wanted to examine Rama's strength to determine if he could kill Bali, elder brother of Sugriva. Sugriva narrated to him a story that revealed Bali’s strength. Once a demon named Dundhubhi, taking a form of buffalo challenged Bali for a fight. Accepting the challenge, Bali wearing the divine garland given to him by Indra, fought and overpowered Dundhubhi. Some of the drops of Dundhubhi’s blood fell in the ashram of sage Matanga at Rishyamuka who pronounced a curse according to which Bali could not enter Rishyamuka Mountain. Sugriva then showed the carcass of Dundhubhi to Rama, pointing out at the same time towards seven sala trees. He said that Bali pierced each of them in a single stroke and questioned him whether he could accomplish such achievements. On being confronted, Rama threw away the carcass of Dundhubhi with a single stroke, and immediately struck all seven trees with a single arrow.
Rama stands blue complexioned, dressed in yellow garments, wearing a crown is about to shoot an arrow. Beside him is the Lakshmana in yellow garments holding bow and arrow standing on the brilliant dome, an arrangement of semicircular rocks of deep maroon marked with floral motifs out of which is emerging the grey coloured carcass of buffalo faced demon- Dundhubhi. On the left are the highly stylized seven sala trees in sap green and turquoise blue adorned with different patterns. Rama has just shot an arrow; his power was so great that he shot through seven trees with one arrow and the arrow is stuck in the far left sala tree. In the foreground, Hanuman and Sugriva are standing with folded hands witnessing this great event. The rich and flat red fills the background, the highly stylized trees and flowering creepers, and interest in using different patterns very much belongs to Malwa paintings.
Healing properties of plants were associated with divine beings, and veneration of healing/sacred plants are integral to the culture of India. This 17th C miniature painting from Mewar Ramayana in the Collection of the British Library refers to the legend of Hanuman’s search for the sacred herb Sanjeevani, to heal wounds of Rama’s brother Lakshmana. Uncertain about the identity of Sanjeevani, Hanuman carries the entire mountain top with a Sacred Grove containing many medicinal plants from the Himalayas to Sri Lanka. While the identity of Sanjeevani is still being debated, lore and beliefs about sacred/healing plants encode valuable information about their healing properties, garnered by centuries of use, and sacred groves all over India remain last resources of many endangered medicinal plants.
