COMA

SupportTharoor.org

In the wake of Shashi Tharoor’s seemingly unjust resignation as Indian Minister of State for External Affairs following the widely-reported Indian Premier League controversy, ardent supporters and old friends of Shashi Tharoor sat together over coffee in Dubai and pondered over the fate of a Member of Parliament and Union Minister who had taken efforts to reach out to the people of India. SupporTharoor.org was thus born as a gift to Shashi Tharoor with a collection of beautiful thoughts and comments by people who wished to reach out to him.

At the wee hours of 17 April 2010 the idea was born. Roles were divided and friends pooled together their contacts and resources. As time and quality was of essence, we were brought on board to plan, design and implement the concept. In less than 36 hours, the site was launched and had features for the collection of online pledges.

What started as a discussion and wish for a friend over coffee turned into a roaring success on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, allowing for the number of pledges to cross 1000 in just 7 hours. The site was quickly brought down by a massive onslaught of web traffic. Despite piling on expensive server muscle and rewriting code, traffic which peaked at 40,000 uniques a day even with the site down half the time, proved too overwhelming for a single virtual private server setup. We eventually moved to a Rackspace cloud-based service. As we improved the website incrementally with better features and performance, the word got to various major media outlets and the site was mentioned in a CNN TV news broadcast.

The Chandran Tharoor Foundation

Shashi Tharoor, a senior minister in India and a noted humanitarian activist founded the Chandran Tharoor Foundation to promote the social advancement and development of marginalized individuals and groups in the Indian state of Kerala. The foundation needed a brand and communication strategy to proliferate the foundation’s message and to extend it’s reach to potential contributors and donors.

We created a brand identity consisting of the letters of C and T (Chandran and Tharoor) in the form of an umbrella as a representation of a reliable organization in times of difficulty. We also developed an online communication strategy which encapsulates the goals of the foundation and actions people can take to contribute. We crafted the narrative to inspire others to support, and perhaps join, Shashi Tharoor in his movement.

Mutiny Media Group

Mutiny is the go-to destination for all things, Indian—from witty banter about sports and entertainment to the more serious political discussions and social issues. Mutiny needed to meet the demands of its hungry and intellectual audience, and to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

We created an identity with a modern and avant garde typographical form. The “MTNY” letterforms are custom-made using compound geometric shapes subtracted from and added to each other, to form an interesting symmetry. Using this precise approach, we attempt to express invisible mathematical forces in typographical form and produce a wordmark that speaks of a smart, savvy and cutting-edge media company.

24seven Communications

24seven is a social media network created to raise awareness of brands and products through the social community. As a brand of brands, 24seven needed an identity which provides a sophisticated yet approachable representation of its vision to its network of brands and social content publishers.

We created an identity which would be emblematic of this platform and to demonstrate the passion and diversity of the blogoshpere. The marque is a rainbow-colored wheel which consists of seven overlapping ellipses arranged in harmony with each ellipse representing a day or 24 hours, expressing the harmony and vivacity of the community contributing to the platform.

Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor who currently serves as senior minister for Indian foreign policy and a former United Nations Under-Secretary General. With his new political responsibilities, he needed a communication strategy to engage his people, community and supporters.

We worked with the initiatives to develop the content strategy and information architecture for a new web portal which combine the best of his previous two sites into one which offers simple access to information and provides an easy way to connect with Shashi Tharoor and his office. We also devised a social strategy which included the use of Twitter and his website to nurture conversations between himself and his community which in turn multiplied his popularity exponentially. To date he has more than 650,000 followers on Twitter.

normal bookmark

The normal bookmark is a plain, simple bookmark of high-quality paper made from trees from renewable forests. The corners of the bookmark are rounded with a radius of approximately 3 mm to make them less susceptible to knocks and to feel comfortable in the hand.

When you insert a normal bookmark into a book, it begins to do its job quietly, with few distractions. Its natural color blends humbly into a book; the slightly textured surface keeps it from falling out. Because the length of a normal bookmark is cut along the grain of the paper, when slotted, parallel, into a book, it curves subtly with the flipping of pages.

Renowned Japanese designer Kenya Hara once said, “Emptiness is itself the possibility of it being filled”. You can fill the emptiness of a normal bookmark with writing and drawing, or leave it empty and humble for your contemplation.

Website

The bookmarks are sold online on a micro-site cleverly designed with high resolution photography, smooth transitions and a enhanced browsing experience powered by Ajax and JavaScript. Care has been taken to ensure usability and accessibility are maintained by means of progressive enhancement. The website will work, albeit without the bells and whistles, even with JavaScript turned off.

Haze

Fisheye Pictures’ “Haze” is a short film written and directed by Anthony Chen which captures a slice of youth that all of us once possessed. The film was nominated for the Best Short Film at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival in 2007. Fisheye Pictures needed a communication strategy to promote the film in the festival.

We created the “Haze” website, an interactive gallery of high-resolution film stills to promote the film leading to the premiere at the film festival. A press kit was also created to augment the promotion. It included a poster, a set of postcards and a brochure that unfolded into an impressive meter-wide display.