The Indian Trust for Rural Heritage and Development works at the intersection of culture, archaeology, and conservation. Their annual conference — the International Conference for the Preservation of Rural Buddhist Heritage — brings together archaeologists, policy makers, monks, and academics from across Asia and Europe. The communication design had to work in two registers simultaneously: the gravitas of the subject matter, and the accessibility required to speak to an international, multilingual audience.
We built a visual identity for the PRBH conference anchored in the material culture of Buddhist India — the ochre of sandstone, the weight of carved inscription, the geometry of stupa architecture. The iconography drew from Sanchi and Ajanta without being derivative. It felt ancient and contemporary at once.
From entrance gates at the Ambedkar International Centre to stage backdrops, rollup banners, delegate kits, and digital assets — every touchpoint was part of the same coherent visual argument: that heritage conservation is not a niche concern, but a civilisational one.
Folk Tales of India — published, announced, and in distribution.
ITRHD's Folk Tales of India collects folklore from across the subcontinent alongside scholarly essays on what a folk tale actually is, how it travels, and what happens to it under Sanskritisation, heritage tourism, and plain neglect. It is two books sharing one spine: an anthology and an academic volume. Our job was to stop them fighting each other.
Each essay opens on a full-page commissioned illustration — Madhubani birds for the chapter on cultural heritage tourism, a Kashmiri miniature for the folklore of Jammu and Kashmir, a Gond roundel for Madhya Pradesh. The artwork is not decoration. It is the signal that a new voice has started. Underneath it, body text is set quietly in a single measured column, so the illustration carries the drama and the scholarship stays readable.
The archival section — stories collected by Lal Behari Dey, F. M. Gordon, and Cornelia Sorabji — runs on a warmer paper tone. A shift in stock rather than a shift in design. You know you have crossed into older material without anyone telling you.
The book is now published, formally announced, and in distribution.
