So back in Mumbai three years later I wanted my boyfriend to experience the same thing. Off we went to the closest cinema – still heavily art deco style – bought tickets and settled in our seats, in the upper gallery. The lights dimmed and such a feeling of anticipation came over the crowd. I laughed because I knew what was coming… over the loudspeaker cam the voice “Please stand for the National Anthem”. The surprise on my guy’s face was worth the 100 rupees it cost for the tickets. After national anthem was sung with great pride we all settled back down and waited for the men in the wings to draw the heavy red velvet curtains.
Watching a movie like that is like stepping back in time. People spoke all the way through, answered phones, called out to the snack food wallah and generally had a whale of a time, laughing with the characters and booing the baddies. It was only the other day when I went to a cinema in Rosebank that I remembered this experience and how it transported me back in time.
It got me to thinking about all the great things I had learned in Varsity. I come from a graphic design background and did a 4-year degree, with the history of modern art and graphic design taught extensively. I got a feeling of nostalgia thinking about those classes and all the great designers we covered; the amazing typography of Alexi Brodevitch, Herb Lubelin and his graphic type and even further back still, Toulouse Lautrec and his famous illustrative style.
And more and more I started thinking of various artists we had covered and what their contributions were to modern day design. If anything it’s incredibly inspirational and when you look at a great piece of work you can see the same principles are still used in today’s practice. I mean the grid still applies, the sense of balance is never going to change, contrast is always key, and if I carry on I might start talking like one of my old lecturers.
No matter what creative industry you are in it might be worth your while to go back through the history of that discipline and look at various examples and you’ll probably end up remembering why you do what you do, where your passion is, and want to do it even better in the future.
If that doesn’t work for you – go to India and watch a movie.
