Artworks being readied for #serigraphy #screenprinting using water based inks. #Baiga tattoo #typeface // ancient knowledge of #branding and identity creation
The Badnin: unsung heroins of Baiga tattoo art. The Bādi people, who belong to the Ojha caste, are the largely undocumented and unsung heroines of the art of the folk tattoo. As one of the most prominent Badnin tattooists @mangalabaimaravi explains, “We have a connection with our ancestors through our profession. The members of our tribe make tattoos on the bodies of other tribes—we are tattooists for all tribes.”
In fact, they aren’t just tattooists but are considered the gatekeepers of all the tattoos inscribed on the Gond, the Baiga, the Agaria, the Bhil and the various sub-communities that also get tattooed. However, she goes on to add that, “they prefer to tattoo the Baigas on account of their extensive tattoos, which take longer to inscribe—and hence allows them to earn more money and get more rice and pulses.”
The ancestors of the Bādi could be called the foremost graphic designers as they mapped out various tattoo designs and symbols that would go on every part of the body in accordance with the “brief” they might have received from each community related to the respective group’s origin myths, belief systems, folklore and culture.
Like a designer today, they not only had to adhere to this brief but also ensure that each group would be viewed distinctly by other communities and enemies, and create pride and unity within the group. This is how contemporary branding works today—as they have both outward (customers and competitors) and inward (employees) aspects to them.
Even today, more than the Baigin (the Baiga woman) on whom the tattoos are inscribed, it is the Badnin tattooist who has an intricate knowledge of the Baiga tattoo, its ritual significance, symbolism and the rites of passage marked by specific designs. Some authors make the mistake of calling the tattooists, Baiga. The confusion could arise out of the fact that the origin myths of the Baiga and Bādi are intricately related.
Poster design @indiakangar
Typecrafting contracting type from South Asian crafts — Ishan Khosla
A hands-on workshop exploring typography through South Asian crafts. Decode traditional forms, materials, and cultural meanings, then transform them into expressive letterforms. From craft to code—reimagining type beyond Western frameworks.
Homescreen: Design for Belonging
May 27–30, 2026
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
Program now live.
Registration open.
Join us.
🔗 Link in bio.
#ATypI2026 #ATypIStanford #Typography #Stanford #ATypI
#pardhan #gond art is rooted in #nature and its myriad kahanis. As bards and #storytellers who better to have these visual letters to retell their rich, complex and layered stories by!
Ishan Khosla will be speaking at ATypI 2026 Stanford
Homescreen: Design for Belonging May 27–30, 2026 Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
Workshop: Typecrafting contracting type from South Asian crafts
Program now live. Registration open.
Join us.
🔗 Link in bio
#ATypI2026 #ATypIStanford #Typography #Stanford #ATypI
Mona Lisa? What you see is not what you get. Perhaps a commentary of our plastic world? Pixelation or digitization of content or a play with what’s reality and what’s a fake? Either way the #Chinese #artist @aiww never fails to provoke and subvert meaning!
#blackandwhite #photography 5x7 #prints // what would a #photograph for an unsighted person look like? How would it be described? Does silver gelatin paper work or a s simple center aligned typewritten sheet of 5x7 paper in the orientation of the original image work better? Untitled artwork by Ishan Khosla (Chicago, 2004). #latergram /// having gone through an experience of unsightedness I became obsessed with the visual world and its representation to unsighted people during my student years…some inages are from Chicago and some from Bombay
