Rajkamal Prakashan, seventy and seventy-five

Two celebrations for Rajkamal Prakashan, one of the large Hindi publishing houses, made three years apart. Both start from the same idea: that literature is how a society keeps a record of itself.

Seventy, in 2018. The mark holds an inkpot, for the writing tradition and for the writers Rajkamal carried. The 7 and 0 are set so the zero reads as an infinity: seventy years, and the work going on past the number. A half rectangle steadies the composition.

Red is Rajkamal's own colour. I added a yellow for freshness and warmth, and a teal blue for open space, imagination and intellect.

Seventy-five, in 2021. The second anniversary turns outward. Where seventy spoke about the writing, seventy-five speaks about the reading, and the line it is built on is आपसे है हमी — it is from you that we are. The mark adds three things and keeps them legible as three: the numeral seventy-five, the house's existing seal so nothing of the recall is thrown away, and the line itself set in Devanagari.

A pinwheel drawn from that seal becomes the design element, and repeated small it makes a pattern that carries the anniversary onto things a reader actually holds — a tote, a mug, a swing tag — rather than keeping it on the title page. An anniversary a publisher celebrates alone is an announcement; one printed on the bag a reader carries home is an invitation.