An engineer by qualification, Prasad Bhat was on a job hunt for quite sometime. However, he finally decided to give up on this extensive hunt and began to dream the dream of being an entrepreneur. And yes, he was successful in this mission and this sums up the story of how ‘Graphicurry’ was started.
A one-stop design firm for all graphic needs, ‘Graphicurry’ was initially a design studio that was limited to creating posters, website designs and logos. But Prasad’s affair with art continued and he explored his endless creative side. As a school boy who sketched caricatures of his teachers behind notebooks, he continued this by sketching satirical images of his friends and uploading them on Facebook. The interest that was pure passion took a business route after he gave the artworks a professional touch.
“I received an overwhelming response to my caricatures that I uploaded on Facebook. After this, I started making them in a more professional way and I made caricatures of noted personalities in the field of music, movies and sports,” Prasad says. His work connected many art lovers and die-hard fans instantly to ‘Graphicurry’ and its popularity grew by leaps and bounds.
What is unique about Prasad’s caricatures is that they break away from the conventional style, as he explains, “Normally, Photoshop is the preferred software to create caricatures as it has user-friendly tools that are easy to work around. But I use Illustrator and it becomes tougher to play around the tools to get the desired output. However, the result is outstanding and this is why my caricatures are unique. They are vector art that do not use any gradient.”
Also, he experiments with different styles and uses a lot of geometry including polygons, octagons and triangles. “I use only straight lines and avoid the curves,” he explains. It is this unique style that has attracted even the bigwigs towards his works and there are instances when Bollywood stars have approached him to seal a business deal. While he says he takes two to four days, depending on the intricate style, to make caricatures, he adds, “I have started making customised caricatures as well. But it is tough to come up with these caricatures due to the limited availability of data. Everyone looks good on their Facebook pictures. So, I make sure to collect a lot of raw images before making customised images.”
The demand for his quirky artwork is increasing, and he opines, “These artworks are more of a want than need. It is a luxury product and has a niche audience.” However, his client circle is spread across various cities in the country and he also gets orders from Dubai, Australia and Malaysia. For details, you can visit his Facebook page ‘Graphicurry’.
Published 03 January 2016, 16:34 IST