The brief:
The United Services Club, Bombay is a lifestyle club for the elite members and families of the defence forces of India, namely the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy. Over the years,the club opened up memberships for civilians which can only the rich and elite of the town can afford. But primarily, the club and its facilities are meant for members of the defence forces. The Card Room of the United Services Club is hence a very important social circle facility where the prominent members and high officials of the Indian defence forces as well as the rich and affluent of the town play card games and gamble with the highest of bets. The task was to design an Indian, traditional look for the identity, stationary, a deck of playing cards as give-aways for members and a package design for the same on the occasion of Diwali.
The thought:
Since The Card Room is meant for the defence forces primarily, the idea was to incorporate a mixture of battle and Indian tradition in the execution. The most historic gamble in Indian mythology is considered to be the gamble of Mahabharata- the lost gamble which caused the greatest battle ever fought over a kingdom. In significance to the Mahabharata, it is hence considered Indian tradition to play card games and gamble in the festival of Diwali even today. Hence, the entire project is designed with context to Mahabharata. From arrowhead-like symbols to illustrative typographic characters from the Mahabharata which are modified to form the letters J, Q, K and the Joker (Card of Neither Suit), the project follows a rather rarely seen traditional Indian folk art painting approach to design deliverables for a card room.
