Over the past few years, Kwazi Design, based in New Delhi and Kolkata, have been doing what graphic designers have long loved: archiving. More specifically, however, the design studio has been documenting the city of Kolkata through a typographic lens, culminating in a robust visual archive that celebrates the city’s love of letterforms. Whilst the archive – Type Around Town – marks a slight change from Kwazi Design’s general practice, which revolves around branding and visual design, it stems from the studio’s love of typography and the heritage of its hometown.
“Growing up in Kolkata, I’ve always been curious about the many cultural influences that shape the city, both regional and colonial,” Arshdeep Singh, founder and creative director of Kwazi Design, says. It was during Covid that Arshdeep found himself more intentionally wandering through the city, discovering the beautiful details he’d previously overlooked. “That’s when I began to see how much typography quietly contributes to Kolkata’s visual identity,” he says. It manifests in lots of different ways through a multitude of mediums – from marble plaques to hand-painted boards. “There was also a growing sense that much of this was fading away or being replaced,” says Arshdeep, which lead him to start documenting Kolkata’s visual landscape; “we began building narratives around them, uncovering stories of craft, context, and changing times.” In doing so, this understanding and pursuit of preservation ended up reframing the city’s aesthetic to the team, “not just as remnants of the past”, Arshdeep says, “but as forms that still hold relevance today.”