MIHIR LELE
ILLUSTRATIONS
Art Direction | Illustrations
A round-up of some illustrations from this year.
Will keep updating as and when new ones are produced.
A small comic to encapsulate 2 months of being married.
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An illustration for my friend's wedding card.
Poster Design for Anirban Dasgupta's stand up tour. The illustrations are joke setups from his set. We released another version with lesser illustrations.
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A quick illustration for my wife's hectic schedule wrt work, train travel in the Mumbai heatwave and medicine timetables for PCOD!
As a routine event to kick off the year, I try and make some artwork on the 1st of Jan- I believe it sets the tone for the whole year and keeps me motivated.
This year I decided to start a comic book- Presenting "CATO and I" 🐾 🐱
Inspired by real life events of course, which is why, I'm a day late in posting this :P
Trying to make this into a comic book series, let's see where it goes. 🤞
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A birthday illustration for my mother, who is going on a three week long vacation to Europe- her LONGEST vacation yet, away from home and work. She's been shopping, packing her bags, weighing them and then shopping some more- but also constantly worrying about what will happen back home wrt food, work and medicine routines- in her absence. A small illustration I made to help her relax a bit and enjoy her vacation.
Jamai Shashti is a day, devoted to the son-in-law. This festival is predominantly celebrated in West Bengal. On this day, the mothers-in-law perform 'Sasthi' puja to make Goddess Sasthi happy and seek her blessings for the prosperity of their sons-in-law.
My mother-in-law decided to fly down from Kolkata, all the way to Mumbai, where my wife and I currently reside, to celebrate the day with us, bringing with her all of the food, decoration and mithai setup (a must, especially if the festival originates from the city of sondesh). A Yoga trainer and an ardent lover of animals and plants, I designed a small illustration for her with with all of her favourite things and a bunch of inside jokes.
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An illustration I made for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, with all of the things they love, namely (L to R) reading books, doing a thorough research of all geographical locations, studying astrology, mathematics* and making the exact tasting laddoos for me for the last 25 odd years!
*Fun fact, my grandfather taught me math during my board exams, over the phone. With him based in Pune and me in Bombay, he would teach me for an hour everyday as we would solve equations and sums from the same workbook. I would then scan my homework and send it to him on his email, which he would check and discuss with me over call the next day! This was in 2008 and I secured a solid 75/100 in my boards, after having almost failed in my prelims, all because of him!
Swipe ➡️ to see the reference image for their caricature
An illustration I made for my other set of grandparents' 50th anniversary.
An illustration of a family portrait as my gift to my friend.
An illustration design for a friend's "Paani" ceremony invite! "Umbracha Paani" is a cute East Indian pre wedding ritual, where the entire bride squad sets out in a procession with song and dance, to fetch water from a well in the vicinity for the bride to bathe in, before her wedding day! I had the best time illustrating this. We incorporated the traditional drape of the saree in the illustration and even matched the color of the saree to the bride's saree on the day!
Made this illustration for my wife with all her favourite things - Cocoa, our cat and sitting pretty for pictures while I decorate the tree. (Click on the image and scroll to the other images in the carousel in the full screen mode)
First illustration of the year 2024, as is tradition!
Every year, I illustrate something to kick off the new year, in an attempt to set the tone for the whole year. This year I have illustrated a simple routine from my home- we lay out cardboard boxes to play with our cat while watching something on the television, as our tortoise attempts to eat the cat's food. Also, this year, as we are fostering a kitten, I decided to include her in the scene as well.
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An illustration commissioned by my friend as a gift to her husband on their first year anniversary. We tried to add as many life events and elements as possible for it to be a truly unique illustration. (Click on the image and scroll to the other images in the carousel in the full screen mode)
Had the absolute privilege of working on the poster series for Gaurav Kapoor's special 'Chaman Chatora'. We took on the responsibility to design the key art along with its adapts for his India, USA and Canada live tour. The USA and Canada posters have their headings tweaked to 'Gaurav Kapoor live' instead of the niche Hindi title, to cater to a wider audience, with the same aesthetics.
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Some explorations we tried for the poster design before we finalised on the design in the previous post. Gaurav Kapoor wanted the backdrop of the poster to be a typography collage of all his jokes and setups (which we have tried here in the second post, which finally got approved).
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Had a lot of fun making this little illustration for my uncle's 50th birthday! We even used the illustration on a standee for his party's entrance!
(Context for the illustration is that it's been a year and a half since he's moved to Dubai)
Plant mom and dad t-shirts for @mysticyoga.in
Had the amazing opportunity to design this t-shirt for Mystic Yoga Foundation's recent retreat to Varanasi for Dev Deepawali—a festival where thousands of lamps light up the ghats in celebration of the river goddess Ganga. 🕯️✨
For the design, I brought together iconic elements of Varanasi: the serene boats, the festive Diwali candle-stands, and of course, the refreshing Lassi, a beloved local drink. All of this is set against the backdrop of a Yoga pose, representing the retreat's focus on wellness and mindfulness.
