Every designer wants their designs to be seen and appreciated by as many people as possible. Raj Khatri is a popular person in this aspect, he has designed over 250 Bollywood movie posters that have been viewed by millions of people. As the founder of Raj Arts and also the Senior Art Director and Creative Head for Marching Ants, he’s one of the most sought-after designers in the industry. But what really sets Raj apart is the thought and depth of the concept behind his work, both professional and self-initiated.
The Idea Behind The Project
Raj’s work got immensely popular through a series he created revolving around reimagined Hollywood movie poster by just using different strokes and colours (it is one of the most viewed projects on IndieFolio, check it out here). This time, inspiration struck closer to home. His newest series that we’ll be highlighting today, set apart by the use of only circles and ellipses in the design, is called
‘Five Decades of Hindi Movie Posters’.
The design process
“When I thought of this project, I started by jotting down around 120-125 movie titles. As with all of my work, I like to really understand the plot and influences before getting down to the design. I followed the same processes here and kept refining my concepts with research. The whole series took me about 3 months to conceptualize and another 3 weeks to render and bind it together”, says Raj Khatri.
For this project Raj has designed movies posters for Dangal (2016), Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), Akhree Rasta (1986), Mr India (1987), Koi Mil Gaya (2003), Akele Hum Akele Tum (1995), 3 Idiots (2009), Hera Pheri (2000), Baazigar (1993), Kahaani (2012), Anand (1971) and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (1992).
He gives us the in-depth analysis of the refurbished posters of the movies he used.
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (1992)
This was the first concept Raj cracked for this series and he considers it as his trigger. It has one of the best climax scenes in Hindi cinema. The entire movies circulates around the cycle race. The cycle itself denotes a circle because of the tires, the track where they race is another circle and colored circles defining the two college teams in the movie. This poster mainly depicts the climax scene of the movie making it easy to recognize for the audience.
Baazigar (1993)
In Baazigar, there exists a very critical scene in which Vicky Malhotra’s character (played by Shahrukh Khan) is about to be exposed because he loses one of his contact lenses in the sink. Also, the sink is made of circles, so is the contact lens. The colours black and white are in focus here because he plays two characters in the movie.
Koi Mil Gaya (2003)
We all know the story of “Koi Mil Gaya”, Raj just created a blueprint for the same plot. This poster depicts the plot of the movie about a spaceship, an alien, and how the alien wants to go back the spaceship.
