Packaging of the World : A website which has been the design industry’s go to reference over the years for all things packaging featured our little gem from 2 years ago: our Diwali packaging for The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. India.

LOCAL Labs gets featured in the Local newspaper Mumbai Times - India

We held our first collaboration with Open Collabs in Germany inviting over 300 Indian designers to create one of India's biggest graphic design poster series with over 5 lakh posters on the themes of 'Local Businesses' and 'Localities.' Stoked to have our local Marathi newspaper cover it.

#wedesignlocal

LOCAL has long stood for experiments, and side projects. Hence we launched LOCAL Labs a playground and laboratory for us to work on projects that pique our curiosity.

Watch this video for more.

As we have a close association with the University of Arts London, LOCAL was invited to host an open studio for its alumni. We had some happy faces visit us and we enjoyed showing them around our studio, work spaces and how we do things!

Design Indaba is the world's greatest design festival and they were holding there 20 year celebrations — we had to be there! And boy it didn't disappoint! Watch our stories to know about the fantastic lineup and what we were upto!

Roshnee Desai, our founder, spoke at the Ladies, Wine and Design - a global initiative started by Jessica Walsh in Mumbai on the 11th of January. Here is what she had to say about the evening:

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"My topic, was the Imposter’s syndrome. Like any talk that one prepares, it changes when it sees an audience. The speech might be mine but the energy is owned by the listeners. 

It was like a giant gathering of girlfriends. This topic that no one talks about, aspects of this syndrome that we all quietly suffer, is exactly what brought this room together. And I think made us all closer by the end of it. 

@serial.escapist’s insistence that this event be purely a live event and not have any internet streaming/ accessibility was a brilliant move. The power of a physical gathering, meeting real people, is fast dwindling. 

I think we all are tired of the fake smiles, perfect fashion and unidimensional success stories that just seem impossible to achieve. 

To constantly keep pushing, have the perfect career, to always stay positive, to keep giving your 100% and look your best while doing it is exhausting. And unattainable. And frankly, fake. 

These perfect-internet-success-stories are the true imposters. Not you, oh broken, self doubting, mistake making, learning along the way, imperfect one. 

I’m checking out of this stupid social rat race. You?"

BBC Radio held a 20 minute interview on their show, the 'Cultural Frontline' with our founder and creative director Roshnee Desai about the importance of design as an agent of social change for two of her projects – the mix media film Cover Up and her design for Taxi Fabric.

In a very proud moment, our 2 min short film, 'Cover Up', won not one but two awards at the American Consulate and WIFT Women's safety & Empowerment awards. The awards were judged by industry stalwart and filmmakers. After winning best woman director, there was a public vote where it won the best film amongst the audience. 

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As part of the Graduates week, Roshnee Desai gave a talk about the trials and tribulations of being a woman of colour in graphic design and how to take advantage of your experiences as a woman and as a person from a non-white culture.

Our founder, Roshnee Desai was invited to hold a 2 week workshop at the London College of Communication, University of Arts London. The workshop guided students to incorporate their own culture into graphic design and create a series of design products which would then be sold at the Camden Market in London. The stall with the highest sales would win an online shop from a sponsor.

Cover Up was showcased in New York at the Asian American International Film Festival along with a panel discussion. 

Asian CineVision, their publication, also interviewed Roshnee Desai about the making of this film and its process and inspiration.

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"With an array of experience to boot, the young designer recently set up her own independent graphic design and branding studio, LOCAL. What prompted her to launch this, the kind of work she believes in, the people that inspire her – we wanted to know it all." Read our founder talk about why she started LOCAL.

LOCAL is participating in #Indianama this year. We have theme #68: HIT THE STREET: The street games of India. So we made a varna-mala motion poster with games from different parts of India with their names in that language's letter. 

Design Fabric, an Indian design publication held an event where artists were invited to create an alternate version of themselves from a different gender. We created Xerxes.(click on the image for animation)

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YouTube India tweeted about the video on their official handle (@YoutubeIndia), encouraging people to watch it reading : This is one story that shouldn't be 'covered up'.