There is a lot more to creative services than just imagination and doodling skill—Q2AMedia and Planman Technologies will attest to that. CEO Sudhir Singh of Q2AMedia, a pioneer in creative services specializing in k—12 educational and reference publications, says, “Many of our senior managers have experience with the U.S. and European markets, which affords us a better understanding of the requirements of these territories. For instance, if a U.K. client's art brief asks for a group of children, we know that the illustration has to depict ethnic diversity. Our Delhi design studio gets advice from our New York and London editorial teams on cultural or regional peculiarities. In addition, our in-house training program provides extensive coverage on the cultures in different regions, including such areas as costumes and sports. So our illustrators know that American football is not British football!”
Art briefs, Singh says, often leave a lot to individual interpretation. “We urge clients to be specific with their art briefs, even though we have access to a team of reference researchers and subject specialists. We often find that the editor or author has something very specific in mind for an illustration. A little elaboration would avoid any inaccurate assumptions on the part of our illustrator, saving everyone time.” And time is of the essence. Citing a six-volume science series for under-eight kids that teaches science concepts through simple projects and stories of real scientists, he said his team had only four months to take all six 32-page books from conceptualization to CD-ROM. “Projects like this that ask for quirky illustrations to liven up the rather technical material require creative people who love the sort of detailed work demanded for books. So we have created a relaxed and fun work environment that promotes creativity, an important factor in preventing our illustrators from being lured away by the more glamorous animation and advertising industries.”
Over at Planman Technologies, also in Delhi, its design team is hard at work on an ongoing k—12 project chronicling the lives of icons such as Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. “Each title requires about 20 lifelike paintings with three weeks to deliver the final artwork. We have completed about 80 since the project commenced in May 2007,” says v-p of sales Amit Vohra, whose team is highly experienced in biblical and ancient history illustrations, such as of the Vikings. “We have handled more than 130 creative projects of varying sizes and levels of complexity. Take this five-book series that uses biblical stories to teach toddlers counting and shape identification. Since the initial client input was sketchy, we carried out detailed research on the various characters, costumes, habitats, etc. We then provided penciled illustrations to our client for comments, implemented the changes and did coloring. Three more rounds of corrections followed before delivery of final artwork. Usually, we finalize the art in the second round, except for complex projects like this.”
For greater efficiency, Vohra's 50 illustrators are task-specialized. A typical project team consists of illustrators who pencil the drawings; inkers and tracers who ink the penciled artwork; and coloring artists who do either digital or manual coloring. “Proper training is the key. We prefer to hire fresh fine arts graduates and postgraduates and have our art directors train them for specific tasks. It can take several months to a year to fully train a new artist—a long process indeed—but we can mold them according to our specific needs.”
Despite the challenges, more Indian content services vendors are adding creative services to their portfolio, thus complicating vendor selection. Advises Singh of Q2AMedia, “Starting with pilot projects would allow publishers to assess a vendor's experience, capabilities and market knowledge. Equally important is choosing a vendor that is focused on design and art services. Otherwise, the necessary creativity may be missing.”
This is part of a regular series highlighting content/publishing services provided by India-based companies.
