Raghunath Krishna, Creative Director of Pencilsrock creates brands promoting the natural order for children.
| Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN SR
Raghunath Krishna is the flywheel driving an initiative by alumni of The Hindu Higher Secondary School in Triplicane, the 1986 batch of the school, self-christened Big Street Boys. If the christening had happened in 1986 the day after the farewell, they need not tender any explanation to Backstreet Boys (est. 1993). If so, the American pop boy band would owe the boys from Triplicane a clear explanation. On the topic at hand, Raghunath’s felt-tip caricature pen (sometimes, a pencil or a piece of charcoal) scripts what would easily pass off as a “reaching-out, giving-back” story. Trained by Raghunath, that pen has a demonstrated history of coaxing grotesquely attention-grabbing images out of the mundane. It is now at the centre of a visual vulture conservation project for school students.These children would be reminded every day about the bird that is lagging in the numbers game. Raghunath has designed labels to be pasted on school notebooks, and these carry caricatured representations of vultures, portraying them not as carrion-devouring toughies, but cute and cuddle-worthy pets. The facts can be fed to the children later, get their attention first; that thinking is evidently at play.He observes that his caricature pen is swayed by two philosophies: draw with the a symbol of the target group pinned in the tack board in front of you; and two, no design that ever was effective was put the viewer to sleep, overpowering them with ennui. Hence no posters larded with data, just plain caricatures; info posters are necessary, but work only on the follow-up trail. Raghunath’s lessons on caricaturing animals for conservation can be viewed at his You Tube Channel, Pencils Rock Academy.
