Brief Explanation

Since the short-term courses offer candidates a unique chance to visit India and witness the jain culture and rituals first hand, the challenge was to design a card that would bring alive the Jain experience and pique one’s interest.

The Brief

International School for Jain Studies offers short-term courses that provide students and scholars from around the globe an opportunity to know, study, and research Jainism in India. To launch the 2010 program our client asked us to design a memorable business card for the institute that could be left with the faculty heads and handed out to international students.

How the final design was conceived

We found our inspiration in a little white cloth-mask worn by Jain monks and nuns over their mouth. The Jain mask popularly known as a mukh-vastrika is as symbolic as a Jewish cap, a Muslim hijab or a Sikh turban. To maintain the sanctity of this shining symbol we sourced the cloth from ashrams, starched it in rice water and followed the actual rituals as closely. Institute details were then added to the back of the mask and a unique ‘JainMaskCard’ was created.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

What started as a simple design exercise got accepted as vital collateral for promotion and was handed out at seminars, discourses and historic places of Jain interest. The response was tremendous. People could interact with the card, wear it and actually experience the Jain ritual. Passed on and talked about The ‘JainMaskCard’ project turned out to be the best use of our limited budget.