Zoho is a very different type of software company as I have written here and here.
At Zoho Day a couple of weeks ago, each of the invited analysts was honored with a hand drawn portrait.
Impressed that they had created these remotely in Chennai, India from our images on the web, I asked to be introduced to my artist, Vijayan Alagar (who is in video below drawing my image). I emailed him some questions and (his slightly edited) answers are below:
"We are a team of 7 artists who create artworks/ illustrations for Zoho. The art we create is mostly hand drawn and is inspired by the words of our CEO Sridhar Vembu - Software is our Craft. See a gallery of our work here .
We created 37 portraits of the analysts. It took almost 4 hours for my teammates and I to sketch each portrait. We used A3 sized Canson sheets and Staedtler 8B pencils.
Our primary work involves creating graphics/ illustrations for the marketing collateral including the website. We are one creative studio for the entire 40+ Zoho products! We create and develop marketing collateral for Zoho with utmost care and love!
As a rule we don’t use stock photos in our website, everything is created from scratch. We don't just create illustrations. We also do research on art and experiment with them on different art forms. Our notebook (that was part of the event) art covers are one such kind born out of our experiments! All the notebook covers are hand painted and then converted as digital assets.
Each one of us has our own style but when it comes to product websites all illustrations/ icons are consistent. That is not a barrier to our creativity, we still play well within the limits.
My fascination with art started as a curious kid watching my artisan father and brother at work. Later I took to sketching landscapes, people, and everything around me. Being an ardent fan of Raja Ravi Varma (one of the greatest painters in the history of Indian art) , my expertise lies in realistic painting. I joined the Government College of Fine Arts, where I learnt to improve my drawing skills and my knowledge about Art History."
Thank you, Vijayan!! I have used your art as my profile photos on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Photo Credit: Zoli Erdos
Video Credit: Sandra Lo/Zoho
Awesome creativity!
I wanted to become an artist before switching tracks to become an engineer.
Zoho IS a different kind of company - run by some brainy people.
Posted by: Ken Ganatra | February 07, 2019 at 11:59 AM