How an Artist in Mumbai Made Me Read About Investing

It’s one of my favorite Saturday morning traditions: sipping coffee and chit-chatting with my husband while flipping through the newspaper and our many magazine subscriptions. I was perusing a fluffy home and fashion mag, and he was reading one about finance (I’m glad one of us enjoys that), when he came across something that he wanted my opinion on. It wasn’t about where to invest our money… it was regarding the font used for the title of the feature story. He was trying to figure out if the typography was digitally created, or whether it was handmade artwork. I couldn’t tell, but we were both wowed by the intricacy of the design.

The illustration was credited to Sabeena Karnik, and within seconds we found more of her work online. This very talented graphic artist/calligrapher from Mumbai, India, curls and positions brightly colored strips of paper to create flowing letters and numbers. Looking at examples of work she has done for companies across the globe, I marveled at the delicate beauty of her art, each piece as fresh as a flower in perfect bloom.  Sabeena’s typographic art breathes life into words, lifting them off the page. I love the fact that she works with paper, a material that has natural warmth, evoking nature and growth.

I think it’s smart that MoneySense magazine used a counter-intuitive style to illustrate a story on stocks (subtly attracting readers like myself). But I am even more impressed that they commissioned an artist halfway around the world to create such a beautiful one-of-a-kind piece, rather than relying on an off-the-shelf digital font. And guess what? Thanks to Sabeena’s talent with paper, MoneySense’s adventurous design editor, and my husband’s curiosity, I actually read the article.

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