Created in collaboration with Aditi Kothari, this calendar blends vibrant illustration with the flavors of Indian cuisine. Each month features a tear-off artwork that, when collected, forms a mosaic of a full dining table. The reverse side offers a recipe and ingredient list from a different region of India, inviting users to explore the country’s rich cultural heritage through both art and food.
Roles
ILLUSTRATION, CONCEPT DEVELOPTMENT, PRINT DESIGN
Tools
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
Dine-In started with a question: what makes a calendar worth keeping? We audited existing food and cultural calendars and identified a consistent UX failure, no reward loop, no reason to return, no narrative that built over time. The interaction was purely passive: flip the page, forget the month. The design opportunity was building in a mechanic that made engagement feel intentional.
We mapped the full year as a system before designing a single illustration, twelve regions, twelve dishes. The tear-off mechanic was a deliberate interaction decision: removing a month feels like an action, not a discard.
The calendar dimensions weren't designed around standard print sizes from the start, which created production constraints that would limit commercial viability. Next time I'd anchor the format to available print ratios before designing anything else.
