Improper Design (Mehr Chatterjee, Aditya Dutta) for Madstarbase’s tour; the posters can be viewed via location and designer -centric filters

"The posters are beautiful but indie musicians don't have the money to print them or sell them online. But before focussing on the sales, I felt there should be a place for people to look at them first," she shares, adding that the website features posters designed between 2012 and 18, but she plans to source posters from the 1970s and 80s as well.

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"Within Indian indie music, there are many different scenes that exist in their own little bubbles. The metal scene in Mumbai, for instance, has the same set of listeners who have been dedicatedly attending every gig in the city for years. And so, a bunch of designers get pulled into the community because they are such fans of the music and musicians. In fact, bands or genres have their favourite artists. Like, there is this designer in Mumbai who does all posters for the hip-hop cyphers in the city," explains Mukherjee.

Mohini Mukherjee

Having herself designed gig posters, she tells us that the creative equation here is unlike the traditional client and designer relationship. "There is no set brief. The designers can be quite fluid — no musician, after all, will say, 'My logo needs to be 20 per cent bigger'. It's also a symbiotic relationship, with musicians and designers supporting each other."

But with little or no compensation for designers involved, doesn't it reinforce the very problem of fund crunch that musicians battle? "I don't agree with designers doing free work for brands that can easily afford to pay them. But I don't hold it against musicians because they do go out of their way to pay you back in some way," she says. "Besides, there is more money coming in the indie music scene now. Bollywood has got into it, and sponsors are following suit. Things are only going to get better."

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