Workshops & Lectures

  • Inside/Out

    TypeLab Asia, Remote
    (June 2025)

    This talk at TypeLab Asia was a behind the scenes look at how I keep this project alive and kicking — everything from what goes into preparing for a documentation trip to why I photograph some signs and not others, and how the archive’s annotation system works to what research underscores its organisation. I gave a tour of the archive’s new website, designed by 3 Sided Coin, and introduced the upcoming India Street Lettering book, being published by Blaft Publications.

  • Describing Signs

    BLAG Meet: Inside Issue 06, Remote
    (April 2025)

    Acknowledging the challenges she has faced in annotating the multi-script letterforms in this archive according to their styles, Pooja has set out to learn and devise the language she needs to achieve that. In a short talk, she will talk about why this effort is important for the project and her journey thus far.

    Register for the event here.

  • Naseem Iqtedaar Ali Literary Guftugu, Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival

    Lucknow
    (February 2025)

    Pooja took the India Street Lettering project to Lucknow’s leading cultural festival through a public lecture that examined the multifarious reasons why she documents letterforms on public signage. She illustrated her motivations, which ranged from a curiousity for local histories to an interest in the constraints of different materials and techniques, and building typologies of letterforms to memorialising diversions from canonical forms, using her vast collection of lettering photographs from around the country, and from Lucknow, in particular.

    She was joined on stage by Mohd. Rafi Sahab, a sign painter from Machli Mohal, who gave a live sign-painting demonstration, shared stories from his four-decades long painting career, and answered audience questions with her.

  • Designer as Documentarian

    Script & Structure, Colombo
    (November 2024)

    As a design practitioner whose work focuses on under-represented cultures and scripts, Pooja spoke about the need to don the additional hat of a documentarian to participate in the creation of design resources and archives needed to succeed as an individual and a community. Among the projects she highlighted was India Street Lettering, discussing what an asset it has been to her practice by teaching her to look beyond the confines of typographic expression that she learned in educational environments.