Foundational Designer, Branding, Logo design, Visual Identity, Film making, Social media, Photography, Modeling, Project management, sound design
Platform :
Images, motion, Sound, social media, website.
Timeline:
June 2022 - present
Team:
Akash Patwal (founder | Lead ) Aabhinav (Art director)
About :
Walking Vertical ➹ is a Dehradun-based fashion brand founded by Akash Patwal, and my collaboration with him began in Summer 2022 after a chance meeting. What started as photo manipulation work for a GQ feature quickly evolved into a long-term creative partnership spanning photoshoots, brand identity design, video production, and event work. A major milestone came in early 2023 with the creation of Walking Vertical's logo, derived from a WV stitch symbol Akash had been hand-sewing into his garments , which I digitized, refined, and developed into a full brand identity including voice, tone, and tagline in just five days. The collaboration continued into 2024 with a conceptually bold photoshoot for a stuffed bag design, and culminated in a high-profile NBA x Budweiser commissioned show in Mumbai, where I took on a hybrid role spanning creative direction, project management, visual and audio design, model curation, and BTS content production.
one fine evening in Summer 2022 I was on my regular shenanigans in Dehradun, and I was doing some hand lettering for a friend on his old t-shirt, we wanted to write the famous Stephanie Germonata phrase - No sleep, bus, club, another club, no sleep, plane, bus, performance and so on - here is what that looked like, it was then/ as the universe destined that I met Akash (the founder of Walking Vertical) -
we hit it off pretty well without any prior need for introductions, and started working on several creative projects together - starting from the Grazia Magzine feature shoot for Aakash’s introduction, we stated with a photoshoot & some photo manipulation to showcase the avant garde aesthetic Akash desired to achive - the Concept was simple, we would click his picture, I will modify it in post & print it out & then Akash can show off his embroidory skills with a silver thread, that piece was re-scanned and refined to be presented
we found some golden hour light, and a plain white background in the middle of Dehradun city, which believe me that is a task to find a cute wall. Post which we selected the picture that resonated with the theme and Ihelped him execute his vision of a huge alien head with built in cheekbone horns, which we printed - and then he got to work with his silver thread embroidery, and then we scanned it and did a little bit more photo manipulation and that was it - the next thing I know our work was in Grazia and I am posing as s model for a photoshoot for his garment.
Initial days
BTS: my first photoshoot as a model for Walking Vertical back in Summer 2022
