Independent Branding · Illustration · Social Role — Designer & illustrator The foundation

Freelance & brand
work.

Before UI/UX, there was branding, illustration, and social media design. This is where my eye was trained — and the visual foundation that still makes every interface I design stronger. A growing collection, added one piece at a time.

A glassy ringed planet in deep blue space — one of my vector illustrations

Disciplines

Branding · Illustration · Social · Music artwork

Tools

Illustrator · Photoshop

Years

2020 onwards — before & alongside UI/UX

Format

Multiple independent projects

01 — Overview

Where my eye was trained.

My design journey didn't start with interfaces — it started with brands, illustrations, and social media design for freelance clients. That work taught me colour, type, composition, and how to give a brand a voice you can feel at a glance. It's the foundation everything else is built on.

When I moved into UI/UX, none of that went away — it got sharper. The instincts I built here are exactly what make my product work feel considered. This page is a living gallery: a place I add individual pieces over time.

02 — How it shapes my UI/UX

A visual foundation that carries into product.

Branding taught me to make every choice intentional. Illustration taught me composition and detail. Social design taught me to grab attention and communicate fast. All of it shows up when I design interfaces — in hierarchy, restraint, and a feel for when something is simply right.

Branding — identity, colour, type, and visual voice
Illustration — composition, detail, and craft
Social media — clarity and impact at a glance
Carried into UI — taste, hierarchy, and intention

“The eye I built in branding is the same one that makes my interfaces feel right.”

03 — Selected work

A growing collection.

Individual freelance and brand projects live below. Each is added one at a time — a screenshot or piece plus a short line on what it was.

Four Snacko snack packs in green, teal, red and purple flavour variants, lined up on a spice-covered background

Snacko, 2020 — a mock snack brand built from scratch: the logo, the packaging system, and four flavour variants. My first proper go at making one identity stretch across a product line.

Vector portrait of a woman in a dark shirt against a bright yellow background

Vector portrait of Sonu Sood on a deep maroon patterned background

Vector portraits, 2020–21 — traced shape by shape in Illustrator. The one on the left was among the first pieces I made after lockdown; Sonu Sood came a year later, once I'd learned some restraint with anchor points.

Digital painting of the six Friends cast members lying in a circle, heads together

Animated illustration of a dancer in a yellow tracksuit wrapped in a glowing neon spiral

Left: the Friends cast as a digital painting — the most patient I've ever been with a brush. Right: “Neon oil girl”, an animated light-scribble experiment that still loops on my Behance.

Black Lives Matter poster — a black-and-white portrait with the words: what color is your blood?

Happy Holi poster — red and green colour trails dripping from glitched white type on black

Poster work, 2021. The Black Lives Matter piece keeps the type loud and the image quiet; the Holi one was me discovering what glitch and grain can do in Photoshop.

Colour-pencil portrait of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma laughing together

Framed watercolour painting of a golden autumn tree beside a country road

Before the digital work there was paper — Virat and Anushka in colour pencil, and a watercolour from 2020. This is the "artist first" part of the story.

Landscape of trees along a riverbank, painted stroke by stroke in MS Paint

And one for fun: a full landscape painted in MS Paint, with a mouse. No layers, no undo history worth trusting — just stubbornness.

World Oceans Day social graphic — a whale silhouette filled with plastic waste on a purple background

A World Oceans Day social graphic for Vantage Circle — the whale is made entirely of the plastic that ends up inside one.

04 — Artwork for music

Songs need covers too.

Assamese musicians started commissioning me to illustrate the artwork for their releases — the covers and scenes you see on lyrical videos and visualizers on YouTube. Each one starts with just the song and a mood, and has to hold the screen for the entire track. Click any of them to listen.

Modhulogon cover art — an illustrated woman in a red mekhela sador sitting under falling orange blossoms

“Modhulogon” — Kasturi Sarma ↗ · Cover artwork for her debut single.

Sokur Panire Borokha Nahe artwork — a moonlit lake with the singer painted beside Assamese title lettering

Kuwolir Aasol artwork — a silhouetted guitarist and his dog under a full moon and fireflies

Night scenes: Daisy Sharma’s “Sokur Panire Borokha Nahe” ↗ and Subir Kr Borah’s “Kuwolir Aasol” ↗.

Jadukori Dusoku artwork — a couple on a bench watching the sunset under a blossom tree

Xorotor Niyore artwork — two illustrated girls sitting on a rock among windblown leaves

Mrinmoy Kashyap × Jontro, “Jadukori Dusoku” ↗ and the Wonder Sisters’ “Xorotor Niyore” ↗.

Loralir Khyon artwork — a boy with earphones sitting by a window at dusk, framed pictures on the wall

LAAJ artwork — a red jeep numbered 68 driving a mountain highway, hand-lettered title in the sky

Atul Chandra Baruah’s “Loralir Khyon” ↗ and “LAAJ” by Jontro & Suryya Emon Hazarika ↗ — the LAAJ credits roll with “Artwork — Sayani Saha Poddar” on screen, which never stops being fun to see.

05 — What it gave me

Range — and a trained eye.

Freelance work taught me to adapt to different brands, clients, and briefs while keeping a consistent standard of craft. It gave me range and resilience, and an eye I trust. Every interface I design today rests on this foundation — and this collection will keep growing as I add more of it.