Graduate Feature: Gurleen Raj
We first were introduced to Gurleen through her mentor, Fahud Ahmed, who we interviewed for Valentines Day. Fahud had featured Gurleen and her work on his LinkedIn, highlighting some of her amazing pieces, and we reached out for a phone call to get to know Gurleen more…
Gurleen, born in New Dehli, moved to England in 2012. She talks about how her creativity blossomed after she arrived in the UK when she was exposed to a myriad of creative school subjects during her secondary education.
“A mixed media designer” is the term that Gurleen has arrived at to describe her multi-disciplinary creative process. At Plymouth College of Art she switched from studying Surface Design to Graphic Design, but she didn’t let her interest in textiles stray far as fashion still plays a key role in her design inspiration.
Kalee is an ethical womenswear brand designed by Gurleen. While designing it she drew from a range of inspirations: A trip to India before her final year, a passion for social justice, her bilingual ability and her love of fashion. We found the typography of this branding project particularly beautiful. Gurleen matched Gurmukhi letterforms and Roman letterforms to build a multi-cultural typeface.
Since graduating, Gurleen has gone on to do a PGCE at The University of Cambridge. When we caught up, she spoke about how she hopes learning key managerial and organisational skills on this course will help set her up as a more rounded and employable creative.
“I hope if I can teach 100 kids… I’d be fine with a team of creatives”, she jokes.
Although we’ve only just become acquainted with Gurleen we were blown away by her mature approach to the creative industries. Her experimental approach to Graphic Design, as well as her ambitious and self-reliant personality will set her up to go far in this industry. She would be a perfect match for any design studio, but especially ones who have ties to fashion and like to deep-dive into research and experimentation.
