This was a personal project I undertook to experiment and broaden my work with colour and typography - as well as my conceptual abilities. Type was always a weak point for me and I wanted to create something that would change the way I viewed type in design. And I did that by making it my own, colourful, humourous little way.

It wasn't a perfect project, but because of this, I began to love working with type and gained more knowledge of colour. It's imperfect and I love that. And something very dear to my heart. Presenting - Matchboxes That Match Your Feelings, a conceptual matchbox series with lots of puns.

I was inspired by a lot of vintage matchboxes, especially old Indian matchboxes featuring colour and emphasising typography. However, I was also inspired by my mental health - something I didn't attach much importance to as a basis for design until recently. All throughout the project, I kept thinking, how do I make my matchbox design different from my references and more contemporary? I wasn't the first person in the world to design matchboxes.

That drove me to come up with lots of possible iterations and mainly, my subject revolved around food or ingredients. I also wanted it to be funny - rather reflective of the time of my mental health at that time.

The 6 ingredients that I finalised were Honey, Mint, Orange, Berry, Mustard and Apple. I was rather happy with the puns I came up with. I aimed to highlight the featured ingredient. Once print versions were final, I printed them out and folded it up - several times until I was satisfied, and photographed them.