Inside the quirky world of Lalith’s art
View(s):The man behind PickMe’s brand identity, Lalith Karunatilaka will be at the upcoming Galle Literary Festival to dive into the intricacies of creating characters in a workshop titled Illustration Builds Character.
Lalith is also the illustrator of the quirky Baby Baba book series written by his elder brother Shehan, the Booker-winning author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida as well as some wacky, original stunts and ideas in the mind-wrenching world of advertising.
Here Yomal Senerath-Yapa catches up with him:
Illustrations from the Baby Baba book series written by Lalith's brother Shehan
You have been many things- architect by training, advertising graphic designer and illustrator. Do you feel you have found a niche in children’s books?
As someone who enjoys the visual arts, I like to keep my hand in all types of disciplines. I think experimentation is central to stopping complacency. It may not always work out, but it’s important to try different things. It’s a good way to keep the brain fit. Having said that I find myself returning to graphic design and illustration, so maybe that is my niche.
What was it like working with your Booker-winning aiya (Shehan Karunatilaka) on a children’s book series that may have the potential to dethrone The Very Hungry Caterpillar?
Haha. Dethroning “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” might take some decades to do. It’s sold 50 million copies I think. That’s something Shehan brought up when we were first throwing around ideas for creating a children’s book. But we’ll try our best. Collaborating with him is relatively easy since we think along similar lines and unlike working with others we don’t need to be polite. If we think something is rubbish we can say so openly. It saves a lot of time.
Lalith Karunatilaka : We live in absurd times, so absurd humour is a natural way of coping with it
What else was challenging about illustrating the Baby Baba series?
The main challenge is finding the right visual tone for each book. As each one has a different theme, colour palette and supporting characters, making everything consistent without making it samey is very important. Also I’m conscious of adding small Sri Lankan references throughout, and doing so without it feeling forced can be tough.
Can we speak about your advertising laurels- including creating the PickMe brand identity?
Advertising awards are a strange thing. They are very important to people in the industry, but nobody outside it cares too much. Cannes is the biggest deal, though I never won, being shortlisted was a buzz. Funnily enough the campaign was for a book being launched at the Galle Lit Fest. Since the book was about the people of the Galle Fort, the idea involved having a book riding instead of a book reading, where the author took attendees around the Fort in trishaws visiting the places in the book.
PickMe at the time was something new and to be honest I didn’t think it would catch on in Sri Lanka. We can see how wrong I was. Creating the brand identity happened quite quickly. The name is catchy so ideas easily came to mind, it was only a matter of crafting it to look its best.
Knowing so many people look at this logo every day still amazes me.
What do you think gave you wings as a visual artist- growing up in England and New Zealand?
I went to university in Wellington, NZ which is a city famous for its art scene. In fact, the local council commissions so much public art that you can trip over something and later realise that it is a famous sculpture. Being in that kind of environment exposes you to many different things and fills the mind with ideas. You see a lot of good and bad art, and I find the bad art the most inspiring because it makes me brave enough to think that I can do better.
Does the gift for quirky humour run in the family for you? Were there any others in the family who could be so droll?
We live in absurd times, so absurd humour is a natural way of coping with it. Also growing up in the 80s in Colombo, my brother and I were quite bored and coming up with funny ways to annoy our mother was our entertainment. As a nation, Sri Lanka has a unique gallows humour, which, apart from cricket, is the one unifying element across religion, class or culture. You could see it come to the forefront online during the Aragalaya. It’s something we need to celebrate more. So that along with a heavy dose of the dry self-deprecating Kiwi humour has had a great influence on our family.
What are you looking forward to at your first Galle Literary Festival?
I’ve been attending the Galle Lit Fest for years and to be a part of it is amazing. I’m looking forward to meeting other illustrators at my Character Design Workshop (February 
as well as meeting some of the international authors, especially Peter Godwin. I remember studying his book “Mukiwa” in Mr Tait’s English class, and the profound effect it had on me as a teenager.
What is your workshop going to be like?
There is a reason a mute, cockroach-loving, garbage-carrying space robot like Wall-E can be so relatable. And that is great character design. The whole story is built around him. So in the workshop, participants will be taken through the stages of creating their very own character, delving into personality, and how to, not only design visually interesting characters but also ones full of substance, that are relatable. At the end of they will have created a rounded character ready to star in their very own book. It’s open to people of all levels of drawing ability, all they need is imagination… And hopefully it will be fun.
For more on Lalith please see his instagram: @juanmonkeys
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