While remembering important historical events or specific places on the India map or the diagrams of various parts of the body is expected of kids, it may not be very easy for them. It is common for them to get confused, even after they have gone through their notes several times. The creative and beautiful posters designed by a start-up called ekDali can now help kids in remembering these things easily. ekDali was founded by Roomana Basha, a former corporate professional, a few years ago when she was on maternity leave. Prior to this, she worked in the internal communications department in a Bengaluru-based MNC. She says, "My work revolved around dealing with clients and communicating with them in an effective manner. Creating interactive charts and providing the necessary information in a simple way was part of the deal and I enjoyed doing it very much. When I was on maternity leave, I would feel bored. That's when I took to creating posters exclusively for children."
The first poster that Roomana had designed for her daughter carried information and colourful pictures of the wild tiger and later, she even designed a separate chart consisting of all wild animals in the same fashion. "I realised that my daughter retained information better when she learnt via colourful pictures. I also wanted to stop her from using the mobile phone a lot and creating concept posters helped in this regard," she points out. The first concept poster that she created was that of an India map painted in various colours featuring famous historical monuments from each state. This attempt to showcase the Indian map in a fun and vibrant way for children was appreciated by many individuals and school authorities.
ekDali has created two different posters depicting the world map. While one poster consists of a map that has continents and oceans, another poster depicts countries which are filled with various colours with corresponding famous animals, birds and places present. Around 180 countries are marked in this colourful poster and are specially meant for kids to read it by themselves. Along with the map, the kids also get six country cards. These cards have the name of the continent, countries and their capital cities.
Every time Roomana and her team create these posters, they make sure to get them verified by experts. She explains, "We have created a poster that depicts India's Freedom Struggle, Pre 1857 and Post 1857. These two posters are always sold together because if children don't understand the pre 1857 struggle, then it creates a kind of vacuum in their understanding of history. Before we printed them, we ensured that the dates and historical incidents mentioned in the posters were accurate. It was only after a reputed history teacher checked these facts in our posters that we went ahead and printed them. I wish we had an interactive poster like this when we were children, then none of us would have hated history so much."
When it comes to Science, Roomana's team has created posters of the respiratory system and the digestive system. The poster of the respiratory system is simple, clean and mentions the functions of pharynx, lungs, diaphragm and much more. It also shows how smoking can impact the respiratory system. Similarly, the picture of a digestive system is another interesting poster. It not only shows the functions of each part distinctively but shows the process of digestion of food. “It usually takes 21 to 60 days for any activity to become a habit. Hence, ekDali has created a tracker that helps children in tracking a particular activity which they want to convert into a daily habit, like reading a book for example,” she avers.
When we ask Roomana what are the other posters that she wants to include in her list, she says, "We would like to create posters of some of the oldest human civilisations around the world, some posters with motivational sayings and diagrams of other body parts like eyes, heart, ears, etc."
Some interesting facts of visual coomunication
Aldous Huxley is regarded as the prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories. He was near-blind in his teen years and this lead him to explore visual communication as a platform to communicate with people. One of his most famous quotes include 'The more you see, the more you know'.
