The Ice cream is an embarrassment of visual riches. Practicing restraint was the hardest thing to do in designing and developing Alter #5. We had a dozen ideas that were shot down (thanks, but no thanks, Adi).

The most arresting visual of ice cream is of the much coveted dessert, perfectly scooped, just softening, glistening on the waffle cone. Dropped. This was a common problem for all of us at Climate Studio. Everyone had felt that pain and we wanted to remind the reader of the agony of loss. Our opening visual is a reminder of that one instance. We all have a dropped ‘cone ice cream’.

The heart of the article is the exploration of ice cream as material. Ice cream is texture before it's flavour, so we set smooth, fresh-churned ice cream micrography against the sad crystallised grain of a refrozen version. We wanted the science to shine, the design to aid relatability and the development to mimic the playfulness of the subject were given. The rest is a story we will talk about at our launch event. Catch Amritha and quiz her magical craft.

The holy grail of design is to create non-derivative products. Everyone is looking at the same references on twitter, instagram, reddit, pinterest, etc. How does one go beyond it? Sparsh challenged us with this idea. And it’s one that’s going to inform our design palette in the coming months. Watch this space for more.

Lastly, the team has been itching to find the right home for ‘pretext’ as a format, and the dondurma (turkish ice cream) sequence turned out to be perfect for it! Readers get to literally chase the ice cream through the text. A mini-game within a long-read, embodying the Alter spirit. Manish brought it to life. We hoped you enjoyed this nugget.

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