Kavya Jahagirdar

Why it looks like this.

Every site says something before you read a word of it. Here's what I wanted this one to say, and the small rules that keep it saying it.

The letters aren't drawn. They're the paths between the beds.

A garden, seen from above

The mark is a green disc with a J and a K cut out of it. The solid parts are the beds. The letters are the paths between them.

So you don't really draw my initials. You walk them, which is roughly how this site works too: you wander from one idea to the next and see what's growing.

The K's leg ends in a curl that turns back on itself and stops before it closes. That's my curly hair, and it's also a tendril still reaching for something. It stays open on purpose. Nothing here is finished.

It took six tries

Most of them were wrong in a useful way. Tap one to see it.

Try 1 of 6Anyone with a garden blog could own it. Next: use my actual initials.

What the garden is about

Plants are the metaphor. These five are the point.

  • Curiosity

    Following an idea wherever it goes, including off the path.

    So: the logo is literally made of paths. Notes link to each other, and there's a map for wandering instead of navigating.

  • Care

    Tending thoughts instead of publishing them as finished opinions.

    So: every note carries two dates, planted and last tended. A yellow dot means I touched it in the last two weeks.

  • Growth

    Letting beliefs change, and leaving the evidence lying around.

    So: the curl in the mark never closes. Old notes go grey instead of disappearing.

  • Personality

    A real person behind it, with a family and a playlist.

    So: the mark is my initials, not a stock leaf. There's also an MP3 player like the one I had as a teenager.

  • Restraint

    Character without decorating every inch.

    So: one mark, one colour at a time, one loud thing per screen.

The line that started it

धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय। माली सींचे सौ घड़ा, ऋतु आए फल होय।

Slowly, mind, everything happens slowly. The gardener pours a hundred pots of water, but fruit comes in its season.

Kabir, 15th century

A hundred pots of water, and you still don't get to pick the day. That's how most of my ideas grow, so that's how the site works.

What it's made of

The everyday colours

PaperThe ground. There's grain in it if you look.
#F4F1EA
InkWords and lines.
#1A1916
MutedDates, captions, second thoughts.
#6B675E
Deep greenThe mark, and the footer you'll reach eventually.
#22442F

The rare ones

PinkUnderlines, the page you're on, the one flower, and the mark on stickers. Never words.
#fd5183
YellowThe recently tended dot, and one highlighted phrase per page.
#FDE837

They never share a box. Go ahead and check.

The type

Fraunces

My name, titles and quotes. It's a little wonky on purpose. That's a real setting, and it's called WONK.

DM Sans

Everything you need to read quickly: body text, dates, buttons, the nav.

Handwriting

Allowed in three places on the whole site. One of them is at the bottom of this page.

Where you'll see the mark

Kavya Jahagirdar
Up top. Beside my name in every header.
In your tab. It's already round, so it works at 16 pixels without a frame.
kavya.garden
At the bottom. Reversed out of deep green in the footer.

Rules I gave myself

  • If in doubt, take something away.
  • One loud thing per screen.
  • The mark is one colour, always.The paths show whatever's behind them. Filling them in would be like paving the garden.
  • The curl never closes.
  • Nothing moves without a reason.The gate on the home page swings open because it's a door. The dots up top walk because paths are for walking.
  • Pink and yellow are never words.
  • Old notes go grey. They never disappear.
  • No dark mode, no trackers, no cookie banner.

This page will change too.