00:00:00 Hi everyone I m Kadambari Sahu. I'm the head of design at Value Labs. Design Inspire is

00:00:14 the web series of passionate innovative and young inspiring designers. The web series

00:00:20 dive into their passion inspiration and what makes them go. It's an effort to understand

00:00:25 how they are navigating their career path and how they are investing their creative

00:00:29 energies. We believe hearing their bold moves and inspiring stories that will ignite interest

00:00:34 and inspired the next generation of bonding designers across the globe. So let's go forward.

00:00:40 Hello everyone welcome to design inspire our guest today is Deshna. Deshna is a visual

00:00:45 artist with the passion for photography, design writing and curation. A graduate of Sir J.J

00:00:51 institute of applied Art, followed by a master's in graphic design from London College of communication

00:00:56 and masters in visual communication from Royal College of arts in London, she moved back

00:01:00 to India seeking to find meaning within her own design practice. This led to the inception

00:01:06 of Studio Anugraha which serves as a platform to encourage and entertain collaborative practices

00:01:10 in the field of visual art design and research. It derives from and contributes to elusive

00:01:17 aspects of culture, philosophies, and ideas in general. So welcome Deshna. How are you

00:01:23 doing today?

00:01:24 I'm fine thanks Kadambari. Thanks for having me.

00:01:27 So the format of the show. I'll talk a little bit about that. And then from there we will

00:01:32 pick in. So the first part of the show would be where you take, anything that inspires

00:01:37 you, motivates you're passionate about and can talk about that as a presentation, followed

00:01:42 by that would be a session where I ask you questions about your design journey. And the

00:01:49 questions today which are collated from the user experience group, at Value Labs they've

00:01:54 gone through your profile and, you know, the curious to know about your work. So they've

00:01:58 collated that, and I'll be asking that, but before that, we're very excited to see your

00:02:03 presentation. So let's go forward and do that over to you Deshna.

00:02:06 Thank you for having me. I'm just going to screen share and begin. I'm going to take

00:02:16 this opportunity to talk about, one of the largest projects that we worked on in our

00:02:22 studio. It s been a commission to, it's a permission to document the Kumbh mela s the

00:02:31 reason I picked up this project is because it's kind of exposed us to a gamut of processes,

00:02:38 which we've all sort of learned along the way and now in hindsight, we use a lot of

00:02:45 them in some of the projects that we are currently working on. And it also helped us to define

00:02:51 a niche of which is designed for documentation, which is what our studio focuses on. And,

00:02:58 we hope to do more work in this genre. So, to start off with, we had a patron who sort

00:03:06 of came by and said, we like books and a film on the Kumbh mela, and this was back in 2012.

00:03:15 And the Kumbh mela was approaching in January of 2013. So at that point I had just graduated

00:03:23 from the Royal College of art and had yet figure out what I was going to do, whether,

00:03:27 you know, freelance or work for someone or start a practice. But because this commission

00:03:32 came sort of set up and start practice, we had somebody who invested in sort of believed

00:03:41 in us. So, I won't go to the, I mean, we can talk about the backstory of that later, but

00:03:46 now I take it to the processes we engage with to document the Kumbh. So the visuals you're

00:03:52 now seeing the Kumbh of Allahabad that happened in 2013. So if some of you may be aware of

00:03:59 Kumbh as a festival or gathering. But, basically it happens in four places in an Allahabad,

00:04:06 Ujjain, Nasik and Haridwar. And it happens, mainly around water bodies around the rivers,

00:04:14 which are Holy and worship that is a sort of a very peripheral explanation. But for

00:04:20 the sake of time, I'm moving ahead. So what our team did was take this head on because

00:04:28 we are not really, you know, any experts on Hinduism neither we or historians, and neither

00:04:33 do we have any background or understanding of the Kumbh in fact in most of the team.

00:04:39 This was the first time that they even visited the Kumbh. We really expected to make books

00:04:43 and a film. So, it was important for us to think through how we were doing this. And

00:04:49 the only way we could do this is you know, adopt a sort of understanding and approach

00:04:54 more in the zone of ethnography and anthropology. And look at the premises that oral historians

00:05:00 sort of, you know, invite them navigate with because, that's the only way we could document

00:05:08 and produce something of some authenticity. So I want to talk about that a little later

00:05:13 but we, essentially the model documentation was spending time on field to the duration

00:05:19 of the gathering. So Allahabad right in 2013, we spent 60 days on field the season was,

00:05:25 it was winter and, approach for documentation was more experiential in Nasik we spent 65

00:05:33 days it was the rainy season our approach for documentation was more factual and in

00:05:39 Ujjain we spent 9 days, it was summer and our approach was anecdotal. So when I say

00:05:45 experiential factual Anecdotal these approaches also are emerging they are not preplanned

00:05:50 but they were emerging from the constraints that we had to document, we were asked to

00:05:56 do books and a film. But, our client gave us a free hand on how we approached it and

00:06:02 what we produce as we go along, I talked through how these emerged. You are seeing some visuals

00:06:12 now of you know, this is the most crowed day of Kumbh Mela 2013 and this is the Chalis

00:06:18 Lakh procession where people go towards the river for the Holy bath. And I think close

00:06:23 to 50 million people travelers landscape of the Kumbh which is 50 square kilometers around

00:06:29 both the banks of the Ganga, the Sangam, on this particular day. And it is estimated that

00:06:36 80 million people visited the whole Kumbh to its duration of 22 months. So now, how

00:06:44 did we do this? It is a complex space. It is, to many people. How do we document such

00:06:49 a gathering and how do we even navigate this all fagging this ourselves. So the only way,

00:06:55 like I said, was to approach it in the methods or in the, lenses that oral historians would

00:07:04 adopt, which is through conversations with people experiencing it in real time. So essentially

00:07:11 what this means is that say if you are a government officer, who's in charge of the health and

00:07:19 sanitation at the Kumbh, if I go into arrangements for that particular from your responsibility

00:07:26 in contributing to how this unfolds at that time. So what do you tell me will be a value

00:07:32 because your presence is making things happen in a certain way. So this way, we went and

00:07:38 interviewed essentially people who were experiencing it in real time, but were also contributing

00:07:43 to the landscape in powerful way which contributed to how it even unfolded for that particular

00:07:49 year. And then our client told us, right. The client's brief was that make a book. But

00:07:55 now, as we all know in the design space, that's not enough of a brief because you need to

00:08:00 have some sort of positioning. You need to have some sort of a purpose within the larger

00:08:06 commission to make one, because there are so many books and films that exist on the

00:08:10 Kumbh Mela. So why make another one? I put one out, out there like that. so we studied,

00:08:17 we did about, you know, month and a half of secondary research before we went, which is

00:08:22 looking at whatever we could get hold of in terms of documentaries and existing, books.

00:08:28 And what we, where we found the gap really was that. There were so many books, which

00:08:33 are profitable books, which were very image heavy, and you're not done by photographers,

00:08:39 etc. they were brilliant like visually, they were all brilliant and they communicated beautifully,

00:08:45 but they were not very contextualized. So I'm just seeing image after image. And there

00:08:49 are captions, but it doesn't give me more stories than that. And then there was the

00:08:54 other extreme, which are very scholarly. So like they are, you know, expanding philosophies

00:08:59 of Hinduism. They have some notations and, it's quite heavy there. So unless I'm genuinely

00:09:06 interested in the subject matter, I wouldn't really pick up those books. So this is where

00:09:11 we found the gap. So there is this whole zone of, you know, really, visual profitable books.

00:09:15 And there's this other zone of very scholarly text, heavy books. So we wanted to position

00:09:22 this in between and the reason to do this was also because our client's main intention

00:09:28 of doing this was that we want people to experience the Kumbh. And, according to them, a lot of

00:09:35 young people in our country, or even otherwise, they look at the Kumbh as gathering, which

00:09:42 is you wouldn't willingly go to it's like a stampede or it's so massive that, you know,

00:09:47 why would you willingly put yourself in that situation? So while that is also true? And

00:09:53 there is no going away from that for the kind of scale it is, but there is also a lot that

00:09:58 goes on, which has, which has a lot of potential to, you know, teach in different ways or,

00:10:06 there are life lessons. There are lessons of all sorts that the landscape offers. So,

00:10:11 you literally said that, you know, if through this book or to this film, if you're able

00:10:17 to bring people to go to the Kumbh of your age then you've succeeded. So literally that

00:10:22 was the base of the breeze and we had to plan everything around it. So going back to positioning,

00:10:27 we said, we'll make this book, which is fully contextualized. So while there'll be images

00:10:32 and there'll be texts, but the images will support the text and vice versa while we are

00:10:36 going to do it through storytelling which the stories will be extracted or the insights

00:10:41 will be extracted from conversations. So I'm just rolling on few pictures of the Kumbh.

00:10:47 So this is the scale. You see these upon them bridges that connect the left and right bank.

00:10:52 These are temporary about 1.5 kilometers long, which are deployed on 23 of them are deployed

00:10:58 just for the duration of the kumbh and these are the kinds of settings that we are photographing

00:11:02 in at all points of the day and night.So one of the things that we talked about before

00:11:09 going was that, you know, there is this massive gathering, but then what makes it massive?

00:11:15 What makes the scale, what it is it is the individuals that will come together to form

00:11:20 the collective, right? So we were interested in these individual stories that formed the

00:11:23 collective. Now we did it in two ways. One was two conversations and the other was for

00:11:29 observations. And as people are documenting, we would also going to be publishing. So people

00:11:35 who are publishing and undocumented, we have the responsibility of archiving and also evidencing

00:11:42 because, you know, it's not like a travel log where, you know, we go and say, okay,

00:11:46 it's beautiful or you know, it's, the scale is enormous and it's not very good objectives

00:11:51 because that's really very subjective to our own opinions. Whereas we wanted to put in

00:11:58 information that, sort of peer to connect and, is authentic in a way that it supports

00:12:05 the objective unfolding of the event. So, observations, what does not tell. So if it

00:12:13 didn't stand for the rest and conversations with evidenced and really voice recording,

00:12:18 video recording, and taking stills of people we spoke to. And as an archive, now we have

00:12:23 all of these in the studio that are that form, the bibliography of the published volumes.

00:12:29 So, what you're seeing on my screen is essentially an example. This is a milk man. Now this is

00:12:34 the shadow street bridge that connects the two banks of the, the two banks of the river

00:12:39 Ganga in Allahabad. And what we observed was 6 to 6 30 in the morning. If you go onto the

00:12:45 bridge, you will see that a lot of milk men come. They put a measure of milk into the

00:12:51 river, and then they go by, this is not a very normal happening outside of the permits,

00:12:56 mainly during the Kumbh. Now this is way of offering into the offering the river their

00:13:03 measure the milk whatever it is. So I'm just taking some visual examples for now. Then

00:13:09 this is baba that we encountered. He called himself a scooter baba and we were surprised

00:13:14 because we saw going down to him and he's writing the Scandi stripes to the scooter

00:13:18 in the landscape. And. he will be really like amused what was going on. And we spoke to

00:13:25 him and he said, you know, my way of serving people is really to make people smile, serving

00:13:29 God is to make people smile. So by dressing up the way I dress up every day, people want

00:13:35 to take photos with me. They look at me and it brings a smile on their face. So that's

00:13:39 why I'm hearing, this is what I'm doing. So there were stories like this. Now this is

00:13:44 not something you see in books on Kumbh it's really something that we were encountering

00:13:49 ourselves. And it was emerging from our experience of being on feed. So this form photo story,

00:13:54 a character story in the book, then another visual evidence for the story in the book

00:14:01 is, we saw the women garlanding the bridges. So they're having these huge balls of, you

00:14:09 know, Garlands and they're chanting and they are garlanding bridges in we're wondering

00:14:12 what is going on. But then we realized on talking to them that for them, they worship

00:14:18 the river as goddess. And when the rivers worship as Goddess the closest they can get

00:14:24 to the river without contaminating. It is really garlanding the bridge. So for them,

00:14:28 that is their way of worshiping. So again, this is something that, was very evidence-based.

00:14:33 The visual tells the story. We just support it with the conversation that we had. I won't

00:14:40 get into this. These are diary modes, but, books had mostly everything was evidenced

00:14:46 through an objective, which is an objective viewpoint, which is somebody on field or something

00:14:53 that is seen. But one component in each of the volumes was a diary note, which was a

00:14:58 theme sort of an ankle. I'll talk about this a little later. This is a diary notes scribble,

00:15:04 and then there were also the funnier sort of aspects. So at the Kumbh so many people

00:15:10 it's the largest human gathering or not. So like with all the religious sites globally,

00:15:15 you see that, you know, as a form of worship, people would find it the river now during

00:15:21 the Kumbh mela so many points, right? So many people. So these are kids of boatmen who live

00:15:26 there and come evening. Like at dusk, you see so many of them thinking magnets into

00:15:32 the river and fishing up the point. So this is on the lighter side. But again, these were

00:15:36 things we never had any direction or we never preempted to find them. We found them. And

00:15:42 the documentation is really a post of what we found. It was just about being open and

00:15:46 absorbing all that we saw. This is Andrew, who was an Australian that had come into the

00:15:52 Kumbh that time. And for him, he wanted to serve in this landscape, had come to Kumbh

00:15:59 which was 12 years before this Kumbh. And for him, he thought this is a great platform

00:16:06 to homeschool children, because it has so many insights and philosophies from all that

00:16:09 is going on around. And the next time he came, which was in 2013, he wanted to be a contributor

00:16:14 to the landscape, not just a receiver. So he's a boat builder in Australia. So he actually

00:16:20 came to Allahabad to buy the one before he built a boat, the boats name is Karuna and

00:16:24 he was failing people up and down the Ganga for free. That was his way of, you know, participating

00:16:29 in the landscape for the value he saw in it. And then of course the Kumbh so many aspects.

00:16:35 It, one of the aspects is to serve, seva. So people who believe in the karmic philosophy

00:16:41 in Hinduism for them, this is like the Karma Bhoomi to serve like karmic points in the

00:16:47 form of good karma by solving and not expecting in return, but in a way it's intangible that

00:16:52 it adds up to your karma. So you see langurs of all sizes and shapes, feeding 5 Lakh people

00:16:59 to 5,000 people to 50,000. In all numbers, free food everywhere, and people incessantly

00:17:04 cooking on this camp about 50 ladies, from Punjab, very poor families, farmers day and

00:17:13 night they are making Roti s, they make something like 75,000 Roti s in a day to feed people.

00:17:20 So, moving on to the most serious insights. So these are formal, this was the Mela Adikari

00:17:25 that particular Kumbh. And we had all these formal conversations as well. He's the head

00:17:29 of security and traffic control Ravindra Pratap Singh and he was talking to us about all the

00:17:34 management policies that they are deployed. Example of one was, you know, a stoppage at

00:17:41 one point means a stampede at another point. So he said that for us, all our ground staff

00:17:46 is instructed in a way that to make sure that its constant circulation, because if there

00:17:52 is a stoppage somewhere, it might potentially mean a stampede elsewhere. So even if they

00:17:59 have to direct people sometimes to the wrong direction, they will do that, but they have

00:18:03 to make sure that there's constant flow. So this is one of the 25 cloud management sort

00:18:08 of, you know, strategies that they had. So, these serious conversations brought out all

00:18:14 of these, you know, insights that help the functioning of this landscape. So, yeah I'll

00:18:21 kind of skim through there are lot of stories there's close to around 50 different insights.

00:18:26 I even read this, but I don't have time right now. He's head of sanitation and he said,

00:18:34 you know, the things that was striking was that for us, it's not about, the challenge

00:18:39 is not to build toilets for so many people. The challenge was to make sure people deprecated

00:18:44 them because. So more than 60% of the people attending the Kumbh from Rural India. And

00:18:51 they are not used to having toilets in where they live. So they had to deploy staff to

00:18:55 make sure that people desiccated in them and not outside them. So it's a very different

00:19:00 kind of landscape where problems are very different and it needs solutions that sort

00:19:06 of speak a different language. These are academics at Allahabad University head of anthropology

00:19:12 had Ancient History, head of Ancient languages, and all these people have seen more than four

00:19:19 or five Kumbh to their life. And we interviewed all of them as natives of Allahabad but also

00:19:24 specialists in their fields. So they had lots of stories in contribution that form the lands.

00:19:29 I mean that from the documentation. So in Allahabad we had 80 conversations, that, and

00:19:35 then now that was on field now or field, how do you sort of put all of this together? I'm

00:19:42 going to stop sharing here and kind of move to another quick presentation. So here I will

00:19:51 talk to you all about thing of information design now. So seems so far was on field.

00:20:02 What you see on my screen is eight books that are published, which is what the outcome was

00:20:08 and a documentary, which is an hour long. So, these eight books out from the documentation

00:20:14 and then printed and published by the studio. How did we come to these? I actually, our

00:20:19 commission was one book, but, As we started putting things together, we went to the client,

00:20:23 you know, it book draft and said that, look, this is what we've come up with. Now we laid

00:20:28 it down before they make it to three or two or whatever. But at patron was quite happy

00:20:33 with this. And he said he wanted to publish them, you know, as this, as 8 volumes, how

00:20:41 did we arrive at these eight volumes? So right now, we also documented the Nasik and Ujjain.

00:20:46 So in all we have 275 conversations on field from people from different gamut s of life,

00:20:51 life ranging from, you're not seeing Takada members, pilgrims, academies, writers, philosophers,

00:21:00 all sorts of people interviewed and they fund the voices. We call them the voices of our

00:21:07 books because essentially all the content comes from them. We, as a team, I'm playing

00:21:11 the role of facilitators to extract the content and curators who are sort of piecing the content

00:21:17 in a way that is receivable in the form of books. So Allahabad that has 80 conversations.

00:21:22 So. All of these people's profiles are mentioned in the beginning of the book. And, whatever

00:21:29 they've said is sort of in the books, but how did we come up with this grouping? So,

00:21:35 essentially, like with anything that we now do, we tag for photos we tag content, we tag

00:21:41 all of these 80 conversations for various categories that they offer. So say I spoke

00:21:47 to you at the Kumbh. And you may talk to me about your faith and you may talk to me about

00:21:53 the government official. You will talk to me about how, security was deployed. So then

00:21:59 I'm tagging or interview one for faith, one for security, and there is other aspects you

00:22:04 may have spoken off. So that way every interview was tagged. We, at the end of tagging, we

00:22:09 had around a hundred tags. Then those hundred tags, we started grouping and this group,

00:22:15 group, and group, we couldn't group any further. And those groups are really these Place, time,

00:22:21 Astronomy, history, mythology, belief, Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, Seva, Sadhana

00:22:25 So these are essentially have emerged from tags. That's why we describe a process as

00:22:31 self-organization and emergence. It's not redirected, it's imagined from what we've,

00:22:37 exposed ourselves to what we find in the landscape and via trials. We have this idea that, Well,

00:22:43 you know, the Allahabad Kumbh that the iconic thing about it is that it happens that this

00:22:49 them, which is the confidence of the Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, So all Kumbh happen at

00:22:53 their respective rivers, like Godavari for Nasik, Shipra for Ujjain but here Allahabad

00:23:00 is Iconic it's at the confluence. So we wanted to make sure that something in the book is

00:23:05 stands out as Sangam then it s iconic to Allahabad. So that gave us an idea that if we keep one

00:23:11 book as Ganga, Yamuna, Sarasvati, as a trilogy, then it offers us more sort of systems to

00:23:18 have religious as tags. So we would then, so we grouped in a way then that we were,

00:23:24 we got tags of three and that also allowed us more sort of salt. Accommodation. Cause

00:23:28 we, it gave us 24 instead of eight for eight books. So that's how the group thing happened.

00:23:34 And that's where the idea came from again, imagine so now the books are 8 in number and

00:23:40 say, you talk to me about the river and the rituals that are under your faith. What do

00:23:45 you think of the security? Then you will be in book to me, which is about the goal and

00:23:51 rituals. You'll also be in book seven, which is about faith. And you will also be in book

00:23:56 eight, which is about, you know, the security, the services that are offered and the Mela

00:24:01 is of the Mela. So the same person would make it his way or his voice into the various books

00:24:08 based on what he, or she has said. So the books are really by subject because now when

00:24:14 we think of receiving of the books as a reader, I don't care what said, because I don't know

00:24:21 who he is, but I cared about wanting to know about security and cloud management, you know,

00:24:26 policies or strategies. So in that way, the receiving was thought of, and therefore the

00:24:33 segregation was done by subject. And also what this kind of helped us in responding

00:24:38 to a client's brief because he said, I want people to come and experience the Kumbh. He

00:24:42 didn't say, I want people to develop faith or needed to be say that I want to promote

00:24:47 religion. He said, I just want people to come to this landscape because it does different

00:24:52 things to different people. Somebody may take lessons of management from it. Somebody may.

00:24:56 See the power of collective energy. Somebody else may be interested in the reverse or astronomy.

00:25:02 Anything somebody wants to just experience the idea of serving and, you know, free food.

00:25:09 Somebody wants to experience philosophies and teachings of gurus. So in this way, the

00:25:13 eight books kind of, and so one question each, which is, a different entry point into the

00:25:19 landscape. So say I'm somebody, who's an stamp who has nothing to do with philosophy or religion.

00:25:25 Then book, it is a book that will help me to get an idea of the services that the landscape

00:25:33 offers. Because there's nothing religious about that book. It's only the services and

00:25:39 the Melana's of the Mela, which is, which is what the book is about. So this, division

00:25:45 had definitive entry points into the landscape and either detected, it attracts different

00:25:52 times of leaders with different interests. So this was the aspects and, visually we'd

00:25:58 given up a lot tradition to it. And then, everything on field was really interviews,

00:26:04 which was a Q & A. But, in the books we have, we've created eight different styles of writing,

00:26:10 again from different people who are contributing to the making of the book. And, each book

00:26:16 has eight different styles of writing and, they are represented by flags. So why flags

00:26:22 because as a landscape or sees a lot of flags. So if you were at a vantage point and you

00:26:28 see the landscape, you'll see flags of all shapes and sizes flags will help you to, help

00:26:32 act as unifiers. But at the same time, Septetos also in that video is very important as a

00:26:38 visual component. So we just graphically drawn from that thought. And for the information

00:26:43 design system, we've used different flags for different styles of writing. So moving

00:26:48 ahead, this is the map of Sungum, which you see a lot. In all the billboards, etc. So

00:26:55 this is a very familiar shape when you are in that landscape. So we've used it metaphorically

00:27:00 to navigate that it books. So this is essentially it 8 colors, which is eight aspects. And there

00:27:05 are eight flags, which is eight styles of writing in each book. And when the two are

00:27:10 juxtaposed together, you'll get the contents for all the eight books to navigate. This

00:27:14 is any, this is a spread in book three, as you enter. So you're in book three and it's

00:27:20 positioning you within the whole map of where you are and how this translates for those

00:27:26 really. So this is the juxtapose map. So this gives you all the eight books contents. So

00:27:33 that is one generic book, which is like an inventory or the lead into how do you navigate

00:27:37 the eight books? This is how it is designed. And this is now, these are, you'll find these

00:27:44 at the footer of each book. So. Right now we are in book three, which is blue in color,

00:27:49 which is about the river and on every page, based on what the pages you find the symbol

00:27:54 and color. So that's how it anchors the information design.So you just looking at the photo on

00:28:00 every page, you will know, okay. On this book and you're now reading poetry. So that's how

00:28:06 it just designed essentially. So, yeah. And of course there are more graphic components

00:28:11 to it because it show considering reorder communication design studio. I've skipped

00:28:17 a few steps in between about, you know, archiving, etc. Cause I don't have so much time, but,

00:28:24 just taking you to the slides quickly to sort of, this is the flags and where our inspiration

00:28:31 comes from. And then on display font was also created for the book. I think I have a team

00:28:38 mate Carolyn, and on this call and she's the one who's the digital feed and you know, the

00:28:44 display font. So, yeah, these are spreads from the whole book. These are some insight

00:28:52 page layouts from book one. This is examples of the display font that's created. And then

00:29:04 there are other layers of design that I use. So every photo story inside has a view title

00:29:08 you know, yellowish background, every character story has a red title and a grey background.

00:29:15 So these are smaller intricacies as designers that are there in the book. These are more

00:29:19 spreads on. These are the kinds of writing. So like say scooter baba makes his way into

00:29:25 character story. This is a dairy note. I don't have time to explain. This is a photo story.

00:29:31 This is a poetic extract. So this is expressed in the form of poetry. These are left in as

00:29:38 interviews, from conversation. And then just last point I mentioned is publishing. Like

00:29:43 I told you that we are as studio publish these books and because of having to publish, it

00:29:49 was important for us to get in with NOCS. No objection certificates from every individual

00:29:58 who contributed to this, was the voice who we interview who contributed to the books.

00:30:02 We spoke to them. We had obviously told them that we will be publishing and with their

00:30:06 consent only we had asked and talked to them, but like with a lot of things, you know, translation

00:30:12 can cause discrepancies. Our conversations on field work a lot in Hindi. And we will

00:30:19 work with transcribers and translators or fields. And, also in the way, a bookstore

00:30:23 design, the same person's content was kind of split into different books based on what,

00:30:29 what that person he, or she spoke about. So we found that it will be, ideal and responsible

00:30:34 on our part to show them how people appeared in the books before we published. And. It

00:30:40 was better to get a formal written acceptance because we were acting as publishers. So tomorrow

00:30:44 morning, we don't want somebody to wake up and be like, look, we didn't mean that when

00:30:48 you, when we said that or you contextualize it in a different way. So this process is

00:30:54 something we didn't anticipate at all, that it took us six months from making the book

00:30:59 draft ready and to publishing just because it took us that long to get all the NOCS,

00:31:03 because these are people who don't necessarily have email IDs. They are on the move. Specially

00:31:08 the stains. And, even some of them are from villages. So to access them, we have to physically

00:31:14 put your things. We had to email some, we had to send people to Allahabad from the client

00:31:19 and went and chased and found people and got their NOC S. But we had to extract each person's

00:31:25 part and how it appeared in whichever book and make PDFs and make booklets and say that

00:31:30 look you up here. One, two, three, four places. This is what is before you. This is what is

00:31:35 after you please have a look. If everything is okay, please sign the NOC and we'll publish.

00:31:39 So while we got some, most of them, it was played. We have quite a few of these detective

00:31:45 stories. So this is one example. You see that this is a lady who we interviewed in the Kumbh.

00:31:50 She is a Sadhvi and she had an Ashram in Madhya Pradesh. And, we couldn't chase her. We had

00:31:56 asked, I mean, we had taken out address and a phone number, everything, but there there's

00:32:01 didn't exist. Nobody was answering the phones, the curious bounce back. And she was amongst

00:32:06 the only one that we didn't have an NOC. And it was risky for us as a studio because we

00:32:11 have 79 out of 80. And even if she woke up one day and said that,

00:32:14 look, you know, this is not how I would like you to publish me. Then we would have to pull

00:32:22 down the whole publication. So, thankfully in the process of trying to find a way to,

00:32:27 you know, get in touch with her, Tita, my other colleague from studio, who's also maybe

00:32:32 on this call, she had the presence of mind to zoom into this background image that you

00:32:38 see of a pandal describes her Ashram her set up and in that we found the number from the

00:32:45 flex that was printed on this. And we called them up and we tried to ask him about, you

00:32:50 know, if he knew about the whereabouts of this lady and he did shifted. So he gave us

00:32:55 the right address and that's how we got NOC and then, you know, we had all of them to

00:33:00 publish the book. So we have a few stories like this, which are also there prior to publishing

00:33:05 which we didn't anticipate. So this is how the books are packaged and the project has

00:33:11 been exhibited in different places. This is the launch of the narrow center in Bombay

00:33:15 and, that's how it looks in full information architecture here. So our books were by subjects,

00:33:23 but our exhibit was by styles of lighting. So on one wall where all the interviews on

00:33:27 one wall with all the photo stories, because it just had these spatial economics of going

00:33:32 to two people who want to read less are concentrated in one area. People want to read more. They're

00:33:38 concentrated in one area. That's how the exhibition was designed. And the information architecture

00:33:42 helped that. So this is at the Goa international photo festival, which was our first preview

00:33:48 of the project. This is at Indian Institute of human settlements in Bangalore. And then

00:33:54 Sumaila lifelong learning center, at the Venice Biennale lane. We were fortunate, sending

00:34:03 footage from the Kumbh.. So there was a pavilion by the name of desk, permanent matter. Which

00:34:10 was the architect, so pavilion and, his book, he and his team he heads up in planning at

00:34:17 Howard and he and his team were in the same home landscape sort of documenting, the come

00:34:24 from a different, big architectural standpoint. And in Venice, he was invited to exhibit and

00:34:28 we had people studies, whereas they had all the factual stuff. So, we were able to contribute

00:34:35 people, stories in the form of footage that was exhibited in Venice. So these are some

00:34:39 slides from the Venice Biennale limited, tried to recreate the whole pavilion in a way that,

00:34:46 actually is with bamboo and fabric.

00:34:50 Hi Deshna a quick time check. We are at 35 minutes.

00:34:57 So this is it. In terms of the Allahabad Kumbh. We also did Nasik and Ujjain I was able to

00:35:05 kind of take you all to, you know, how the system was derived. The information design

00:35:10 and navigation was done in a Allahabad but we have a completely different system that

00:35:14 we came up with, again, not what we came up with, but what, the information that we got

00:35:21 offered, and it's a whole different way of navigating, the books that we've used or,

00:35:27 you know, common nouns, proper nouns and abstract nouns as a way to dissect information and

00:35:32 put relevant visuals to it. So for all the common nouns, we use vector illustrations

00:35:37 for all proper nouns. We use photographs and prolapse stack nouns. We use patterns and

00:35:42 how these three come together to form the design of the whole book. So yeah, in a sense,

00:35:48 every book project that we've done, which gives us the scope of on-field documentation

00:35:53 to convert it in like a book or films, we are trying to spot systems and see how these

00:36:00 systems can, help in navigating complex information and make that information more receivable.

00:36:08 So I think that's what we love doing in this studio. And I speak for a team of several

00:36:15 people and I represent them because all of these projects are massive in size and cannot,

00:36:20 by any means, be one person. So although I'm the face of them, a lot of hard work is put

00:36:26 in really by the team that is in the studio and our collaborators that make it happen.

00:36:29 Yeah, sorry I exceeded time.

00:36:30 I think it's wonderful you know, the kind of work that you've done, it's really insightful.

00:36:40 And, I think that it cannot be like, you know, totally gathered on because it's so big and

00:36:45 we could not, you know, sort of get bored of it but yeah, I think, some of it, you know,

00:36:52 sort of, look at it in the question and answer. So I ll started with your design journey and

00:37:00 you did talk about it, very little, but I would like to know, like, how did you even

00:37:04 think of becoming a designer and how did it start for you?

00:37:13 So my dad's an architect and I saw a lot of, you know, his kind of work around me all the

00:37:23 time. And I think I did my 11th grade science because at that point we needed to do science

00:37:26 to do architecture. So that option was kept open and I did it but at the end of the day,

00:37:33 I realized that I was more drawn to, you know, design and art. And that's how I applied in

00:37:37 JJ and got through. And then it was sort of in JJ, we had I don't I think it's still like

00:37:45 that even now, but in third and fourth year you pick up a specialization and I specialize

00:37:50 in that typography at that time and then we were exposed through tutors to, you know,

00:37:58 experiences outside of the country or, not exposed to the experiences, but we would talk,

00:38:03 people would talk to us about it. We had. At that point, curious design Yatra, just

00:38:08 that day, then, you know, we were exposed to some of the things happening outside. And,

00:38:14 that's when this, this thought of wanting to study for them, then London college of

00:38:20 communication was an obvious choice or to pick because it had graphic design. And that's

00:38:26 what I wanted to pursue in specializing. And then I was fortunate to meet, my design mentor

00:38:32 in London, who is, by the name of Michael Wolf, whom some of you may know he's the founder

00:38:39 of Wolf Olins the branding company. He s now in his eighties. And, yeah, I was very, very

00:38:45 fortunate to have met him and, been mentor to my design journey of four years in being

00:38:52 in London. And he still continues to mentor and inspire. He was the one who prompted me

00:38:58 to apply to RC. And he said, you know, it's a different experience, and you should expose

00:39:04 yourself to it if you have the opportunity. So I applied and worked through, and then,

00:39:09 my parents were supportive to fund my tuition because it's quite expensive that's how RCA

00:39:16 and DRCA experience happened. So that's been the design tragic thing. And then after that

00:39:23 Anugraha was set up in 2012, which is the year I came back from London. It's been eight

00:39:29 years. And, because we had the opportunity to document the Kumbh, which becomes a sort

00:39:34 of a case study because of the kind of scale this project is. And also we immersed in it

00:39:39 a lot. Now there's more opportunities to share it, at cases like NID with the publication

00:39:47 design and documentation courses.

00:39:49 How do you go back? Like, so how did you go about setting Anugraha the Kumbh as you, you

00:39:56 know, it's really very massive and documenting it whenever he makes it difficult task, a

00:40:01 daunting one to even begin with. So how did you go about planning about it?

00:40:05 So, like I said, it was so the little dots that can be to my visitation at the London

00:40:14 college of communication for. When I was at LCC, I compared as part of my major project,

00:40:20 I looked at the landscapes of the Ganga and Varanasi in London. I did this cultural comparison

00:40:28 of semi photo journalistic approach, and that manifested in the form five books, but it

00:40:34 was a school project. And then I went to RCA and then RCA, I think, all that it was exposed

00:40:41 to most probing into, you know who I am and what I want to pursue you or what I want to

00:40:49 make my design practices. And at that point, I realized that for me, meaning or purpose

00:40:55 was really in things that are cause based. And I was interested in, you know, looking

00:41:00 at things that were supporting or facilitating, so essentially NGO Cultural institutes, because

00:41:07 although they are physical entities, they are based around causes or ideas and things

00:41:13 like that. So for me, I found meaning in those spaces and experiences, and I found myself

00:41:20 inadequate to be one of those or to start anything your support, the course. Right.

00:41:26 I thought that like, can I not use the design to facilitate that course? And that's how,

00:41:31 to the joining of RCA and my visitation there. I decided that, you know, whenever the time

00:41:38 is right for the practice and that is what has happened or now that as a studio philosophy,

00:41:44 we focus on, both teams. And we would take those and I have to stick, which means we

00:41:53 try not to work on luxury brands directly on products that promote consumerism. Sometimes

00:41:59 they're also apart, but they're more of a byproduct than be sold them. And this is of

00:42:05 course, with due respect to all of the ways of working, it's just something that I found

00:42:09 resonance with and two wanted to pursue. So going back to your question of the Kumbh.

00:42:15 How that happened was, I came back from RCA and I decided that I'm going to work. Like

00:42:21 I want to work in these zones. So at that point, the client came by and, he's a builder

00:42:26 of a patron whose commissioned as document the Kumbh they are builders and, he asked

00:42:33 to design a building. And I said that human, this is not the zone I really want to pursue

00:42:38 now. I thought they come back after I see it. And I said, I want to work more in the

00:42:43 cultural space. And so he was like, okay, show me some of the work you've done. And

00:42:46 that then I happened to mention about the Ganga and the Tims visitation at LCC. And

00:42:52 that's when, because it's about the divorce and sort of photojournalistic. He, he got

00:42:56 the thought that, you know, why don't you document? So that's really how the commission

00:43:01 came about. And at that point I was figuring whether I feel honored to work for someone

00:43:06 and because the commission came and it wasn't a project that one can handle alone by any

00:43:12 means. I thought it's a good time to set up that this, and Anugraha was born from that

00:43:17 commission. The commission was before this studio, there was one that we immediately

00:43:21 set up. So my co-founders those are two others and both are from our more for commerce background,

00:43:27 but they ran a design studio prior to, co-founding Anughraha and they focused on their expertise

00:43:34 really is in print production accounts, logistics. So, it's actually everything that I kind of

00:43:44 orientated with that, with the numbers, etc. So, I had this vision and they kind of supported

00:43:50 it. They believed in it. So they bring in all of the components that I cannot do. And

00:43:56 so we compliment them. That's how the studio was born.

00:43:59 You want to expand on the caused based work that you do.

00:44:04 Sure. So far, our clients really have been, we probably have worked for about more than

00:44:10 15 NGOs and it's, it's the same thing that a communication design studio would do essentially

00:44:15 branding collaterals you know, invites posters booklet brochures profiles, but it's really

00:44:23 only for this sector, which is, social, cultural, educational, environmental. So examples of

00:44:29 some of our clients really is we work for the impact foundation at the Tata Memorial

00:44:34 hospital that works cause of cancer for children. Or we worked for an NGO is that, you know,

00:44:42 working in the zone. And then how to kind of help the men to divert the sessions or

00:44:47 support them. It s by missing link trust just very simply. So is a whole gamut of basically

00:44:55 there's one young volunteers organization that, brings in entrepreneurs, to contribute

00:45:02 small amounts and then chooses have calls every month to support. So that's the sort

00:45:08 of, she take the culture. We'll take those museums, art galleries, really. So one of

00:45:14 them that has been a long standing, we've been designing and we've been designing for

00:45:21 them for the last four and a half years now, but all their shows and catalogs. Yeah. And

00:45:27 then the others. This has become commemoratives volumes because like the Kumbh design for

00:45:33 documentation, our clients. So we get like patrons will say, okay, can, you know, can

00:45:38 you document, okay. In the way his values are or in the way he's impacted society. So

00:45:48 I believe, felt like that. And then we have to go and meet all his stakeholders, all his

00:45:52 you know, office staff or whatever he's done in social work and, and sort of put together

00:45:58 content structures. And another example is a, a hundred over 130 year old animal shelter

00:46:06 in Nasik which is spread or over to a hundred acres. And its family owned. And it's never

00:46:12 been talked about a documented, but, we spend two weeks on field interviewing the people

00:46:17 who run it and came up with the same work of mankind and land and how that cyclical

00:46:22 and supporting the ecosystem for it to learn sustainability. And put together as, you know,

00:46:28 in the form of book ultimately, but put together the whole system of operation in the form

00:46:34 of infographics, then that further translates into a book. So it's become that two kinds

00:46:38 of projects happen. One is when we are expected to go on, see like the Kumbh. And then convert

00:46:44 something that is a physical entity or an event into a deliverable like. And the other

00:46:51 is like a normal, you know, get the Atomic or say gallery will say that this is the artist

00:46:56 whose work will be displayed or of the images you are at the text. Now focus on. You know,

00:47:01 designing the catalog and the format. We also work with Brendan production. So that's again,

00:47:07 a thing that, we're trying to experiment with different formats of books and lectures that,

00:47:16 yeah.

00:47:17 So in your presentation that you did right now, you talked about different pathologies,

00:47:22 like for example, expediential, factual, and, you know, anecdotally, can you expand on that?

00:47:27 Yeah. So, I couldn't go to the other two Kumbhs, but so basically if you look at the Allahabad

00:47:34 books now, although there is a contents and a certain way that it's structured, if you

00:47:41 open one book and you seamlessly move into the next chapter without actually knowing

00:47:45 really that in one into the next chapter, because one, it's almost like you're reading

00:47:50 an interview, then you are seeing some images, which is a character story with little captions.

00:47:54 Then you're seeing a photo story. Then he was seeing some pools in the form of page

00:48:00 insights inside the different seamless experience in a way that you find yourself at the Kumbh.

00:48:06 It's not very directive. It's something that you discover. So it's not like, sort of saying

00:48:10 that, you know, if you want to find out about crowd management, go to page X in the book,

00:48:15 it's almost like, Oh, you read the, security, traffic control guys, interview and newly

00:48:20 discovered it. So it's really in the way that you experience the landscape that you discover

00:48:26 was that experience that as you read, you don't anticipate what you will read a larger

00:48:31 head, you anticipate, but smaller things you just discover as you did. So in that way,

00:48:37 we tried to recreate the experience of being at the Kumbh experience of the books themselves

00:48:42 as you navigate. So that is more we call it expediential. When we say Nasik documentation

00:48:49 is done very differently, its four volumes. But in that we interviewed155 people. And

00:48:55 what happens is in the way it is written in design, every single sentence is footnoted

00:49:02 to say who said it so you can trace every single sentence in the book to who said it

00:49:07 and what will that person play? it's very fact-based. So for example, we have 14 interviews

00:49:14 just of police personnel from control rooms from on, on the traffic control on the security,

00:49:20 on the cloud management. So we have a lot of data. And so the only way to kind of allow

00:49:25 the reader to grasp all that is to attribute who's saying it because sometimes it's even

00:49:30 contradictory data. So we don't know how to validate, right? Like how would we know that

00:49:35 this is right? Was, is that. So we put it all out there for the reader to decide based

00:49:42 on who said it and the authenticity they associate. So when you look at the Nasik books, if you

00:49:47 tell me, okay, can you tell me about how many people were in the Kumbh on this day? I can

00:49:52 tell you which page number at on. So that is very, very factually designed in a way

00:49:57 that, you know, you can pinpoint sentences to find out certain information and Ujjain

00:50:02 has done very differently also because we had constraints of time and budget. So we

00:50:06 were on field, only nine days, and there were 45 conversations that we had. So every chapter

00:50:11 name is really or name of a person. So it's like a little story or anecdote. So the person's

00:50:17 lens that you are experiencing the Kumbh. So the three I think I'm more emergent again,

00:50:22 not redirected or decided, but what without constraints we could be. And I think is also

00:50:28 the home ground for a client. The client is based in Nasik which is also why we had a

00:50:33 lot more access to, you know, people and the government officials, etc. So we could get

00:50:38 more information.

00:50:39 Yeah, that was really insightful. You also touched upon like, you know, the biases that

00:50:44 creeps in into the research and point a few you know, an unfiltered point of view somehow

00:50:50 can get of designers into the research. So how do you avoid these kinds of situation

00:50:58 and the biases?

00:51:00 so I don't know if I have an answer for that, except that, just the awareness that it can

00:51:06 happen constantly and also, sort of vetting whatever we are producing, with other people

00:51:13 constantly, because if one person is working on it throughout then, even unconsciously

00:51:20 or subconsciously that voice may become dominant and seeing voice of the. A team that's making

00:51:26 it, I mean, edit it or whatever. So on all our books, we don't have like one editor one

00:51:33 day, but we have four to five different people who have contributed in different capacities

00:51:37 in different times. We're vetting all of it to find us a question or, even ask where that

00:51:44 content has come from or why have we curated it in a certain way? So more than one lens,

00:51:49 seeing it constantly. And, also because we are sort of, like we said, that I know that

00:51:57 there's no such thing as neutral because the questions you ask that it defines, a certain

00:52:03 plugging into the answer. So in that way, I don't think we have any answers in terms

00:52:09 of being neutral, but the client brief was that, for the Kumbh was really that you need

00:52:15 to capture the acense. So now it's very easy for me to make a book on you know, everything

00:52:20 that goes wrong at the Kumbh. I have enough data for that because you are exposed to a

00:52:26 landscape with both things happen but the focus is again, aligned to the brief because

00:52:31 the client doesn't want us to make a book on everything that went wrong. And he wants

00:52:35 us to look at the acense of what it started out as and what carries on. So that becomes

00:52:42 the ankle to kind of navigate all your questions around. And also as a fallback. That if I

00:52:50 asked this question and someone said, this is it kind of conforming to the client brief

00:52:55 and wanting to capture the acense. So, yeah, I think that, and if you look at some of the

00:53:01 things in anthropology or ethnography as more just study, or, I mean, there are no literal

00:53:09 methods that come to my mind, but it kind of trains you to think of how to, how to take

00:53:16 a step back and, you know, look at things that are in front of you, in a way that is

00:53:23 really not you. So to, to absorb without judging. And I think that's a constant quest for all

00:53:31 of us in the team, because we all judge, right. Even before we know we are judging everything

00:53:35 around us. So to consciously think of, you know, this is not about me or you it's about

00:53:42 them and their representation. So how are we in the twist, me presenting them, which

00:53:48 is also where I sort of say that I role is not also directors' role is of anchors and

00:53:54 facilitators of curators, but not of authors validators. We're not doing that.

00:54:02 I also want to like, because, because of the time constraint, we couldn't, literally go

00:54:08 over the archival process. Do you want to walk us through that a little bit? How do

00:54:16 you go about? So. Again, no rocket science, but, everything

00:54:20 on field is generally sound recorded, video recorded and photographed in the form of stills.

00:54:24 Typically for any conversation, we generally have four people from the team. There's an

00:54:28 interviewer. This person who's just doing sound recording somebody who's doing video.

00:54:32 And somebody who's doing stills and then people are given different responsibilities where

00:54:36 they, one person is making sure to ask the name, the place, the date, the time, like

00:54:40 the basic diligently recording, all of that, and also the contact. How do you get in contact

00:54:45 back with you if I want to? So, that is just on field, the basics. Then when you come back

00:54:52 to studio, one thing, I mean not to do on field at the Kumbh every day at night, cause

00:54:58 you're meeting say 15 different people and. But by the time you go onto the next day,

00:55:02 we've completely forgotten who you met and what they said. So we do something called

00:55:06 diary logging, which has to be done every day in the night before we move on to the

00:55:11 next day, how we will late in the night. So it's really writing down the time and place

00:55:15 of conversation in a sense three words of whoever from team was present, what that conversation

00:55:21 was about and who from the team was present. Because again, then we translate later, we've

00:55:26 liked that person present from the team to vet it because translation can also change

00:55:31 things. So this is done. So at the end, like. It took two years from on field to publishing

00:55:37 this project of eight volumes. So, the whole day log, the diary log of all the 60 days

00:55:43 really is the see, because the book has no secondary research. Secondary research is

00:55:48 only in the farmer referencing, but I will knowledge. But nothing in the book is, secondary.

00:55:55 So the whole bibliography is really the time the search and the form of and we have backups

00:56:02 of that and we try to keep, I mean, basically all archiving does it in a more sort of, not

00:56:09 everything is on cloud, of course. And we have not yet done that, but we will eventually,

00:56:14 but to kind of keep your set of hard drives, not in the same location. I just thought if

00:56:18 I could have been, not even in the same city, so have that second thought back up in another

00:56:23 city, but yeah, the basics are done, in, in that, and everything is attributes. So in,

00:56:31 in terms of like, because it's also the role of publishing, we have to make sure that anything

00:56:36 put out has that evidence, which is the archive. That's super helpful, you know, in understanding

00:56:42 the process and it's really very diligently done, and especially how you approach people

00:56:47 and, you know, take an NOC from each and every one. And the story that you told that was

00:56:54 really inspiring in that sense. So, you know, the kind of work that you're doing, what is

00:56:59 your source of motivation or conviction to follow the body of work that you do?

00:57:06 I think it's, in that way, it's just stuff that you find meaning no, it's pretty straightforward

00:57:14 as in that, you know, if you like the music we are going to you'll easily do things that

00:57:19 are music, or if you like things around the sensory smell, you will pick up things around

00:57:25 you that have that component, or you will start looking at how do you deal with this,

00:57:29 to what you like so far for me, Personally, I find meaning in pauses and impulse driven

00:57:37 social work. And so it's easy for me to, work in that. So actually I find myself in a privileged

00:57:44 position because a lot of people do what they don't like to do for their work. But for me,

00:57:49 in that way, meaning, purpose and work is all the same like it encapsulates what my

00:57:54 aspirations are. it is not been the most, easy journey in a way that we do a lot of

00:58:01 books and books that get work in two days or even two months, they sometimes take six

00:58:07 months or two years, so that the amount of deliverables in the studio is fairly slow.

00:58:13 We don't have, you know, things that get away in one day or two hours. Everything takes

00:58:19 very long. So in that way, it does demand patience, but you know that they're working

00:58:23 towards something larger all the time. So it involves a little bit of discipline now

00:58:28 and, you know, sort of having your deadlines or being driven because otherwise you don't

00:58:33 lose any lose track of time because they're such long projects and you have to hold the

00:58:38 auto and self-accountable. So you have to find ways to account, be accountable. And

00:58:43 for that, what has helped me personally is really ask to build team because we all have

00:58:48 our different strengths and we work like a business. Like they look like pieces of a

00:58:52 puzzle. So it's almost like if I do something, somebody else is designing somebody else's

00:58:57 illustrating somebody else's you know, checking the content, somebody else's layout. So everyone's

00:59:02 playing their roles. And in that way, if one person lags on time are so, it's like you

00:59:10 keep each other motivated to respond to the larger timeline. And that helps to, really

00:59:16 keep going. But in going back to what you asked about the drive really it's, it's something

00:59:24 that resonates and so it's easy.Yeah. It's challenging. Monetarily, it's challenging

00:59:28 to keep doing it. At work because not, it's work that that effort is the same for you

00:59:36 may, you know, work for the consumer and then see and you'll get paid six times more for

00:59:41 the same thing that you will get paid in the social sector because that sector doesn't

00:59:45 have that kind of funding. But then it's also kind of thinking of it as a lifestyle. So.

00:59:50 But as in the studio, everyone, who's part of one. Also, I feel shares that vision because

00:59:56 they could well be in another studio, paid double of what we'd be doing, the kind of

01:00:01 work they're doing, but for them also meaning lies in the work and the kind of, and therefore

01:00:05 they are that, that's what I believe. So all of the work that you are doing are

01:00:12 very research driven. Right. And they're generally immerse. So how do you keep track of time

01:00:16 and specifically, you know, when there are deadlines, which are sprints and how do you

01:00:19 go about doing that?

01:00:22 So I think, it's just, I, I mean, I don't have a specific method except that you back

01:00:29 work could either, if you have a book launch and that's your back work. Then it's also

01:00:34 back looking because sometimes with these things, based on the time you'll have, you

01:00:38 can go on and on like the same book you can make in six months, but you can also take

01:00:42 12 months if you have that much time. So in that way, you just put a back when strain

01:00:46 then actually when there's a deadline is great, because then at least that becomes the dead

01:00:51 line. Like for us, it was like coming launch when the book is ready. So that dragged even

01:00:56 more because there wasn't a deadline. So, the positive, the deadline is that then it's

01:01:01 all about back working and seeing in that constraint. What can you, but yeah, our daily

01:01:07 deadlines is important because we will have to have your plans I'm saying that, okay.

01:01:12 You know, two weeks to have to finish all the transcribing in two weeks, you need all

01:01:17 the, structures done in three weeks, all the illustrations and the visual language. And

01:01:22 then after that, you may say that, you know, we need to keep that client buffer getting

01:01:27 a response like everyone, everyone does and then fine tuning or proofreading. And then

01:01:32 checking for the NOC. So all of that, it's really the process. Just put into time slots,

01:01:39 along the timeline of keeping a larger one insight. And, that's how we book.

01:01:45 That's amazing so right now it's, it's currently everybody is working remotely. How has that

01:01:52 scenario impacted you? What has it?

01:01:55 I think, I can, yeah, I, I wish like my colleagues could answer that, but because I think each

01:02:03 has their own way of taking it. And, because a lot of our work currently is more digital

01:02:10 also. I don't think we are that effective because we can work remotely. But I have to

01:02:15 say that, you know, the three people who are working in a theater capacity, we are a small

01:02:20 studio alongside me. I have been with us for more than five years. So in that way we know

01:02:26 the processes, we shared a comfort level. We know what to expect from each other and

01:02:30 each other's friends. So with remote working, that's very handy because you, you really

01:02:34 know how much time somebody is going to take to finish this. And if you need something

01:02:38 done quicker, you get it to send it to her because she's good at it. And vice versa.

01:02:42 So I don't think it's, for us, it's been, in that way, productive enough. Although there

01:02:47 are days when you have to, you know, kind of, I think drive yourself and others because,

01:02:53 we're all in this situation of not only working anymore. So add in at home and look after

01:03:02 which, by going to a workspace, all of that was just done by somebody else or it did,

01:03:07 but now you had exposed to all of that and you have to contribute to that. So I think

01:03:12 flexibility of time has helped as in if you're in an office space nine to five or whatever

01:03:19 everybody's working in that time, which has its positive of co-creating brainstorm mind-mapping

01:03:24 or all that squint physically now it's just saying that, okay, we need this much work

01:03:29 done in a day or in two days, then how you do it when you can micromanage you, unless

01:03:34 there's a deadline or there's a loop involved. But other than that, it's more like you want

01:03:39 to work, you know, two in the night, its fine. Then we want to work, but the work needs to

01:03:44 get done. So yeah, I think that's how we're navigating.

01:03:47 Okay as a designer or creative person that you are, what inspires you? Film, books, anything,

01:03:54 what are those things that really pushes you?

01:03:58 I love reading so and so I love books. So, and again, I said, I'm fortunate that I'm

01:04:04 mostly designing books. So it's almost like a childhood thing where when I would visit

01:04:10 a library or crossword, I would tell my mom that, you know, I wish to own this set someday,

01:04:15 or be a manager in this world because I love the books, but yeah, books essentially of

01:04:21 all sorts, whether it's visual and design books or even not stories or philosophy. I'm

01:04:28 also, I love philosophy. So, yeah. Any sort of philosophy by biographies lives in books

01:04:36 or literature inspire me. Yeah. I love drawing an illustrator who can respond to great briefs.

01:04:44 We have, in our studio, Carol who's very good at that. And, but I'm not that. And offend

01:04:54 illustrator, but I love say for example, I love doing Lotuses. So there was a point where

01:04:59 before going to sleep every day at night, I would draw this and put myself to bed because

01:05:04 it's a good way of calming down. So yeah, I have my little I think hand doing is something

01:05:14 that we was in where we were expected to show up and college only after we had 50 sketches,

01:05:18 they've been wanting for a long time. So in that way, with running the studio, not, I

01:05:23 don't get that opportunity of doing things hands-on every day anymore. So I find other

01:05:29 the ways to do the Lotuses and keep that as the hobby time.

01:05:33 Any recommendations for book that inspires you?

01:05:38 Yeah a lot. I can send a list, but, yeah, that is in terms of design. I think of, there's

01:05:47 a great book by the name of, how to be a graphic designer without losing your soul. It's written

01:05:53 by Adrian Shaughnessy, who, who was the Royal college of art. And I love that book. it's

01:05:58 it's almost like, although it's, I think it's returning 2005, which means it's 15 years

01:06:05 old. But somewhere, it's, it's very contextual and open that it's like the go-to to find

01:06:11 answers sometimes when you're lost. So I use it like that. I recently read a book called

01:06:18 5 AM by Robin Sharma. I won t wake up at five, but I would like, but anyway, it's a big book

01:06:24 of how to, you know, manage your life and your time and your time is limited. So how

01:06:30 do you turn a nice energy to what you, what you really want to do and work around goal

01:06:35 setting and things like that? And that's been an interesting book. I like haikus and I like

01:06:40 books you know, philosophies like wabi-sabi so a lot just me or not for him, I've written

01:06:48 this book, Bobby savvy, five descend designers. Which is a big book as well that, I enjoy.

01:06:54 And other than that, of course you have the classics, like the Art of looking sideways

01:06:59 by Alan Fletcher, which are just like a little in the middle of the day when you are stagnated

01:07:06 or stuck. So, yeah. And logs like Brain Pickings and Maria Popova of course it's all books,

01:07:14 but in a digital medium, that also is just a difference in medium that way. But, and

01:07:20 that's again, a big blog that has fewer, a lot of thoughts and integration and send you

01:07:27 a list.

01:07:28 Yeah. Some advice for young and budding designers?

01:07:34 I'm not sure the feminine in any advisory capacity because, I think, learning along

01:07:41 the way every day as well, but, I think what I can only speak for what's helped me and

01:07:46 what's really helped me is to really find meaning and purpose in what I'm doing. And

01:07:52 that's also a constant place. It's not like every day you can just do what you like. It

01:07:57 has its struggles within it, but just that when you have a larger. Kind of an ankle,

01:08:02 the purpose that you're responding to for your own self then, but what becomes of much

01:08:07 more than book as in its, it's easier to work in it also because it's, it's just a resonance

01:08:14 of how you are and who you are. And it helps too. So I feel like I designed schools in

01:08:20 India, especially, and it's changing now, but especially in my time when I was studying

01:08:25 in JJ, etc. a lot of emphasis was put on formats. So like, okay, you're a type of the illustrator,

01:08:32 you know, you are a UX UI UX designer. So we all have a skill sets and that's needed,

01:08:38 like I can design books quickly. So that is my, then I know my skills are in design. We

01:08:43 all need both skills, but I think the other gamut, which is thinking of perspectives from

01:08:47 a content perspective is also important. So it's as easy as this, that safe. You're a

01:08:54 cricket fan. If you want to make a book out of it, one cricket and sure to be better than

01:08:59 somebody like me was no interest in cricket but very often I'm the one who's commissioned

01:09:03 to make a book on conflict because people are like, can she make a book? So let's go

01:09:08 to her but nobody's looking at subject and resonance. Whereas I feel like that can potentially

01:09:13 play a huge role. So now when somebody comes with say jewelry brand to design. I'm not

01:09:19 going to be able to do justice because my heart doesn't like that don't know anything

01:09:23 about it. But on the other side is if somebody comes to me with an NGO or, you know, cultural

01:09:29 museum or something like that, because I've kind of pursued that. And I liked that. I

01:09:34 also have the experience in doing that over and over again. I will respond to it much

01:09:39 more positively. So I see, like as designers, if we not only think about the format we're

01:09:44 working in, but what resonates with us as human beings and therefore to see how we can

01:09:48 even create spaces or studios or work environments that are not only thinking by format that

01:09:56 thinking also by subject matters or larger broader context. So let's say a design studio

01:10:00 is only doing work for education sake, and if they do that for 10 years, imagine how

01:10:05 good they get at it. And say somebody who's graduating has really done their research

01:10:10 and working for the school or, you know, working for teach for them or whatever. So they would

01:10:16 find a fit in that kind of a space. So I'm not saying that if I were to do only that,

01:10:22 but I think that would nice.

01:10:25 Thank you for sharing your thought. I take right now just one question, but seems to

01:10:31 be there here from the team which says that did you have to reject any brand client because

01:10:37 of your values related to consumerism? If yes. How did you handle the situation?

01:10:41 Yeah, a lot. I think I've said more no s than yeses, but again, like I said, that it's,

01:10:47 we exist or we can do the work we are doing because of CSR that does that exist? And the

01:10:53 CSR that exists, exists because the mainstream exists. So in that day or a little loop, it's

01:11:00 all interconnected, one feeds into the other. So there's no going on it. It's just like

01:11:04 saying that, you know, you can do something better. So you do choose to do so in that

01:11:08 way, when you communicate to a client saying that, you know, I'm not designing for you

01:11:13 because I don't like what you have. It's just that my inclination is more towards this and

01:11:15 I'm better at this. So I'd rather focus on this because I can't do justice. What you're

01:11:23 asking me to do. So I think, when you maintain that modesty and it's not modesty, that's

01:11:29 born out of trying to be modest, but it's the reality like today, if you tell me to

01:11:33 do a jewelry brand, it'd be very hard for me to do, because I don't know how to do it

01:11:37 in the last 10 years. I've not done it. So, in that way, I think if we are just honest

01:11:42 to ourselves and then. We honestly speak to our clients. They understand, and I've had,

01:11:50 yeah, I've been very fortunate to have patrons or clients will come to me for very mainstream

01:11:55 consumer products, all very high end luxury brands. And I've said that, you know, that's

01:12:00 not my zone and whenever they have an NGO or an endeavor that social cultural, the same

01:12:06 people have come back with wanting to work on that space. So I feel it's just the way

01:12:12 you communicate and, what you really are intended. Because ultimately that's how we work. And

01:12:16 so, yeah.

01:12:20 So thanks for sharing your, you know, your thoughts today. Deshna it was wonderful, you

01:12:25 know, listening to you, your, projects that you've done, it was inspirational and owing

01:12:30 to the amazing work that you've done. We just want to shout out love and appreciation, for

01:12:36 those words. And we would want to confer upon you the title of inspiring young designer.

01:12:42 Thank you now Deshna.

01:12:45 Thanks Kadambari. Not for me. It's for the studio and the team, like I said, I will represent

01:12:53 then. Yeah. Thank you.