My Creative Journey
A short story about my journey.
The story starts in 2005, where apart from watching the classic 2000's cartoons and playing hide and seek, one of my favourite things to do was going to the drawing class. I was six years old and was already in love with colouring in colouring books and forgetting about the world around me. I grew out of everything else except drawing and painting; that class stayed as my favourite thing to do till I was 16. My drawing teacher's advice to get into design led me to join a class to help me prepare for design entrances. Although I was keen on being an artist, I wanted to give his advice a chance, and that chance led to 6 years of deep dive into creativity and design.
Once, a mentor guiding me to prepare for the design entrances saw my drawings and asked me a question that seemed absurd at that time - "When will you start making art for yourself?"
That stuck with me, and in the first semester of college, I realised two things -
1. The intent of drawing and painting I mostly did was to improve my skills and impress. I made art for the output.
2. I thought I had talent all this time, but I had just worked extra hard to prove myself as a good enough kid.
While this happened, I had already started exploring photography with my DSLR. While sketching products daily was meant to improve my observation skills and eye for detail, photography did that job better. Maybe because my intent with photography was to learn how to click great pictures without knowing that clicking great pictures needs a sense and awareness of the present environment and a "photographer's way of looking at the world”. Around this time, a talk was arranged in college; the guest was Krishand. His speech inspired me and changed the way I took photos. I started to do photography as a medium to tell stories.
As the entire first semester was fundamentals of design, there was little to create and much to consume. I got a lot of time to paint and explore photography. I decided to draw in a journal and keep it private. As I held it private, I didn't need to make a "pretty drawing". I started drawing to express myself, and well, it was horrifying. But beginning this practice led to a lot of self-reflection, which led to a whole emotional and mental well-being journey.
I was confused between Visual Communication and Industrial Design for my major. So, I chose Lifestyle Accessory Design, an intersection of Product, Fashion, and Graphic Design.
At the start of the course, I explored many materials to design home and lifestyle products, fashion accessories, visual merchandising and packaging. I studied and worked with wood, metal, leather, ceramic, paper and fabric. Soon after, I explored the crafts of India and documented two of them - Blue Pottery and Kathputli. This on-ground research of 10 days for each craft sparked my interest in talking to people, doing research and documentation.
Later the course was all about design thinking and design exploration. Here I learnt about defining a consumer, observing and understanding their habitus (our classroom slang for habits and status), the "function, look and feel", the why, the cost of the prototyping, sampling, manufacturing, ways of visual merchandising a brand with a purpose and a story and basics of how to market. This phase of the course helped me learn a lot about how to go from ideation to introducing a product in the market. Sadly this happened during the first wave of Covid-19, and I could not make the product. One of those projects is Barbeque Grill. (a tiny proud moment here - this design is currently submitted for a patent)
Lucky to have found an internship then, I did my first internship at an early-stage startup (pre-launch). I worked on product ideas, brainstorming, material sourcing, prototyping, developing the product more to reduce challenges in material and sampling, testing the product and finalising the manufacturing. With this, I also contributed to other photography and digital marketing areas. I worked intensively on building a handcrafted and organic collection of Dog Accessories. With the success of this project and all the other projects at that time, I am glad to be a part of the launch of IndieGood in December 2021.
The next thing I wanted to dive deep into was ceramics. I chose to do my graduation project with that material. My external mentor and industry support for this project was Maulik Oza - a ceramicist and architect from Ahmedabad. In this second internship, I spent most of my time "being one with the material through practice" and ideating a ceramic table lamp. I explored the material and started learning about glazes. Other times, I helped him fix nut bolts of the furnaces he would build, compile a manual for a slab rolling machine he designed and built, photograph his existing products, mix glazes, etc.
After two months, a family member got infected with covid, and I had to rush back home. After two weeks, I went back, and my mentor was infected. As ceramic products take very long to be manufactured, I dropped this project and started a self-initiated project for my final submission, which was due in 6 weeks. I did two projects for my last semester. One of them is Terracotta.
I graduated from college in July 2021.
Spending three semesters online during covid, my industry experience in ceramic was almost nil. With no support from the college and the economy not being in good shape, I struggled to find a decent job, and this is where the chapter on Lifestyle Accessory Design ends, and UX Design begins.
After much reflection, I figured that materials were just a medium; a more profound interest was design research, design thinking and problem-solving. With little graphic and publication design skills, I applied for an internship in UI Design at Sukratu.
I contributed by creating social media posts, branding and UI design for mobile and websites. The internship turned into a job after two months. As a full-time employee, I contributed to making user flows, wireframing and building a product from scratch. I started loving the idea of learning by doing more and more. My first end-to-end UI Design project here is Slash. A website design I am proud of is Qnikorn.
After a few months, I accepted an opportunity for UX design at ideaForge in October 2022. At ideaForge, I started with research and understanding the working and operating UASs. With the guidance of my seniors, I made an entire UX Audit of the in-house drone operating software. I also contributed to the brainstorming and ideation of new designs for the drone itself. After a couple of months, I fell ill and had to come back home. I was recommended to stay home and rest for 1 to 2 months. As my role needed on-ground research and development, I resigned in December 2022.
While recovering, I did a few freelance projects. One of them is Erate Sync. I also noticed a gap in the skill level I need/want and the skill I have. I started upskilling and compiling all my work.
All this time, I did not stop clicking photographs and painting. Here are a couple of pieces I did recently.
This journey has led me to believe all creative work is inherently the same. Design, Photography and Art are considered mutually exclusive streams, and it works out very well for most people. For me, they add on to each other. When I click a photo, I get inspired with an idea for a design or a colour palette; I express my emotions in a painting, process my feelings and become more empathic. The ability to understand others increases. Designing a product makes me know more about people, society and businesses; it changes me a little. And that change reflects in my photography and painting.
My goal is to be a designer who makes this world a better place, a photographer who tells stories, a painter who fearlessly expresses, and, more importantly, someone who constantly pushes their creative limits and leaves an impact.
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Currently listening to - Coming Home
Reading - Creative Confidence
whoa that Center of Attention sketch is so cool!
Really loved the honesty all through your writing! The flow also made me visualise your entire journey which made the process of reading this piece super enjoyable! Looking forward to more such honest storytelling!