38 episodes

Designed this way podcast is an initiative to start candid conversations with designers and other creative folks, to bring out the stories about the realities of living a creative life.
Not just the stories of courage, hard work and success but also the stories of mistakes, rejections and doubts. These wide-ranging conversations also reveal the diversity of thoughts, practices and opinions that exist in the creative world.

Made by Kawal Oberoi for young creatives and creatives who are young at heart.
It's designed this way.

Designed this way Designed This Way

    • Arts
    • 5.0 • 32 Ratings

Designed this way podcast is an initiative to start candid conversations with designers and other creative folks, to bring out the stories about the realities of living a creative life.
Not just the stories of courage, hard work and success but also the stories of mistakes, rejections and doubts. These wide-ranging conversations also reveal the diversity of thoughts, practices and opinions that exist in the creative world.

Made by Kawal Oberoi for young creatives and creatives who are young at heart.
It's designed this way.

    Neethi

    Neethi

    Neethi is an illustrator, muralist and surface pattern designer based out of Bangalore, India. She has illustrated for companies like Google, Instagram, WeWork, NPR, Whatsapp and Mahindra, amongst others, and is currently a Creative Partner at studio How About That!

    Bright, fantastical, pattern-infused still life and exaggerated interior scenes are a recurring theme in her work. She aims to captivate and transport her audience into these worlds.

    Neethi proudly carries a mononymous name, given by her father as a symbol of equality in representation as well as independence from gender norms.

    In today's episode, we discuss her life, designing for spaces, the nuances of creating mural art, illustration design, and much more.



    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)

    Neethi - http://www.neethi.co.in

    All India Radio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Radio

    NIFT Kannur - https://www.nift.ac.in/kannur/

    Ritu Beri - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritu_Beri

    Marimekko - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marimekko

    Noida - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noida

    Tumblr - https://www.tumblr.com

    Neethi’s Tumblr - https://kneethee.tumblr.com

    WeWork - https://www.wework.com

    Neethi’s Blog with WeWork - https://www.wework.com/ideas/workspace-solutions/flexible-products/how-wallpaper-can-enliven-a-space

    Anant Ahuja - https://www.instagram.com/typethug/

    Podcast with Anant - designedthisway.com 

    Jeremiah Britton - https://www.jeremiahbritton.com

    Aarey - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarey_Forest

    Kabootar Khana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabootar_Khana

    Maruti 800 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maruti_800

    Hornet - https://hellohornet.com/home.html

    WhatsApp Pay Stickers - https://www.instagram.com/p/CVX21FkPRrK/?img_index=1

    UPI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface

    Global Diwali Stickers for Instagram - https://www.neethi.co.in/Global-Diwali-Stickers-for-Instagram

    Google Doodle for Indian Independence Day 2022 - https://www.behance.net/gallery/150517181/Google-Doodle-for-Indias-75th-Independence-Day

    Mural for Ukkadam Arts District - https://www.neethi.co.in/Ukkadam-Art-District

    St+Art - https://www.instagram.com/startindia/

    Hanif Kureishi - https://www.instagram.com/hanifkureshi/

    Giulia - https://www.instagram.com/giulia_ambrogi/?hl=en

    Kashmira Sarode - http://kashmirasarode.com

    How About That Studio - https://howaboutthat.in

    • 1 hr 32 min
    Pulak Bhatnagar

    Pulak Bhatnagar

    Pulak Bhatnagar is the founder of PulakB Design, a studio that specializes in Branding, UI design and Storytelling.

    Over the last 11 years of his career, Pulak has worked with various brands and renowned design studios. Pulak’s client list has gone on to include art festivals, fin-med-edu-tech startups, hotels, healthcare and wellness brands, paper companies, magazines, contemporary artists, street culture brands, FMCG brands, alcobev brands, architecture firms, sports organisations and more.

    On this episode, we talk about Pulak’s journey of continuous learning and creative pursuits. We delve into a variety of engaging topics, including the delicate art of work-life balance, nurturing mental well-being, and the insights Pulak has gained while navigating the intricacies of running a design studio.


    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)

    PulakB Design - https://pulakb.com
    Orkut - www.orkut.com
    Indore - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indore
    NID - www.nid.edu
    DJ Academy - djad.in
    Prof. Balaram - https://soundcloud.com/designedthisway/singanapallibalaram
    Coimbatore - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbatore
    Kriti Monga - kritimonga.com
    Turmeric Design - turmericdesign.com
    Kyoorius Design Yatra - designyatra.com
    Irma Boom - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Boom
    Typervention - typerventions.com
    Codesign - codesign.in
    ClearTax - https://cleartax.in
    The Brew House - thebrewhouse.in
    Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 Branding - pulakb.com/portfolio/serendipity-arts-festival-2018/
    Andaz 401 book - pulakb.com/portfolio/andaz-401-reasons-book/
    Clockwork: design your business to run itself - mikemichalowicz.com/clockwork/
    Toggl Plan - toggl.com/plan/
    QShala - pulakb.com/portfolio/qshala/
    Adopt a Rice Seed - www.adoptariceseed.com
    SerendipityArts Org - pulakb.com/portfolio/serendipity-arts-org/

    • 2 hrs 13 min
    Nidhi Singh Rathore

    Nidhi Singh Rathore

    Nidhi is a multi-disciplinary creative based out of Washington, D.C. She applies design methodologies to reimagine civic infrastructure. Her value centered practice focuses on deconstructing nebulous concepts, bringing people together, and breaking down complex problems—for better and equitable services. She has spent the past four years in the local government. She has collected a range of partners, collaborators, and clients in the last few years, starting from ArtCenter College of Design, City of Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai Cancer Research Center for Health Equity, Stanford University, Stanford Impact Labs, to Montgomery County Government. The few hours she has left in the day she uses to mentor design students through Designmatters at ArtCenter or Coding It Forward during the summer. She holds a master’s degree from ArtCenter College of Design and an undergraduate diploma in Visual Communication from the National Institute of Design.

    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)

    Nidhi - nidhisinghrathore.com
    Jawaharlal Nehru - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru
    Uttar Pradesh - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh
    Allahabad (Pryagraj) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allahabad
    Triveni - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triveni_Sangam
    NID - www.nid.edu
    NIFT - www.nift.ac.in
    Art Center College of Design - www.artcenter.edu
    Network By Desire - https://nidhisinghrathore.com/networkbydesire
    Ethnography - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography
    La Fabula De Las Faldas - nidhisinghrathore.com/la-fabula-de-las-faldas
    IAS (Indian Administrative Service) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Administrative_Service
    Designmatters at ArtCenter - designmattersatartcenter.org
    Los Angeles Innovation Team - losangelesinnovates.com
    Mayor’s Challenge - bloombergcities.jhu.edu/mayors-challenge
    ADUs - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_suite
    LA ADU Accelerator Program - adu.lacity.org
    Project Page - nidhisinghrathore.com/making-housing-affordable-in-la
    Covid in LA - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_California
    Montgomery County - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_County,_Maryland
    Federalism in the United States - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism_in_the_United_States
    Article I mentioned in the podcast - ‘Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?’ - www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/09/1067821/design-thinking-retrospective-what-went-wrong/
    The Takshashila Institution (I accidentally said ‘Takshashila Foundation’ in the episode, which is different organisation) - takshashila.org.in

    • 1 hr 46 min
    Somnath Bhatt

    Somnath Bhatt

    Somnath Bhatt is a designer, artist, and writer who lives between Ahmedabad and New York City. His work has been shown at MoMA PS1, Art Week Dubai, India Art Fair, the ICA London, and Mécènes du Sud Montpellier-Sète, among other venues. Selected clients include Instagram, the New York Times, The New Yorker, Reebok, HYEIN SEO, and the musicians Nicolás Jaar and Mitski. Currently he is an Art Director at Bloomberg. He also works as a contributing editor at MOLD Magazine and AIGA Eye on Design. Somnath believes in the power of the unseen, the chaos of myth, and that labor has the right to all it creates.

    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)

    Somnath Bhatt - somnathbhatt.com
    Bloomberg - bloomberg.com
    Ela Bhatt - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ela_Bhatt
    Ahmedabad - /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmedabad
    Dashrat Patel - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Patel
    Parimal’s Episode - soundcloud.com/designedthisway/parimal-parmar
    Montessori - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
    BV Doshi - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._V._Doshi
    Rabindranath Tagore - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore
    RISD - www.risd.edu
    Baul Singers - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baul
    The White Pube - thewhitepube.co.uk
    Mohenjodaro by Somnath - www.printedmatter.org/catalog/51003/
    Walker Arts Center - http://walkerart.org
    November - instagram.com/nvmbr_in
    Steven Heller - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Heller_(design_writer)
    Mold Magazine - thisismold.com
    AIGA Eye on Design - eyeondesign.aiga.org
    Hyein Seo - hyeinseo.com
    SSENSE - ssense.com
    Shesh(Naag) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shesha
    Tyographics - 2022.typographics.com
    Thanks to Type@Cooper http://coopertype.org , The Herb Lubalin Study Center lubalincenter.cooper.edu and The Cooper Union cooper.edu for the Typographics conference audio section.

    • 1 hr 39 min
    Parimal Parmar

    Parimal Parmar

    Parimal is an Indian Type and Graphic Designer. Parimal has designed some retail typefaces with ITF i.e Indian Type Foundry and Typotheque. Some of the notable typefaces he has designed are ITF Gujarati, Lava Devanagari and Katana. Katana is one of my favourite typefaces. He is also working on a typeface for Sharda Script. Sharda is a script native to the Kashmir region.

    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)

    Parimal’s WebSite - parimalparmar.in
    Stefan Sagmeister - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Sagmeister
    Swastika - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
    Surat - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat
    Gujarati (Language) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_language
    DJ Academy of Design - djad.in
    NID - www.nid.edu/home
    Professor Balaram’s Podcast - soundcloud.com/designedthisway/singanapallibalaram
    Indian Type Foundry - https://www.indiantypefoundry.com
    White Crow Design - whitecrow.in
    Ek Type Foundry - ektype.in
    Devanagari - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari
    CJK characters - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJK_characters
    Codesign - codesign.in
    Rajesh Dahiya’s Podcast - soundcloud.com/designedthisway/rajesh-dahiya
    Unbox Festival - http://unboxfestival.com
    Design Habit - designhabit.com
    Satya Rajpurohit - www.indiantypefoundry.com/about
    ITF Devanagari - indiantypefoundry.com/fonts/itf-devanagari
    Akhand - indiantypefoundry.com/fonts?search-term-submit=&term=Akhand
    Katana - indiantypefoundry.com/fonts/katana
    ITF Gujarati - www.indiantypefoundry.com/fonts/itf-gujarati
    Rocky (Hitesh Malaviya) - www.instagram.com/rocky_sandboa
    Peter Biľak - peterbilak.com
    Kohinoor Devanagari - indiantypefoundry.com/fonts/kohinoor-devanagari
    Lava Devanagari - typotheque.com/fonts/lava/devanagari
    Glyphs App - glyphsapp.com
    Ramakrishna Saiteja - typotheque.com/authors/ramakrishna_saiteja
    Sharda Script - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharada_script
    Kashmiri Pandits - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmiri_Pandits
    Our Moon has blood clots - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Moon_Has_Blood_Clots
    Brahmi Script - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmic_scripts
    Siddhaṃ script - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhaṃ_script
    Gurmukhi Script - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurmukhi
    Takri script - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takri_script
    Sharada Peeth - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharada_Peeth
    Anshuman Pandey - pandey.github.io
    ANRT - anrt-nancy.fr
    Article 370 - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_370_of_the_Constitution_of_India
    Ladakh - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladakh
    Dogri - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogri_language
    Economic, social and cultural rights - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic,_social_and_cultural_rights
    eGangotri - egangotri.wordpress.com
    Delhi :* - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi

    • 1 hr 50 min
    Anurag Arora

    Anurag Arora

    Anurag is a product designer based out of Bengaluru. He worked at Uber India as a Senior Product designer for over 5 years. He is known for his work on Uber Lite, Uber Bus and Phone call to ride. Before Uber, he worked briefly at Twitter and Microsoft. Now, he’s a co-founder of an on-demand interviewing platform called Intervue.

    Besides Design, Anurag also has a strong passion for Food. His love for food landed him at Le Cordon Bleu in London, where he pursued a professional culinary course. And he has also worked briefly in professional kitchens and Michelin Star restaurants.

    On this episode, we talk about Anurag’s interest in design and food, and about how he balances them both.

    SECTION TIME STAMPS
    Old Delhi Food Crawl : 00:02:00 - 00:19:30
    Childhood, School and Design Education : 00:19:30 - 01:06:00
    Internship at Microsoft | Work at Twitter : 01:06:00 - 01:20:00
    Work at Uber : 01:20:00 - 02:06:00
    Culinary Arts | Le Courdon Bleu | Food (Basically) - 02:06:00 onwards

    RELEVANT LINKS (Chronological)
    Anurag’s Site - anuragarora.com
    Le Courdon Bleu - cordonbleu.edu/home/en
    Old Delhi - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Delhi
    Nihari - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihari
    Offal - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal
    Kulfi - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulfi
    Harees - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harees
    Punjab - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab
    Tadka - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempering_(spices)
    Kashmiri Wazwan - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wazwan
    Moga - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moga,_Punjab
    Sikhism - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism
    Langar - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism)
    Jalandhar - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalandhar
    NID - nid.edu
    IDC - idc.iitb.ac.in
    DoD, IIT - design.iitd.ac.in
    OCAD, Canada - continuingstudies.ocadu.ca
    Travis Kalanick (Uber) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Kalanick
    Uber Lite - www.uber.com/in/en/u/uber-lite-app/
    Uber Transit (Bus) - www.uber.com/us/en/transit/
    Uber Rebrand - wolffolins.com/case-study/uber
    Wolff Ollins - wolffolins.com
    Brand New Conference - bnconf.com
    Neapolitan pizza - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_pizza
    Punjabis making cheese in Italy - www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33149580 & www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Cheese_makers_of_Italy
    Ciabata - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciabatta
    Balsamic Vinegar - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balsamic_vinegar
    Cuisine of Sardinia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Sardinia
    Risotto - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risotto
    Honeycomb toffee - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb_toffee
    Anthony Bourdain - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain
    Atul Kochhar - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Kochhar
    Kricket, London - kricket.co.uk
    Pidgin, London - pidginlondon.com
    Burrata - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrata
    The Soul Company, Bangalore - thesoulcompany.in
    Miso - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miso
    Intervue - intervue.io

    • 3 hrs 50 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
32 Ratings

32 Ratings

tejalmgala ,

Tiramisu

Relatable, honest & inspiring ! The conversations are just so easy to follow and always open our eyes to new perspectives. Kawal asks the right questions, with humility. If you don’t know which one to begin with, it has to be Mahendrabhai Patel’s episode. And believe me, you will find yourself listening to the rest of them by yourself.

At a time when I felt a little lost, these podcasts showed me hidden directions. They’re tiramisu (literally meaning - cheer me up) !

Looking forward to more :)

Roshneed ,

Documenting the scene

Great insight into the indian design scene. Kawal asks the right questions and reveals so much of the common ups and downs that a designer faces in India. Good work, K!

balrajsidhuasr ,

An absolute must!

Thank you so much Kawal for making this podcast. This is a must for designers who are active in the field in India.
Such great insights from the professionals who are doing amazing work in India.
This is a delight for so many of us who have been following the work of western studios and designers for so long.

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