Manu Neelakandhan — “A profession cannot survive on admiration alone”
Manu Neelakandhan is the Director and Founder of ideaCulture, a brand and strategy design agency that explores design strategy as a function of human emotions and psychology. He has also been closely associated with Idiom Design for several years. His efforts as part of the Association of Designers of India has brought design to the forefront of public discourse in Bangalore. We asked him about his design philosophy and what designers can do to effect social change.
As a designer, what separates work from play for you? Does it often overlap or do you prefer to separate the two?
The only thing that can pull me away from work is travel and food. When I’m not experiencing it in real, I indulge in it digitally. The other getaway is podcast & video documentaries. I’m not much into reading, so it compensates for that deficiency. I don’t see any reason not to carry the exciting, stimulating part of work into everything I do. Play or leisure is a time when I disconnect from the stupid, mundane work chores like taxes, deadlines, emails, calls, etc.
Your work highlights parallels between concepts in human nature and design. What do you identify as the spiritual needs of a creative professional? What is the journey to the top of the pyramid like?
Creative professionals start their journey from the top of the pyramid and then have fun sliding down.
We start with the Actualisation — “I want to change the world” !! Design is about taking everything into a desirable state. So designers have this nagging wish to make everything around us better than what it is… bordering on perfection. That’s why we are all perpetually dissatisfied.
Then comes our Self Esteem need. “I’m different”. We all love to believe that we are all unique brands.
Followed by our Social need. “Admire me. Like my work.”. We seek constant endorsement from people around us with online likes & offline wah-wahs.
Once in a while, when we get distracted from all of the above, we pay some attention to our other lesser needs. We take a bath, cut down on smoking, worry about calories, savings, plumbing leaks, etc.
What are some differences between working with a team of designers versus diverse professionals? Which do you prefer?
People feel pressured to represent their personal skill while working with a team. Most often, the focus shifts from the task at hand to ‘what I can bring to the table’. It takes a really secure mind to combat that urge. So the real fun is in doing design work with diverse professionals and a non-design work with designers from diverse disciplines- that helps ease the pressure. I have personally enjoyed collaborative work with peers with different skills and perspectives. It kills power equation, keeps discussions honest and pushes you to think about things you haven’t thought of yet.
Being creative is largely about having the courage to fail repeatedly. Could you give an example from your own experiences of a project that failed? What went wrong, and what did you learn/take away from that experience?
Failure is the only thing that makes a senior professional more valuable than a junior. One isn’t going to design any better-looking logo or product with age, but you definitely know how many interesting ways things can possibly go wrong and prepare the fixes.
One failure is too little to learn from. I have burnt a million rupees of my client in a bid to protect my design. I have lost a project in a never-ending quest to come up with a satisfying design. I have sold designs that I wasn’t even sure works. I have compelled people to spend more money on design than was necessary for their business. I have under-delivered for projects that were not exciting enough. And many more. Each one has resulted in damages in some form or the other. The client business, my employer’s business, personal respect, designer’s credibility, etc have been few of the casualties.
There’s an overdose of bullshit in our workplace today. Someday it will hit the ceiling. I have come to believe that is necessary to be honest and authentic at our work. It’s not just for creative professionals, but for everyone.
You work actively towards facilitating and building a unified voice for the designers of India through ADI. What do you perceive as the tone of their unified voices and what do they most wish to say to our country and world?
Designers have earned more admiration than respect from our industry and society. It is time to change that. A profession cannot survive on admiration alone. To earn respect, we need to move away from individuals and come together as a community and build an institution. Institutions are viewed with respect. Designers need to come out of our personal worlds into the larger world and work together with business, technology, social and academic communities. Growing the design industry in our country should be our little CSR.
Design is a very young profession in our country. And among professional bodies, ADI is a startup. We have a long way to go to bring all the design professionals together, spread design awareness and grow the design industry in our country. We are just getting started. India has been a late starter in many departments. But we have always learned from others and traveled long distances in a much shorter time than our global counterparts. Same should happen for design in our country.
How would you describe the brand of Bengaluru? What unique values have made thousands of young people and ideas lay claim on the city?
Bengaluru is one young city; sometimes behaves like a millennial.
It is restless. It is constantly killing routine. It is unafraid to doing things, trying and making mistakes. It is collaborative. And best of it all, it tries to change the world in casual attire and with a sense of humour. Where else would you see people quitting a job to join a startup with only a couple of years before retirement! It’s a ‘let’s-do-something-yaar’ city.
Imagine some 10 million people navigating through traffic jams, unstable govts, congested homes, ever under-construction roads, dust and trash and stay motivated to innovate. Better still, we even joke about it over a mug of coffee & beer.
And finally, to wrap up — How do you spend a perfect Sunday in Bangalore? Any recommendations or must-trys?
Spend the entire day eating brunch… like you are eating for the entire week. There’s nothing like food, afternoon beer with few friends with no specific plans or pressure of ‘checking in’ or posting on social media.
My wife and I have also taken a moral responsibility to give enough business to old Bengaluru ‘food & drink institutions’ to ensure they don’t shut down due to competition from new brands. Koshys, Airlines hotel, Indian Coffee House, Connie’s, Komala’s, Pecos, CTR, Lake View Parlour; there are many of the kind in different parts of the city. Would request please pay these ‘elders’ a visit without reviewing or rating them.
ideaCulture website: http://www.ideaculture.in/
Find Manu on Instagram @manuneel
Find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manuneel/
This interview is a part of a series of conversations with designers from Bengaluru called ADI Diaries. You can find more interviews here.
