Sharan Grandigae — “Being a designer is the best way for me to learn about the world.”
Sharan Grandigae is well-known as the CEO of Redd Experience Design in Bangalore. He started his career as a business analyst before finding his way to experience design at Adobe. We caught up with him about design, business and his work at Redd.
What kinds of different hats have you had to put on while working in a designer’s shoes? Which such role/project was most challenging?
As a designer, I’ve had to play the role of a mystery shopper to assess how a client handled their customers, the role of a business head to figure out how to create new revenue streams for our clients and the role of a father expecting a child to understand how a hospital works with couples intending to get pregnant. Needless to say, the last one was the most challenging!
Fill in the blank: Being a designer is NOT the same as being an artist!
Fill in the blank: Being a designer IS the best way for me to learn about the world.
What is the most valuable (design) lesson you’ve learnt from someone who is not a design practitioner?
“Did it generate a sale?” — a question asked by a client of mine put things in sharp perspective for me when I was talking about the work we had done. This ability to cut through the noise and get to the core of a situation helps me stay focussed everyday.
What would you say is the defining characteristic of “Indian” design? Do you think there is a modern visual language that is specific to India?
Indian design, in my opinion, has a very bottom-line approach to things that values saving money and cutting costs above all. There are obviously good and bad aspects to this.
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?
At Redd, we design and build a product every year. These are meant to be self-initiated projects we take on to solve problems that weren’t brought to us by clients. Once we design it, we take it to the market to commercialise it. The first product we designed was called Redd Space, which made transferring files between devices dead simple. It taught us to design and bring a product to life, but it also taught us that not having a commercial angle to a product means that it won’t exist for very long. The second product we built was called Redd Urban Farms, which was commercially viable but failed because the operational aspects were too complex. The third product we’ve designed called Redd Bricks has been designed, validated and sold to customers even before being built. It hasn’t failed yet. The progress we’ve made with each step is incredible and wouldn’t happen without the mistakes we’ve made along the way.
Do creative professionals have pet peeves? What is yours?
I think everyone has pet peeves, don’t they? Four of mine are asymmetry, things not at right angles, non-round numbers and colours!
How has being in Bangalore enriched your creative process? What have you learnt from the city?
Bangalore has historically been a very liberal place open to new ideas and thoughts. This has definitely helped me to meet other like-minded people and to shape my ideas and thoughts about design and philosophy through my interactions with them.
And finally, to wrap up — How do you spend a perfect Sunday in Bangalore? Any specific recommendations or must-trys?
From the perspective of food, a visit to MTR for a dosa, a beer at Toit or a pizza at The Pizza Bakery is always a good indulgence for me.
Find Sharan on Twitter at @sharangrandigae
Redd Design Website: https://www.redd.in/
Redd Design on Twitter @reddexperience
This interview is a part of a series of conversations with designers from Bengaluru called ADI Diaries. You can find more interviews here.
