16 Contributors in Indian Design Community to follow — 2017
Since a decade, India has been witnessing many modifications in its IT industry. There has been an exponential increase in the emergence of startups across the nation. Also, the gigantic IT moghuls have started focusing on the look and feel of their product designs. These refinements lay the basis of the renaissance of the design community in India.
What is the first thing that pops up in your mind when someone says the term “designing”? Majority of the answers would be stereotypical — colors, design templates, markup languages and Photoshop. But there’s more to designing than this.
Being closely working with designers, Iconscout understands the importance of discovering some source of inspiration to engender creative wonders. For any aspiring designer, it is very important to look up to someone. It’s helpful to know some of the great practitioners in your field so you can follow their work and use their career progression as guidance to plan your own. The reincarnation of the Indian Design Community has spawned many marvelous designers; a subset of which is as follows.
Please note that this isn’t the list of best designers. We are only highlighting those who are highly active and working towards creating better Indian Design community. In future we would love to cover other designers in this list.
Ranjith Alingal — Visual Designer at ThoughtWorks
Forte: User Interface design, Visual design, Illustration, Typography, Brand identity
Associated with: ThoughtWorks, Headout, Deloitte Digital, Sourcebits, CommonFloor, Pearson Education India, DAPSTRS, Athma Innovation Design
One of the renowned figures of the Indian designing ecosystem — Ranjit Alingal possesses an excellent expertise in the emerging platform of visual designing. Owing to his laudable experiences in some of the biggest organizations including CommonFloor, Sourcebits, Deloitte digital, and Headout; Ranjith is currently associated with ThoughtWorks as a lead consultant in visual designing.
Instead of labeling himself as a designer, Ranjith prefers to be recognized as a problem solver. Though at a younger age, he had a significant experience in short filmmaking, he gradually drifted his focus to graphic designing, where he has been showcasing his creative aptitude since 2014.
“Adhering to a specific style makes your work monotonous. Instead stay open and be curious, this is what makes your work much more exciting.”
Rahul Chakraborty— Product Designer at Flipkart
Forte: Product design, User Experience Design, Illustration, Web Typography
Associated with: Flipkart, Headout, Banys Media
An undying zeal for designing, forced an youngster from West Bengal — Rahul to drop out of his final year while pursuing Majors in Physics. Since his childhood, he had a strong urge to make things work and look better; which brought him into world of product designing. He had the privilege to work as a senior product designer in Headout and is presently associated with Flipkart.
When it comes to designing, he says, “Always have a clear context of what & whom you are designing for. Make sure your design is functional and useful first, and then focus on aesthetics depending on the business or user needs.”
“The fact that you can shape the way things work or look, just by applying basic design principles, and which in-turn affects the entire upcoming generations is fascinating.”
Paresh Khatri — Product Designer at Busy
Forte: Product design, Visual design, User Experience design, User Interaction design, Web design
Associated with: Busy, Zencargo,Managly, Usability Dynamics, Directi, Toptal, Housing, Hello Innovation, Дневник.ру, Kayako, funeralOne, Neal Infotech, Transform Solutions, Avinashi
When we are talking about Indian designers, a person that can never be missed is Paresh Khatri. Born in a lower middle class family, his journey of becoming who he is right now has been an inspiration for many young designers. Iconscout would love to cover his expedition from working at a textile mill to discovering himself in our series of Inspirational Blogs.
Paresh has been in this industry for more than a decade, constantly spreading his creativity. He has worked with companies like Adobe, Groupon, Housing, Salesforce, Kayako, Lux and many more. At present, he has been working with Busy and Steemconnect on Cryptocurrency.
Saptarshi Prakash — Senior Interaction Designer at Zeta
Forte: Product design, User Experience design, Motion graphics, Illustration, Interaction design, Isometric
Associated with: Zeta, Housing, Cerner Corporation
Saptarshi is one more addition to the genre of those IITians who while pursuing their undergraduate degree in a branch had discovered their love for something totally antithetical. A couple of years before becoming an alumni of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Saptarshi started exploring his interest as a freelance graphic designer. He has worked for Cencer corporation as a project manager and as a senior product designer at Housing.com where his entire concentration was on mobile application development. At present, he is associated with Zeta as a senior interaction designer.
“Designing is all about transforming flat-line boring stuff into a juicy novel like page turner.”
Real Vijay — Freelance Designer
Forte: Product design, Graphic design, Brand identity, User Interface design, Web design
Vijay Verma, known as Real Vijay in the world of designing, is a freelance graphic designer from Delhi. Vijay is currently curating designs for fresh startups. Vijay is a versatile personality who has not restricted his potential to designing, rather he loves exploring programming languages. Most of his works are in Laravel and Ruby. Real Vijay is a perfect example for those who can not imagine the capacity of designers beyond Bootstrap, Web technologies, and Photoshop.
“Who says designers can’t code? The only prerequisite required is the passion to learn.”
Ramakrishna V — Head of Design at Zeta
Forte: User Interaction, Motion design, Animation, Illustration
Associated with: Zeta, Housing, Zoho
Like Saptarshi, Ramakrishna V found his passion for graphic designing while pursuing an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Ramakrishna V is a User interaction designer. In his own words, he is a self-taught designer who is passionate about creating modern and functional designs that provokes human emotions. Currently positioned as Head of Design at Zeta, he had previously worked at Zoho and Housing.com.
“If you really want to do something, you will figure out a way for it.”
Afsal — UX Designer at Microsoft
Forte: Visual design, Iconography, Brand identity, Web design, Mobile App design
Associated with: Microsoft, Zeta, Housing, Directi
Working as a UX designer at one of the dream companies for many — Microsoft, Afsal is a UI/UX designer from Bangalore. In parallel to UX designing, he has impressive knowledge in web design, mobile app design and visual design. Prior to Microsoft, Afsal was working for Directi as a visual design specialist and Housing as a designer and art director.
“Design is more than the aesthetic. It is about problem solving by translating our thoughts into great ideas and then those ideas into products & service that will improve lives”
Follow Afsal on Dribbble
Siddhita Upare — UI/UX Designer at Turltemint
Forte: Art direction, User Experience design, Illustration, Iconography, Typography
Associated with: Turtlemint, TING, Housing
Making her mark in the male-dominated field of designing is a designer and illustrator from Mumbai — Siddhita Upare. Commencing her career as an Illustrator at Housing and TING, she is currently operating with Turtlemint as an UI/UX Designer. Her prime focus is the exploration of new design forms and color palettes.
“Daily, I tend to make my designs better than my previous days’.”
Divan Raj — Freelance Designer
Forte: Interaction design, Website design, Mobile app design, UI/UX design
Associated with: RentoMojo, enQos, Edufic Digital
Madhan Divan Raj, mostly known as Divan Raj is surely a Dribbble Rockstar. Divan has around 13,000 followers on Dribbble. Divan is a Bengaluru based UI/UX, Creative and Visual Designer. He considers designing as his obsessive passion. Providing rich, engaging and delightful experience to users has always been his prime focus. Currently working as Freelance designer, Divan has previously worked with companies like enQos, Edufic Digital and RentoMojo.
“With Power of designing, create visualizations that deliver a message across in the most beautiful, engaging, informative and pleasant way possible.”
Soumya Ranjan Bishi — Product Designer at Stockroom
Forte: Lowpoly, Product design, Web Design, User Interface Design
Associated with: Stockroom, Cleartrip
Master of Lowpoly portrait art, Soumya is a 25 year old product designer from Hyderabad. Currently working with Stockroom as a product designer, Soumya first dived into design industry with Cleartrip. He was a creative Designer at Cleartrip. Soumya can design mobile application, websites and branding stuff. His Lowpoly portrait arts are very notable in community.
“Design is all about having an eye for detail and passion about what you do.”
Johny Vino
Forte: Interaction Design, Mobile app design, Web design, UI/UX design, Brand identity
Associated with: Tekion, BYJU’s, Zoho
Pursuing a Master’s degree in Interaction designing at SVA, Johny has a good experience of working with country’s biggest startups. He started his career with Zoho as an Interaction designer. Later, he joined BYJU’s as a Lead Product Designer. Before commencing his higher education, Johny last served as product designer at Tekian Corp. Along with designing, Johny has also been into blogging. He writes regular blogs for Muzli publication. Despite studying, he has been one of the most active designers in the community
Darshan Gajara — Founder & Product Designer at Product Disrupt
Forte: Product Design, User Interface Design, User Experience Design, Interaction Design, Storytelling
Associated with: Product Disrupt, Panda, Wishberry, BookMyShow
A designer who is passionate about building products, Darshan is a Product designer from Mumbai. He is a Computer Engineering graduate who found out that coding is not his cup of tea and turned to designing. He started with his own firm Project X where he helped people promote their business online. Later, he worked with BookMyShow as a Visual Designer, Wishberry as a Product Designer and Panda as a Marketing and Content Strategist. Darshan is providing his service as a freelance designer since 6+ years and according to him that’s what thrive him into Design field at the first place. To help people learn about Product Designing, he has founded Product Disrupt, where he brings disruptive thoughts, designs and resources to help build a better product. Darshan is a frequent blogger. On his blog — DarshanGajara.com, he likes to share about latest happenings in design industry. Apart from it, he also provide codes, design freebies and knowledge about his experiences.
Raksha Prasad — Designer and Illustrator at Kayako
Forte: Illustration, Sketching, Hand drawing, Web design
Associated with: Kayako, Blueapple Technologies, Snapdeal
Raksha is a creative artist from Delhi. She is specialized in Sketching and Digital Illustrations. She has completed her graduation in Animation & Multimedia. Currently working with Kayako as Graphic Designer & Illustrator, she has worked as a Graphic Designer at Blueapple Technologies and Snapdeal.
Rahul Bhosale — Senior Interaction Designer at Housing
Forte: Art direction, Interaction design, Motion graphics, Illustrations, UI/UX design
Associated with: Housing, Balkan Brothers, Indiez
Rahul is Mumbai-based designer focusing on UI-UX design, Identity and Motion Design. Currently working with Housing.com as a Lead Interaction Designer, he is also associated with Balkan Brothers and Indiez.io. Rahul loves the simplicity in design, however, he is extremely enthusiastic in details as well. User friendly design is an important priority which he mainly consider.
Ranganath Krishnamani — Creative director at Liquidink Design
Forte: Illustration, Art Direction, User Experience Design, Visual Design, Interaction Design, Iconography
Associated with: Liquidink Design, redBus, Adobe, Symphony Teleca, i-Vista Digital Solutions
Our list of the most active contributors of 2017 in Indian design community is incomplete without the mention of Ranganath Krishnamani. He is the most senior and adorable designer in this community. He is specialzed in illustration, art direction and user experience. He has a wonderful gift of blending modern design with vintage touch. In designer industry from last 17 years, Ranganath has worked with some of the multinational companies and biggest clients.
“Keep exploring and making work that makes you smile. What’s more important is that you should look at your work as a natural extension of you, as opposed to trying to be an artist or a designer, and trying to impose on yourself whatever that definition may be — to find out what makes you happy.”
Dalpat Prajapati — Founder and Product Designer at Iconscout
Forte: Product design, User Experience Design, Illustration, Iconography
Associated with: Iconscout, Exotel, InOut, Chamestudio
Time has witnessed the constant transformation of Dalpat from .Net developer to visual designer to product designer. This young designer from Gujarat strives in generating better digital experience in design. In order to achieve this, he has co-founded Chamestudio, whose product Iconscout — An Icon Marketplace is adding a new element of wonder in digital e-commerce experience. Apart from this, he has worked with clients like UBER-Surat, Hackster, Headout, InOut Hackathon edition 2 and 3 and Exotel as Product Designer.
“Design is not domain specific. Design is everything, design is improvement, design is progress. Design is soul of any kind of product just like taste is for food. Designers are like Chefs, who in order to deliver the best product to their customers, have to test it ample of times.”
We are grateful to every individual who has assisted in our research of generating this list. Indian design community is a vast ocean; so it is not possible to cover each and every designer. Please let us know the one’s whom we have missed by commenting in the section below. We re more than willing to cover them up.
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Big thanks to Dhwani Raval for helping me writing this article. Many more articles coming soon :)
