Employee Spotlight: Aditee Prakash Deore
In conversation with a Visual Designer who makes banking less scary with cute illustrations
For this week’s Employee Spotlight, we have with us Niyo’s doodle friend Aditee Prakash Deore. She holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology and has completed her Animation and Film Design course from the National Institute of Design.
Niyo embraces a flat hierarchy and radical openness, which helps us voice our opinions and effectively rectify our shortcomings. The people here are open to new perspectives and are highly dedicated to their work.
This visual designer puts her head and heart into each of her visual design works. Aditee hails from a small town in Maharashtra and has come a long way in her design journey. Today some of the cool work she does includes illustrating Mango, the cute dog on the NiyoX app, and creating simple and lively animations with him. Read on to learn more about this mechanical engineer turned designer.
Q: What makes you want to log on (or jump into work) every day?
At Niyo, I am doing what I love doing every day. It is on those days when I don’t get something new to work on that I get anxious. Coming up with new ideas (visual images) in my head, transforming them into illustrations and animations, and being able to present that to a multitude of users is genuinely satisfying. It’s not like my efforts put into one work are abandoned after a few days. It is still up and running on the mobile screens of lakhs of people, which I find extremely rewarding.
Q: What has been your career path before joining Niyo?
After my engineering graduation, I worked in a company named Konecranes Pvt. Ltd. There I was in the procurement team first and then I shifted to the marketing team later. It was while I was working in this company that I prepared for NID (National Institute of Designing) for an animation and film design course. Just after NID, I worked at Byju’s for 6 months as a designer, and later I got placed at Niyo through campus placement, which is when my journey began as a full-time designer.
Q: How has your career grown since starting at Niyo?
I was in a different position in my previous job. I was in the procurement department, which is the least involved in anything artistic, and I had this gut feeling of not truly belonging to the field I was in. I talked to my manager and got into the marketing department of the company. Still, I was feeling that I was not where I wanted to be.
While in my previous company, I always wished to do something I enjoyed. In Niyo, I get the opportunity to work on things I am passionate about. I can say that my work at Niyo is not at all mundane because every day there will be new illustration requirements, new ideas, and new animations to explore. Compared to my experience at my previous company, at Niyo I get to explore a lot of new possibilities, and more exciting projects which is one of the main reasons I love working at Niyo.
Q: What’s the weirdest job experience you’ve ever had in your life?
Once I had to work as a sales executive for a crane manufacturing company. Being an introvert, it was a herculean task for me to kick-start conversations. One day I had to make a few calls to sell our product and a call with one particular person went really awkwardly. I asked them if they wanted cranes, for which they said ‘no’ and I said ‘okay’ in reply to that. The whole call lasted for like a minute and I still cringe when I think about it–I probably could have done a better job with it.
Q: Where did your interest in what you do begin?
During my college (engineering) days, I used to do a lot of theatre work. I had worked on different art-related things; like sand art, set theatre design, and the like. So, while doing that I found out that I am interested in art and storytelling. After graduation, I wanted to do something along that line, which would also help me tell different stories of the people from the place I come from.
Q: What do you like about working at Niyo?
The people. My team. I work with an amazing group of smart and talented people. Just during my interview for the role itself, I had a strong feeling of an amicable environment and that the work culture here is going to be enriching. Niyo embraces a flat hierarchy and radical openness, which helps us voice our opinions and effectively rectify our shortcomings. The people here are open to new perspectives and are highly dedicated to their work. Whenever I have a creative block and seek help from my team members, they actively engage with the problem upfront alongside me and give their inputs in generating illustrations and animation ideas.
Q: Do you have any personal vision that you strive for with your career?
I feel, even before starting with their actual design, every designer has a mission and a vision with their work. They always keep in mind what they are communicating with their target audience. They want to convey something from their design to people as simply and profoundly as possible. My aim with my career as a designer is to portray the story of the life of simple, normal people, like the farmers, and of the less sparkly lives who go unnoticed mostly because they are not in the limelight of social media. I ardently wish to portray these people’s lives somehow with my passion and zeal for design.
Q: Have you done anything that has fulfilled at least part of your vision?
I have done an animation film on Indian Railways, which talks about the condition of the unreserved coaches. It’s a story of a father and daughter from a middle-class family. It portrays the challenge that the father faces in fulfilling the wish of his daughter, which is to get a window seat in a general compartment. The gist of what I wanted to convey through that film was that the smallest of things that we take for granted are sometimes the dream of the less fortunate people around us.
Q: Do you have any personal favorite projects at Niyo?
I am not sure if this can be labeled as a ‘project’ as it is a ‘process’ which is a favorite part of my job. Every Monday we have something called ‘Avatar Exploration’, a design-related discussion. That is still my favorite thing. If I must particularly pick out one of my favorite projects, it has to be NiyoX carousels, because it was one of my first assignments and I was so excited to see it go live.
Q: What do you like doing in your spare time?
I watch a lot of movies, I read, and mostly, I travel a lot. When I travel, I get to see a lot of stuff, so many frames, characters, and stories which I find are the compelling factors to fall in love with traveling. I love exploring different aspects of designing and illustration. My artworks are generally centered around common people and their lives. I don’t stick to a particular type of design style because I feel that if I always stick to a particular style, I am missing out on learning other amazing things.
Q: If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing, what would it be?
All I can think of is a lifetime free Netflix subscription. On the other hand, I also feel that anything given in abundance will become less valuable sooner or later.
Q: What is the most inspiring part of your job?
I will admit the fact that I am actually a person who is intimidated by banking and bank related things. But, at Niyo, when I look at our app, things look simple and less scary. Our humanized user interface makes it look effortless and seamless. What inspires me most about working at Niyo is that I am a part of this movement of making banking easier and less complicated with my illustrations and animations. I take pride in saying that I work at Niyo and that I help people decode banking.
Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
I will share the best advice I would like to give myself when I struggle in my own life. I always feel that our life is like a story; there are instances when we are happy and moments filled with sadness. But, we all have great difficulty in accepting the sad part of our life. What I think is that, like any story, it is the ups and downs that make the story interesting. Similarly, our life needs a few ups and downs to make it interesting enough.
Check out Niyo behind the scenes to get a sneak peek at our culture, the cool people who turn ideas into reality.
Would you like to work with Aditee on your next project? Do check out Niyo Careers for any open positions in your field of expertise.
