Sandeep Dev
Director at 17dnorth, Hyderabad
An Industrial and Product design graduate from National Institute of Design, Sandeep worked as a UX Consultant before starting his own company 17dnorth in Hyderabad. He loves helping his clients in the areas he is most passionate about: Branding, User Experience and Product Design.
“Young Designers should break away from what exists
and create something new and awesome.”
What do you do?
I run a design studio called 17dnorth in Hyderabad. We take up projects in the fields of Branding & UX.
Can you tell us about the path you took to get where you are now?
I did my bachelors in Architecture and the Post Graduation in Industrial design from NID. From there, I have started working with HFI in Mumbai. I worked there for about 4 year and then moved to Hyderabad to start my design studio. I had to work for another 2 years with Kern Communications as a UX Designer to set-up my finances for my design studio.
How do you stay up to date with trends in the field of UX and in the industry you are in?
I follow a lot of site / blogs / articles to stay updated. I don’t like attending conferences.. so I purely rely on online stuff and share data with my team to be updated.
Top 5 applications or tools that you use as part of work.
PEN & PAPER, Lots of Brainstorming (lot of Post-its), Serif’ SKETCH, AFFINITY DESIGNER, Google Forms (for data gathering)
What does your workspace look like?
What does your typical day look like? How do you structure it?
I start work at around 9:30am… since its a small team of 6 people, we quickly gather and discuss all the projects and its progress and what needs to be worked on for the day. This helps in structuring everyones work for the day. I am available for them as long as I am in office. I do attend all the meetings with the clients and that takes up almost half a day sometimes. We wrap out work around 6:30 PM.
Why do you do what you do? What makes everything worth it?
I like what I do. And I am a designer by profession.. so I don’t think I have any other options. The feeling that I am the boss and can do what I like to do is what makes everything worth. I run a company to live in my comfort zone. I am happy to be small, because I value free time, time with family, movies, concerts etc… I don’t like getting lost in work and realise later that I have become too old to do other things.
What is the greatest piece of advice /wisdom you ever received?
LISTEN CAREFULLY is the advice I took very seriously… it helps in delivering what USER/CLIENT wants.
What advice would you give to a junior designer or someone aspiring to become a UX Designer?
“To OBSERVE. and to NOT FOLLOW standards.”
Young Designers should break away from what exists and create something new and awesome.
Which phone do you use and what are your favorite mobile apps?
I am using a OnePlus One now. My Fav mobile apps are:
- Instagram — it is simple to the core
- Noom Coach — helping me eat healthy
- Zomato — I love food
What Indian website/app or service do you think is well designed and why?
There are a lot of good apps and websites that we get to see these days. TinyOwl is a well designed app. Zomato is good. Myntra app is well designed too… I loved their website (which they have shut now)
Who would you like to see featured on IndianUX’er?
Reshmy Kurien & Ripul Kumar — they are both very good UX Designers / Thinkers
