006: ‘I Design Experiences’: Anant Ahuja on the True Definition of Branding, the Evolution of Design and His Love for Typography
⌛ 5 MINUTES
“Design is not just an activity where you sit in front of a computer or with a sheet of paper and draw something. It’s something that I apply to all aspects of life — right from colour coordinating the clothes I wear to designing my calendar.”
Multidisciplinary designer, serial creative entrepreneur and Forbes 30 Under 30 Honouree Anant Ahuja is well on his way to leaving a mark on the art and design industry, one typeface at a time. Challenging the conventional on every step of his journey, he discusses his experiences in the industry and doles out wisdom by the buckets for aspiring creatives.
Designing Systems: Pushing Boundaries and Building Solutions
For Anant Ahuja, design is not restricted to his professional life and even within his professional life, it is not restricted to building an identity for a brand or creating a beautiful advertisement. The core of his approach to design lies in designing systems. Systems which, when implemented, allow the brand to continue reaping benefits even when the designer exits the equation. The client should be able to take it apart and build it again without the designer’s help. Because at the end of the day, you’re building a solution for them, so it needs to be functional.
He does not like the notion of fitting into and settling for the predetermined roles that exist for designers. “I don’t like to call myself a graphic designer or an illustrator or a typographer or a UX/UI designer. There are definitely certain super-specialisations that I might not possess the skills for, but when it comes to an overall holistic approach, I can give my two cents,” he says.
Eccentricity that Scales: Bakheda
“Branding has been bastardised as a word over the last 10 years.”
Branding is a long drawn and exhaustive process that includes strategy workshops, identifying design, collaborations, assessment of digital and physical assets and how all of this can be combined through technology.
Anant says that the reason behind Bakheda reaching the standpoint it has reached in just two years is that they bring a problem-solving perspective to the table. Having worked with some of the best- known advertising and creative agencies and learning lessons from their work, Anant had a clear idea of how he wanted to approach projects this time. “We’re here to meet you midway — you talk, we listen. Then we talk, you listen. We’ll keep chatting until both of us are happy with the outcome.”
A good designer always needs to have an understanding of the market and the consumers being targeted, along with understanding where the business objectives of the brand are stemming from. At Bakheda, they achieve this by listening. Branding needs to be looked at more holistically, and not just as something that’s in front of your eyes. For Anant, business insights are always more important than trends, though he admits that trends do play a certain role in visual communication.
To illustrate how they actually build systematic solutions for clients, Anant walked us through the project with PayTM Insider, an event curation and ticketing platform. Insider was looking to expand its core from just a ticketing platform to also include their own content and curate experiences for consumers. There were three main areas they targeted — brand purpose, communication and visual identity.
Figuring out and putting in place a strong brand purpose not only sets the base for the rest of the work but also solidifies the perspective you would want people to view your brand with. “Take ‘just do it’, for example. It’s not just a tagline, it holds up the entire brand,” Anant says.
To make Insider’s essence and purpose clear and easily consumable, they came up with ‘make everyday less everyday’. Communication and visual identity are pieced together over a period of time, and slowly a sort of cohesiveness becomes evident and helps create recognition and a point of differentiation for the brand. To achieve this, Bakheda took many steps. One of them was designing a system that relieved people from having to create website banners for every event that was featured by forming a preset with limited features that not only saved time but ensured that the design language stayed consistent. This was an extremely clever move, because for a brand like Insider, that features and uplifts so many other brands, to be able to maintain uniformity with ease was one of the most important goals. This goal is now reached every time there is a new event to be listed with the help of design.insider.in.
“This wasn’t a 20-day project. It took us seven months to work on, but we succeeded in our goal,” says Anant.
Anant Ahuja: Typethug
Was Anant a little Picasso growing up? Not in the least. The closest he ever got to art or design before college was doodling basketball players and sneakers on the back of his notebooks. He developed a soft spot for typography during college in New Zealand. He got the name Typethug because he was so into it and so good at it, and it’s stuck around since then. He still passionately talks about the behavioural aspects of typography and how a multitude of small characteristics like the curvature or the spacing between letters can create such a big difference in getting the message across. There are a million little things to know — like the basic difference between a font and a typeface: a font is a family of typefaces, which are nothing but versions of the font with minor modifications.
What started as a simple 30-hour packaging redesign project turned into one of Anant’s favourite ever. Brewhouse Iced Teas was Bakheda’s first foray into the FMCG industry. Taking a premium brand and modifying its identity so that it stands out at both Godrej Nature’s Basket and Raju Morning Store is what Anant loved about this. “When I see someone in front of me at the grocery store queue holding a bottle of Brewhouse, it feels amazing. Like yeah, I did that!”
The design industry, according to Anant, has evolved leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. He recalls people who would approach him to understand little nuances of typography and now run their own type foundries. “Even reaching this point where people actually have their own type foundries in India and are taking up intricate aspects of design as their specialisations is testimony to the evolution,” he says. People have started taking this profession more seriously. A fresh graduate today has a lot more bargaining power when it comes to recognition of the value of their work than Anant says he did when he had already been working for a few years.
On the difference between being an artist or a boutique designer and doing commercial design work, Anant says, “Art is self-expression, not problem-solving. If you have the grit and determination to stick to your art till you make it big, by all means, you should go for it.” However, a fundamental issue in the mindset of designers that Anant feels is holding the industry back is a sort of aversion to “big work”. People think big commercial projects aren’t the best kind to undertake, whereas the truth is that the industry stands on the shoulders of this big work. That’s when you have legal entities protecting your rights, and that’s how the possibility of a recognised body that looks after the interests of graphic designers arises.
Talking about his education, Anant remembers feeling almost frustrated with his design course in New Zealand for the first six months. Any good design school starts off by trying to discipline you into the practice of design because there is a great amount of patience required. “We filled in different colours in every block on a graph paper and made free-hand circles and squares, but as futile as it seemed back then, I realise the value now.” When it comes to India, he feels that one thing the design schools forget to provide is a strategic business edge, which actually leads to commercial work being viewed negatively.
The Yellow Brick Road to Building a Creative Enterprise
Anant co-founded The Irregulars Alliance, the parent company of The Irregulars Art Fair, with Tarini Sethi in 2017. An anti-art fair seeking to offer an alternate perspective of both art and art shows, TIRAF has hosted two successful events that broke the prescribed code for what qualifies as conventionally appropriate ways of exhibiting art.
Anant says that for anyone starting out with their own creative enterprise, it’s extremely important to remember that you are separate from your work. There is bound to be a certain amount of attachment because it’s something you have worked really hard for, but learning to draw a line actually goes a long way. Early in his career, Anant says he had problems separating himself from his work and often ended up beating himself up for no actual fault of his own. With a clear distinction in mind, not only can one achieve more on a personal level, but also the business and the creator can complement each other and leverage success together. Secondly, he says that it’s also important to plan for all possible contingencies, especially the kind where you might end up not wanting to continue with the company anymore. It often happens that there are fallouts with business partners, or for any number of other personal reasons you might want to transition out. Such situations pan out smoothly if there are legal partnership agreements in place. The third important thing to take care of is your finances. “After being broke over and over again through the course of my career, I realised the value of maintaining financial soundness. And if you need help, make sure you get it.”
What is the most interesting and challenging thing about being Anant Ahuja?
“The most interesting aspect about being me is that I’m always alert, I'm always on the go. I think of 10,000 ideas everyday, I make a note of them and at some point of time or the other, I make it happen. I have a hustler mentality and a never-give-up attitude and it’s what I like about myself. The most challenging bit is the downside of this very mentality. I need to build healthy boundaries with my ideas because it starts affecting me mentally and physically. I wake up with a clenched jaw some mornings having dreamt about a single misplaced pixel the entire night. It’s a slow learning process but I’m on it.”
As we reach the end of the episode, we sign off with some rapid 🔥 questions. Get the popcorn and start reading!
