I have been thinking about writing a blog for some time now and was not sure where to start. After giving it a lot of thought, I feel a “Thank You” to all the key people who helped me get a career would be the best start. This is my first blog and it is about how my life changed from what was actually expected of it. Hope you like the read.
Background
Coming from a lower middle-class family and a locality where major income for most was from driving auto rickshaws and cabs, the dream was always to manage and buy a rickshaw, make a living out of other jobs done like catering (serving in functions), door to door sales & marketing gigs.
Considering this as my normal life, I never had a reason to complain. But in the middle of all these, I was always interested in art. I think I was inspired because of my cousin who was good at the art.
Being a newbie, I practiced and scribbled away at every opportunity. Although it did not make me the best (even today), it definitely made me a better artist to a good extent.
It was during one such occasion that I chanced upon a job at a cyber centre (Internet café). This gave me a lot more time to practice while working at the cash counter. A year into the job, my father recognized my dedicated interest in art, believed in me and helped me join an animation course.
Not knowing the difference between art and animation, I just joined thinking they both are same as it’s all about drawing.
I think this was the first step where life decided to change for me and change me as well. (If I think back now :))
I took the course like any other job and spent all day sketching cartoons not knowing if that is what I wanted. You are as good and motivated as your surroundings. (unless you are super determined and know your goals. I was not.) The experience of the institute made a huge impact on my life. I was all of sudden in a place where people came with the finest lifestyles and background. The difference in thoughts, ideas, living life itself made me explore life from a different perspective. I started dreaming of making my life better but just that I did not know how.
People in the institute were already from there! My task and goal just became to spend more time with them and learn to be and speak like them. I was fortunate to get the right people where they always made me part of them and encouraged me to become better. From learning to communicating in English to all the sketches. This institute gave me everything. Friends who showed me how to aim higher, the faculties who pushed me harder and directed me to start a new life.
My First Job!
I cannot forget this day ever in my life. It was November 16th 2005. My friend Rishi (You are my saviour bro!) at the institute had gone to attend an interview, which unfortunately did not work for him. As he returned to the institute after the interview, happened to bump into me and shared his experience about the interview. He also said it was a gaming company and it did not work for him.
Having had no experience in attending interviews, I brushed it off and moved on. Yet the genius friend pushed his idea, made me go to the interview as a walk-in candidate and instructed me to request the company for an interview.
As I was an un-invited walk-in and that too around 4 pm, I had no permission to get into the premises. I requested the security guy if he could help me in checking if I can talk to someone in the office to give an interview. He was such an awesome person that he did not even worry or bother about how I was underdressed. He asked me to wait on the parking pavement and went into the office to check.
After 20–25 minutes, he returned saying I can go inside. Thanking him, I went inside to the reception to wait for another 20 minutes or so. A person named Praveer Chandra came out asking for me and handed out a few A4 white sheets. He asked me if I could sketch two characters in 20 minutes (one female warrior and male sportsman). Considering it was already closing hours of office, he never bothered about it and made me feel very comfortable. After 25–30 minutes he returned back to check on my sketches. After looking at my half cooked sketches for a while, he said he liked my ideas and I can join from Monday.
Praveer, you gave me life! I would always be thankful to you!
Not knowing what it meant to my life, I just thanked him and got back to institute with the news. The 1st person who made me realize what this means was Ashwin Kakade. From my joining to the institute to picking my interviews, jobs till 2013. He has been my best mentor! Can’t thank him enough ever in my life! And yes, he is the one who introduced me to rock music! Special thanks for that!! \m/ Made me a better person too!
I joined Com2us — a mobile gaming company as a pixel artist. I was responsible for making graphics for mobile games. A job where even when you sleep, pixels would haunt you in the dreams! (lol)
Getting into Design as a Career
Getting into the world of design happened as a boat would sail per the course of the wind. In 2007, Com2us decided to close down their Offshore development centre and we were all about to go out of jobs. Luckily the employees were so good that most people were already getting offers from other companies before even we pulled the shutter down.
Lucky me too that I happened to get a few calls from some of the best mobile gaming companies around the country. But mostly out of my city — Bangalore. Around this time I happen to see a post from a technology-based company — Geodesic for the need of UI designers. I was not too sure about what to expect. I applied without thinking twice as it said the job was based out of my Bangalore.
I was called for an interview where the Design head Bharani Setlurinterviewed me. One of the very different and best interviews I have had to attend so far.
I think Bharani already knew I had no previous design experience and came from a game graphic background. The interview was mostly based on thinking ability and reasoning. He had few logos printed out and asked me to reason out my version of why the logos were done in such a way. I remember it as a good 40 minutes of discussion.
At the end of the discussion, Bharani explained to me that my reasoning behind each logo was interesting and I could explore a career in design. At this point, I was still not sure of moving away from the game graphics. (mostly because that’s all I knew and was scared to get into something new).
Bharani with all his patience explained how design is becoming important in the industry and the need for designers was growing.
Though I was giving interviews in other mobile gaming companies and had got through in one of them, I chose to go with my instincts inspired by Bharani.
A tough journey started where I did not understand anything for the first few months. To an extent, my probation was pushed twice in 6 months. The patience to teach and trust that I would make it for sure from Bharani made me survive the “give-up” phase. I can now proudly say that I made the right choice. All thanks to Bharani for getting me a career and guiding me all through.
Next big break
My next big break came in through Sourcebits in July 2011. After spending a year in Hyderabad in a web-based startup, I was desperate to return to Bangalore. It was a bit of a struggle to get a job in Bangalore as most companies were now talking about smartphones as the mobile industry was growing big. My experience was nowhere near to match the requirements and was failing to get any interviews. This is when I learned Karma is real.
A designer Rohith I had helped in getting his first job earlier in my career came to my rescue saying he would be willing to refer me to a job interview at Sourcebits. Thanks to him, I got an interview and a brilliant one too!
Since Sourcebits was known as one of the best design-led company, the kind of interview I went through reflected it.
I was interviewed for three rounds where the first round was taken by Benjamin George to understand my design knowledge and experience. It was an interesting conversation as I can remember. Later, I was given an exercise to complete, which would be reviewed by the Apple award winner Piotr Gajoswho was the Head of design there at the time.
The exercise was to make a phonebook application for an iOS device.
With no background experience with iOS products (not even seen an iPhone for real), I just pulled out a picture of an iPad from the internet, cropped the borders and took prints of it to start putting the design into it. For some reason, I did not even bother to read through the iOS guidelines. (maybe I never knew that something like that existed)
I would kill myself now for designing as such, as I look back now.
Because I did not own a computer, I had to do all the test on pencil and paper.
Taking out the fact that I had no clue of iOS, otherwise, I followed the design process I had learned and developed over the past few years. This process had worked well for me irrespective of the different domains I had worked in. I started off with listing down the ‘Needs for the product’ and started building on it. Feature list — Functionality mapping — Information distribution — Interface plan and App flow. This was the mantra I had learned to work from my past experience.
The day came where I had to present my design. As I did not own a computer at the time, I had all my tests done on sheets and one big flow pasted on the dirty wall with colour coded stickies. I had a roommate Irfan Mirza at that point who had a laptop and had requested him to spare it for an hour for my interview (Thanks to him, that interview made a huge difference to my career). I walked through my design on a video Skype call where I was holding a laptop and panning through the wall as I explained. I still wonder how much Piotr would have laughed in his head throughout the meeting :)
I think the commitment and the effort I had put into the task made him happy. He showed extreme patience and let me explain my whole journey taken for the design. He was straight forward and the feedback was given right while on the call. The journey/process of how I went about the design was given an okay, but the domain expertise on iOS was a big fail. He offered me an opportunity saying he was fine with giving me a month’s time to get to know the iOS & Android guidelines and once proven, I could start working on actual projects.
Thanks a lot, Piotr Gajos for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to work and learn from the best and most energetic team I have across in my career.
The experience I got from Sourcebits made me a different breed of a designer. The vast variation in the type and number of projects gave me a huge push and exposure to the new age design. The super fast-paced environment, gave me the confidence and daring to look and expect more challenging projects.
Post Sourebits, I have always looked for and joined companies based on the project I get to work with. Irrespective of the name and exposure of the company in the market. This way of looking out for opportunities has helped me become a better solution builder rather than just a designer. This also has given me a huge opportunity to work with a wide range and type of people from various domains and expertise.
Career Timeline
My recent experience has been with Freshmenu, a food-tech startup where I got an opportunity to be an early member of a young team and be part of the awesome journey of getting Freshmenu to operate Pan India. Thanks to Anita Menon for the connect and opportunity! The experience with Freshmenu always holds special!
I currently work with VMware where I am spending my time with the best tech-savvy guys and building the future of how digital experiences should work.