Pushkar Thakur veers between branding and art
Life throws a lot at you and you have to make the most of it, believes Pushkar Thakur. At just 25, he is the proud owner of The Grafiosi, an internationally accredited, award-winning, multidisciplinary design and art studio in Delhi.
Since childhood, Thakur says, he has enjoyed art as well as computers. At the Birla Institute of Technology in Ranchi he studied computer applications. While still in college, he freelanced for music magazine Rock Street Journal and joined advertising agency Lintas.
“Ad agencies frustrated me,” says the designer-entrepreneur. “Inappropriate ads kill brands. Ad agencies marketing brands are not technically sound to do so... Since
I couldn’t work with others, I started my own studio.” The Grafiosi opened in 2005. It specialises in brand identity, packaging, print, retail and “social” design.
“I specialise in creating visual identity systems,” says Thakur. “My first project entailed designing visiting cards for a professional photographer, for which I got Rs 5,000.” His clientele includes nightclub Ministry of Sound, F Bar & Lounge, fashion designer Siddharth Tytler, retailer Pall Mall, Hindustan Lever, indie band Them Clones, NGO The YP Foundation, Cafe Oz and Cafe WildChild. He designed dry-fruits packaging for Nutty Gritties; the products are available at Barista outlets. “I am selective about my clients. I don’t pitch, clients come to me.”
As for his young age, “Until two years ago I was the younger one dealing with older clients, but now that’s changing.” Recently, he designed packaging for perfumes by Rohit Bal. He says, “It was amazing. I was young so everybody wanted to rip me off. I had no idea what to expect. But Rohit is a complete businessperson and by the end of it I knew a lot about perfumes and the fashion industry.”
Another project: “Hugh, Cartwright & Amin is a 25-year-old legal firm in London, owned by three partners who could never agree on a logo — until I designed a silver logo on a black background.”
“Starting this business is easy,” Thakur says, “but sustaining it might kill you. You give an identity to a brand. If you mess up, the product won’t do well.” He says he prefers to work with individuals rather than corporates, because individual clients focus more closely on design.
Thakur’s studio has featured in design handbooks like Young Asian Graphic Designers (DAAB, Germany, 2008) and also received the American Design Award (2006) and the Web Master Forum for Fantasy Award (2007) for digital art.
Although he regularly works to a brief via The Grafiosi, Thakur believes in art for art’s sake. He says ruefully that “Art is my creative outlet. I am trying to create something that people enjoy. I want my work to be felt, not deciphered.”
A Thakur installation, Telekaloveidoscope, is currently being exhibited at LAP Garden at Samrat Hotel in Delhi (till May 20). Built with mirrors, cameras, LCD television, projectors, screens, wood and glass frames,
it is designed to create kaleidoscopic patterns. The viewer looks into a spherical ball-camera and sees his face transported, split, multiplied and projected onto white canvas walls. It is a surrealistic role reversal where the viewer becomes the viewed.
In the future Pushkar Thakur says he would like to do public art for the railways, airlines, army and police, and also design currency notes and coins.
