Call: +91-96741-50349
Explorations
Creativity doesn’t clock out
The work I do for clients – the advertising communication, the branding work, the designs – they are just a few expressions of how I think and what I do. But they are by no means the only ones.
Outside of professional projects, I spend time working with my hands for things that have nothing to do with briefs or deadlines. Carpentry, resin art, concrete art, clay sculpting, paper-cutting, singing… These aren’t just hobbies in the passive sense. They’re active explorations – ways of understanding the physics and chemistry of materials, the mathematics in troubleshooting, the translation of a thought into a piece of art, and staying curious about how to make things behave the way one wants in order to achieve a particular end. I have been doing these things from when I was a child.
I share them here partly because they’re part of who I am, and partly because the thinking that goes into these explorations often finds its way back into the professional work (which in itself is of personal passionate interest to me… I have loved advertising communication from the time I was introduced to it at the beginning of my career). The patience and planning required for carpentry, the precision required in paper cutting, the problem-solving required due to the unpredictability of resin – I am absolutely certain these experiences help continually evolve the ways I approach creative problem-solving of any kind.
Some of the media I explore
Carpentry
Working with wood is slow, deliberate, and unforgiving. A cut can’t be undone. I find this constraint clarifying – it forces careful thought before action. Over the years, I’ve built furniture, small objects, and other functional pieces for my home. The satisfaction of making something useful with your hands is difficult to replicate in digital work. Yet imagine the joy when I found that making an animation is not really much different! It absolutely falls under handiwork and craftsmanship, and you can’t convince me otherwise!
Concrete
Concrete is a material most people think of as purely industrial and large scale, but it has surprising creative potential. I’ve experimented with casting, moulding and finishing techniques to create objects that balance roughness and refinement. It’s a material that rewards patience, and punishes rushing. The architectural use of this material reminds me of how another architectural tool, a software used by architects to design buildings and townships in 3D, intrigued me at one point in time. The joy came from trying to use it instead to make models of small everyday objects in life… A Nikon camera, a pencil sharpener, and so much more! Tools and materials are only those things. What one can do with each can only be limited by one’s imagination.
View my workings with concrete
Clay
There’s something fundamental about working with clay – it’s one of the oldest materials humans have shaped. I find the deeply meditative process predictable and unpredictable in equal measure. My work ranges from functional pieces to purely sculptural experiments, each one having taught me something about form, weight, and the limits of the material. As well as how far I can push these limits. Something that I am constantly asked to do when tackling a creative brief!
View my clay sculptures
Resin
Resin is perfectly unpredictable. Either it works out, or it doesn’t. And there’s no way of knowing until the end. You set up the perfect conditions – the colours, the moulds, the inclusions – and then chemistry, with its hundred other physical variables, takes over. The results are never quite what you expect, which makes it a useful counterpoint to the controlled precision of most design work. I’ve used resin to create decorative pieces, functional objects, and experimental art.
Paper Cutting
There’s a meditative quality to paper cutting that I find restorative. A blade, paper, and a design – nothing else. Apart from the need for absolute confidence and precision as soon as the blade is touched to paper. The work requires planning, mathematics, focus and a steady hand. The results have a delicacy that’s satisfying to achieve. Reminds me of the briefs where I need to be confident and steady after having decided the way forward.
Vocals
This one is different from the others – not visual, not tactile, but still very much a creative process. I practice and sing Indian Classical music, and have for most of my life from when I was a child. While one would be quick to label it as a creative outlet that exists entirely in the moment, leaving nothing behind but the memory of the sound, I would put much more weight on it. It is, of all the other creative explorations I am into, the one that is the most demanding. Indian Classical music is mostly about creating and improvising at the very moment it is being rendered. It cannot be planned out. Mistakes made will never be forgiven. I think it has taught me much about how not to be too frazzled when one does not have the luxury of time, and yet trying to creat something that comes from the soul. A particularly valuable experience in the demanding profession of an advertising creative. I’ve included some recordings here for those who are curious.
Written explorations
Beyond working with physical materials, I also write – essays, reflections, and occasional musings on creativity, work, and life. Have done so from when I was a child. These pieces aren’t professional content. They’re personal explorations in a different medium. Some have been published.
Using this work
Occasionally, clients see something in these explorations that fits their project – a visual style, a texture, an aesthetic approach. Sometimes as photography props, and sometimes as corporate gifting ideas. If something here resonates with what you’re working on, I’m open to discussing how it might be incorporated or adapted.
This could mean licensing existing work, creating something new in a similar vein, or simply using these explorations as a reference point for a commercial project. If you’re curious, feel free to reach out.