How does a Studio Grow?

Co-founding his own company at the young age of 23, Anant Ahuja did not have it easy! Having his own practice was a way of proving himself and he did so with Gulab Saggu and Bharath Varma. Learning at work for the first few months after starting out paralleled with designing for big brands. They've seen hard times but they made it through the storm and haven't since looked back!

CG: How do you choose the style for any specific brands? And how minimal style of branding can make or break the marketing strategy?

Inchwork. Well, we specialise not just in design but also in brand strategy. We at Inchwork believe in giving brands a very holistic approach. While creating a brand, we start off with a brand-print/manifesto that forms the building blocks of most businesses. Post our market research for the brand, we come up with visual alternatives and solutions for it, while at it we do put out guidelines for the brand that will help build its marketing strategy, factoring in trend forecasts. Our sole vision is to make a brand powerful, through visual imagery, not just beautify it.

CG: Where branding or re-branding is trending in the business world and everywhere else too. How you justify the uniqueness of your services?

Inchwork. I guess that would be our individual approaches within a team, we like bouncing ideas, doing drawing jams together and not pretend that we know everything. We're not that a big team and all of us are multi-faceted, we like to experiment and challenge our own ways of working. We are basically open to adaptation. We always look at the bigger picture and the learning curve with it.

CG: How do the market research, product identity and reputation are aligned with the branding over the client's need? Does that change the way you design for a brand?

Inchwork. Your biggest job as a design entity is to learn about your client's business first and then apply your due diligence by educating them about what could work for them, and by that, I don't mean blatantly putting them down, but advising them while being a sounding board at the same time. It's very important for us to be fit for the job that we're being assigned. And if the clients think that we can, then we better be doing that right.

So just to sum it up, it's very important to understand the client's perspective but at the same time be proactive enough to make them understand your take on the whole approach. You're the professional here and it's your job to get your market research, product identity and reputation in sync with the client's needs.

CG: Does the choice of typography and colours influence the impact of the brand? How do you steer clear of commonly made errors of mismatch?

Inchwork. Definitely does, typography and the colours are the most crucial component of the visual part of branding. The whole brand perception from the first look defines your market approach. That's why research is essential for any design project. When back at school, research was just a pain to get a decent grade, now it's the pain you have to go through to get your brand right. As they say, "no pain, no gain."

CG: What leads to the final outcome of any branding exercise, business needs or what the client wants?

Inchwork. We try and steer away from taking up what could end up being a difficult client, well that being said, a client is always difficult, you just have to ease them out with your approach to strategise their brand. We deal with marketing realities every day and as I said we make the adaptation easier. We're here to educate and learn.

CG: What are the challenges of re-branding projects and how do you handle them?

Inchwork. Re-branding projects are the most difficult ones to tackle. A brand over a period becomes an entity with a notion, and its perception is hard to let go of. And at the same time, it's very important to understand that it's not a baby, it's a grown-up adult, which is ready for a fresh lease of life. How you groom a baby and an adult is completely different and that's where most people miserably fail. We've just recently finished branding and infrastructure giant and their properties and it has taken us almost over a year. I think patience is the biggest virtue and just be focused on what you love doing. For us that's branding.