Branding, as an integral part of the design process, helps in developing a cohesive vision around the product and how it is perceived !

Mudit Gupta, our next pathbreaker, Brand Design Manager at Tata Motors (UK), works on the strategic aspects that bridge design with marketing through a unified communication strategy !

Mudit talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about his journey from the world of Car Design to Brand Design for one of the leading automotive brands in India .

For students, stay curious. Never give up. The best things in life will come to you when you never expect them. The key is to create the right atmosphere around you to ensure there is room for this to come to you.

Mudit,  Your background?

Growing up in Mumbai in the 90’s was an interesting time. I always loved noticing the co-existence of the old with the new. My grandfather was a frugal man, and for as long as I can remember, I loved “fixing” things with him. Be it our non-functional radio, clock, kitchen items; breaking things apart to see how they work and putting them back together. We would “invent” contraptions to keep the pigeons away from our windows or the fastest way to deliver hot rotis from the kitchen to the dining table. I would like to think that these moments sparked my journey as a creative person.

Once you realise that you see the world differently, the goal is clear, to find an outlet which would not let this child-like imagination die.

What did you do for graduation/ post-graduation?

I did a Bachelors (BDes) in Industrial Design from Pune and a one year Masters course in Car Design from Istituto Europeo di Design at Turin, Italy.

Studying industrial design (automotive/product) was a revelation to me. I was fortunate to attend a university in Pune, with professors who were experienced designers from France, who had never taught before. It was an experiment to say the least and within the first week I had some of the biggest culture shocks of my life. 

Upon asking my professor on which textbooks I should buy for the course, he laughed and said, “You have the internet, why do you need a textbook”. He carried on to explain, 

“I won’t teach you what to learn, but how to learn”.

I often feel that this single statement changed my life and my approach to my career.

What were some of the key influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional, and unique career in Vehicle Design?

My interest in the field started when I watched a TV show called “Overhaulin” when I was 10 years old . A car designer (Chip Foose) would sketch a beautiful car, and a team of experts would work with him to build his vision into reality. I looked at the cars outside my window and thought, someone must have drawn that. The car I saw was a “Tata Sierra”.

How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Tell us about your career path.

After 3 years of my course and sending over 200 applications, I received an internship opportunity at Tata Elxsi in Bangalore. Tata Elxsi is a design consultancy headquartered in Bangalore. They are a turn-key service provider to many companies around the world. They have employees who work on many roles ranging from industrial design, graphics, UX/UI and of course engineering solutions to go along with it. I was fortunate to have my first internship at Tata Elxsi and it gave me the right exposure to many varied facets of the design industry.

Here I got the chance to work alongside designers working on everything from TV remotes, oil canisters to, of course, cars. 

Owing to this experience, I landed a job with Tata Motors Design in Pune. It was like a dream come true. I couldn’t believe that I was getting paid to come to draw cars and work on them. The 10-year-old in me was very proud.

A typical day at my job at Tata Motors Design, Pune would be to sketch as many ideas as physically possible after understanding the brief for a project. Many a time, the brief wouldn’t be clear, and hence, we would brainstorm various “use case scenarios” to make the brief easier to translate into ideas. These sketches would go through a selection process, after which we would work with an exceptionally talented team of 3D CAD modelers, clay sculptors, engineers, colour and material teams to bring these ideas to life. 

I also got the opportunity to work on a hypothetical project for reimaging the iconic jaguar D-type to learn the car design process guided by the designers there.

3 years into the job, I felt the time had come to gain experience in an international setting. Although I was receiving interviews and job offers, the moment HR would know that I needed a visa, they would disappear. 

I decided to quit my job and go back to school to do a one-year masters in Turin, Italy. This city is regarded as the mecca of car-design and I had a hunch that if I was at the right place, the right time would come. 

The selection criteria for a design school is always a portfolio. This is a visual journey of you as a designer represented by sketches and pictures of the projects worked on. I managed to receive a reduction in my course fees owing to it. This led me to internships at companies like Fiat, Maserati in Turin and Renault (Paris) whilst my thesis project was sponsored by Jaguar, UK.

My experience at Fiat and Maserati was a surreal one. So far the major project I have worked on in a professional capacity was a commercial vehicle. Moving from this to a sportscar was a challenge to say the least, but the more I got into it, the more I realized that the design process remains exactly the same. Of course, I had to adapt to a very different way of working (and thinking) and not to forget a different way of presenting in a different language altogether. I would like to think that these challenges made me more rounded as a designer.

I also did my master’s thesis with JLR which was overseen by my mentor who was working at Jaguar at the time. The idea was for us to re-think what jaguar could be beyond it’s heritage and in new markets. It was surreal to present my work to him, and when he saw the D-type revival project I had done whilst working in Tata Elxsi, he recognized this instantly and said “Ah, you’re that guy!”. 

How did you get your first break?

My big break was securing a job at Jaguar Land Rover, UK. The manager who hired me was following my thesis project and said that it was my “year long interview”. 

In a typical car design process, the method usually followed is that multiple designers propose multiple ideas, and one idea is chosen to develop further. The norm is that the person whose idea is selected is usually the one who gets the job. In my case, it wasn’t my idea that was chosen, in fact I wasn’t the most talented either. They offered me the job because of my ability to work with other people and letting go of personal ego to focus on the larger goal of delivering the right solution.

Teamwork is key. No matter what job you do, at whatever level, you will never achieve it alone.

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

CHALLENGE 01:

Your idea won’t always be the best idea. Be humble, rather than hold an ego and fight, work with your team to make the idea even better. This creates trust and camaraderie which will be far more valuable in the long term than the idea you felt you needed to gatekeep.

CHALLENGE 02:

Racism. This is something which you will face no matter where you go. Within India, I was too north Indian for Maharashtra, in Europe I was too Bangladeshi, and now that I’ve lived in Europe for over 8 years, in India I’m considered too European and lost.

The key is to not let others put you in “a box” of their choice. Don’t let it affect you, break stereotypes by your actions rather than debate. When faced with a challenge, solve it in the way that feels most authentic to you. It will always be the best solution, because it comes with your lived experience that no one else can replicate. 

CHALLENGE 03:

Creative blocks. There are times when I feel the sense that I don’t know a thing or have a spell of terrible ideas. I guarantee you; this is temporary. You can’t be creative on demand, all the time, every time. This is just a fact of life. Don’t fight it, and don’t let it de-motivate you. Go for a walk in the park, re-connect with an old friend you haven’t spoken to in 5 years, visit an art gallery, speak to someone you completely disagree with, water a plant, listen to the music you love, listen to the music you hate. The best way to stay creative is to be open minded. Inspiration is always around you, you just need to create the time and space for it to be recognized.

Where do you work now? 

I have returned to Tata Motors, however with a twist. I now work as a Brand Design Manager, where I work on everything but the cars themselves. This is a very new position within automotive companies which bridges the link between design and marketing.

What problems do you solve?

A unified vision that represents the car and brand is key. To execute this, I work on everything from directing photoshoots, designing the show stands, helping pick attire for employees representing the brand, making graphic design rules on how to use the logos correctly, direct launch videos etc. 

What skills are required for your role? How did you acquire the skills?

The main skill needed is being exceptionally open minded to any challenge and being able to solve it in a creative way. With this attitude, you learn the technical skills on the job. Although I trained and have experience in car design, skills from that are easily transferrable to architecture when making plans for a show stand like sketching and 3D modelling. With skills like photography and fashion design, you must develop a keen eye for detail and be humble to accept that you don’t know everything and work with experts to make sure they deliver the vision you have set out for the company.

What’s a typical day like?

A typical day would involve creating a brand strategy document which would detail out the dos and don’ts for a brand. This would then be communicated to various experts like architects, photographers, CGI artists, event planners, marketing executives etc. so we get everyone on the same page to tell one story about our brand/product. This would be followed by ensuring you are on the ground next to the relevant experts to ensure the vision is maintained through the entire process.

What is it you love about this job?

The fact that I learn something new every day. It keeps me grounded and exceptionally creative in multiple fields.

How does your work benefit society?

Returning to a homegrown Indian car company has been one of the best decisions I have made. I feel we are truly defining what modern Indian design can be. We need to break away from the stereotypical narratives of the peacock feathers and paisley patterns that we can sometimes be boxed into. The subcontinent has far more nuance to offer than what people from the region often fail to recognize. I feel that by pushing the boundaries creatively on how design is communicated, we are in the process of both reviving and redefining this creative movement.

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

Looking back, one of the closest projects to my heart was a little truck we designed. It’s called the Tata Intra. I was leading the interior design for this vehicle. To truly capture what the customer would need for this vehicle, we went into the field and observed how they used these vehicles. For this category of vehicle, the user is often ignored, this leads to the hardworking person to mold their life around the vehicle, this is bad design. We ensured we took notes and translated each point into a tangible idea, so the vehicle was designed around them and not the other way around. The next time you see one, I encourage you to have a peek inside. There is everything in the vehicle which would hold  2 phones and an agarbatti, a dedicated altar for the God of your choice, a place to put a 2 liter bottle of water which also doubles up as a sound amplifier, a space for hitch-hikers to put money into and if you didn’t get the AC model, the air vents offer even more storage!

Although I have been fortunate enough to work and lead projects like sportscars at Jaguar and Maserati, which I could’ve never dreamt of, this truck remains to be the one I am most proud of.

Your advice to students based on your experience?

Be humble. Keep learning. Stay curious. Never give up. The best things in life will come to you when you never expect them. The key is to create the right atmosphere around you to ensure there is room for this to come to you. Once you crack this, you will never feel like you need to chase anything in life. You will attract both great ideas and the best opportunities, by simply being yourself and sharing your unique perspective with the world. That is the only thing that no one else in the world can do other than you

Future Plans?

Keep learning new things. I have started to take a keen interest in cooking and brewing. I plan to start a supper-club where I re-introduce food stories from the subcontinent and how they blend with the world around it. Much like the co-existence of Mumbai, I realized when I was young.