Professionally, I am a designer, artist and a story teller in that order. Personally, I am just a curious human being. I love reading, drawing, being childlike and not afraid to try crazy things especially when they are new. I was born and raised in central Karnataka in mostly rural and small-town setting. My parents were middle class folks with my dad worked as an artist and my mom was home maker. I have started to work at the very young age, as an apprentice to my dad and doing odd art jobs for the town. I was quick to jump into dotcom boom in it’s early stages and now I work as a UX designer for Amazon.com at their Seattle HQ.

I grew up with an artistic environment, art was never a separate thing from real life. I had a privilege of being around art and some theatre. I guess I chose art school naturally.

To draw is like a meditation for me, I also write poems. I see no difference between both creative activities. I usually have an idea and I can see what would come on the blank paper in front of me before I really draw anything. However, as I draw mostly the original vision evolves into something slightly different.

I can say design is my strongest skill, however it takes many skills to be a designer. Similarly, it takes many skills to be anyone like an artist or a story teller. I brought design first because design is a space which has large appetite for many knowledge areas such as art, typography, UX, product, animation, sound or industrial design.

I love working for any project that is customer (user) facing. It can be designing a large enterprise system or a web service or a children’s book. I want my time spent on a project is applied to make something simple and elegant.

This is an interesting question, art has no rules. Art is all about breaking rules, if that is true than I believe in the artistic rule of breaking all rules!

That “everything in this world is connected and we must keep playing our role”, the seeming hierarchy in this world is a made-up fad by humans. Nature shows us that nothing is impossible, life will thrive on.

I have but one advice — “Just do what you enjoy most”. Please don’t get caught in the web of social expectations including your parents, relatives and friends.

I don’t need any inspiration to create as the act of creation is often revealing the moment into a piece of poetry or drawing should be a natural one. However, I cannot do if I am in a setting that demands my attention. That’s why most of my best work moments happen when I am away from people I know.

I have a Macbook Pro, iPhone 6, Wacom Cintique 22 HD, a Kindle, Sony alpha 6500 and couple of good lenses. I have a vast collection of vintage nibs, sable hair brushes, tons of books and reams of acid free paper.

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Uri Chammalige by D.R.Nagaraj. I also have acquired Before They Pass Away by Jimmy Nelson and yet to go through that one in detail.