What good is a city if you can’t contain its eccentricity in the entirety of a fridge magnet? And that is why every city needs those who are able to imagine in graphic. Khyati Trehan from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, is lending her artsy imagination to Delhi’s way of life. How does she do it? “Design is like music. They both transport you to another place. A place far removed from your immediate surroundings, a place that always has a vibe, a feeling of its own,” she says. Music is her sugar; it gives her a sporadic high and advances her creative process. “I’m not sure many people know what graphic design really stands for,” she says about the general ignorance of people towards the diversity of art.
The 23-year-old designs everything, from album artwork to posters to wedding cards to illustrations of age-old scientific theory. “Public imagination is trapped in its oil-on-canvas phase, but there are brilliantly diverse art forms that are growing and thriving in the underbelly of the city,” she says.
Trehan thinks there’s a growing community of self-fuelled freelancers and small design festivals that happen from time to time. The same thing is happening with theatre. “All design really wants is to be recognised,” she says, adding that there is a requirement of platforms that draw the right kind of attention from mainstream social media.
That said, she doesn’t quite like the ‘celebrity culture’, and feels actors shouldn’t be the only ones being celebrated for their craft, on the count that a designer or a doctor puts in as much effort into polishing his skills. She enjoys music and has been singing jingles for TVCs directed by Bharat Sikka.
To kill the monotony of a big city life, she would like to go snowboarding somewhere afar.