Imagine getting your home designed completely with a colour palette, mood board and a spoilt-for-choice lookbook with detailed design layouts that will transform any room in your house into the space of your dreams, without stepping out? This is exactly what ZxP Create, an innovative virtual interior design solution by Bengaluru-based interior stylist and creative director, Smitha Zachariah, can do.
What is ZxP and how does it work? This is a customised design solution that is packaged and delivered to your doorstep in a ZxP Create box. "We will send you six popular genres of interior design in our signature India Modern style, technical drawings, suggested furniture, furnishings and décor that will transform any room," explains Zachariah.
Why choose ZxP Create over a traditional interior designer? "Because with minimal interaction and fuss, you will get a design from us that not only does justice to your space, but will make you want to stay home and stay safe. The DIY aspect will appeal to the closet interior designer in all of us and a price point that is path-breaking," she adds.
Also, what is this India Modern style that Zachariah is talking about? India Modern is a design style that uses simple, straight-lined spaces with a deliberate use of bright colours and patterns. And anyone who’s seen Zachariah's work will know that colour is her main driving force, which explains her company’s tagline, Live the Colour.
"To me, colour is energy made visible, and our signature style embraces vivid colour palettes, intriguing textures and ethereal forms all coming together harmoniously drawing you into a design sensibility that is inspired, unique and enticing to the observer," she adds.
The designer says she is inspired by the sights, aromas and sounds of India as well as its exotic food, music, dance, dreamy landscapes, architecture and a kaleidoscope of colour. "This is how India Modern has emerged as distinctive, resilient, self-reliant and as a design trend that is steeped in the past but totally in sync with the now. This forms the bedrock of my design sensibility, and when you couple that with immersive travel experiences and exposure to art and craft across the globe, how can I not but tell a story through my interiors?"
Incidentally, Zachariah didn't set out to be an interior designer to begin with. Armed with a bachelor's degree in fashion design from Srishti School of Design, Bengaluru, she went on to pursue a master’s in textile design at RMIT, Melbourne, where she majored in tapestry design. The shift to interiors happened in 2009 when she set up her firm, SZ Design.
Moving from strength to strength doing up several bespoke homes in Bengaluru, her work saw her being shortlisted for one of the five young interior designers to keep an eye out for in 2014 by Vogue, and nominated for Interior Designer of the Year in 2016 by Good Homes magazine.
If current projects are any indication, Zachariah has more than lived up to that potential, with this latest venture being the cherry on the cake.