Interview with Himanshu Bharadwaj [2014-05-14]

I am Himanshu Bharadwaj, a digital creative in New York. I have been in the business for more than a decade and worked for agencies of all sizes, startups, and also been an entrepreneur. Currently, I consult through EpitomeCreative.com in digital design and advertising. My expertise is in crafting interactive experiences that inform, delight, inspire and persuade users while effectively delivering on business goals. My work in the recent years has been mostly in the area of social media, mobile apps and web applications. I am always learning to keep up with what’s new out there in the digital space. I can be found on Linkedin and Twitter @HemanSpeaks. I take design as seriously as women take makeup. Because what we do is subjective, our greatest challenge is to elicit desired emotional response/user behavior from our creative solutions.

Software/hardware

I believe the most important software/hardware of a designer is his creative vision. His creative vision and tools should be so awesome that if he is conceptualizing a garden, the users should feel that real butterflies are coming out of it! While this might be an ambitious goal, an effort in trying to walk in this direction helps create desired design solution for clients and end users. In the digital world this is more important as users are not going to stick around or come back for the experience/information if they are not getting enough out of it.

I am a loyal Adobe Creative Cloud customer. No other software comes close in my opinion. Growing up I messed around with a Macintosh Classic. My MacBook Pro 17-inch and 13-inch are two friendly cousins I keep along with their big badass Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) brother. Their toys are a magic mouse and Wacom Intuos Pro Pen & Medium sized Touch Tablet. My iphone and ipad are other toys needed at various times during the day. I use my ipad for sketching, writing ideas while travelling. Google glass has recently popped up on my shopping list at the top.

Ideal work environment

My mind never stops and I am constantly working, even when I am not. My perfect work area is where I can dream big and make awesome sh*t happen. It could be my quiet work area near the window of my house by the lake with lot of green natural surroundings. This helps not only stay positive and fresh but also helps me focus. When I work onsite in agencies and at client offices, I am sometimes amidst noisy crowded offices full of energy, which I equally enjoy and can find my polestar.

Work inspiration

As a designer one needs a combination of both right brain where they say lightening can strike anytime to create an inspired design solution and the left brain where one meticulously labor to create a well crafted design. My willingness to take risks helps get fresh ideas that lead to good design.

My inspiration comes from many sources. It can come from my Kundalini yoga meditation every morning, looking at clouds changing shapes or working with some very smart and talented people in the industry and pushing myself harder when the bar is raised. I like to read a lot on design, advertising and digital technology. My regular outlets for snackable food for thought are psfk.com, fastcompany.com, mashable.com, thefwa.com, mediabistro.com/agencyspy, Linkedin Pulse, my twitter feeds, etc.

Creatives you admire most

In advertising and design I admire the work coming from a some agencies/creatives such as –

Advertising: David Droga’s, Gerry Graf, Jerome Austria, Dan Lucey, Fabio Costa.

Design: Paula Scher, Brian Collins, Nike work coming out of R/GA, Code and Theory - their creative technologists are awesome, Sagmeister & Walsh (sagmeisterwalsh.com), Koichiro Tanaka , Joshua Davis, Juan Carlos Pagan - there is something interesting in the way he sees type, Tobias van Schneider - He is a Renoir of usage of black color in some of his designs, and many more.