Seeking Change Through Design

Though currently based in San Francisco, communication designer and illustrator Tanya Bhandari is looking forward to returning to India to contribute to the evolving social design scene

- Tanya Bhandari

When were you drawn to illustration?

TB: I have been drawing ever since I can remember. School notebooks, walls, cupboards, shoes, unsuspecting friends, and even my brother’s face – everything had a little drawing on it. In high school, the highlight of my short lived science career was to make the most beautiful and detailed diagrams for Biology class. I went on to pursue a Graduate Diploma in Graphic Design from MIT Institute of Design, Pune. Design school continued to encourage an active practice of drawing and illustration, whether it was to hone the skill or the outcome of a project. Currently, I’m experimenting with two extremes – digital illustrations on an iPad and illustrations for lino printing.

What role has formal design education played in your career?

TB: MIT Institute of Design was really helpful in developing a skill and sense for the basics of Graphic Design - that strong primer enabled me to develop ideas and design work easily as I went through internships, graduate school and finally to UNICEF. When I was applying for graduate school, I was looking for something that would help me apply my design skills for some good in the world. I found the Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts, New York and I knew this is what I wanted to do. In retrospect, it was a big risk since it was the first year of the program, but it really ended up being worth it. I learnt how to use design for good – how to understand people, how to design for people, how to be empathetic. I learnt about systemic problems and data visualization and game theory and ethical design. A lot of what we studied had seemed irrelevant at the time, but I realized that I was applying it often later in my work. I got to meet and work with people from all over the world, something that really changed the way I thought about collaboration and openness.