Syqi

Building and managing a multi-disciplinary design service label with an emphasis on Brand Development and Product Design.

Founder

Kappiri

Design Direction and Strategy, collaborating with teams to create innovative client solutions. We're focused on creating world-class 3D and Motion designs and have helped clients of all kinds with their goals.

Partner

Groundbreakin Media

Helping small and large enterprises establish thought leadership by creating powerful and successful content on a subscription basis.
Podcasts | Content | Newsletter.

Co-Founder and Strategist (Temporary Break)

adplist.org

Learning while Mentoring Designers and Non-Designers diving into design.

Mentor and City Ambassador 

Ideaworks Middle East

Work with strategists and business developers to create, plan and deliver an integrated strategic vision that includes everything from logos all the way down to media outreach campaigns.

Creative Head

General Motors

Creative Designer

Estech - Innovation Platform

Digital Modeler

VPLP Design

Digital Designer

DesmaniA Design Pvt. Ltd.

Industrial Design Intern

Action Construction Equipment Ltd.

Factory Intern

Founder @ Syqi Lab | Design Agency |🎤 Podcast Host | Lifelong Apprentice of Design | 📚🎨

With over seven years of experience in various design roles, I am a passionate and versatile creative entrepreneur and design strategist. I founded Syqi, a design ops agency that helps create meaningful customer experiences with a high level of empathy.

Our mission is to bridge the gap between the business and design worlds with effective design strategies that deliver value and delight. I have a master's degree in Design Management and skills in Creative Direction, Brand Building, and Business of Design.

I also host Groundbreakin Podcast, where I share insights and stories about design, entrepreneurship, and creativity.

Groundbreakin just hit 50 episodes. Wild.

Half a hundred conversations in, and it still feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface.

What started as a small side project to talk to people I admire has now turned into 50 deep conversations with designers, founders, and thinkers who are shaping the design ecosystem in India.

And I couldn’t think of a better guest to mark this one - Susan.

She’s a designer, photographer, artist, and brand thinker who has quietly shaped some of Asia’s biggest brands - Flipkart, Gojek, cult fit, and now Jio.

Her journey from being an “accidental designer” to leading brand design at Jio is full of lessons about curiosity, courage, and creative evolution.

We talked about:
- How she found design through photography
- What it takes to rebrand a company like Gojek across 35+ products
- How to stay creative when your work touches millions of users
- And why her art practice, SuzyQ, keeps her grounded and inspired

This episode reminded me why I started the podcast in the first place —- to have real, honest conversations about design, and growth.

Tune In to the full episode:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g4hH_iNc
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gySf4ZqB

#BusinessOfDesign #AgencyLife #Groundbreakin #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign

Dipaq  ⭐️

Founder @ Syqi® | I Unite Business & Design Worlds | Strategy and Design for Digital Products and Brands |🎙️ Groundbreakin® Podcast

The best teams don’t need hierarchies.
They need trust.

Top takeaway from the conversations for this week's #Groundbreakin.

Over a breakfast almost a year ago, I had my first conversation with Ekta - and our conversation about design and the ecosystem has stayed with me since. Guess we had to do a podcast together :D

From starting as a graphic designer to now co-founding Everything Design, a multidisciplinary studio,

Ekta has built something amazing and rare: a design business that’s as rooted in trust and collaboration as it is in craft.

In this episode of #Groundbreakin, she shares:
// Why B2B branding is no longer optional - but essential.
// How her team avoids free pitches and built an advisory-first model.
// The culture of flat hierarchy and collaboration that fuels their work.
// Her take on AI, and why strategy + business acumen will be the real differentiators.
// The importance of authenticity and ethics in building a sustainable practice.

Honestly, there’s so much to grasp from the way Ekta moves things forward - not just as a designer, but as a founder shaping the future of B2B branding.

Tune in to the full episode:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gsvsuzTj
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gzkQB7QA

Dark patterns or design ethics? At scale, designers become guardians-not just creators.

When you sit down with someone who’s leading design at Myntra, a platform serving millions every day, you expect insights on scale. What you don’t expect is how refreshingly honest Shayak is about the realities of design leadership in India.

From his beginnings in architecture to co-founding one of Bangalore’s earliest UX agencies, Shayak’s journey is a crash course in building, scaling, and protecting design in consumer tech.

Some things we dove deep into:

- Why 80% of e-commerce design is Amazon-inspired—and why that’s not a bad thing.
- The ethics of design at scale: dark patterns, compliance, accessibility.
- Gen Z beyond the stereotypes: not gentrified experiences, but solving their real needs like affordability.
- His 4-stage framework for AI in design—from boosting efficiency to eliminating workflows altogether.
- The future of designers: moving from craftspersons to “pseudo-mathematicians”, orchestrating design systems instead of single screens.
- Why India needs to build our own creative worlds and narratives, not just borrow from the West.
- This one’s not just about e-commerce or Myntra-it’s about what design in India looks like when done at scale, with integrity, and with an eye on the future.

Tune in to the full episode:
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gwkTg5mP
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gWRt5VUP

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign #AgencyLife

In India, a brand doesn’t live in one channel.

It lives in apps, on billboards, in retail kiosks, and inside your 3D renders - all at once.

That’s why omnichannel brand grammar matters!

If your packaging says “premium,” but your app feels dated, the trust breaks.

If your 3D launch renders look world-class, but your retail presence looks like an afterthought, customers notice.

And in India, where customers jump between online and offline daily, this gap shows up even faster.

I’ve seen SaaS and fintech brands nail the product experience but fail at retail presence - ATMs, kiosks, cards, point-of-sale.

The digital brand feels sleek, but the offline touchpoints feel like they belong to another company.

On the flip side, some consumer-tech brands keep their grammar tight across packaging, 3D visuals, retail spaces, and digital campaigns.

Even without a logo in sight, you know it’s them.

That’s the power of omnichannel grammar.

It’s not about making everything look identical.
It’s about making everything feel like it belongs to the same story.

Because in India, brand recall isn’t built in one place.

It’s built in the jumps customers make between places.

The question isn’t whether your app or packaging looks good.

It’s whether they sound like they’re speaking the same language everywhere matters.
If your logo looks different on packaging, in 3D renders, and in retail signage, trust erodes fast.

And trust is everything in cluttered markets.
One brand that quietly cracked this is Paper Boat that I've seen growing since my design school days.

Their packaging feels handcrafted, nostalgic.
The same grammar extends into retail fridges, ads, and even their digital presence.
Every touchpoint tells the same story - childhood memories bottled for today.

The result?
Even when their SKUs expanded from drinks to snacks, the brand still “felt” coherent.

Not because the colors or fonts were identical everywhere, but because the grammar - the way they speak, look, and behave - stayed consistent.

This is where many Indian brands struggle.
Packaging looks premium, but the app feels outdated.
Retail presence is loud, but online presence feels generic.
The experience breaks, and so does loyalty.

Omnichannel grammar isn’t about making things “match.”
It’s about making them belong to the same brand across every channel.

That’s how you build recall in a market where attention is cheap but trust is expensive.

In India, your brand doesn’t get judged on a single ad or product.
It gets judged on whether it feels the same everywhere people find it.

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #BrandBuilding #DesignOps

For those who don’t know, we publish a twice-weekly newsletter.
It's called "The State Of Mind"

It’s where I share what really goes into building a design studio, selling creative work, and everything in between.

This week’s edition is about something most creatives don’t want to hear:

Portfolios don’t win clients. Relationships and storytelling do.

Here’s the gist:
The Portfolio Myth → Clients rarely decide based on slides. They decide based on whether you understand their problems.

Understanding Needs → Clarity and confidence matter more than aesthetic flair.

Building Trust → Asking better questions and telling better stories is what gets you in the door (and keeps you there).

If you’re running a creative biz or an independent designer, you’ve probably felt this already - the work you show is rarely as powerful as the story you tell.

That’s what we broke down in this edition.

Here's a link: https://lnkd.in/gasm9ZYQ

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #AgencyLife #DesignOps

Time and time again, people talk about the “value of design in business.”

It’s become a LinkedIn cliché.

Designers who understand business make fewer compromises.

Why?
Because design doesn’t live in Figma.
It lives in budgets, timelines, and boardrooms.
If you only push for aesthetics, you’ll always hit walls.

Budgets cut your vision in half.
Timelines flatten your ideas.
Stakeholders turn your work into decoration.

But when you understand the biz, you design differently:
// You know which compromises kill the idea and which ones don’t matter.
// You frame decisions in ROI, not just pixels.
// You connect design choices to outcomes leadership actually cares about.

I’ve seen this play out running Syqi.
The projects that work best aren’t where we argue about color palettes.
They’re the ones where design is tied directly to growth, trust, and efficiency.
That’s when clients stop seeing you as “the design team” and start seeing you as a partner.

The truth is, the gap isn’t between “designers” and “business folks.”
The gap is b/w those who can connect the dots - and those who can’t.

Designers who understand business don’t lose their creative mindset.
They just stop wasting it on battles that don’t matter.

#BusinessOfDesign #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign #DesignOps #AgencyLife #SyqiStateOfMind

Some of the leanest design teams I've come across deliver more output than bloated ones 5x their size?

The instinct is always the same:
growth = more people.

But in design, more heads don’t always mean more output.

What actually happens with bloat?
// More meetings.
// More opinions.
// More “work about work.”

Output doesn’t rise.
Accountability drops.

The real win comes from building small, sharp teams that know exactly what not to do.

Here’s what works:
Clarity over coverage.
Define what the team must deliver, and drop the rest.

Systems over one-offs.
Build design systems and templates that scale without hiring for every request.

Autonomy over layers.
A lean team can move faster if they’re trusted to own outcomes instead of chasing approvals.

Cross-skill over headcount.
Designers who understand product, copy, or research reduce the need for separate roles.

Prioritization over perfection.
Shipping the 80% that works beats polishing the 100% that’s late.

I’ve seen 3-person design teams ship global brand systems in the same time a 10-person team debated interfaces.

The difference isn’t talent.
It is focus.

Building lean doesn’t mean starving your team.
It means creating the conditions where a few people can do the work of many.

Because the goal isn’t headcount.
It’s output that actually moves the business forward.

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign

It’s wild how many “leaders” are actually just brakes disguised as drivers.

Working with big clients, you sometimes get a front-row seat to decisions that shape the company.
And it’s shocking how often the wrong people hold the wheel.

I’ve met executives who had full control - budgets, sign-off power, entire teams waiting on them.
But instead of pushing the company forward, they were dragging it back.

Too stubborn to take risks.
Too rigid to learn.
Too comfortable to upskill.

And here’s the thing: it’s not hard to see.
Anyone close to the work can tell when leadership is the bottleneck.
The urge to say “just fire them and your revenue will 5x” is real.

Especially in B2B businesses, where one decision-maker can unlock (or block) entire growth channels.

I’m not claiming to have all the wisdom in the world.
But some of these patterns are obvious.
And they’re expensive.

Sometimes, the biggest growth lever isn’t a new product or campaign.
It’s changing who gets to make the final call.

#BusinessOfDesign #DesignLeadership #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #ProductDesign #BrandBuilding

I want to be honest for a second: the hardest part of leading design wasn’t design.|

It was trust.

Design leadership isn’t about knowing more.
It’s about helping others understand what you know.

Too often, design leaders guard their craft like a secret.
They expect peers in product, marketing, or sales to “just get it.”

When they don’t, frustration builds.
But the leaders who teach - who explain design in simple, human terms - are the ones who win trust across the company.

Teaching doesn’t mean running workshops or lectures.

It means:
// Translating design decisions into business impact.
// Showing how small changes reduce friction in the customer journey.
// Explaining why consistency saves money across teams.

When peers feel smarter because of you, they trust you more.
When they trust you more, they back your decisions.
That’s how design gets influence in the boardroom.

Not by shouting louder.
Not by hoarding knowledge.
By teaching.

Design leaders who teach don’t just build better teams.
They build the kind of trust that makes design impossible to ignore.

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #DesignLeadership

Design sets the scene.
Writing makes it stick.

Tune in to the full episode!
YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g_dPBz6v
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/g6JyrF9Y

#Groundbreakin #BusinessOfDesign #AgencyLife #DesignOps #SyqiStateOfMind

Design has always been about subtraction.
Removing the noise so the essentials stand out.

Tools that respect this principle don’t just make things look good - they make teams faster, clearer, and more confident.

AI is the next chapter in that same story.
It’s not about replacing creativity.
It’s about clearing the tedious parts so taste, exploration, and play can take the front seat.

The real shift isn’t the technology itself.
It’s what happens when creative people get to spend less time wrestling with tools, and more time shaping ideas that matter.

Design is a system that makes complexity invisible.
And with the right tools, we’re only scratching the surface of what that can look like.

#BusinessOfDesign #AgencyLife #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign #DesignOps

Everyone talks about “big ideas.”

But most of the real design work happens in the invisible parts - the messy drafts, late-night iterations, and quiet decisions that never make it to a case study.

This week’s newsletter is about that part of the craft.

Why the best designers leave no fingerprints - because the work isn’t about showing off their taste, it’s about making things feel effortless for everyone else.

The truth is, design that works rarely looks dramatic.

It’s built on invisible judgment, calm alignment, and hundreds of micro-decisions no one sees.

And when it’s done right, people don’t even notice the design - they just feel understood.

If you care about the bts of great creative work, this one’s for you.

Read here → https://lnkd.in/gzsBPkZn

#BusinessOfDesign #BrandBuilding #SyqiStateOfMind #ProductDesign #Groundbreakin #AgencyLife

Most ideas don’t fail in execution.
They fail in alignment.

A designer pitches something bold.
Everyone loves it - until the meeting starts.

Then it gets “tweaked,” “balanced,” “made safer.”
By the end, it’s unrecognizable.

Not because it was bad - But because too many people tried to fix it before it ever lived.

Alignment is good.
But too much alignment?

That’s where creativity dies.
This week’s State Of Mind Newsletter dives into:
1. Execution > Idea
The world praises “visionaries,” but most wins come from people who simply keep executing - refining one idea until it works.

2. Uncertainty Is a Feature
Great design thrives in chaos.
Not knowing forces you to think deeper, ask better questions, and grow sharper.

3. Creative Agencies Need More Agency
If you hire creatives, trust them to think - not just follow orders.
Because when creativity is micromanaged, courage disappears.
Ideas don’t die in failure.

They die in polite meetings filled with feedback loops and fear.

Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/gsVu9DJe

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #CreativeLeadership #DesignCulture

Many big Indian companies, with decades of brand equity, now operate like scrappy startups in the worst way.

Long approval chains are where good ideas go to die.

We’ve all seen it.
A simple design goes through ten people, five meetings, and three rewrites - only to end up looking like the first draft.

The fix isn’t more process.
It’s better questions.

Simple questions like:
- What’s the single outcome we want from this piece?
- Who actually owns the final call?
- If we had to ship tomorrow, what would we keep?

These questions cut through layers of “input” and force clarity.
The irony is that many big Indian companies, with decades of brand equity, now operate like scrappy startups in the worst way.

Everything is urgent.
Everyone has a say.
Nothing gets decided.

Startups at least have the excuse of chaos.

Enterprises don’t.
Yet they create the same noise, just with more people and longer chains.
That’s where simple, blunt questions become powerful.

They shift the conversation from “what do you think?” to “what do we need?”

From endless opinions to actionable facts.

The fastest way to speed up approvals isn’t a new tool or process.
It’s asking the questions that make decision-making unavoidable.

#BusinessOfDesign #DesignOps #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign #DesignForEnterprises #AgencyLife

Hiring more people is the corporate version of “ctrl+c, ctrl+v.”

It feels productive.
It usually makes a mess.

Teams don’t get stuck because they’re short on hands.
They get stuck because they’re drowning in them.


Every time a company feels the heat, the knee-jerk move is: add more.
More heads, more layers, more meetings.

But here’s the truth:
Doing more with less isn’t about saving cash.
It’s about saving focus.

Gotta ask the hard questions:
- What’s the one thing this team exists to deliver?
- Which tasks look important but add zero value?
- If half the team vanished tomorrow, what would we actually prioritize?

I’ve watched tiny design squads ship global brand systems faster than bloated teams could finalize a color palette.

Not because they worked harder.
Because they worked cleaner.

Team bloat feels safe, but it’s bullshit.
It slows you down, buries accountability, and kills creativity.

Doing more with less isn’t a constraint.
It’s the mindset that actually keeps you sharp.

#BusinessOfDesign #BrandBuilding #SyqiStateOfMind #DesignOps #AgencyLife #ProductDesign

This is one of the fiercest enemies of big brands: fear of small experiments.

Big brands love big launches.
Big budgets.
Big campaigns.

But the real breakthroughs usually start small.

A different way to phrase a CTA.
A fresh visual test in one region.
A pilot product tweak that 1% of customers see.

Tiny experiments like these don’t just save money.
They reveal truths you’d never discover in a boardroom.

The irony?
Most large companies in India behave like scrappy startups in the worst way.

Lots of chaos, lots of “move fast,” but no discipline around experiments.
So nothing compounds.

When done right, small experiments give you:
- Data instead of opinions.
- Speed without politics.
- Momentum that scales up across teams.

And unlike huge campaigns, they fail quietly.
Which makes them the safest way to find what actually works.

In big brands, small experiments are underrated because they don’t look impressive.
But they’re the ones that actually change the game.

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #BrandBuilding #ProductDesign

India doesn’t want to be the world’s back office anymore.

It wants to be its creative brain.

For decades, Indian design meant execution.
Fast. Cheap. Reliable.
But not culture-defining.

That story is ending.

This week in State Of Mind:
1. The Catch-up Trap
 We don’t need to copy Seoul’s music or Tokyo’s design.
 India’s edge is its chaos, contradictions, and contradictions

2. What Clients Really Buy
 Not polish. Not portfolios.
 Clarity. Confidence. Trust.

3. The Industry Problem
 For too long, non-creatives called the shots.
 That’s why creativity here felt undervalued.

4. The $100B Edge
 India won’t win by speed or scale.
 It’ll win by voice.

The brands that succeed will sound Indian-not imported.

Full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/gDdshjcX

#BusinessOfDesign #SyqiStateOfMind #BrandBuilding #AgencyLife #DesignOps

Open article: The $100B Question: Can India Be the Next Creative Capital of Asia? by dipaq.substack.com

The $100B Question: Can India Be the Next Creative Capital of Asia?

A bad brief is like onboarding that makes no sense.

If your team is confused, your users will be too.

We love talking about wireframes, prototypes, and user testing.
But the first time a product gets “tested” isn’t in the user’s hands.
It’s in the brief.

If the team can’t understand the brief, the product’s already in trouble.
Because what’s confusing inside the room usually turns into confusion outside the room.

So how do we write briefs that actually work?

Here’s the no-fluff version:
- Define the problem. “We need a landing page” isn’t a problem.
“Users drop at checkout” is.

- Cut the jargon.
If it sounds like corporate bingo, your team will tune out.

- Show context.
Screenshots, user stories, old flows - don’t just dump requirements, give them a map.

Gotta be clear on success.
Is it conversion, signups, retention?
Pick one.

Please write like a human.
If you wouldn’t say it in a meeting, don’t put it in the brief.

Good UX starts with clarity.
And a clear brief is the cheapest way to prevent weeks of wasted work.

Your product’s first UX test isn’t the app.
It’s the brief.

Fail there, and it'll fail everywhere else.

#BusinessOfDesign #ProductDesign #ProblemSolving #AgencyLife #SyqiStateOfMind

If you want shorter feedback loops, stop refreshing analytics and start buying your sales team chai.

Designers and marketers love research, analytics, and fancy frameworks.
But sometimes the fastest insights are sitting right next to you: your sales team.

They’re on the front lines.
They hear objections in real time.
They know which slides make prospects lean in - and which ones make them check their phone.

When you listen to sales, two things happen:

Your decks improve.
You cut the fluff, sharpen the story, and get to the point faster.

Your communication improves everywhere.
Landing pages, emails, product copy - all benefit from real customer language, not assumptions.

The mistake most teams make is treating sales feedback as “tactical.”

It’s not.
It’s the most unfiltered form of user testing you’ll ever get.

If you want shorter feedback loops and sharper communication,
Start here:
Ask your sales team what customers actually say.

Chances are, the answers will save you weeks of guesswork.

#BusinessOfDesign #BrandBuilding #SyqiStateOfMind #AgencyLife #ProductDesign

You have to stop calling it “user-centered design” if you’ve never actually tested it with users.

Wireframes, prototypes, and moodboards - they all look impressive.
But none of it matters if users can’t actually use the thing.

CB Insights found that most product failures come from skipping validation.

And it makes sense.
Humans build mental models in milliseconds.
If your flow fights against those instincts, they drop off.

The gap between how you think users behave and how they actually behave is where products die.

But here’s the problem: user testing feels slow.
Recruiting.
Scheduling.
Running sessions.

By the time insights arrive, the market has moved.

That’s why validation often gets skipped.
And skipping it is what kills products.

Good design is what survives real users.

The only real question is:
When was the last time you actually tested a flow - not just assumed it?

#BusinessOfDesign #UserCentricDesign #DesignOps #AgencyLife #BrandBuilding #SyqiStateOfMind

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