»I want to let other people see what’s inside my head«
Never content with the obvious and always looking for new skill sets: Indian graphic designer and 3D visual artist Khyati Trehan is not interested in a style of her own, but in the inexhaustible variety of design
You’ve already received quite a lot of recognition. Which started while you were studying at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Your project “The Beauty of Scientific Diagrams” got picked up by international media. How did the idea to intertwine the initials of scientist with their inventions come about?
Because I was annoyed (laughs). I’ve always been a very studious person. I’d come to class on time and finish my homework the same day. I had a very academic view on learning and when one of the courses at the Institute of Design felt uninspiring, I went to the library to unwind and discovered a book called The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments. I was stuck on one chapter and started sketching out the part I didn’t fully understand. The idea came when the diagram I was sketching resembled a letterform. This was a great example of how sometimes you have to leave your desk and stop thinking about design to actually design.
And you still work like this, don’t you? You are doing a lot of reading and research.
If I just sat at my desk and sketched, I would get the feeling that I was doing the same work over and over again. At the same time, the editorial projects I do for The New York Times or The New Yorker are often about subjects I’ve never heard about before. What is Bioelectricy? So, I read about it and ended up learning completely new things. And that’s not only very interesting, but also inspiring. Because often the sentences themselves and how they are structured are giving me visual ideas.
How so?
It makes a difference whether there’s written “a chicken crossed the road” or “the road felt the weight of the chicken as it crossed.” What’s happening is the same but with the various viewpoints, the images in your head change. That can help me picture an idea in a way that I might not have thought of before.
But is there always that much time for research?
Often, projects have a tight deadline. But for the Visualizing AI project for Google’s AI lab DeepMind, that I just finished, I had a whole month for two images. I was invited to interview the expert who writes the algorithms and was referred relevant podcasts and articles to widen my research. For a whole month, I did nothing but research. But at the same time, it felt like I was already sketching in my mind.
It seems like you are always up for new adventures and skill sets instead of just sticking with the ones you are already good at. What drives you?
I think that might be because I’m not a perfectionist. I don’t feel this craving to be really good at something. Besides, I get bored quickly and that makes me restless. I might be very excited about 3D. And after four 3D projects, I think: please, please, give me a branding project for a hospital (laughs). I just crave change. And design can enable that because it’s such a massive field. Back in my hometown, everybody assumes as a designer, I’m making clothes (laughs). And the more places I work at, the more I get the feeling that I know so little. When I was at the Indian type foundry, I realized that I didn’t know how to draw a letter. At IDEO in Munich, my understanding of design was completely flipped again. There, you could be a designer without ever physically crafting anything. The focus was much more on the way you think. Then I first saw 3D works and I instantly wished I knew how to do it too. And creative coding too. I always just get the fear of missing out.
And you said that you also constantly learn new skills, so that you don’t get attached to a specific style.
I do. But people tell me that I have a style. Probably, that’s inescapable. But even if I do have a style, it always changes a little. Because I switch between disciplines so often. Instead of perfection, I’m much more interested in being surprised. So, I change between lettering, 3D or 2D. And a little bit of the previous thing always seeps into the next. That keeps things fresh for me and doesn’t make me feel like I’m just jumping from tool to tool.
What is more important to you, the tools you use or the skills you have?
Both. Tools can take you to unexpected places and can also change the way you think. The Cinema 4D software for example taught me to think in space and helped me to come up with a lot of new ideas. But it’s the decision making that makes the skill set. It’s about why you chose to press particular buttons.
Do you learn all tools by yourself?
The internet teaches you everything. But I have a little trick that I use because learning software can be very boring. So instead of following the exact steps, I change one thing. If the tutorial tells me to choose a cube, I will choose a sphere. Then I’ll have to be a little more conscious about the steps I’m taking, because they’re a little bit different to what is happening in the video. Besides that, the product also ends up becoming something that I did versus something that the tutorial made me develop. That also makes me feel like I’m doing mini projects every day instead of just watching a video. Even though I have the very bad habit of sitting on the couch while working (laughs).
You say that your work is driven by the ache to make the intangible tangible. What does that mean?
An idea is something you make up in your mind. It’s just in your head, you can’t see or touch it. The ache of all my work is to let other people see what is inside my head.
It’s like writing …
Yes, I think writing is a really great way to think. Which is why I’m trying to add writing to my skill set. Not because I will be a good writer. But writing is teaching me how to think more clearly and might help me become a better designer.
Being restless and always looking for the new, at one point you started 3D design. Did it also change the way you think?
3D feels like magic in a lot of ways. One of the things that I was super fascinated by right at the beginning, was the dynamics. You place a ball in space and then you can see what happens when there’s wind coming. Sometimes, it almost feels like a game and it’s also hard to control. But yeah, shifting from 2D to 3D changes the way you think. Sometimes, it’s hard now to sketch my ideas because I already think them in 3D.
When 3D design is like magic, how is it to go back to the 2D design work you do?
There’s still a lot of beauty in it. It’s a craft of its own. You could be the most amazing 3D artist and not be able to design a perfectly crafted logo. I don’t think one is superior to the other. When I get bored of 3D, I go back to 2D (laughs). And that keeps happening.
You even said that you see a lot of potential in oscillating between 2D and 3D.
I often just use 3D software because it’s faster, but sometimes end up with something that makes things look different. When I was invited to a concrete poetry workshop, I used a 3D software to make 2D visuals and that created some surprising results. That’s the stuff I like. It’s not a specific style but more of an impression. And whatever you’ll make won’t look like something you’ve already seen on Instagram or Pinterest.
A very special project of you is Ecotherapy, it’s personal in many ways.
I started it to distract myself during a very tumultuous political time in India. It was like doodling in 3D for me, but became more complicated when I decided that I want to create something smooth and organic. A clearly structured design is much easier to create in 3D. So, I decided to make one small piece after the other to slowly build a library of organic elements. As an impatient and restless person and after years of speeding up, I wanted to slow down.
There was something very therapeutic about it and I started to research why these organic forms provide so much calmness. Without any intention, they looked like corals or something from an underwater world and it was relaxing to look at them. No matter how many elements I stacked onto one another, how chaotic the details seemed, the dynamics and movement I added. And that brought me to entropy, to disorder in nature, and our interconnection with it. That’s why people take a walk in the park or in the woods when they want to relax.
You said it was like doodling in 3D. Did you let your hands have a life of their own and let the subconscious take over, as you once described parts of your design process?
My design process is either heavily research based or very straightforward to the extent that sometimes I don’t even sketch. But either way, I try to maintain as much freedom as possible for me. I’ve worked at five or six agencies so far, and it always felt like each one thinks there’s only one right way of working. At IDEO, the process was very important, in the branding agency I’ve been at, the craft. When I’m surrounded by artists, intuition is the thing. It feels like everyone has the one right way of doing a project. And I try to make sure that I don’t get stuck in that. There’s an exercise called automatic writing where you just keep writing without even knowing what the next word is. And it doesn’t end up being nonsense but becomes something where you discover how you think and feel. I think the same thing can happen while designing and there’s no difference whether it’s a job or personal project.
But at the same time, personal projects seem very important to you. It looks like you always carve out time for them.
I think it’s also because I don’t have a hobby (laughs). My friends are into music or they go on hikes. But I don’t have a specific thing outside of design that I love doing. So even with time off, I kind of work. Designing things at home feels the same to me as knitting after their job might feel to an accountant. Seriously.
What is the next thing you will dive into?
Even though I got quite overwhelmed after one day of trying to teach myself creative coding, I will explore that further. I feel like the more tools I have in my bucket, the more cross-pollination is possible. So, I will keep on collecting.
This interview was published in PAGE 03.2023. Download the whole issue here if you like.
Mental Health ++ Branding: Hotels & Lodges ++ Creative Coding mit p5.js ++ ENGLISH SPECIAL Khyati Trehan ++ Edi-torial Design: Kundenmagazine ++ Top 50: PAGE Ranking 2023 ++ Praxis: Weiterbildung & Coaching
