- Name: Kamini S
- Instagram: @confettiandcolours
- Industry Experience: 5 years
- Favourite Drink: A classic Negroni from Hoots and the Chintapalli Gimlet from Lair
- Favourite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Coffee in the morning and chai in the evening
When you causally walk into a bar, a restaurant or any space, your senses will subconsciously catch colours, absorb the ambience and vibes of the place, its mood, designs, illustrations, intriguing visuals and so forth. Each space, each bar, has its own personality, visuals and story. To bring a founder’s vision to life, Kamini brings together design, illustration and visual storytelling to create identities that feel true to the space.
She has worked with some of the top bars in the country including Rick’s Bar at the Taj Palace Hotel, Primitive, Native, and Top Banana. She uses her power of observation and unique perspective to bring a founder’s vision and story to life. As a creative person, Kamini always commences her journey with any brand with observation. “You can’t really understand a brand’s personality by looking at its menu or its interior anymore,” she explains, “You have to understand the people, the conversation, the staff, the regulars and even the little things that happen behind the scenes that we tend to ignore on a daily basis.”
Every bar has its own culture—it’s just a matter of capturing and projecting it visually whether it’s through the menu, the logo, the interiors, or the ambience. Besides learning about the people, Kamini also makes a point to understand what makes a particular place different than others. “I want to know why they are opening the place, not just what they are serving, but why this particular place needs to exist,” she tells us.
Top Banana’s half-bar humour and half-visual diary is a perfect example of how Kamini was able to not only capture its USP but also its sense of humour and communicate that effectively with the guests. “Humour usually comes from something that is very real and we can all relate to it,” she points out, “I’m taking an everyday moment and looking at it from a very slightly exaggerated or an unexpected perspective.”
Besides observation and capturing a perspective, Kamini also starts her process with a lot of brainstorming. Understanding the owner’s vision plays a key role in the early stages. Unlike most illustrators, she does not get attached to her initial idea and she’s open to changes through her process. Interestingly, Kamini also comes from a hotel management background.
She learned early on that people don’t necessarily remember every detail of a place, but they do remember how a place makes them feel. You need to understand what makes people come back to a place repeatedly. Kamini is very cognizant of understanding how people interact with a space and its visual elements. A menu, for example, is a part of a service experience—not just a piece of graphic design or illustration.
Quickly touching upon Delhi’s bar scene, the branding wizard explains how the capital city’s design-conscious needs have sparked creativity, but also made everything look the same. The good thing, though, is that bar owners are taking design quite seriously. It’s a healthy scene for creativity to thrive. Designers are also thinking beyond just a menu or a logo.
Some of the best decisions Kamini has made in her flourishing career have come from a space of being flexible and open to taking feedback without the need to protect her first idea. She emphasizes that it’s important illustrators do not get married to their first thought and keep adapting as you translate your ideas from the screen on to the physical world.
Kamini works closely with a bar’s founders to figure out why they opened this bar in the first place, what do they want people to feel when they enter the space, and what can they offer that someone else cannot. She gets a feel of the place. “So you’re not just choosing what looks good,” she elaborates, “You’re choosing what feels true to the brand itself.”
- Nemisha Sharma
