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Rooted in design, Stratedgy has been an essential part of the brand story of brands like Bagrry’s, NOTO, Perfora, Ziaho and Pillsbury. They essentially engage in research to come up with a brand strategy, its positioning, packaging and communication design. The landscape of design has had tectonic shifts over time with a change in mediums, the impression it creates on consumers, its requirement to scale, and more. Krupa Kapadia, Creative Director at Strategdy, gives us an insight into the same.
Excerpts from the interview…
Tell us a little about what Stratedgy does.
With most of our projects, founders come to us with an idea or a vision and we help them build it from the ground up. We help them understand the current market landscape and deep dive into consumer understanding through primary research. We also work on their product strategy because you do need some sort of differentiation in terms of your product.
What are some current-day trends dominating design?
We aim to build brands that are going to last the test of time, so trends don't play that large a role in our work. For us, clear communication of the objective is very important. A trend is something that can change and they work best for short-term communication, like on social media. But when someone invests in their packaging, they are not going to want to redo it for the next five to ten years. To base your design on a trend would be myopic.
What’s your take on relying on intuition rather than research?
Intuition plays a very large role in everything. For a country like India, you would need a sample size of lakhs to validate a price point or understand the perception of a category. Finally, it is our intuition and experience, along with the founder’s vision, that come together to form the brand strap.
How have influences on package design changed over the years?
Online shopping has changed the way that people look at packaging. The front-of-pack, back-of-pack lines are blurred, especially for D2C brands. The packaging and unboxing experience has now become a post-purchase decision. So, while packaging needs to be informative, it also needs to give you the brand experience. Giving your packaging attention to detail, creating excitement and making it conversational are the things that help in brand recall.
How does Stratedgy approach logos?
A lot of times people try to put everything into the logo. But your logo is a small part of your brand and unless you're on a sponsor board, it is never going to be seen in isolation. It will always be seen within the universe of your brand. So you don't need to oversell the logo.
The most effective logos essentially are the simplest ones. They also have to be adaptable to 20,000 forms of media. Our professor at Parsons showed us a very interesting case study on the evolution of the Coke and Pepsi logos. He pointed out that the Coke logo has not changed in over a century and a half. Pepsi, on the other hand, goes through rebrandings often but can’t seem to hit the nail on the head. If you're looking at longevity, Coca-Cola is one brand that really stands the test of time.
Do you see technology in design as limiting?
Where a lot of students and new designers fail is when they think that the software is where they can think. I keep telling my team that I want to see them thinking on paper 50% of the time. And the other 50%, they should be on their computers, executing.
You need to be working with paper to get the ideas out because as soon as you move on to the machine, it becomes about that perfect circle or the choice of typeface or the choice of colour. But when you draw that circle by hand, that little imperfection might just add character to your design.
The same thing goes for AI. A lot of people think AI is going to be the end of design. But at the end of the day, it's a tool. And you have to leverage that tool to help you work.
Everything that is skill-based can be replaced but as long as you're a thinking individual and you learn how to maximise the tools that kind of help you do your work better, you’ll be okay. You need to have that kind of rigour and drive to want to do something a little different.
What does the future of design hold?
In the future, design is going to be the differentiator as there is very minimal differentiation happening at a product level, across most categories. Design is not just about how something looks. It's about positioning and understanding your consumer.
