We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nihal Bambulkar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nihal below.
Nihal, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Every week, I work on at least one design piece that I find fulfilling. It doesn’t have to be perfectly designed, or bear a lot of meaning. It can just exist. I use the feeling I experience when working on those pieces, as leverage and remind myself why I began designing in the first place.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I currently work as a designer for CYLNDR. On a regular basis, I create brand systems, custom designed presentation decks and typesetting for printed materials.
Everything I create is influenced by typography. I love studying letterforms, learning about new typefaces, and geeking out over typefaces that are becoming blowing up in the zeitgeist. In many ways, I think Graphic design brings about that level of passion towards typography. It wasn’t until after going to Savannah College of Art & Design, that I realized there’s typography around us all around all the time. It’s on sign boards at the park, ticket stubs, posters, graffitied on walls etc.
As a kid, I grew up having an active dislike towards learning the alphabet and now I’m a little obsessive about it. The irony isn’t lost on me.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities
Actively looking at published design work: I think an integral part of design is to be able to distinguish between good design and bad design. You can’t learn one without the other. It is extremely important, to actively expose yourself to design work and critique the parts of it that work as well as the ones that don’t. It’ll help to develop a palette for design and help filter out bad design decisions.
Being kind to yourself:
It’s easy to compare yourself to others and feel like you’re lagging behind or taking longer on designs that others can do fast. In order create work that you’re proud of, you have to avoid beating yourself up about small failures, or your shortcomings. We’re all human. And it makes things an awful lot easier when your thought process isn’t rooted in negative self talk.
Find something unrelated to your job: Try to create work that isn’t related to your job in your free time. It’s hard and a lot of times harder even to write a brief for yourself or even to simply get started. But, doing stuff beyond your job, informs your design process and gives you an opportunity to get rid of the clutter in your head. You can make a lot happen by putting a pen to paper.
Lastly, take a break from constantly using digital sources to learn new things. Explore the analog route. There’s a lot more there and you’ll most likely end up with some cool outcomes that you probably wouldn’t have gotten from staring at the computer screen all day.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am looking to collaborate with any and all creative people. I think instagram has a great creative community and I would love to see what type we can make together. I am currently working on small project for my instagram page where I design custom type units based on movies, tv shows, pop culture etc.
If anybody would like to connect with me, they can follow me or reach out on my instagram page: @cartoonsforsquares!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://kneehaal.work/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cartoonsforsquares/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nihal-bambulkar-42288299/
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
