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There has never been a wider canvas for design – in conversation with Aashish Solanki of NetBramha Studios >
by Madanmohan Rao [October 31, 2025]
In this series of interviews, innovation platform MXR.world (‘mixers across the world’) showcases design leaders speaking at the upcoming DesignUp 2025 conference in Bengaluru (https://25.designup.io). In our earlier interview, we featured design strategist and educator Arvind Lodaya (https://www.mxr.world/inxights/designup-arvind-lodaya).
Positioned at the intersection of design, technology, and business innovation, the ninth edition of DesignUp celebrates the strategic and human impact of design in shaping products, services, and organisations. It explores how design culture and ecosystems drive innovation, inclusion, and transformation across industries.
In this interview, we feature Aashish Solanki, Founder and CEO of NetBramha Studios, one of India’s leading strategy-led design consultancies. Over two decades, he has shaped experiences for 250+ brands, including Google, Microsoft, and Unilever, impacting over a billion users worldwide.
A self-taught designer and serial entrepreneur, Aashish is also the force behind Design Day, one of India’s largest grassroots design communities. He regularly teaches at the IIMs and other top universities, blending practice with mentorship.
At DesignUp 2025, Aashish will be presenting his deeply personal take on design leadership,one that is forged through curiosity, resilience, and the long road to belonging. In this interview, he shares what meaningful design impact looks like, examples of effective design in India, the rise of GenAI, and new opportunities opening up in design for youth today.
Madan: What does meaningful design impact look like — not just in metrics, but in how it changes people’s behaviour or decisions?
Aashish: Design can restore lost conscience. In a world chasing fast deliveries, growth, and endless dopamine, good design reminds us about nature, time, and to value human wellbeing.
When design changes what people value – how they spend, how they treat each other, and impact what they choose to solve – that is real impact. Behaviour change is far more powerful than any dashboard.
Design is a great tool for social, economic and technological change. I am imagining a day where design ends and prevents wars, empowers local communities, solves for global health, creates a sustainable human to nature relationship, inspires humanity to do more good than harm, and becomes a global tool for solving complex problems.
Madan: What are the top three outstanding examples you have seen of effective design in India?
Aashish: India’s most effective design is often invisible.
1. Copper water vessels and matka pots are simple examples of design solving health, cooling, and taste without electricity or instructions.
2. Indian social fabric and setup is an excellent design that tackles issues like depression andloneliness automatically to a great extent. It even fosters kids’ learning, sharing, empathy, and problem-solving very early in their life.
3. Our financial inclusion system across UPI, banks, post offices, and so on are quite powerful and very under-rated given that we are a country with a population of 1.4 billion.
Madan: What can be done to improve ‘design appreciation’ in India among ‘non-designers’?
Aashish:
1. Celebrating design through various initiatives will help. Entrepreneurship is now widely recognised and appreciated, we must strive to do the same for design through media, stories, impact, education, and celebration in every form and in every medium, whether digital, TV, print, or radio. It should even be government policy to mandate design celebration!
2. Mandatory design as a subject from Class One. We should treat design like a life skill, teach it in schools, colleges, and workplaces – not as an afterthought. When people understand usability, empathy and systems thinking early, they make better decisions later.
3. Ask both the state and central government to set up a design ministry. Their goal is to promote, propagate, educate, practice, cross-pollinate, and celebrate design in every form.
4. Foster design studios and design accelerators at grass root levels.
Madan: How do you view GenAI – as a serious challenge for designers, or an indispensable tool? How does one upskill oneself in this context?
Aashish: This is a phenomenal time to be a designer! GenAI is a great tool for sure.
The gap between imagination and execution has collapsed.
AI is not replacing creativity – it is removing excuses. The more we embrace it, the more we can explore, iterate, and build. Upskilling means curiosity, play, and willingness to unlearn old rigidity. Of course, this also means we must give up our fear of change.
Madan: What are some of your favourite books on design?
Aashish: Change by Design (Tim Brown), Steal Like an Artist (Austin Kleon), and The Tiny Dragon.
Madan: What new opportunities are opening up in design for youth today?
Aashish: Design is no longer limited to screens. Young designers can work in sustainability, public services, healthcare, education, climate, mobility – areas with real human impact.
India needs design for villages, small businesses, accessibility, and public tech. There has never been a wider canvas!
Madan: What are your three tips or words of advice for aspiring 'design entrepreneurs' today?
Aashish: Design is difficult. Design entrepreneurship is even more challenging. Get mentors from Day Zero.
Solve for real needs, and also learn finance. Travel and shamelessly share your story – inspiration, opportunity and business can come from anywhere, anytime!
Madan: What role should design leaders play in keeping innovation humane, inclusive, ethical?
Aashish:
Design leaders are custodians. First, we must hold ourselves accountable – remove our own bias, stay transparent, and listen more than we speak. We shape how products speak, behave, and influence people. The language, frameworks, and semantics we create become culture. Our job is to push boundaries responsibly, not blindly.
As leaders we should also embrace larger design challenges that shape public life, policy, and inclusive education. The more we engage with leadership at companies, governments, incubators, educational institutions, the larger the impact of design that can be achieved over the long term. Design is a great tool for social, economic and technological change.
Madan: Any other comments or remarks you would like to make?
Aashish: This is a great time to be doing design. Good design will reshape how citizens access public services, how health and education reach people, and how quality of life rises across the country.
India is a great design super power to be unleashed given our history of non-violence, empathy, excellence, hardworking nature, and youth brimming with energy and ideas. At NetBramha we are very excited to ‘Design from India, for the world!’
As the Sanskrit phrase goes, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam – the whole world is one family.
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