Introduction
As a designer and as an Art Director I have, over the years, worked for several reputed national and international brands. From conceptualising, designing, and prototyping profits to curating brand experiences, I have worked across several projects including ad campaigns, websites, user interfaces, brand and visual identity guidelines, apps, product packaging, concept designs, and mentoring talent. As an Art Director, I have taken on increasing levels of responsibility and have proven success in designing and managing campaigns that built engaging and enduring relationships with a diverse set of audiences.
Work Profile
Design Manager, Creative Services - Amazon
Nov 2014 - Present
Hired by Amazon Creative Services/D1 team (Amazon’s internal creative agency. A part of Global Integrated Marketing team) to develop design processes and methodologies for the region, develop skill sets. Was responsible for the initiation of key quality analysis metrics to better streamline the design flow and process and increase user engagement. Played a key role in ensuring collaboration and streamlined access to various internal and external creative teams including marketing, creative, producers, copy-writers, directors, etc. Was a key member of the hiring team that Source-out, Shortlist and Interview potential candidates for Amazon Creative Services
Sr. Art Director - Ogilvy & Mather
Jan 2014 - Nov 2014
Hired by Ogilvy & Mather, Bangalore to conceptualise and create ideas, design process flows, and other creatives (both online and offline) for their clients. Built a multidisciplinary collaboration at a very fast pace, deadline driven environment, working closely with advertising directors, editorial, and production teams. Worked on POS, merchandising, press, outdoor, DM, brochures and digital. Art Directed and designed digital and offline promotional materials including outdoor and print. Undertook 360-degree marketing campaigns featured on social media and was involved in all phases of creative projects from concept to execution.
Sr. Art Director - Saatchi & Saatchi
Jun 2013 - Dec 2013
Hired to develop and art direct advanced visual concepts, themes, and comps for high-impact deliverables and assets.
Lead the development of creative concepts for B2B clients and develop design strategies that align with brand values. Developed clear, concise branding messages by working with the account and strategy teams, copywriters, and the production teams. Drove customer-focused design language in creative briefs, provide art direction for the entire line of online services, and Initiate and lead creative sessions to kick-off projects. Ensured creative quality, consistency, and cohesiveness across all creative executions and continually elevate and innovate custom client solutions that cement the company as a leader in the space
Sr. Executive, Design - Cafe Coffee Day
Jun 2010 - Jun 2013
Hired to work closely with the internal teams to generate and create brand promotional ideas that create and sustain long-term engagement while also matching the business objectives of the organisation. Was responsible for coming up with original creative ideas, including illustrations and infographics. Was responsible for pre and post production quality checks.
Managed and directed photo shoots on time and to budget. Conceptualised, visualised and designed websites, UI for Apps, Marketing collaterals and Brand Identity.
And a few more organisations from Bangalore and Mumbai...
Oct 2005 onwards
Academics
Amazon India - Design Automation
Client: Amazon
Year: 2018 - 2019
Banner X / Designer Tool has recorded very low approval rates for automated banners in India. For instance, the approval rates in August 2018 was four-percentage (4%) in India, compared for eleven-percentage (11%) in the EU/NA and sixteen-percentage (16%) in JP. To improve the adoption rate for Banner X – automated creative, D1 had proposed a test between Automated page and Designer created event pages for three categories: Home and Kitchen, Large appliances and Consumables. Automated graphic will bring in –Faster TAT in HVG and production time of HVG graphic will be reduces to 25%. Automation in content grid event and BAU pages reduces manual design dependencies which takes 4 times longer ETA to turn the design around, and manual design support is costlier Vs automated graphics as it requires more designers to support to produce graphics that comes on level-1/2 onward pages that have lesser and lesser traffic.
Challenges and limitations with the available tools and process:
Designer Tool:
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Lacks region-specific creatives
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Incompatibility with image composition for categories like OHL/Consumables
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Lacks region-specific guideline integration (superscript of symbols like % and ₹)
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Lacks options to add bank offers/trust icons, etc
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Challenges with integrating vernacular / Hindi version of mobile experiences
Banner X:
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is not a design tool
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relies on algorithms and rules to arrange content into a banner
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pre-determined and standardised design output
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lacks region-specific templates and use-cases
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lacks image composition features and custom colour selections
The existing BannerX engine is automated in such a way that that tool creates graphics according to a series of standardized inputs and passes them through a set of laters that determine layout and presentation. However, lack of region-specific templates and use-cases along with its lack of image composition features and custom colour selection alienates marketers from adopting BannerX and pushes them to work with the designers. In India, there is a reliance on designers and design teams to create more “bling” as the automated banners do not satisfy most users (see Appendix I for example banner).
Automated vs designer created event pages | Jan ART 2019
Test during Jan-ART to check store performance between – (A) Manually designed store experience, Vs (B) Store experience created with automated graphics to determine whether or not automated graphics hamper store performance. The basis on the test results will extend the automated experience on to other ART events, category and sub-category pages.
Experience
We’ve tested two experience for three categories:
C (Designer created) and T (Automated) customer Experience
Metrics
Following are the key Web-lab metrics C (Designer created) and T (Automated):
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0.13% (p= 0.59) Conversion
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+0.08% (p= 0.915) OPS
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+0.68% (p=0.176) units
Launch criteria was that OPS be flat or increasing. Since OPS increased but p-value was inconclusive (Large appliances page affected the entire web-lab negatively due to wrong scheduling)
Key learnings
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Last-minute inputs from multiple business and category teams delayed production of both experiences and made of mismatch of background colours.
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Automation tool has limitation of incorporating longer category/product names. Will reach out to the tech. team to explore the options to add three lines of text for future events
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Single ASIN tiles are preferred over ASIN collage as ASIN collages have to be created using the designer tool and the same has to be uploaded on the media centre which is time-consuming.
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Brand logos/brand farms had legibility issues as the tool reduced the same beyond minimum size.
Next steps
Since p-value was inconclusive the test extended on Holi event pages and May ART event pages to see if automation is successful.
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Test on Holi event pages both PC and mobile.
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All May – ART event pages (content grid) will be tested against the designer created experience
Holi Store 19 (Automated Vs manual designed store experience)
D1 ran a test during Holi store to check store tiles performance between – Manually designed tiles Vs automated tile graphics. This test is to determine whether or not automated graphic experience hamper store performance. Basis on the test results we will extend the automated experience on to other ART events, category and sub-category pages. The objective of this experiment is to reduce dependency on design team for graphics which can be automated using Freeway tool. The graphics tested for automation were only tiles which had no logo units.
Metrics
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Abandonment rate: +7.55% probable increase
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N2GL: -0.37% inconclusive
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Units: +0.44%, probable increase
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Units conditional: +0.39%, probable increase
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Log OPS: -0.14%, probable decrease
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Conversion: 0.05% inconclusive
Reomendation
The web lab has not met the launch criteria of a) Negative impact or no change in Abandonment rate and b) No negative impact on any business Metrics (OPS, Conversion).We recommend not launching this experience. However, this experiment needs to be repeated and iterated on other merchandised pages where design element is required for a longer duration.
Features added basis on A.in requirement
Line Breaks in Automated Banners for all Freeway Marketplaces
The Content Creation (CC) team has launched the ability to add Line Breaks in Automated Banners for all Freeway marketplaces. Previously, this feature was only enabled for China and Japan.
Banner X 3 lines headline
Basis on A.in event requirements, on March Content creation team launched the feature to define headlines or subtext on 3 lines which enabled the SM’s / Marketers to improve the usage of automation tool. Earlier the usage was limited due to only usage of two lines text.
Accents / Bling elements
Accents can be illustrations, textures, or any other subtle background elements that appear within banners. In BannerX, accents are meant to be subtle elements that can appear behind text without risking legibility. The contrast between the background color and accent should be minimal as the ASIN or other imagery features in the banner should still be the primary focus.
