Karigari Design | Designs that talk

Before she began churning out Cannes-nominated designs from a corner space in a stock Mumbai mall—packed between a travel agency and a clothes store— 30-year-old Neha Shah worked as an account director in Ogilvy and Mather.

The 2006 Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, graduate has had stints at Ogilvy, Lowe, and award-winning copywriter Pushpinder Singh’s advertising start-up Saints and Warriors (where she was the first employee). But that was to learn the ropes. The intention was never to go up the corporate ladder. “I never wanted to be a CEO of any other company but my own,” she says.

Shah comes from an advertising bloodline. Her grandfather set up Mercantile—one of India’s oldest ad agencies—around 55 years ago. When she quit Ogilvy in 2008, it was to try her hand at what she calls the family business. But Mercantile worked with financial clients (“That’s where the money is,” she sighs), which offered her scant creative opportunities.

Shah tried to develop her own design operations while at Mercantile till she was asked to leave. “My uncle told me that I couldn’t go on using the office space for my start-up,” says Shah.

Sitting on one of the quirky angular shelves designed in-house are three tokens of design excellence that Karigari Design Inc., launched in early 2009, has already bagged—a Cannes Lions Design Finalist (2009), a One Show Design Bronze (2010) and a D&AD in-book nomination (2010). They’re all for a set of visiting cards that Karigari created for its third client—The Backpacker Co., a company that “guides” backpacking trips around the world. Karigari printed their visiting cards on easy-to-carry-and-use soap strips!

Reality check

Traditionally, advertising agencies took a 15% cut of their clients’ total advertising budgets. This is as low as 5% now. In this scenario, securing a stable financial future is a big challenge for Shah. “I’m not selling detergent, I’m selling ideas and the cost value is subjective,” says Shah, who recalls a local jeweller who gave her Rs 10,000 in cash for a store design campaign and a lot of blessings in lieu of the full payment.

Plan B

“I put all my savings into this so there really was no Plan B,” says Shah.

Secret sauce

Self-belief. “It really burns your heart when you have to write two cheques every day while you’re still not making any money...the only thing that keeps one going is a ridiculous degree of self-confidence,” says Shah.