For some time I have been pondering on the idea of talking to you about the people who I believe have made a mark on today’s booming food industry. People who have created food brands. I know them, as I have worked with them over all the 15 years of my career as a Food Stylist and Photographer. These include Ad film directors, Cinematographers, Photographers, Creative directors, Design cells & Food entrepreneurs. Here is the first of the series of interviews I have conducted with them. I am sure you will find them to be  inspiring .

Ashwini Deshpande – Co-founder Elephant Strategy + Design, India’s largest independent design consultancy.

I met Ashwini Deshpande about 6 years back like I     meet so many other clients / artists on a shoot.        Since then we have worked together on a number of  projects for Britannia (almost the entire range) &  Venkys.

As a trained Graphic Designer from  NID, Ashwini embarked upon the unexplored sector  of design entrepreneurship in 1989. As India’s largest independent design consultancy, Elephant Design has played a pivotal role in establishing the business of design for over 21 years.

Elephant work has been recognized with several international awards including ReBrand International, Asiastar Packaging Excellence, International Spark, Global Green Gadgets etc.

Ashwini divides her time between teaching, pro bono work and professional consultancy to help products & services become relevant in the emerging markets; later being her priority at the moment.

Ashwini has lectured around the world in over 20 countries, Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Summit, Copenhagen Co-creation Summit & ICOGRADA Vancouver Design Week being some of the significant ones.

Saba: Tell us a bit about yourself. Where did you start? Your schooling? Your experiences?

Ashwini: I grew up in Aurangabad, a small town with limited exposure to global professions & trends. Always into creative expressions like art, model making, collages, I had built up an appetite for doing something creative in my growing up years, though I was not aware of the profession of design.  My parents were extremely supportive of my search for that unconventional creative pursuit. I was fortunate that I got to know of National Institute of Design just in time for seeking admission. It was a happy combination of luck and sincere will that got me a seat in batch of just 24 at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 1983 after few nationwide rounds of entrance exams, group activities & personal interview. Design education is very different from conventional academics. There were no text books or examinations. Your learning entirely depends upon your ability to explore, discover & grasp. Design is “learning by doing”. It took me a while to unlearn the system I had grown up into and start enjoying the self-learning pattern.

Saba: In year 1989 Elephant Design was a 2 member team. Today there is a large team working? And how big is the creative department?

Ashwini: Well… we were actually 6 friends that started Elephant in 1989. We are a strong independent team of 60+ today with multi-disciplinary design expertise & experience. Anywhere in the world, that is considered a big design office. However, it really does not matter how many people we gather. To us what matters the most is quality of our solutions. Creativity in design is always purposeful. A professional designer, by training knows his/ her responsibility towards society, economy and the environment. Today the team is richer with inclusion of design strategists, managers & researchers.

Saba: Where do you get your design inspiration from?

Ashwini:I get my inspiration from people that we design for. In India, the foremost concern for design is still the fact that design cannot add to the cost of a product or service. Design must add delight, comfort, excitement, give distinct experiences and satisfy different concerns for each of the stake holders. All this is possible only of you understand the user, consumer, buyer of whatever it is that we design. Observing real people & their environments is the true inspiration.

Saba: What goes into the packaging decisions on a food product?

Ashwini: Recently, I was interacting with brand managers of one India’s most loved foods company. When I asked them what their dream was, here is what an interesting answer was; “A shop has run out of my brand & someone who came looking for it went empty handed!”. Now… that is what a cult brand is. A brand that cannot be replaced by any other. I believe packaging a one of the biggest moments of truth in a brand experience. And for a food brand, the largest driver is how you show the food. At Elephant, we call it the “drool shot”. No matter what the pack contains, when it sits on shelf, it must entice the shopper and have him/ her drool over the contents. Apart from colour, shape & branding, food styling is the prime decision that talks to the intended audience.

Saba: You did a full-service design job for Venky’s recently you worked on their branding and then developed that into a full design for their packaging and their stores. How did the project come about?

Ashwini: Venky’s was an interesting project as it gave us the opportunity to renew branding and the entire eco-system of brand including identity, brand essence, positioning, portfolio architecture of all business verticals, packaging and stores.

Saba: What was the brief and how did you approach it?

Ashwini: To keep its brand relevant and aspirational, Venky’s brand needed to rejuvenate and transform to appeal and gain patronage of the new consumers and their changed aspirations. The company partnered with Elephant to achieve this objective through a Corporate Identity change. The challenge was to create a differentiated Identity and define a clear and effective Brand Architecture, that would be relevant to current consumers and differentiate Venky’s from competitors, while also integrating and highlighting the group’s values and legacy of being a pioneer of the poultry industry in India. To know more about this case study, visit http://elephantdesign.com.

Saba: What’s your design philosophy?

Ashwini:To make a positive difference by design!

Saba: Do you have a dream project?

Ashwini: Sure. I want Elephant team to design the Olympics Games identity & livery. With our experience in creating a benchmark at the Commonwealth Youth Games 2008, a global event with participation by 71 countries, this really would be the logical progression for us. For the Commonwealth Youth Games, our team created the identity, a green baton that went around the country spreading environmental awareness and over 2000 multi-sensorial applications related to the Games event.
Saba: What kinds of trends have you seen in food packaging over the time of your business?

Ashwini: Days of tins, wax paper or butter paper are gone. I see much more use of plastics. Printing techniques are much more evolved over the years &  you can now get some amazing effects that make food look even better than it actually is! Messaging has changed largely and now there is emphasis on information like “zero transfat” “no added sugar” etc. In terms of the contents or ingredients of the food product, there is a healthy regulatory watch that empowers consumers. Veg/ non-veg logo were are mandatory now & a consumer can clearly understand what the pack contains before buying or consuming. In terms of design, we have started using much more colour to be able to shout out of shelf, but I believe we will go a full circle & start creating some “quieter” packaging to stand out in the riot.

Saba: What has been the most rewarding project that you’ve worked on?

Ashwini: After 21 years of design practice, it is impossible to look back & pick one. And I am still very excited by whatever is at hand (otherwise we wouldn’t take it up!) So I always hope it is the one I am working on right now that will be our most rewarding project.

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Fried Bombay Ducks

Tandoori Crab

Butter Garlic Prawns

Stuffed Crab

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Chaas - Buttermilk

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Ingredients to cook Maharashtrian Pohe

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On the onset, let me confess that I do indeed enjoy styling & shooting Indian food.

But you would ask why?

Well, as crazy at is sounds, it’s for all the reasons that most people find it difficult to style & shoot, such as:

-          Almost all Indian gravies look alike

-          Very cumbersome to make

-          No variations possible in styling and camera angle

-          Can only garnish with Coriander leaves

-          All Indian gravies have to be served in bowls

-          Need a lot of accompaniments to compliment the dish

-         Can be only served in ethnic metallic plates & bowls & hence boring to                light & shoot

-         Most important is the close minded client, who thinks that Indian food               can look good in only one kind of set-up

Let me enumerate each of the points in details & how I try to enjoy working in such restriction.

All Indian curries/gravies look alike

Well for starters — they don’t!! The Daals, the Kadhis, the Rasams; every single gravy belongs to a different genre; each of these gravies are different in terms of look, color, consistency & texture. Yes, I agree that there are a number of Indian curries that have a similar style of cooking. But that is the challenge! With your styling and photography you need to show that difference. And that is exactly what I relish while styling.

Palak Paneer

Pakoda Kadhi

Egg Curry

Chicken Kolhapuri

Allow me to give you an example: I have now been styling for the last 15 years and I must have styled the famous dish, Dal Tadka, more than a 100 times or more, for different clients and purposes. But I have never managed to bore myself with it. Each of my food shots has something dissimilar, something unique that makes it stand out. It gives me great satisfaction to say that I have hopefully managed to incorporate that integral point into my own work.

Then there is also the problem that different curries may look alike, even though they are poles apart in terms of taste. I know that there will be a set of curries, or any food for that matter, in a job that may look similar, but it is the challenge of creating that difference that piques me and prepares me for another dull shoot.

So how do I achieve this?

I am a graduate in Hotel Management, from the Dadar Catering College-Mumbai. And I have studied Indian Regional Cuisine; the way food is cooked and served across the country. As a food stylist one needs to know the correct final look of all Indian food such as traditional methods of cooking, serving, etc. Indian food, be it curries or dals or rice or breads, all vary from region to region across India.

I actually find it fun to significantly alter the food presentation of each cuisine by using the so-called disadvantages such as lighting, layouts, garnishing, prop setup, etc. to my advantage! In my first book on the “Garnish” series, I have selected and shot 30 different Indian curies, illustrating each dish as diversely as possible. Few of the curries are showed in traditional props but few of them have been shot in a very contemporary setup. In fact I like to bend or break some basic rules while shooting an Indian curries. I like to combine my cuisine with that of a staple that it is regularly eaten with, instead of just shooting the dish alone. This helps me to improve the beauty of the shot and provides me with a completely new design.

Butter Chicken with Rice

Every Indian curry has a very unique texture, color & consistency. One cannot get away by saying that continental sauces are better to shoot as they easily look good due to their gloss & smoothness. I like working with coarse gravies. Besides styling food I even shoot food. And coarse gravies give a completely different lighting opportunity. Unlike continental smooth sauces coarse gravies catch highlights. They react very dynamically to directly light source and hence show a very appealing character. It’s actually fun to see how the coarse textures react to various sources of light.

As a stylist all you need to do is show the gravy texture correctly, ensure that all qualities of the gravy are enhanced and just enough for them to be recognizable.

Butter Chicken

Indian food be it gravies or Indian breads, you have an opportunity to shoot them in traditional, rustic setup with vivid backgrounds or you can make them really hi-key, I love shooting in both styles. Over the years, I have compiled an absolutely colossal collection of props bought from Good Earth’s to Ikea’s. And I ensure that my collection is always updated.

Dal Makhani (Traditional Setup)

Dal Makhani (Contemporary Setup)

I believe as a food stylist and a food photographer, one should know their food well, do a if required, good research & experiment with your creativity. Indian food shots rock!

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Doing food shots for a TV Commercial in daylight has been my first experience at the onset of 2010, I had been called for a mega shoot by one of my favorite directors of recent times; Latha Menon of Iris Films. The film is for a new brand of Dairy products to be shot in Sri Lanka. Obviously I was very excited by this proposition, having heard so much about Sri Lanka… I was told that the shoot was scheduled on top of a mountain range called Nuwareliya. And the most exciting part was that Latha had planned shooting the whole film, in daylight!!

Before I start my experience about shooting food for TV Commercials in day light I Would like to take you to the marvelous location selected by Latha. Nuwareliya is one of the most famous mountain range for its tea plantations. A variety of teas like Silver Tips, Orange Pekoe, and all the other varieties are specially grown and sold on Nuwareliya. The place, true to its claim is something close to paradise. It’s actually the vastness of the landscape that I was in awe of when I opened my eyes to see the first daylight from my car. The shoot was scheduled at one of the dairy farms on top of the hill. Cold, bright and with a lovely light from the sun it was an ideal location to shoot outdoors. As expected, the shoot was underway when I reached. Latha briefed me about what she expected from me for that day. Till then I was completely unaware of her plans to shoot live food images in the lush grasslands of Nuwareliya along with the rest of her film. But honestly, I never thought it would work. I mean, no-one had ever executed such a task before. What I didn’t realise then is that I was working with very evolved and open minded people and anything was possible.

 I am normally very used to doing all my food-related live action & pack shots in specifically controlled environments, where everything is controlled by the DOP (Director of Photography) and myself, preferably with an A.C. blowing cool wind across my forehead. Now here was Latha with her harebrained scheme suggesting us to come out of the box and cook in the sun, probably barbecuing ourselves in the process! To my utter surprise and indignation, even P.S. Vinod, the DOP, was game for this. That’s when I began realizing that this might work after all.

The shots were all defined and scheduled, and it felt exactly as if I was doing what I do best; with one small change – I was doing it outdoors. My first shot to begin got scheduled very abruptly as we had some extra time in between the models changing their costumes.. Under normal circumstances we would have wasted that little time with tea or snack breaks but rightly Latha realized that daylight cannot be extended even if we want to extend our shoot. Hence making the most of the little intervals we got in between set up changes and location changes, we started planning our food and pack shots..

By this time I had got totally consumed into the new challenge of composing each shot with as much ambient background as possible The DOP was on my side and hence together the two of us started planning the shot execution with only one thing in mind —- show off the lush greenery of the beautiful surroundings… Basically, close compositions with wide lens usually gives a good ambiance to play with. We worked up on this concept to shoot our images. We actually sat on the grass to start with my first shot!! The sun was also on my side, playing its magical light along with some filler lights on the packs and shots, and being chilly enough to prevent anything from melting … or barbecuing in that case! I saw so many of nature’s mystical effects on the food, such as the aforementioned sunlight tinkling on the packs, the mist swirling ominously in curls around the dairy whitener as it was poured through into cups, the sun rays beaming on the butter-glossed parathas in steamy pans and the glowing hues of dawn melting on the butter curls.

Here I would want to enumerate the fact that we are all so scared of shooting outdoors, but as I saw it was really not such a difficult task.. We could actually start shooting at anytime and literally anywhere as the DOP never needed to redo his lighting whenever he changed set ups from people to food. Just change the lenses maybe. The lights used as supplementary supports were minimally used. Of course the preparations have to be thorough from my side as well. There were no schedules that could be put in place.. One has to just flow along with nature. If the sun decides to go behind the clouds, you wait till it is bright again or maybe adjust the camera aperture values and move on.. Too unpredictable but some huge learning!!

On the whole it was an exhilarating experience. I learnt so many nuances of dealing with daylight. I am surely going to utilize this knowledge in my still photography. I am already planning a still shoot in actual daylight. All I need is an open minded client. Or I could just shoot my own pictures and display them to the client. He may not accept it, but that’s the risk I am ready to take. I am now eagerly waiting for the advertisement to release. Latha has already called on and congratulated me for the outstanding shots and I eagerly await the release.

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I had mentioned earlier about  my visit to Anuga. Now is the time to offload myself of that experience.

With 96 countries and close to 7000+ participants and an innumerable flood of visiors, this surely has been an unforgetable experience for me. I felt, it was more of a food carnival with added benefits of getting business done. There is so much of discourse, discussion & sampling among people who speak only one language  i.e. FOOD!

No other food exhibition in the world is as exhaustive in content. There were 10 categories in which the halls were divided. Each country having their individual pavilions in each respective categories. There were also these independent exhibitors with extremely elaborate stalls (these could hardly be called as stalls. They were exhibition halls in their own capacity).

It was amazing to observe people from each of these countries. Their culture, reflected in all their behaviours & their mannerisms. I had gone to Anuga to widen my horizons about the food world instead I ended up imbibing their culture as well.

The learning on the types of Olives, Peppers, Mushrooms, Nuts were just a few to name. I wish I could enumerate the warmth & respect I gathered from the exhibitors.

Innovations in food products as well as in technology was at its very best. A sticky rice sandwich ( called RICEWICH) a Soya Wrap roll, were just two to name.

Anuga is an experience that one just cant forget. Describing it all in one article is almost unachievable; hence I will try to give you a more exacting account of the entire food fest. I feel anybody, who is anybody in the food industry, must visit Anuga once. I have personally decided to make it every second year. The experience is amazing!

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I am right now looking forward to my trip to Germany.  We are visiting world’s largest food expo, ANUGA. The preparations for it were too tiring:

- To formulate a corporate identity

- To list down clients I need to meet

- To go thru the bookings  and applications

- To shop formal clothing

Phew!!

This is not the first time that i will be introducing myself to international clients but the apprehension and excitement is just as much. I almost feel like having come out of the shell to see a new world. I want to see how that world does business. My friend Amit Chilal, from Parampara Foods tells me that now we Indians are looked upon among the others with great respect.  I want to experience that. Having done enough and more work in the South East Asian and Middle East countries, this will be my first taste of Europe.

And here comes the icing on the cake, immediately after the 5 days of ANUGA, we are outbound to the Swiss Alps & the most culture bound Italy! My son Altamash wanted to visit Italy & hence we parents are tagging along after him. Its a three week long party.  Hectic too!!

I will be missing Diwali. So here’s wishing all you friends & colleagues a very very bright Diwali & a sunny year ahead! Lets all have fun!! To hell with recession!!

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