Founder and Design Director of Lollypop UI/UX Design Studio Anil Reddy shares his thoughts on how Design can enhance businesses in a session titled, ‘Impact of Design in Growing Businesses’, hosted by IIMB’s Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management, as part of the LeaderSpeak Series
31 October, 2021, Bengaluru: A world-class design leader with a deep conviction in the power of design in transforming businesses, Anil Reddy, Founder and Design Director, Lollypop Design Studio, took the audience through an immersive talk on design, on October 24 (Sunday), 2021, as part of the LeaderSpeak Series, hosted by IIM Bangalore’s two-year weekend Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM). Sixth in the series, the session was titled, ‘Impact of Design in Growing Businesses’. During the session, Anil shared his life journey and anecdotes from his vast professional experience of 23 years in the design industry. In a wide-ranging talk, he spoke about how he practiced art, how the conviction for design developed in him and how to apply various technical elements scientifically to bring about the art that is design and enhance business.
“Artist by heart, designer by soul and an entrepreneur by choice” – read the candid introduction of Anil. Talking about what changed his view of art at a very young age itself, he recollected a childhood experience when he and a bunch of his friends tried to sketch a pigeon and none of them got it right. He tried it again the next day and kept trying until he got it right. That’s when he felt completely fascinated by the whole chemistry between pencil and paper, and with art in general. He would visualize any topic given to him at school and sketch the compositions instead of narrating it in words. Though his teachers were unhappy initially, they eventually encouraged him to participate in drawing competitions if that was what he was really interested in. That’s how his journey started as an artist, he shared, and added: “Art is all about practice!”
Anil did his graduation in Chitra Kala Parishad, a design college in Bengaluru, at a time when design as a career did not have much prospect. He started as a traditional designer creating artwork by hand, working for newspaper agencies, magazines, creating movie sets and even spending some time in Chennai to explore a career in art direction. In 2000, when he was introduced to computers, he tried doing on computers whatever he was doing on paper, and that is when he saw an entire world of opportunities opening up for him. “I fell in love with technology and everything that design was heading towards,” he said.
Anil later moved to New Zealand for his Master’s in Design and Psychology. He lived there for 11 years, working for reputed advertising agencies like Ogilvy and TBWA, serving clients such as Nike, Adidas, Nissan, Nestle, etc. “It was a time when all the big brands were exploring the digital space. They wanted to have a digital presence shifting from traditional advertising,” Anil recollected.
In 2011, at the helm of his career, at a point when he was well recognized in the ad agency network, Anil came back to India to start Lollypop with a dream of spreading the design-first approach. “From the time when organizations approached tech firms first for their digital products and approached design studios at the fag end to beautify the solution, to today when designers are an integral part of decision making and product journey, Design has come a long way. Design is now being practiced across domains, and is no more confined to design colleges, artists and architects. It has gone beyond those small studios and practices,” remarked Anil summing up how his entrepreneurial journey began.
A Beautiful Solution
“Design is a beautiful solution”, continued Anil. “It solves a problem. It provides a solution and beautifies too. People love it when content is offered in a consumable way. If it only solves a problem, people say it is good. If it is beautiful too, then they say ‘wow’! Design is the first touch point that motivates users to try a product. If it solves the problem, then they go ahead and buy it. Some consumers buy a product when it is beautiful, even if they don’t need it.”
“At Lollypop, we listen to business, we listen to users, we see what the problem is, try multiple solutions, pick up the one that works and beautify it to give that ‘wow experience’. Later we move to technology, build, test and launch it!”
A beautiful solution can be delivered through the key elements of Strategy, Psychology, Technology and Art, he pointed out. “Mastering tools and technology does not make a great design in itself. It is important for designers to understand why the clients are engaging them in the first place to come up with that wow experience. This requires getting into the shoes of the client, understanding their business aspects and how the design impacts the business and brand”.
“Design being subjective, clients can be unclear initially as to what they really want. A design-first approach is not a graphics-first approach, it is a solution-based approach. The designers need to analyze existing problems and challenges in the business and how they can be solved to build more trust in end customers. It is not uncommon for a beautiful looking interface that eliminates redundancies and old clutter, slowing down a business initially. End customers may not appreciate it enough when they are used to old interfaces and environment, for example, as in the case of legacy software. It is very important to understand end customers, their tech savviness, and the length and breadth of user categories, explained Anil, summing up the role of Strategy in Design, and added, “A proper strategy bridges the gap between client expectations and customer impact and experience and helps in measuring the ROI of the design”.
Talking about Psychology, Anil said Psychology helps designers understand things such as – whom they are designing it for, which user demographics or personas the design caters to, what the potential users like, want and need, and what makes them happy. “A proper design makes decision making easy for end users.” Explaining how understanding fears and behavioral patterns of the users is important, he cited an instance wherein a wonderful technological solution was designed to help farmers cycling miles just to switch on and off the water motors to water their crops. An SMS based trigger that can operate the motors remotely was provided, yet many farmers took a while to trust technology to water their crop lands. A great deal of study of humans goes into the process of coming up with solutions with excellent presentation, he added.
The Wow Experience to Customers
After listening to the business needs by applying strategy and arriving at a solution by understanding the customer needs through psychology, the solution gets translated into a wow experience, a beautified solution, by applying Art and Technology, according to Anil. “The brand and identity need to be conveyed to the user through design and content. Content is not mere verbal text – it is a story being narrated to the user. The content should trigger a connection and conversation with the user. Technology has to be humanized. Colors, brightness, fonts and images – all these aspects have a psychological impact. Even trivial things such as micro animations make users fall in love with an interface enhancing the user engagement. When all the elements do not add up correctly, users get frustrated to use the interface and that impacts business”.
Talking about the role of Technology in Design, Anil said there are many important decisions businesses need to take in association with technology partners, such as, the investment they are ready to make, which platform is being picked, time and cost involved, whether skill and talent are available for such platforms, can all the magic that was planned through strategy, psychology and art, be translated into code? Is the technology scalable, customizable, adaptable, and secure to create a seamless experience for the users? “Today, Technology is no more restricted. It is pretty vast and unlimited. Technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality enable designers to come up with the most creative solutions and immersive experience for users”.
Touching Lives
Anil mentioned how Lollypop applies these four aspects of Strategy, Psychology, Art, and Technology to enhance the business of brands such as Myntra, Paytm and Vodafone Idea. “Through impactful design solutions, Lollypop has touched more than a billion lives and along the way, garnered national and international recognition and awards. At Lollypop, we celebrate design. It is a myth that Art is God given – it is all about practice and dedication, and it can be nurtured”, he signed off.
The YouTube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT2DhMAvMRQ
Founder and Design Director of Lollypop UI/UX Design Studio Anil Reddy shares his thoughts on how Design can enhance businesses in a session titled, ‘Impact of Design in Growing Businesses’, hosted by IIMB’s Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management, as part of the LeaderSpeak Series
31 October, 2021, Bengaluru: A world-class design leader with a deep conviction in the power of design in transforming businesses, Anil Reddy, Founder and Design Director, Lollypop Design Studio, took the audience through an immersive talk on design, on October 24 (Sunday), 2021, as part of the LeaderSpeak Series, hosted by IIM Bangalore’s two-year weekend Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM). Sixth in the series, the session was titled, ‘Impact of Design in Growing Businesses’. During the session, Anil shared his life journey and anecdotes from his vast professional experience of 23 years in the design industry. In a wide-ranging talk, he spoke about how he practiced art, how the conviction for design developed in him and how to apply various technical elements scientifically to bring about the art that is design and enhance business.
“Artist by heart, designer by soul and an entrepreneur by choice” – read the candid introduction of Anil. Talking about what changed his view of art at a very young age itself, he recollected a childhood experience when he and a bunch of his friends tried to sketch a pigeon and none of them got it right. He tried it again the next day and kept trying until he got it right. That’s when he felt completely fascinated by the whole chemistry between pencil and paper, and with art in general. He would visualize any topic given to him at school and sketch the compositions instead of narrating it in words. Though his teachers were unhappy initially, they eventually encouraged him to participate in drawing competitions if that was what he was really interested in. That’s how his journey started as an artist, he shared, and added: “Art is all about practice!”
Anil did his graduation in Chitra Kala Parishad, a design college in Bengaluru, at a time when design as a career did not have much prospect. He started as a traditional designer creating artwork by hand, working for newspaper agencies, magazines, creating movie sets and even spending some time in Chennai to explore a career in art direction. In 2000, when he was introduced to computers, he tried doing on computers whatever he was doing on paper, and that is when he saw an entire world of opportunities opening up for him. “I fell in love with technology and everything that design was heading towards,” he said.
Anil later moved to New Zealand for his Master’s in Design and Psychology. He lived there for 11 years, working for reputed advertising agencies like Ogilvy and TBWA, serving clients such as Nike, Adidas, Nissan, Nestle, etc. “It was a time when all the big brands were exploring the digital space. They wanted to have a digital presence shifting from traditional advertising,” Anil recollected.
In 2011, at the helm of his career, at a point when he was well recognized in the ad agency network, Anil came back to India to start Lollypop with a dream of spreading the design-first approach. “From the time when organizations approached tech firms first for their digital products and approached design studios at the fag end to beautify the solution, to today when designers are an integral part of decision making and product journey, Design has come a long way. Design is now being practiced across domains, and is no more confined to design colleges, artists and architects. It has gone beyond those small studios and practices,” remarked Anil summing up how his entrepreneurial journey began.
A Beautiful Solution
“Design is a beautiful solution”, continued Anil. “It solves a problem. It provides a solution and beautifies too. People love it when content is offered in a consumable way. If it only solves a problem, people say it is good. If it is beautiful too, then they say ‘wow’! Design is the first touch point that motivates users to try a product. If it solves the problem, then they go ahead and buy it. Some consumers buy a product when it is beautiful, even if they don’t need it.”
“At Lollypop, we listen to business, we listen to users, we see what the problem is, try multiple solutions, pick up the one that works and beautify it to give that ‘wow experience’. Later we move to technology, build, test and launch it!”
A beautiful solution can be delivered through the key elements of Strategy, Psychology, Technology and Art, he pointed out. “Mastering tools and technology does not make a great design in itself. It is important for designers to understand why the clients are engaging them in the first place to come up with that wow experience. This requires getting into the shoes of the client, understanding their business aspects and how the design impacts the business and brand”.
“Design being subjective, clients can be unclear initially as to what they really want. A design-first approach is not a graphics-first approach, it is a solution-based approach. The designers need to analyze existing problems and challenges in the business and how they can be solved to build more trust in end customers. It is not uncommon for a beautiful looking interface that eliminates redundancies and old clutter, slowing down a business initially. End customers may not appreciate it enough when they are used to old interfaces and environment, for example, as in the case of legacy software. It is very important to understand end customers, their tech savviness, and the length and breadth of user categories, explained Anil, summing up the role of Strategy in Design, and added, “A proper strategy bridges the gap between client expectations and customer impact and experience and helps in measuring the ROI of the design”.
Talking about Psychology, Anil said Psychology helps designers understand things such as – whom they are designing it for, which user demographics or personas the design caters to, what the potential users like, want and need, and what makes them happy. “A proper design makes decision making easy for end users.” Explaining how understanding fears and behavioral patterns of the users is important, he cited an instance wherein a wonderful technological solution was designed to help farmers cycling miles just to switch on and off the water motors to water their crops. An SMS based trigger that can operate the motors remotely was provided, yet many farmers took a while to trust technology to water their crop lands. A great deal of study of humans goes into the process of coming up with solutions with excellent presentation, he added.
The Wow Experience to Customers
After listening to the business needs by applying strategy and arriving at a solution by understanding the customer needs through psychology, the solution gets translated into a wow experience, a beautified solution, by applying Art and Technology, according to Anil. “The brand and identity need to be conveyed to the user through design and content. Content is not mere verbal text – it is a story being narrated to the user. The content should trigger a connection and conversation with the user. Technology has to be humanized. Colors, brightness, fonts and images – all these aspects have a psychological impact. Even trivial things such as micro animations make users fall in love with an interface enhancing the user engagement. When all the elements do not add up correctly, users get frustrated to use the interface and that impacts business”.
Talking about the role of Technology in Design, Anil said there are many important decisions businesses need to take in association with technology partners, such as, the investment they are ready to make, which platform is being picked, time and cost involved, whether skill and talent are available for such platforms, can all the magic that was planned through strategy, psychology and art, be translated into code? Is the technology scalable, customizable, adaptable, and secure to create a seamless experience for the users? “Today, Technology is no more restricted. It is pretty vast and unlimited. Technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality enable designers to come up with the most creative solutions and immersive experience for users”.
Touching Lives
Anil mentioned how Lollypop applies these four aspects of Strategy, Psychology, Art, and Technology to enhance the business of brands such as Myntra, Paytm and Vodafone Idea. “Through impactful design solutions, Lollypop has touched more than a billion lives and along the way, garnered national and international recognition and awards. At Lollypop, we celebrate design. It is a myth that Art is God given – it is all about practice and dedication, and it can be nurtured”, he signed off.
The YouTube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT2DhMAvMRQ