#63 | Kadambari Sahu | Driving new sensing experiences.

Designdrives

"Unfortunately or fortunately UX design is now being the hot topic everybody wants to give you suggestions. So how not get irritated but understand that why people are showcasing so much of interest is because our discipline matters and take it constructively and take that opportunity to educate people about not being a pretty picture but how it is driving strategy is important." - Kadambari Sahu.

We are super excited to launch another episode of Designdrives where we explore why, how, and what design drives forward.

In EP63 We chat with Kadambari Sahu SVP Design at ValueLabs, about her learnings working as a design leader for many years.

Recently she has been winning many global design awards and building up her design competence at Value Labs India.

Kadambari creates design cultures by infusing design thinking within organizations and businesses to create a holistic strategy and marketing experience.

We learn how she positioned up and build design within the company from scratch and grow raw responsibilities of design and value of design within the organization.

We also have a super interesting chat on one of her most awarded projects called "Sniffing out the differences" where we not only learn about the challenges and opportunities designing with smell as a creative medium but also the business value considering it in a commercial setup and what it could be if brands would invest into the design with sniffing.

With Kad, we jump into;

What were the key challenges that she had to face in the “Sniffing out the differences” project?

How can interaction designers and companies incorporate the sense of smell more into their projects?

What are the positive outcomes when designing with the “smell in mind”.

How does she grow and position design within the company?

What strategies she uses to communicate the business value to design.

Thanks a lot for your time and for learning Kad!

*****

The Guest

Kadambari Sahu is a Design Leader, working as SVP Design at ValueLabs.

She founded the award-winning design team, User Experience Group at ValueLabs, and is currently leading 50+ designers to create world-class and award-winning products and services to have a positive impact on businesses.

Kad is the founder of Sniffing out the Differences collective, which started with the grant received from Prince Claus Fund and the British Council to explore storytelling through multisensory installation with a focus on smell interactions.

Her forte lies in building, growing, coaching, and mentoring high-performance design teams from scratch.

She creates a design culture by infusing design thinking within organizations and businesses to create a holistic strategy and customer experience.

Her practice in design allows her to work on intangible and tangible aspects of design breaking the boundaries between physical, digital, and service design and creating a seamless experience across media, devices, touchpoints, cultures, and geographies.

She has worked for clients across geographies spanning, North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

She has won many awards for her work.

The latest includes Red Dot awards 2020, Vega Digital Award, DNA Paris 20 awards for Interactivity and Graphics, India’s Best Design Project 2019, India’s Best in-house design team, and many others.

She has been part of many national and international fellowships such as BMW Doathon, VR storytelling guild, etc.

She is an international speaker on design and has given talks at many design conferences such as Interaction 20, Interaction 18, organized by IxDA, UXindia, and many others.

She is on the international committee of World interaction design day and organizes and hosts the same in Hyderabad.

She is an alumna of the National Institute of Design, India, where she did her Post-graduation in New Media Design, which has led her to examine the impact that technologies have on human interactions and culture.

She has been curious about the role of design in everyday life and how human interactions can be mediated, shaped, enhanced, or augmented by technologies.