Red Study explores the emotional intelligence of color through minimalist composition and portrait direction. The series captures the duality of red, its ability to embody both intimacy and intensity, both human warmth and conceptual control.
Each frame balances geometry and expression. The portraits are structured, yet soft. The objects, though still, carry rhythm. The color becomes the narrative itself, dictating energy, guiding focus, and shaping perception before context appears.
When I joined Kyari in March 2024, the problem wasn't effort. It was direction. Teams were working in silos. No shared standard, no positioning, nothing holding it together. Two designers in-house with no creative direction above them. 30 SKUs across one category. A logo from the founding year with nothing behind it.
The revenue was real. Every rupee of it was bought with paid spend. 90 lakhs a month at peak. No brand underneath it to justify the price, hold the customer, or survive the moment the ads stopped.
When I joined Kyari in March 2024, the problem wasn’t effort. It was direction. Teams were working in silos. No shared standard, no positioning, nothing holding it together. Two designers in-house with no creative direction above them. 30 SKUs across one category. A logo from the founding year with nothing behind it.
The revenue was real. Every rupee of it was bought with paid spend. 90 lakhs a month at peak. No brand underneath it to justify the price, hold the customer, or survive the moment the ads stopped.
The brief had no spine. Not because the team was weak. Because no one had decided what the brand actually stood for. When creative output is fragmented, the problem is almost never execution. It's that no one upstream made the decisions that give execution a direction. Positioning touches everything. What you build. What you charge. What you say no to. We didn't stop to fix the brand. The business kept running. The positioning work happened underneath it, brief by brief, surface by surface, until everything was pointing the same direction.
The brief had no spine. Not because the team was weak. Because no one had decided what the brand actually stood for. When creative output is fragmented, the problem is almost never execution. It’s that no one upstream made the decisions that give execution a direction. Positioning touches everything. What you build. What you charge. What you say no to. We didn’t stop to fix the brand. The business kept running. The positioning work happened underneath it, brief by brief, surface by surface, until everything was pointing the same direction.
01
Brand Architecture
Started with the positioning question nobody had answered: what category does Kyari actually own? Plant seller was a dead end. Every competitor lived there. We moved the brand into decor-led lifestyle. Defined the emotional territory, the customer, and the narrative from scratch. That strategic foundation then touched every surface. 30 SKUs became 200+ across 7 categories. Every single one built against the new standard.
01
Brand Architecture
Started with the positioning question nobody had answered: what category does Kyari actually own? Plant seller was a dead end. Every competitor lived there. We moved the brand into decor-led lifestyle. Defined the emotional territory, the customer, and the narrative from scratch. That strategic foundation then touched every surface. 30 SKUs became 200+ across 7 categories. Every single one built against the new standard.
02
Creative Operations
Ran the creative function as the only decision-maker. Social, performance, packaging, shoots, influencer, PR. I also built quality checks across our 3 warehouses to make sure what we shipped matched what we shot. Brand integrity doesn't stop at the asset. It ends at the customer's door. The founders handed over full creative authority because they trusted the direction completely. Creative clarity meant we stopped making bulk ads that had no direction. We made what the brand actually needed. That performed. Ad spend dropped 60%, from 90 lakhs a month to 35-40 lakhs.
03
AI Creative Department
Built the first AI creative department in the D2C home and lifestyle space in India. The hard problem wasn't getting the team on the tools. It was that Kyari's planters didn't exist in any training data anywhere. Every model produced something generic. Four to five months of real work, real briefs, real failures before we had a workflow that rendered the actual product accurately, still and video both. Team went from 15 to 4. Output didn't drop. Production costs came down 70%. The AI system didn't replace the creative standard. It served it.
02
Creative Operations
Ran the creative function as the only decision-maker. Social, performance, packaging, shoots, influencer, PR. I also built quality checks across our 3 warehouses to make sure what we shipped matched what we shot. Brand integrity doesn’t stop at the asset. It ends at the customer’s door. The founders handed over full creative authority because they trusted the direction completely. Creative clarity meant we stopped making bulk ads that had no direction. We made what the brand actually needed. That performed. Ad spend dropped 60%, from 90 lakhs a month to 35-40 lakhs.
03
AI Creative Department
Built the first AI creative department in the D2C home and lifestyle space in India. The hard problem wasn’t getting the team on the tools. It was that Kyari’s planters didn’t exist in any training data anywhere. Every model produced something generic. Four to five months of real work, real briefs, real failures before we had a workflow that rendered the actual product accurately, still and video both. Team went from 15 to 4. Output didn’t drop. Production costs came down 70%. The AI system didn’t replace the creative standard. It served it.
The window for Shark Tank opened while the rebrand was still running. Diwali, our biggest sale season, had just ended and we started prep immediately. 25 days from Indore to change every front-facing asset. Website, product shoots, packaging, socials. The rebrand wasn't complete but the Shark Tank shoot deadline didn't move. We made the calls on what mattered most and held the standard through all of it. Then I traveled to Mumbai and directed the shoot on the day, from the brand's point of view. The sharks praised the branding, the packaging, the logo. On screen. Unprompted. In the same episode, another brand from the same category appeared. They had an identity, just not a strong one. No positioning clarity, no numbers to back it. The difference showed in the room, in the founders' clarity, and on national television.
The window for Shark Tank opened while the rebrand was still running. Diwali, our biggest sale season, had just ended and we started prep immediately. 25 days from Indore to change every front-facing asset. Website, product shoots, packaging, socials. The rebrand wasn’t complete but the Shark Tank shoot deadline didn’t move. We made the calls on what mattered most and held the standard through all of it. Then I traveled to Mumbai and directed the shoot on the day, from the brand’s point of view. The sharks praised the branding, the packaging, the logo. On screen. Unprompted. In the same episode, another brand from the same category appeared. They had an identity, just not a strong one. No positioning clarity, no numbers to back it. The difference showed in the room, in the founders’ clarity, and on national television.
Brand strategy compounds. It doesn't spike. Over two years, here's where Kyari landed.
Brand strategy compounds. It doesn’t spike. Over two years, here’s where Kyari landed.
Brand strategy takes time to move through a business. You set the direction, build the systems, hold the standard across every surface, and then you wait for it to compound. That's the work. Not the rebrand reveal. The two years of every brief, every asset, every quality check at three warehouses being held to the same standard. A Creative Director sits where business strategy meets the thing the customer actually sees. That gap, between what a brand intends and what it delivers, is where most brands quietly lose. Closing it takes more than good taste. It takes a system, a standard, and someone accountable to both. From the brief to the warehouse to the final asset. I don't manage tasks. I manage the integrity of the brand from vision to execution.
Brand strategy takes time to move through a business. You set the direction, build the systems, hold the standard across every surface, and then you wait for it to compound. That’s the work. Not the rebrand reveal. The two years of every brief, every asset, every quality check at three warehouses being held to the same standard. A Creative Director sits where business strategy meets the thing the customer actually sees. That gap, between what a brand intends and what it delivers, is where most brands quietly lose. Closing it takes more than good taste. It takes a system, a standard, and someone accountable to both. From the brief to the warehouse to the final asset. I don’t manage tasks. I manage the integrity of the brand from vision to execution.