House of Experts Ep 22: Vibha Kagzi in Conversation with Bhavika

House of Experts is a show that ReachIvy kick-started to help those who are unclear about their career choices. We hope through these sessions with some very successful people, we can shed light on a new career path every week. House of Experts plans to make a collection of interactive and informative sessions with experts from various domains. 

Vibha Kagzi, the host, is the Founder and CEO of ReachIvy.com, a premium study abroad and career consultancy organization. Vibha, a Harvard alumna, is a successful entrepreneur and believes in helping others chalk out their future careers. In Episode 22 of House of Experts, we were fortunate to host the Founder and CEO of Beyondesign. Bhavika is a design thinker, brand builder, design teacher, and a lifelong student at heart. She has an impressive career trajectory having worked with global brands like The Taj Group of Hotels, Universal Music, Genesis Colours (Satya Paul, Deepika Gehani), The Essar Group, and many others.

Beyondesign is known to provide effective and extraordinary solutions to brands catering to a wide variety of fields, ranging from corporate identity design, branding strategy to package and promotion design! They are known to help brands connect with their customers!

1) Tell us about your early years and education. 
I was truly a meek and a shy child. My father comes from a business background and my mother is an artist and I feel this is blend is what has gotten me where I am today! I started at the Bombay international school and went to UWC after. Studying in an international boarding school gave me immense exposure and introduced me to the design and art culture at a young age. Post that I went to MS university in Baroda for my graduation and did my master’s degree in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art and Design, USA.

2) What goes on behind building a brand?
During my years of teaching branding and design at ISDI, I deciphered that a brand is a promise and branding is a promise kept. So according to me branding is not only about the colours or the icon or the font, it’s an entire persona of the work culture. What we do with most of our clients is that, we create a character board and humanise the product/service. We then look at what the personality, traits, qualities, positives and negatives would be and then create a brand persona around it.

3) In today’s age with social media around, how does branding work?
It all truthfully comes down to consistency. Branding that is memorable and eye catchy is what helps you sustain. When we get a client we always develop a brand manual for them, in which you can find the primary colours, palette, font and all of these together helps with consistency. If the consumer sees the same colours being flashed on screen and in print over a period, they will start relating those colours and visuals to your brand. So irrespective of the platform the consistency helps form a brand identity.

4) For setting up a branding company, do you yourself have to have a creative mind or can you find great talent that is available?
I essential feel that you do need to have a creative background, if not then at least a creative eye. Being an entrepreneur you don’t essential have a lot of time to go back and work on every design, irrespective of that there is not even one design that leaves my studio without me having a look at it. So yes, it’s a team work and I am blessed to have great talent working with me who share my vision in branding.

5) How do you retain your clients and make sure they come back to you?
Over the years keeping a strong communication and relationship with clients in extremely important. Having understood their vision and taking care of their brand like it’s our own makes the work bond even stronger. Also, working on all brands be it big or small with the same dedication and hard work helps retain customers over a long period of time.
In 15 years, I have been fortunate enough to work with two generations, with most of my cliental and I have to say it’s been an extremely rewarding feeling.

We’re really so grateful to Bhavika for sharing such great insights and helping us understand all about branding and design.
If you are you looking for career guidance? Contact us TODAY!

Are you looking for career guidance? Contact us TODAY!