Shoubhik is an architect-turned product designer with 14 years of industry experience. A graduate in architecture from the prestigious School of Planning and Architecture, he started his career at Incubis Consultants in Delhi. There he was a key resource behind the design concept and working drawings of ‘IndiOne’, a chain of budget hotels for the Taj Group, later renamed ‘Ginger’.‘.
Shoubhik went on to pursue his masters in product design from IIT Kanpur. Thereafter, he then joined the product design department of a leading US-based e-learning company called Emantras, in Chennai. During this period, he successfully designed a variety of electrical, electronic and lighting products for Indian, Australian and American clients. He also dabbled with game ideation and concept art for educational apps developed by Emantras.
His desire to work with eminent designers and for reputed clients took him to Studio ABD in Bangalore, headed by renowned designer Abhijit Bansod. As Design Manager at Studio ABD, Shoubhik worked extensively on water purifiers for Unilever Pureit, focusing on styling, technology integration and CMF design. He also executed numerous packaging design projects for Eastern Condiments and Unilver brands such as Vim, Domex and Kissan.
After 5 years at Studio ABD, Shoubhik moved on to Future Factory in Mumbai, a leading product design consultancy with numerous global design awards to its credit. As Lead – Design & Development, he managed innovation-based product design projects for a leading appliance brand. During this period, he gained invaluable experience in consumer research, experimentation-based ideation and form creation.
Shoubhik has had a keen interest in teaching and research from his college days. He conducted week-long workshops for M.Des students at IIT Kanpur during the initial years of his career. He has been genuinely concerned about the quality of design education in India, and the rift between what is taught and what the industry demands. He firmly believes that product design can only be taught by people who have experienced the complete design cycle first hand, right from need identification to manufacturing. Thus, after 12 years of hardcore product design experience and over 15 projects launched in the market, Shoubhik decided to change track and shift to academics.
Shoubhik joined MIT Institute of Design in July 2018. He specializes in courses related to product aesthetics. He is also pursuing doctoral studies on brand style strategy, a subject that deals with how consumer product brands use strategic styling to differentiate their products from competitors and strengthen their brand identity. His first research paper titled ‘Brand Style DNA in Consumer Products: Decoding Strategies from a Design Perspective’ was selected as ‘One of the Most Distinguished Papers’ at the International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD) in 2021, and published as part of the proceedings by Springer.
Shoubhik is also an experienced artist specializing in water colours and pencil shading. He is a trained singer (Hindustani Classical) with experience in digital composition and sound editing. A keen observer, well-travelled across India, Shoubhik enjoys exploring regional peculiarities in home interiors, clothing styles, speaking accents and food habits.
