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Designers Inspiring Designers
13/10/22

Emerging designers introduce us to designers and creative professionals with diverse backgrounds and design language who inspire them and their work. 

 

Independent Graphic Designer

As a small business owner, Carolina believes in supporting other local entrepreneurs and elevating each other through collaboration. She works on a range of projects including corporate editorial design, illustration, branding, marketing materials, web design and more.

 
 

Inspiration: Ixchel Estrada

Ixchel Estrada has an outstanding craft for incorporating collage and illustration. I was immediately drawn to her whimsical and vibrant work, rich in detail and textures. Every time I look at a piece of her work, I find something new to appreciate. I'm a big fan of Modern Art and her style reminds me of Picasso's playful perspective and Dali's dream-like environments. It also reminds me of home: colourful and vibrant Mexico. Most of Ixchel's work lives in print magazines and books, through which she has obtained numerous nominations and prestigious awards. She is an educator, entrepreneur and runs a creative lab. As a fellow female designer, I find both her work and her professional career quite inspiring.
 

Sissa Morgado Provisional RGD

Creative Designer at 121/Reckitt
 
Sissa is a creative, curious and passionate designer. She currently develops creative assets for Reckitt’s Hygiene and Household Brands.
 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration: Raíza Costa

Raíza Costa is a Brazilian Creative Director and Storyteller at Dulce Delight Production, a multimedia studio specialized in culinary content. Raíza once said “when we think about inspiration we often think about what other people are doing and how they can inspire us, but true genuine inspiration lives within.” Having access to so much content and projects on the internet can be a powerful tool, but it often ends up in comparison, not inspiration. Those thoughts resonated, made me reflect on it and rethink my creative process. Raíza inspires me to be authentic in implementing my ideas, embracing my culture and highlighting my characteristics. Raíza is a creative, curious, vivid designer and isn’t afraid of trying absurd ideas out. We should all try that more often. She has recently designed her very own dinnerware and shares incredible stop motion videos daily on Instagram.
 

 

Rupsha Mutsuddi Provisional RGD

Graduate Research Assistant & Designer at Social and Technological Systems (SaTS) lab, York University

Rupsha is an Indian-born Canadian graphic designer who has a strong multidisciplinary focus. She is a Master's Student in the MDes program at York University. Her research is located at the intersection of healthcare, accessibility and spatial justice. 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration: Badal Patel

Badal Patel is a creative director and designer who runs a small firm remotely between New York and Los Angeles. I first came across Badal's work on Instagram where her bold colour palettes, rich use of typography and striking branding immediately caught my attention. Badal's work is an example of how Indian influences can be integrated into the design in a thoughtful way. The project showcased here is for Korai Kitchen, a Bangladeshi restaurant. Being of Bangladeshi origin, it was the first time I'd seen my first language, Bengali, used in such an impactful way as part of North American media. Badal is carving the way for many emerging Indian designers like me who are still finding their voice in the industry. Her work has given me inspiration to explore my heritage in my design work. In my design education, where the majority of inspiration or examples came from white male designers, Badal's work was a breath of fresh air. I can't wait to see what she does next!
 

Sara Nguyen Provisional RGD

Designer, TAXI

Sara is a designer from Vancouver, BC, who loves crafting stories with layers of meaning and visual richness. Her expertise lies in brand design, but she occasionally dives into other areas like digital design, art direction and motion to name a few.
 

 

 

 

Inspiration: Fungi Dube

I came across Fungi Dube’s work on Behance a few years ago. She is a brand designer, speaker, mentor and pan-Afrikanist. I'm always amazed by Fungi’s eye for design. She can craft beautiful symbols and patterns and then weave them into larger compositions in such a natural way. Her work always has a boldness to it, usually through colour, contrasting line weights and various graphic shapes or illustrations. However it's always balanced and delicate. You can tell that every design detail was intentionally placed and considered. She's a wonderful storyteller and human!
 
 

Mustaali Raj Provisional RGD

Independent Graphic Designer

Mustaali is an award-winning designer and visual artist with a multi-disciplinary practice. As an engineer turned designer, his creative process is a cohesive blend between left and right brain thinking. He is a circle, living in a square, drawing triangles.
 
 
 
 
 

Inspiration: Mothanna Hussein

Mothanna Hussein (co-founder of design studio Turbo) is a designer and visual artist based in Amman, Jordan. His bold experimental approach to Arabic typography, geometric forms and bilingual layouts really appeals to me. He has a strong ability to integrate local cultural influences into highly conceptual forms often pushing the boundaries of design as art. Along with commercial work, Mothanna also tackles pressing social and political issues through some of his projects. It’s inspiring to see a multi-disciplinary designer who is at the forefront of taking design thinking into new mediums and technology. 
 

Gopika Rajendran Provisional RGD

Designer at Loblaw Companies Ltd

Gopika is a multi-disciplinary designer based in Ontario specializing in packaging and digital design with a keen interest in type-design/typography, illustration and motion.

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration: Tanya George

Tanya George is an independent typographer, type designer and design educator based in India with a Masters in Type Face Design. She specializes in Indian Typefaces and teaches typography and type design, conducting TypeWalks — where she takes participants through the streets of Mumbai where they can view amazing signage. She is also the co-founder of typo-stammtisch. One of her notable typefaces is Kolaba, a multi-script typeface for Latin, Devnagari and Greek.
 
One of her recent projects was archiving a collection of movie posters from India's diverse film industries to showcase writing systems and expressive lettering in multiple scripts in collaboration with Letterform Archive. She is also actively involved in writing, presenting and conducting workshops on type and typography. As an aspiring type designer myself, what I find truly inspiring about Tanya is not only her great portfolio of work but also her passion for exploring, observing and understanding the uniqueness and simplicity of everyday typography that one might easily overlook or ignore. She inspires us to appreciate, stay curious and to never stop learning and exploring design.