Work Life: Chatting With One Of IKEA’s Hottest Designers Akanksha Deo Sharma

Akanksha Deo Sharma is one of IKEA’s hottest designers (and the only Indian one!). Blending her vibrant Indian roots with the clean lines of IKEA’s Scandinavian designs, Deo Sharma flawlessly creates home décor items for everyone to love. ANOKHI caught up with her for a little décor dish.

Geeta Wahab: Tell us a little about yourself. What was the journey before you became a designer for IKEA?

Akanksha Deo Sharma: I have a Bachelor of Design Degree from National Institute of Fashion and Technology of India. I graduated from there, and during the course of my graduation I did a handful of internships in the industry and tried to measure the temperature of what was going on outside college life. During my third year, IKEA collaborated with the college and I was selected as one of the students to participate in the partnership. From there on I connected with the creative directors and leaders at the time and was offered an internship. After I graduated took the internship and traveled to Sweden in 2016.

GW: What is it about home design that piqued your interest for you to transform that into a career?

ADS: I studied fashion, where I learned a lot about Indian textiles through fashion, but I didn’t learn much about home furnishings. I knew a bit about IKEA, however, I knew more about the brand value rather than the design aspect. Once I was in IKEA I started to understand more about design in a much wider format then design in a fashion format. My knowledge of design expanded coming to IKEA, then I started to become interested in how people wanted to live rather then what they wanted to wear. For me, I am interested in design in the larger context, not one particular form of design. I became more and more interested in the larger behaviours and practices of people and how they live and IKEA seemed like a great place to learn that.

GW: Indian aesthetics and Scandinavian aesthetics can be seen as polar opposites, how did you merge the two?

ADS: That’s quite a fun question, when you think about Indian aesthetics and Scandinavian design, from the first go it can seem very polar opposites but they do have a lot of similarities – the deeper you go into it the more similarities you find. Scandinavian patterns, the older patterns or vintage patterns are very playful and colourful, and when you see Indian textiles or expression, it’s also very colourful and expressive but in a different style. So I think both have a folklore, childlike expressive quality to them but it’s just in a very different expression. Equally colourful. When it comes to merging the two it has been a very interesting journey for me because I have this very hands on knowledge of craft techniques in India and now I am learning about Scandinavian design. Learning the Scandinavian design while having the extensive knowledge of the craft is helping me merge the two and create products that are more tactile and have a story to tell, products that you would like to touch and feels.

GW: Can you tell us a little more about the award winning FÖRÄNDRING collection and the Better Air Now initiative? What inspired that collection?

ADS: This is a very special collection that I worked on as a designer. There were two of us working on this initiative which is part of the larger, Better Air Now initiative. Right now, the air in Delhi is very grey and polluted and one of the reasons for that is the burning of rice straw and stubble in the north part of India which contributes to a large extent to the air pollution during this time (October – February). For the collection, once the rice straw that is traditionally burnt, was identified as a new renewable material, they approached the designers to find out what we could do with it and how we can use it as a renewable resource in IKEA for this collection and future products. That is where the collection started, where we researched about the rice straw, tried to understand the properties, use and explore a lot techniques around it.

We were able to create a collection of home ware products including lamp shades, rugs and runner and table mats, paper products, bowls and more. We wanted the collection very accessible and easy to understand and have a clear message for people to understand. That is why we chose the two shades of grey and blue – the grey denotes the grey skies and the current problem and the shades of blue depicting the dream of having clear and blue skies as the aspiration. We tried to use the rice straw as it is and tried to mix it with cotton to make textiles, which you can see in the rugs, runners and table textiles and then we explored a new technique, the moulding technique, where we made pulp out of the rice straw that we mixed with recycled cotton pulp from other IKEA ranges you see in the lamp shades and moulded bowls. We also have some baskets, where first we made paper and then out of the paper we made a cord which we were able to make the baskets. We really explored different techniques, to get the most out of this material and it sets a good benchmark for future products because we have played around and explored different techniques and expression and now if we wanted to convert this into another product range we can do that.

GW: Huge congratulations on being part of the Forbes India 30 Under 30 list, what is that experience like?

ADS: It’s quite a thing. People in the industry are super grateful to be nominated and then to be selected to be one of the young people to look out for is amazing. I’m really happy that people in my industry see the work that I do, and recognize it and give me credit for that. It’s a great honour to be given this as a young person, it gives you a lot of exposure and it also makes you get noticed by people in the industry for the work you are doing. I am quite proud of the work I am doing with IKEA and the stories we are connecting, which includes the people and planet focus that I have in a lot of my projects. I am happy that I am 29 and low key relieved that I got titled in time (laughs).

GW: With COVID, the value of the home space has been magnified to an extent like never before, with people working and/or teaching from home, etc., how has the value of space changed for you as a designer in this context?

ADS: Yes, this is a very good question and I think everybody can relate to this, whether you are a designer or not. For me, it has been very interesting, when the lockdown happened, I couldn’t stay home alone, the lockdown was very severe, and you don’t get to see anyone, so I decided to move back to my parents’ home. What was interesting was the space I had created for myself was no longer the space I could access, and when I went to my parents’ home, I had to suddenly be reacquainted with the room that I grew up in, it was a very different feeling. However, I started to learn to live with very little, I didn’t have my things, only a few items and I tried to make the most of the space I did have. I started exercising a lot in a very small space and I got used to it, and we repurposed the balcony into my work space.

I realized we, as humans, are so easy to adapt and that is one of the qualities it is so easy to see right now, whether, its businesses or our way of living, and I think that’s a wonderful thing – how quickly we adapt from one setting to another. As a creator or designer, if we don’t need that many things in the world, then how should we create and how should we be designing, what should our approach be, the importance of designing something becomes even more important. Then the designs/products need to be really useful and have a really good purpose for being created and I think that is a very deep learning. When I moved to my place and came back, I couldn’t relate to some of my things anymore – it was this idea of connection and disconnection of your own things. It makes you think of your relationship and philosophy as a designer.

GW: What upcoming projects are you working on?

ADS: One of the latest projects that is just out on IKEA, is called LOKHALT and it’s a social entrepreneur project, where IKEA is collaborating with social entrepreneurs and local designers. We have partners in Jordan, India and Thailand, and the interesting part of this project is we got locals designers from the same places, so me being the India design, I have collaborated with a Jordanian designers and a Thai design studio. The whole point was it celebrate the local while going global while also enhancing the techniques and crafts and the traditional techniques that these local places have to offer but in a modern expression. LOKHALT will launch in 2021.

Also worked on another global social entrepreneur project, MOAKAJSA and KLARAFINA cushion covers. They are part of the social entrepreneur project where we empower the women in India and partnered with local suppliers here, and we give them designs and empower them and help them feel financially independent by earning a living for themselves. The cushion covers are hand embroidered, they are quite fun and as a customer you can see the handwork, and their stories are highlighted in the store spaces.

GW: Any words of advice for a budding designer?

ADS: Things are changing so rapidly, although the future may seem uncertain, it is very good to be agile, very good to be feel the pulse of the time. We are standing at a very crucial point — environmentally, socially and politically, and you have to sense and feel every aspect to be a creator and designer. As a young designer, the more you can touch base with those aspect and find a purpose for yourself, find why you are designing, only then you can be unique. We don’t need that many fashion designers anymore, we don’t need that many furniture designers anymore. What we need are designers that can fill the gap, fill the gap in the system, in the problems that we have — and we have a lot — it is more to look at design in a way that can help cater to problems of the environment or people and system we are living in. Of course, go with your gut feeling follow your instincts. That will make you go far.