You can’t put Aaquib Wani in a box

Name: Aaquib Wani

Profession: Experiential designer and art director

Current residence: New Delhi

Why you should know him: A self-taught experiential designer and art director with no formal training, Wani’s expertise lies in world building. His work spans spatial design for arts and music festivals, ginormous sets for weddings, immersive installations for brands like Adidas, BMW, Ritu Kumar, and Spotify, interiors and exteriors for retail spaces as well as visual and graphic design.

Where you’ve seen his work: If you’ve ever attended Lollapalooza India, watched this year’s T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup, or the Indian contingent at the 2024 Olympics, you’ve seen or interacted with Aaqib Wani Design.

His artistic style: “All projects demand different things and that has led to me becoming a designer who doesn’t have a particular style. It’s like not having a style has become my style.”

What’s keeping him busy these days: “We just got off designing a [photography] exhibition at the NMACC and the packaging for a festive special edition set of earphones, the Beats Solo Buds. Next, we’re designing an experiential dessert bar in Delhi. There’s Bandland in Bengaluru this November, Sunburn Goa in December, and Lollapalooza next year in March. I have two cats and I’m also looking after my parents’ cat because they’re not in town. So, I’m on daddy duty for three now!”

His buzziest ongoing project: “We’ve been working on Prateek Kuhad’s Silhouettes tour for the last five months. It’s a multi-city tour and we came on board as show directors for the India leg—something totally new for us. We created an entire narrative for the visuals, what people are going to see on the LED screens, stage design, right down to what the band and Prateek are wearing. We got him a special jacket with programmable lights on it. It’s completely different from, and a lot more than, what we normally do.”

The coolest part of his job: “It’s weird, but people reach out to us for things that even they don’t know if we’ll be able to pull off. But they trust us with it anyway, which is very, very cool. We’re forever grateful for these opportunities because that way, we also get to explore as designers.”

The project that put him on the map: “Doing the jerseys for the Indian men’s and women’s cricket teams. I grew up watching the sport, so it felt like a full-circle moment, getting to do something for the national team. I was at the Ahmedabad stadium for the India-Pakistan match during the World Cup last year, and I saw tens of thousands of people wearing our design. It’s still giving me goosebumps thinking about it. It felt like the biggest win. It was also the most challenging project. The deal-signing with their partners takes forever, but the time devoted to actually getting the designs made is very little. They were like, ‘Listen, we need a design, but our deadline was yesterday.’ To top that off, we were also working on another major project—the first edition of Lollapalooza—still trying to figure out how it would work out in India at that point. So, we’d be at Mahalaxmi Racecourse, doing about 40,000 steps at that massive venue all day, and then go to our hotel rooms and finish up the jersey project. It was very exhausting physically, but it was a dream project.”

Why he finds admin work exciting: “As someone who’s also a business owner, I’ve had to do things that I never thought I would as a designer. Things that are part of growing up as an entrepreneur. That includes trying to understand taxes, being a full-time cheerleader to the team, and a lot of admin work. Sometimes, it’s problems like ‘Aaj paani nahi aa raha’ what do we do? Or the microwave isn’t working, how do we heat up the food now? Initially, I was like why am I doing this? But now I’ve sort of found a balance and I love it.”

The one thing he’s obsessed with: “Music. I started my career playing in a band and I used to make posters to promote our shows. This led to me working as a designer for other bands, which, at that point, I never thought would eventually become my career. To be around music festivals still takes me back to the 16-year-old me who first picked up a guitar. So yeah, music festivals forever.”

What’s on his playlist: “My playlist is very much like my clientele—all over the place. You won’t find one song relating to another on my playlist. There could be classical music, Kashmiri folk music, metal, cheesy ’90s Bollywood, or Punjabi music. I was recently introduced to Chapell Roan and saw her set at Lollapalooza in Chicago. She was incredible and I’m a huge fan of hers now. I can’t wait to watch her win all Grammys next year because I know for a fact she will—she’s that good.”

His advice to young designers: “Stay consistent. I’ve been doing this for 16 years and all I’ve done is just continue to finish one project after the other. I didn’t start working with Adidas in 2008. It happened in 2019 after slogging for so many years. Yes, there will be days when you will feel hopeless or restless, or you think this piece that you made is not good. But just put it out there. It’s gonna resonate with someone. What’s the worst that’ll happen? You’ll get fewer likes. It’s okay. I am a product of that. Just don’t stop.”

His much-requested hair care routine: “I’ll be very honest, there is no routine as such. It’s just good genes. All I do is wash my hair every day with shampoo and conditioner. I take an auto to work, so I pop my head out of the auto for it to dry and here I am.”