Designer Preeti Vyas faced a strange predicament – one that plagues many Indian homes – of growing up in a family full of academic achievers. “My siblings performed quite well in school, while I didn’t,” she shares, with a laugh. “It’s a miracle that I even graduated.”
 
Preeti was always creatively inclined. “I would write poems, plays and stories. I would create interesting games and make libraries. I even made things out of objects found on the road,” she recalls.

Since the only thing she ever knew then was to be creative, Preeti hoped to join the JJ school of Art upon completing her secondary education. However, to her great disappointment  JJ never accepted her application. On a well-wisher’s recommendation she joined the National School of Design (NID), after spending a year at Sophia Polytechnic. “NID was just the right place. It’s a thinking designer’s school. It really liberated me,” explains Vyas, who graduated in graphic design and visual communication.

Soon after, Preeti joined Creative Director Mohammed Khan’s agency. After spending a few years in the corporate world, she gave in to her hippie instincts and lived with a creative community in Cambridge, Boston and later travelled to West Africa to be exposed to the music of the Ewe tribe. “I lived in Togo, a Francophone country, where I also taught children English and art,” she shares. Later she worked for a bit with an Ad agency in New York.

Upon her return to India, Preeti started operating from her family office in Kala Ghoda that was gutted by fire, unfortunately. “I lost my entire portfolio. However, the Taj Group of Hotels, whose magazine I was designing, generously offered me a space to work from,” says Vyas, acknowledged as India’s first commercial designer for publications. Preeti enjoys the privilege of redesigning many publications since, such as Cine Blitz, Filmfare, Femina and Sunday Observer.

In 1997, with the vision to transform the marketplace through strategic integrated design and innovative communication solutions, Preeti founded VGC, one of the top brand and design agencies in the country. “When I started off, I was just one person in the team with a computer then,” she says. Her agency has notched up an enviable client list and established some iconic brands on the way.

As a specialist branding and ad agency, VGC uses design as a management tool to help brands succeed by enhancing brand equity and perception. “The result-oriented brand recommendations are a result of our proprietary design tool we call – Designomics,” she adds. In the last two decades, Preeti has served as a jury for the Cannes Festival twice, the New York Festivals as well as D&AD London awards. She has represented India, showcasing Indian Creativity in Advertising by Semana Internacionale da Criacao Publicitaria in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “Great design language is about understanding the DNA of the company. The design strategy then gets expressed in Design and communication. A logo is never a brand; it is how it behaves. So we craft the journey of a behaviour and help create a brand culture,” she says.

 
At the end of the day, a design language is helping a brand create a personality. “You’ll make your choices based on that. People associate good design as an embellishment tool, but good design is good business,” she insists. In fact, she curated a programme called Designomics for Bloomberg that shed light on the same philosophy by interviewing captains of Indian industry who were also design evangelists. Vyas, who currently serves on the board of Century Textiles and Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, as an Independent Director, has also been on the advisory councils of ISDI Parsons School of Design, MIT School of Design, member of the India Design Council and the governing council of NID, Amravati.

 
Recently conferred the Women Disruptors Lifetime Achievement Award 2021, by Ad Gully, Preeti describes herself as a rolling stone. “Each time something changes, I am always keen to adapt and learn,” she says. “I want to stay hungry and foolish all the time.”

Favourite thing to do in the city

To leave it. To be on my farm.

My indulgence

Chocolate.

How I unwind

Food. Flicks. Friends. Also, meditation and painting.