“ oh my god, that building against that sky looks so pretty ”
me:
“ it looks like any other building though.. ”
friend:
👆I think that describes me perfectly. I’m usually the one that will notice and get excited about the smallest things. You can catch me documenting every tiny thing/ moment.
This obsession with simple things carries into my work as well. I rejoice in finding the small changes and love seeing how they can make a large systemic impact.
🧠 🧮 🎨
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Creativity has always been my escape. While my math-loving and analytical brain were lured by engineering, I soon realized that design was where I truly belonged. It was the perfect blend of everything I love - Technology, analytical thinking, creative thinking, and the ability to truly connect with the people I am solving problems for.
My engineering to design journey is one of many lessons learned- instilling a habit to take more risks, adapt, and persevere. I believe this familiarity with taking risks and thinking unconventionally has made me become a better designer today.
👩🏻💻 work
I have had the opportunity to explore many areas in my design journey - from Voice UI at an early-stage startup to projects across multiple domains at a design firm, to most recently, Dailyhunt- where I joined during their blitzscaling. I have experience cross-collaborating across various teams and engineers and have experience working around technical requirements.
At my most recent position at Dailyhunt, I improved the accessibility and news reading experience for 283 million monthly active users in their local Indian language. At Dailyhunt, I was also one of five founding designers for the Josh app (grew to 50M+ downloads in 6 months), which was invested in by Google and Microsoft.
🖤 As a designer, I :
Strive to contribute to the world in a positive, nonintrusive way
Love finding connections and patterns in the subjects I’m analyzing
Cherish looking for ‘small’ changes that can make large systemic impact
Aim to look at things in their larger context, and truly understand the impact
Champion for people’s voices to be heard and enjoy bringing people together
Am always learning and thrive on collaboration
✨ In my free time, you can catch me:
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🤤 Trying out a new Biryani place
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👀 Looking for the next thrift store or neighborhood to explore
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🏃🏽♀️ Going on spontaneous adventures
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🎵 Listening to the same new 5 song finds on repeat
⭐️ Recent highlights
Studio Forward & Google Present -
The Future of Belonging
👉 Was 1 out of the 4 students from my cohort selected to be a part of an interdisciplinary class sponsored by Google where we explored the future of belonging meant and created exhibits in the end
✨ Why it was special:
Being part of an exhibition and designing an exhibit from scratch
💡 Learnings:
Hands-on creation, thinking out of the box, speculative design
Sleepy - the eyemask that helps millions suffering from sleep issues
👉 Used Arduino programming to prototype an eyemask concept that releases scents to help you sleep. Prototyping smell was a hard one!
✨ Why it was special:
Prototyping Smell
💡 Learnings:
Debugging, testing and iterating, relearning my electrical engineering concepts
Adobe + Amazon Creative Jam
👉 In a two-week design challenge, we created CommUnity, a platform to help high school students gain more access to community service opportunities with measurable visual impact.
✨ Why it was special:
Won an honorable mention and placed in the top 20 out of 340+ teams
💡 Learnings:
Quick decision making, quick iterating, Adobe XD, voice prototyping
Rapid Prototyping Techniques
👉 Over the past year, I've explored many modes of creating and bringing my ideas to life
✨ Why it was special:
Explored Laser Cutting, 3D Printing & AR Simulation
💡 Learnings:
Don't be intimidated, try new things, it's less complicated than it looks
🗣 Testimonials
Sachin Khodpia, Lead Product Designer @ Dailyhunt
" Apurva joined at our critical R&D process of a couple of new Apps like Josh, Josh CAM and Dailyhunt new revamps - building a new collaboration product. Through user interviewing, research, and rapid wireframing/prototyping, High Fidelity mocks, she was critical in humanizing a complex technology and catalyzing the first true UX of our products like Josh. She constantly championed the voice of the user throughout the path to our launch. Apurva is fast, thoughtful, and had a ton of self-initiative. I highly recommend working with her."
Diya Koshy, Design Manager @ Divami Design Labs
"Apurva did a great job growing Divami's presence in terms of social media. She worked on our awards presentations as well and took them to an entirely new level. She started working with me as an intern, the role included shadowing a UX designer, working on a project by herself, and creating visuals for social media and presentations. She is extremely hardworking and ensures all her deadlines are met even if it means extending herself. She is dedicated to constantly learning and I see great things for her in her future."
Vishnu Saran, Founder @ VoyceFirst
"Apurva's design skills are extraordinary. She works proactively and comes up with ideas that are often surprising and delightful."