Creating through excess: why I chose maximalism?
June 11, 2026
By Aashna Kuntala • June 2026
Before discovering that design was a field, I spent most of my time sketching, painting, and entering school art competitions. Over time, I realized my interest was less in the idea of “winning” and more drawn to how forms were created and how they worked together.
I began noticing shapes and characters in everyday life, faces hidden in tree bark, patterns in marble floors, the rhythm of waves, and the sound water makes as it meets the shore. I observed how sandpipers run toward the receding tide and retreat as it returns, how small crabs emerge after the waves withdraw, leaving delicate bubbles and tiny holes in the sand, and how the golden Indian oriole tilts its head while searching for caterpillars, its movements filled with alertness and quiet curiosity. What started as casual creativity slowly became something more focused, a curiosity about how parts relate to one another, how composition creates meaning, and why these behaviours exist in the first place.
It was nature that gave this curiosity direction. My interest in animals and birds reshaped how I understood movement and interaction. Observing the murmuration of starlings introduced me to biomimicry and systems thinking, how individual elements respond locally to create a cohesive, adaptive whole without centralized control. What fascinates me about these formations is not just their beauty, but the intelligence embedded within them, a responsiveness that is both fluid and precise. Nature revealed that design is not imposed; it emerges through relationships.
Photography supports my design practice by strengthening my skills in composition, framing, and visual storytelling. It allows me to document moments, behaviours, and spatial relationships that feed back into my design thinking and visual decisions. Through the lens, I learned that seeing is different from observing. Observation requires slowing down, isolating variables, and understanding context. It asks not only what something looks like but also how and why it behaves the way it does.
My interest in Bidri craft grew through observing the artisans, their patience, their precision, and the care they bring to every step of the process. Sitting alongside them, I learned to create a plate hands-on, engraving the surface and inlaying brass and silver wire myself. Under their guidance, I worked with chisels, controlled hammer pressure, and embedded metal wires into engraved grooves. This process deepened my understanding of material resistance, tool control, and the patience required to achieve contrast and clarity in metalwork. Hours of repetitive engraving, adjusting pressure, and correcting imperfections demand consistency and focus. It reminded me that thoughtful design is not built through speed but through sustained attention and commitment to process. Often, it requires more persistence than precision.
Engaging with living heritage and working alongside artisans whose skills have been passed down through generations strengthened my approach to industrial design, material exploration, and craft-led design research. It reinforced something essential: observation is not casual noticing; it is disciplined awareness. It informs systems, behaviour, and interaction. It shifts design from decoration to intention, from styling surfaces to understanding structures.
Across disciplines, whether product, graphic, interaction, or spatial design, this way of seeing becomes a shared language. Designers who observe deeply begin to look beyond their own silos and recognize patterns that connect seemingly different fields. Nature taught me to slow down and look with intent. Design taught me to translate that intent into a form. For me, observation is not something that simply happens; it is a deliberate practice and the foundation of how I design today.
About Aashna Kuntala
Aashna Kuntala is a design student drawn to nature-inspired form studies and the idea that observation is an intentional act. I believe design begins with learning how to truly see, beyond surface aesthetics, into systems, balance, and behaviour. Through my work, I aim to translate these insights into thoughtful and meaningful design outcomes.