Creative Minds: Drishti Khemani would love to work on a Wes Anderson set

In Creative Minds, we ask APAC creatives a long list of questions, from serious to silly, and ask them to pick 11 to answer. (Why 11? Just because.) Want to be featured?

Name: Drishti Khemani

Origin: New Delhi, India

Places lived/worked: New Delhi and Singapore

Pronouns: She/her

CV:

• Senior art director, VCCP, Singapore, 2019-present
• Art director, DDB, Singapore, 2015-2019
• Digital designer, Zeno Group, Singapore, 2014-2015

1. How did you end up being a creative?

I come from a family of creatives. My dad is a product designer and my mom is an interior designer, so I grew up around all kinds of arts. But my real interest started in school at about the age of 12; my lovely art teacher would rush us to the gardens to trace shadows of trees, or sketch everything we saw. In 2010, I moved to Singapore to study fine arts, but gravitated towards advertising after my first year. Ten years (and many grey hairs) later, I’m still here.

2. What's your favourite piece of work in your portfolio?

My favourite piece of work would be a project with Cathay Pacific to launch their new business class offerings called ‘Let your senses guide you’. It was our first big production for VCCP Singapore, an office that was just a few months old. We had to be scrappy and resourceful at every step but the team banded together, pulled out all the stops, and created some beautiful work.

3. What's your favourite piece of work created by someone else?

Oatly’s OOH campaign. I love a well-done OOH campaign. There’s been a big push towards social and digital, but not many brands have embraced OOH like Oatly have. The copy always cracks me up—it’s so non-advertising-like. It’s one of the few ads that would make you stop, take a picture of it, and actually share it with your friends, which shows that it works.

4. What/who are your key creative influences?

As a student, I‘d have to say my most significant influence was Jessica Walsh from the creative agency Sagmeister & Walsh, before it became &Walsh. It’s not just because of her distinct, bold, and colourful style of art direction, but also her career journey and story. I remember following her travels keenly, as she talked about the things that inspired her art. She made such a strong art statement at 25, which was inspiring.

5. What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

I’d say it was a crazy ‘set of things’. I enrolled myself in a mountaineering camp in the Himalayas for two months when I was 18, which was completely out of my comfort zone. We hiked, rafted, learned how to start a fire, cooked our dinners, carried heavy backpacks for miles at end, and even got stuck in a landslide. An experience of a lifetime.

6. What's on your bucket list?

To work in the art department of a major film. If I could ever get myself onto the set design department for a Wes Anderson film, I would die happy.

7. Do you work best under pressure, or when things are calm?

I need calmness to be able to work. I’m not a creative who thrives under chaos. I always need to start with logic, excessive research, and some mind-mapping; it helps me process the brief better. Once the structure is built, I add some madness and creative chaos to the idea.

8. How would your co-workers describe you?

Loud. That would be the one characteristic that all my colleagues and ex-colleagues would remember me by. But volume aside, I’d hope they think of me as an honest, collaborative, and friendly creative.

9. What’s your favourite music / film / TV show / book / other of the past year, and why?

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu is easily my favourite book of 2022. Written to mimic a film script, it's a comedic and clever commentary on ‘stereotypical’ roles that Asians play in Hollywood– something that I suppose we've all observed, but the book really opens your eyes to it. The opening line is incredible: “Ever since you were a boy, you’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy.”

10. Tell us about an artist that we've never probably heard of.

Indian wedding designer and label Papadontpreach by Shubhika. Indian wedding fashion has mostly trodden down safer lines of cultural, regal, and somewhat traditional looks. Shubhika changed this up. Her style adds ‘rebellion, quirk, and, to some extent, ‘a street flair’ to the classic Indian wedding silhouette, and younger Indians are loving it.

11. What app could you absolutely not live without? What app do you wish you could delete?

The app I couldn’t live without—literally—would be Deliveroo. I don’t cook, and I ‘Deliveroo‘ most of my meals. An app I wish I could delete is Instagram, I waste hours on it.