Tapas' work
About Tapas
Hi, I'm Tapas Ratan, and I've spent the last decade or so helping brands look like themselves, only sharper.
I started out in 2012 as a graphic designer at Pavitra Advertising, where one of my first big jobs was the packaging for the MMTC gold coin. From there I worked on magazines and packaging at Color Splash, then social media and email campaigns at Indian Youth Card. In 2016 I joined AOI, a member of Hakuhodo International, and that's where I got to build full brand identities for names like Maruti Suzuki, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Muthoot Group. Since 2019 I've been at TO THE NEW, leading design for some of the country's biggest public campaigns: Invest India, Make in India, IIG, Startup India, and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Along the way I've learned that good design is mostly about people. Brand guidelines only work if the whole team understands them and actually wants to follow them. So I spend a lot of my time building the tools and processes that make that easy, and sitting down with strategy and communications folks early, so that by the time a design reaches sign-off, everyone already knows what it's trying to say. It saves a surprising amount of back-and-forth.
I'm also a big fan of using AI where it helps. Midjourney, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Lovart AI are part of my everyday workflow, and I've built custom AI Gems to handle the repetitive parts of production. That leaves more time for the thinking and the craft, which is where the real creative work happens. The rest of my toolkit is the classic set: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Figma.
If you're looking for someone to build a brand from scratch, keep a large campaign consistent, or lead a design team, I'd love to hear from you.
I started out in 2012 as a graphic designer at Pavitra Advertising, where one of my first big jobs was the packaging for the MMTC gold coin. From there I worked on magazines and packaging at Color Splash, then social media and email campaigns at Indian Youth Card. In 2016 I joined AOI, a member of Hakuhodo International, and that's where I got to build full brand identities for names like Maruti Suzuki, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Muthoot Group. Since 2019 I've been at TO THE NEW, leading design for some of the country's biggest public campaigns: Invest India, Make in India, IIG, Startup India, and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
Along the way I've learned that good design is mostly about people. Brand guidelines only work if the whole team understands them and actually wants to follow them. So I spend a lot of my time building the tools and processes that make that easy, and sitting down with strategy and communications folks early, so that by the time a design reaches sign-off, everyone already knows what it's trying to say. It saves a surprising amount of back-and-forth.
I'm also a big fan of using AI where it helps. Midjourney, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Lovart AI are part of my everyday workflow, and I've built custom AI Gems to handle the repetitive parts of production. That leaves more time for the thinking and the craft, which is where the real creative work happens. The rest of my toolkit is the classic set: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Figma.
If you're looking for someone to build a brand from scratch, keep a large campaign consistent, or lead a design team, I'd love to hear from you.