A month of saying no to the wrong work, and watching the right work travel without us.
Cover story · Defence tech
An honourable mention at Awwwards. A showcase on Lumos. And then a message from Duncan, co-founder of Memberstack, who had gone looking at how the site handled 6.1 million requests and wanted to talk about it.
None of that was pitched. Nobody from the studio was in the room for any of it.
And it kept going. Inbound began arriving from organisations we had never approached, VC funds among them, all of it traceable back to work that had gone out and carried on moving without us. The work did the introducing.
Which is the whole point, and the reason this issue is called what it is.
In this issue
Launches first, then what came in the door, then the work mid-build. The month's recognition sits at the end, where it belongs.
From the editor
July started with a lot of sales calls and a lot of declining. We said no to more inquiries than we've ever said no to. It felt bad. It is supposed to feel bad. That's what growth costs when you decide to focus on the right projects instead of every project.
And then the work went out and did the opposite. Armory picked up an Awwwards honourable mention and a spot on Lumos, and Memberstack's co-founder wrote to us about how it handled 6.1 million requests. Turno turned up in the A1 gallery. New SVAM hoardings went up across North Bangalore. Inbound arrived from funds and organisations we had never contacted. Harishma got invited back to her alma mater to speak.
None of that involved us being anywhere. That's the theme, and it kept proving itself from the inside too.
The Z47 index page shipped with no project manager on it. The team simply organised itself and delivered. Arpan's note about it ends: "This is ideally how a project should be run. You guys have proved that it can be done." Goutham spent a Saturday night monitoring an investor-portal migration so that nobody would notice anything had happened. Zakia, on Turno PRAWAAS'26, stopped agreeing to every piece of client feedback and started asking what wasn't working, and learned "when to listen, when to question, and when to stand by the work."
Which is the same thing we were doing on the sales calls, just pointed in a different direction.
Two things we said we'd do and didn't. Kandou is live, finally, and it's good. PrimeWealth is not. We promised it in May for June, then again in June for July. It is now going live in August. Third time we've written that sentence.
Month at a glance
Sectors covered · Defence Tech · Logistics · Semiconductor · Venture Capital · Health Tech · Education · FinTech · Lending · DeepTech · Nuclear Energy · Vision AI · Cybersecurity · Insurance IT · EV · Photography Software · Career L&D · Industrial · Energy · B2B Marketing · B2B SaaS
Both went live on 24 July. Mojro is route-planning and logistics optimisation. Neon Trumpet, Reza's B2B marketing agency, is both a client and a partner we build alongside; they were on Mojro with us earlier this year.
Goutham on the Neon Trumpet build, to Rajashri: "Thank you for stepping up and building the major parts of the site while I was trying to juggle two projects. It made a huge difference."
The Swiss chip-to-chip interconnect company: messaging, 3D and website, after a long build. Bessemer, SoftBank, Marvell and AMD on the investor wall; Chord Signaling and chiplet interconnect IP on the product side.
Sreejith carried the interactive animation. Felix, on it: "Even though this was technically challenging, you aced it. This opens up a new era of us working towards interactive animation."
The India AI Report landing page and the fortyseven index page, both shipped. Goutham built them; Zakia designed the index at short notice; Athira ran it.
What makes this one worth writing down is how it was run. Arpan: "All of you figured out and delivered by yourself, without a project manager in the picture. That's a great win guys. This is ideally how a project should be run."
Six years of the studio, out as a film. Made in-house, about the house. Watch it here.
The health-tech testimonial we shot is out. First cut live, and you can watch it here.
In this month. Scope taking shape.
We did their space design in 2020. They've come back for brand narrative, visual identity and a website. Six years is a long time to be remembered.
Mehak, who is on it, thanking Zakia: "Thank you for helping me figure out the moodboard for TheMVP even though you had your own work to do."
After Beenext, BeeGlobal. A new website project signed this month.
Education software. Kicking off shortly.
Started. Referred in by Vecton, a company pivoting in the age of AI, now working out what it wants to be.
Samiksha delivered the first route on a one-day turnaround. Sanjana: "You had a day, some instructions and a tight deadline. Despite that you breezed through it like it was no big deal without compromising quality."
Back again. Eight out of ten clients do come back; Grundfos keeps proving the number.
Another deeptech company, and the first round of thinking landed well. The client, on Ekta: "Overall very good understanding. Many pointers, many nitty-gritties that you have captured, quite well done. That shows the team has a very good understanding of the overall value proposition."
First meeting went really well. Swathi, Mehak, Neha and Ekta presented the ideas, and the first set of test prints came back. Good Shepherd International School, GSIS to everyone who has been there, turns fifty this year, and we're making the thing that marks it.
The workshop is progressing well. Brand narrative and naming are the live pieces now.
Shaping up well. Goes live in August.
The 3D project rolls on, and there is more coming. Bill Kenny: "Your team is crushing the 3D work & I have another idea to discuss."
Harishma is working with our partner Design Brewery on this one, and killing it.
Two things this month. The team flew to Mumbai for pictures. They came out really well, and the client said so.
And Sanjana designed the brand symbol into the typeface. "Since this brand relies so much on the syntax and semantics of linguistics, this is a granular application." Harishma's reaction: "A true brand extension with real ownability." For a brand built on a phrase, putting the mark inside the letterforms is the idea, not decoration.
Shot this month, in progress.
Shabahir's build, and an internal experiment rather than a client project. We do a few of these: pick something real, rebuild it in 3D, and find out what the pipeline can actually do before a client is paying for the answer.
Motion work for their podcast.
Presented to the leadership team this month.
Work continues.
Ongoing, post-rebrand. Vignesh, seeing the launch materials go out: "Looked at the brochure with the coin & loop render, felt so proud of what we have achieved."
The vision-AI brand and website, moving. Archetype settled after we changed it mid-project in June because the first one wasn't true.
June's cover story, still going. The investor deck is finished and the website is close.
Vignesh on the 3D: "Bharat Atomics has a lot of happy accidents only because of our conversations."
Back for website additions. Phase 2 was also Harishma's first time overseeing a project this way, with Mansi and Joel learning the tool alongside her.
It ran late, and her note about it says so: "We couldn't finish everything on time, but I could see that you genuinely felt bad about it, and that itself shows your involvement."
Neha cleared it while she was already deep in the Good Shepherd project. Mansi, who handed it over: "Thank you for stepping up last week with the backlog on Factors AI, even though you were swamped with GSIS. I'm sorry for dropping the ball on time management there."
We said June. Then we said July. It is now August. The brand and the site are done; the go-live keeps moving. Writing it down for the third time so it stays visible.
New hoardings went up all over North Bangalore. Out of the studio and onto the road.
And a showcase on Lumos in the same month. Two rooms, neither of which we walked into.
Duncan, co-founder of Memberstack, reached out having looked at how the Armory site handled 6.1 million requests. Not a pitch, not a referral. He read the work and came to us.
He wasn't the only one. Inbound arrived through the month from organisations we had never contacted, VC funds among them, and in each case the introduction had already been made by something we shipped months ago.
Turno showed at PRAWAAS'26 and turned up in the A1 gallery. Zakia led the event work with Swathi, Nanki and Joel.
Her own note on it is the best thing in the studio this month, so it runs in full further down.
Hiral's first. Arpan filed it under exactly that title. And they're looking forward to doing more with us.
Hiral, replying: "Thank you, Arpan. I also want to thank you for being so supportive throughout."
Vignesh built and shipped a plugin to move work from Figma into Blender, designer to 3D artist, without the handoff pain.
Its origin is the honest part: "Your valid frustrations of working with me with respect to pipeline has made me develop this plugin. Without you guys most likely I wouldn't have done it."
Self-initiated work, built to pitch with. Between Leumas, Bharat Atomics and the second nuclear project, deeptech has become a place we know our way around.
Featured in this issue
On screen · July
Most of them are people from the studio explaining how a piece of work actually got made. All on our channel, and the kind of thing our film practice does for clients too.
Inside the studio
They've kept the morning sessions going all month, sitting down together to solve problems rather than separately. It shows up in the work: two sites live on the same day, and a Z47 build that ran itself.
ZenState, Saurabh's time tracker, has quietly become load-bearing. Nanki: "Time tracking is one of the most annoying tasks ever and the fact that you put your mind to it and made it an intuitive part of our days is like a wave of relief. Thank you for sanding out the drab tediousness of tracking time."
And Vignesh's Figma-to-Blender plugin is published.
Sanjana has been running Auto Layout training and 1:1s. Samiksha: "You made the sessions very simple, easy to understand and most importantly very hands-on and practical." Sanjana's reply, when thanked twice in a week: "As long as you all get confident in your execution skills, I'm willing to put in the extra effort."
What people said · July
Appreciation board. Recipient on the left, the person who wrote it on the right.
"The way you have stepped up and taken over responsibilities beyond just development is truly commendable. You've earned the trust of Z47 clients to a level where you have built a sense of camaraderie, which is rare. It's been easy-breezy, glitch-free."
"This went really well. All of you figured out and delivered by yourself, without a project manager in the picture. That's a great win guys. This is ideally how a project should be run. You guys have proved that it can be done."
"More than anything else let this project be a turning point for you to remind yourself, you can do it and well. You handled client conversations, the work, the project, everything. Cheers to doing most of it on your own."
"Means a lot. Thank you for helping me whenever I needed that push."
"I genuinely appreciate all the help you gave me on this project, I don't think I could have done it alone."
"How could I even think of saying no to an opportunity to work with you? You did a great job handling Prashanth, full respect only."
"Your presence actually makes the project lighter for me and the team. You have figured when to fire fight on your own and when to reach out for help as well. Kudos to you."
"I would repeat it a thousand times over that I love ZenState. Being able to present a clear metric of time spent for every step of the way, especially with stop motion, is very deeply helpful."
"You had a day, some instructions and a tight deadline. Despite that you breezed through it like it was no big deal without compromising quality. You too should be proud of it."
"Thank you for stepping up and building the major parts of the Neon Trumpet site while I was juggling two projects. Your initiative has shown how well we can collaborate on bigger, more complex sites."
"You really showed a 'can do' attitude on Kandou. Even though this was technically challenging, you aced it. This opens up a new era of us working towards interactive animation."
"Extremely happy to see the lovely work on Animated Blogs. I know it's been hard balancing production alongside client work, but you've pulled through and completed a full set. Be more confident and keep at it, I believe in you."
"I'm really thankful for your help with Welga's. I was quite busy, and you understood that. You also offered to help without a second thought."
"Thank you for helping me figure out the moodboard for TheMVP even though you had your own work to do."
"Thank you for all the encouragement and time you've been putting into our 1:1s and the Auto Layout sessions. I really appreciate you investing your time in helping us grow despite your busy schedule."
"Thank you for stepping up with the backlog on Factors AI, even though you were swamped with GSIS. I sincerely appreciate the patience with which you've been guiding me. Thanks for being the trooper lead that you are."
"I really love seeing how both of you are open to learning new things. We couldn't finish everything on time, but I could see that you genuinely felt bad about it, and that itself shows your involvement. Keep practicing. We'll get there soon."
"The small calculated risks they took has given me opportunities to take bigger steps. Most of you bring the insecurities out of me and I have learnt not to let my ego come in between that, and it has helped me push my boundaries."
"It takes someone truly committed to their art to bring that kind of flair to every project."
"PRAWAAS means journey, and somewhere along the way this project became one for me too. One thing I'm really proud of is not just the final design, but how I handled the conversations around it."
"There were places where the feedback made sense, so I accepted it. But there were also places where I felt what we had suggested was right. Instead of agreeing to every change, I started asking what exactly was not working. Sometimes that changed the design. Other times it helped us realise the original direction was already doing the job."
"This project taught me a lot about when to listen, when to question, and when to stand by the work."
"The most rewarding work is often the one you don't even realize you're doing."
"My responsibility was to ensure the transition remained completely invisible to Z47's investors. While most people were enjoying their Saturday evening, I was monitoring the migration. Even after the window closed at 10:30 PM, I stayed until 11:00 PM verifying every system was stable."
"These quiet hours behind the scenes are where the true work of ensuring business continuity takes place."
"Took this screenshot in May when it happened; a direct response from the client himself. And still reeling in the moment."
"Designed and embedded the brand symbol into the font. Since this brand relies so much on the syntax and semantics of linguistics, this is a granular application."
Six years · Everything Design
The sixth-year film went out this month, made in-house, about the house. Watch it here. This is what it says.
They used to say black swans don't exist. And they were right, until one day they found one. There are the things that are known, and the things that are unknown. What really makes a difference are the unknown unknowns.
This is us. It's 2020, in a tiny house, with less than a handful of clients who took a bet on us. We didn't know the things we didn't know. But we started the day anyway, with half a plan and barely a map. And we did that again the next day.
Along the way we felt sick, laughed, cried, got mad at each other. People joined, people left, and no matter what, like clockwork, the days went by, and with it somehow, so did we.
It's been six years. Filmmakers, animators, designers, developers, strategists. We still don't know the things we don't know.
But what we do know, we learned by learning to ask the right questions. Listening to what was not being said, and what was being ignored. And through this, we created work that left an impression.
The great works we see today were once dismissed or opposed by many, sometimes even us. But they refused to die.
And when our clients pushed back, we pushed back harder.
The one thing we do know now is that judgment and decision-making are earned skills. You cannot learn them in a playbook.
Because like children, we break things apart to see how they work. Like craftsmen, we put them back in ways unexpected. And like artists with a distinct point of view, we demand courage.
That's what the world wants from you. The courage to be you. And we take you to the unknown unknowns, where courage is all but the only thing you need.
We design your right to win. Strategically, verbally, visually.
"When our clients pushed back, we pushed back harder" is the kind of line a studio writes about itself. What follows is three people at a client arriving at the same sentence, without being asked to.
In their words · Cloudphysician
The testimonial film went out this month. Reading the full transcripts back, three people at Cloudphysician each arrived at the same answer, without being asked the same question. None of them led with the design. They led with the arguing.
"We didn't just need a vendor that would follow instructions or put something out. We needed a partner that would push back, ask the right questions, think about it deeply, and with us, help us craft the right story."
"The one constant thing that we appreciate is the willingness to push back and not just go with the flow. That is a key ingredient of what then makes a better video, a better website, a better brochure, and a better partnership."
"You want some dissent, you want some difference of opinion for pushing that boundary forward."
On how the disagreements actually ran: "You weren't defensive. It was always a collaborative discussion on what is right rather than who is right. And that makes a big difference to the end output."
Professionalism. Competence. Candour. "That open candour is the foundation of a healthy relationship. We are not holding back. You're not holding back."
"They've given me pushback when they have felt that I was not thinking about it the right way. When I have asked for something but they have felt strongly that it doesn't work, they haven't gone with the flow because the client asked for it."
"They have really felt like partners, and asked me, why do you think this, Aisha?"
"It's pushed my thinking, and I hope I have pushed your thinking as well."
Aisha was talking to several vendors against a hard deadline and getting confidence from none of them. She called Mejo on a Friday. He said he couldn't come that day but would come the next, and turned up on the Saturday with Tejus. The line she remembers is the one that closed it: "We'll only take it on if we can deliver."
Cloudphysician closed their first US client a few weeks after that event. Dilip's read on why the pushback matters is the practical one: everyone associated with the company is a vector, and "these vectors need to point in the same direction." A partner who nods along is a vector pointing wherever it was already pointing.
Both conversations ended somewhere useful for us: less episodic, more continuous. Dilip's version, on the film we shot for them last year, is "how has it aged?" A fair thing to want, and worth building into how we work.
New faces · July
Two designers, two motion designers, and design leadership: Nehal, Ashik, Anushka, Wamika, Sushant. That's ten people in two months. The rest of the studio is here.
Harishma D
Harishma was invited back to her alma mater as a guest speaker, "From Physics to an A1 designer." Which is a real distance to have travelled, and a real thing to be asked back for.
End of issue
Thirty-six entries. Fifteen films. Two sites live on the same day. Kandou out the door. An Awwwards mention, a Lumos showcase, and inbound from funds we have never spoken to. A project that ran without a project manager. A Saturday night nobody was supposed to notice.
And a lot of saying no, so there was room for all of it.
SemiCab goes live in August. So does PrimeWealth, and we're going to stop writing that sentence. Bharat Atomics' website lands. MasterSoft kicks off. FinLender's naming and narrative come together, and Leumas moves into identity. Five new people find their feet.
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