With an intersecting passion for language, music and visual communication, Aniruddh Mehta aka ‘thebigfatminimalist’, the founder of Mumbai-based Studio Bigfat, engages in a fascinating dialogue with Julius Wiedemann from Brazil in the third episode of Cross Border Conversations by STIR X LOCO Design.

With over 20 years of editing and co-authoring design and architecture books with TASCHEN publishing house, and serving as the global Chief Curator with creative education portal Domestika, Julius has come to believe that 'authenticity takes time to evolve – to become a body of its own'. Aniruddh - part designer, part musician, who is well-known for creating the title sequence of the crime thriller, Sacred Games on Netflix - trusts in the ‘ordered chaos’ that emerges from bold, minimal forms and wordless compositions. In the hour-long conversation, the two walk each other through their respective worlds, overlaps and anomalies. They examine creative paradoxes such as the said and unsaid, chaos and cohesion, legibility and illegibility, and comfort and curiosity.

We are living in the sweet spot between guarantees and stimulation. – Julius Wiedemann

Both Julius and Aniruddh agree that the process has no definition. To them, no matter how infinite the world of creativity and its possibilities, it lacks meaning if the journey doesn’t involve a set of universal, yet personal, rules. Most importantly, rule-bending is a critical part of the process, they emphasise, and one must learn to go steady with the randomness.

Organising information and packaging content powerfully is what connects the practices of Julius and Aniruddh. Julius, whose work focuses equally on the written word and the visual language of books, says that the ability of synthesis – of reducing content to bare minimum – is an art in itself, and not science. He elaborates on his 'First Law of Julius' – which states the 30/30/40 equation that outlines comfort, curiosity and learning as the three key ingredients to creating content that truly engages people.

Illegibility is like a puzzle, like a collaboration. You give half the information and engage the person in finding the other half. – Aniruddh Mehta

Aniruddh goes by the famous John Berger saying: "Seeing comes before words". Whether a commercial project or a record label, he feels that it is completely okay to precede the chaos of information with a visual, as long as the latter is powerful enough to pique the viewer’s curiosity.

Having worked on everything from branding, illustration and motion graphics to space design and murals, Aniruddh shares a nugget from his creative process. He says that unlike his peers, who start a project with a doodle or a quick hand-drawn sketch, he likes to think with screens. “I simply cannot draw," he confides in Julius, who goes on to explain how one’s inabilities are as important to creation as their abilities.

All this and a lot more in the video above!

Cross Border Conversations
Curated by Pramiti Madhavji and Amit Gupta, STIR X LOCO Design present candid video conversations among creative professionals across geographical borders and creative disciplines of architecture, design, art and beyond.

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