About Santosh Mudragada, beyond the design work.

There's more to me than what I design. I spend a lot of my time making things, and about as much of it just experiencing them.

I'm from Rajahmundry, on the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. I didn't grow up planning to be a designer.

I studied aeronautical engineering for four years in Chennai. I liked taking things apart to understand why they fly, and I liked the model competitions more than the exams. The path from there to product design was not a straight line.

I've always liked figuring things out, usually alongside the same few friends. Some of the days I remember best had little to do with where we were.

At some point I started travelling: Vietnam, Laos, the Indian mountains, the Kerala coast. I like arriving somewhere before I've read about it. I remember trips as fragments more than itineraries.

I photograph a lot of what I see, fog, shopfronts, the good hour of light, people, mostly to remember how a place felt rather than because it was beautiful. None of that was in service of the work.

I like cafés and slow mornings. I like saying yes to things, kayaking, rented motorbikes, bad roads, before I know quite what they involve. I also like solitude: mountains, water, being somewhere unreachable.

There are a few people I would put everything else down for.

Somewhere across all of that I became a designer. Not because any one experience taught me a lesson, but because the habit underneath it, look closer, follow the interesting part, turned into the work. Design is what I do; curiosity is the thing underneath it.

Santosh in a dark jacket, seen from the side, looking out over a sea of cloud with snow peaks beyond.

Santosh, off the clock

There is more to methan what I design.

I spend a lot of my time making things. I spend about as much of it just experiencing them.

You have seen the work. This is the rest of it. A few years of it, roughly in order.

I am from Rajahmundry, a town on the Godavari, in Andhra Pradesh.

Wide river. Long afternoons. A lot of sky to look at.

I did not grow up planning to be a designer. I am not sure I was planning anything.

01

I did notstart here.

Santosh leaning against the nose of a parked twin-propeller aircraft on a college campus.

I studied aeronautical engineering. Four years of it, in Chennai.

I liked the part where you take a thing apart to understand why it stays in the air. I liked the model competitions more than the exams.

Five engineering students with a camouflage-painted model aircraft wing and a small trophy under a Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science banner.
Model-aircraft competition. We came away with the small trophy.
Two friends messing around on the nose cone of a small aircraft in bright sun on red dirt.

People ask how I got from wings to interfaces. I have never had a tidy answer. I kept following the part of the work I actually enjoyed, and after a while it had turned into something else.

It took a few turns to get here. I wouldn't change them.
An aircraft wing over a floor of cloud, shot from a window seat.
Window seat. Somewhere over the middle of nowhere.
02

But I have always likedfiguring things out.Usually with these people.

Four friends huddled together laughing on a rocky shore as a wave breaks behind them.

Some of the days I remember best had almost nothing to do with where we were.

Same few people. New backgrounds.

Two friends sitting close, silhouetted against a hazy sunset.
A group of friends posed together in a palm forest on a trip.
The work lot, off the clock for once.
Santosh at a lit-up night fair, smiling at the camera.
03

Then I startedgoing places.

I like getting a little lost. Turning up somewhere before I have read anything about it, and finding out what it feels like first.

I keep trips as fragments. A wall, a smell, the light at six. More than itineraries.

Small boats moving between jungle-covered limestone cliffs on a river in Ninh Bình.
01Ninh Bình, on the water
A foggy stone street of an old hill town, warm lamps, people under umbrellas.
02up in the hills, in the fog
Cruise boats scattered among the karst towers of Hạ Long Bay at dusk.
03Hạ Long, going dark
Santosh leaning against a bright yellow colonial wall with arched windows in Hội An.
04Hội An, that yellow
A row of brightly lit lantern stalls on a wet cobbled street at night.
05the lantern street, after rain
Santosh on a motorbike at the Nam Xay viewpoint above Vang Vieng, Laos, a patchwork valley and karst peaks behind.
06Vang Vieng. You climb up to this one
Santosh sitting beside the turquoise tiers of Kuang Si Falls.
07Kuang Si, colder than it looks
A night food stall wreathed in steam and neon signage, someone eating in a rain poncho.
08dinner, standing up
A pale green colonial building with shuttered balconies and palm trees.
09somebody still lives here
A long steel truss railway bridge stretching across water under a dramatic dusk sky.
10a bridge on the way home
Boats on still water among karst islands under a soft pink dawn.
11same bay, six hours later

None of it made me better at my job. That was never why I went.

04

And started keepingpieces of them.

I take a lot of photos. Not because everything in front of me is beautiful.

More because I want to remember how a place felt while I was standing in it.

A foggy dusk street with bare trees and warm streetlamps, printed with a white border.
Six pm. Could not feel my hands. Stayed anyway.
A woman making red paper fans and calligraphy scrolls by lamplight in a dim shop.
She had been folding these longer than I have been alive.
A wide river valley and a small town below a mountain ridge and heavy cloud.
Stood here a lot longer than I meant to.
A black-and-white street dog on gravel, a hand reaching down towards it.
He allowed it.
A single hot-air balloon drifting past a tall cloud in a pale sky, wires below.
It was in no hurry. Neither was I.
Three small children at a low table, pulling faces at the camera.
They were more interested in the camera than I was in the view.
A curved modern skyscraper rising behind an older building against a flat grey sky.
Old building, newer building, same grey sky.
A myna bird holding still on a painted railing.
Held still for exactly one frame.
Looking straight up a gap between buildings at a tapering tower and overcast sky.
Looked up at the wrong moment. Kept it.
A wall mural of a samurai and a red dragon around a red sun.
Somebody spent a week on this. Everyone walks straight past.
A long-exposure of water sliding over mossy rocks in green shade.
Ten seconds of shutter. Water does the rest.
An overhead view of a breakfast: a cappuccino, two croissants and a black coffee on a patched cloth.

Somewhere between a long walk and a cup of coffee, I usually stop trying to get anywhere.

This is the slow part of the page. No hurry.

05

Sometimes it isjust goingto find out.

A man paddling a green kayak through a mangrove channel.
A motorcyclist in full gear picking a line through a rocky, washed-out mountain road.

I have got comfortable saying yes before I know exactly what I have said yes to.

Kayaks. Bikes on roads that barely were. One that turned out to be a riverbed. A very small snowman.

A first-person view of legs stretched out on an alpine cart, rice fields and hills below.
A very small snowman wearing a black cap, someone sliding through snow in the distance.
The snowman. Roughly life-size, for an ant.
Santosh standing in front of a colourful painted-wings mural.

It is rarely as dramatic as it sounds afterwards. Mostly it is just: go, and see.

06

And sometimes it isthe opposite of that.

I like being around people. I also like disappearing for a while.

Looking straight up the trunks of a tall pine forest to a bright centre of sky.
Dark limestone hills under a heavy, low sky.

Mountains help. So does fog, and water, and being somewhere my phone gives up.

Bare ridgelines and drifting cloud over a high mountain valley.

I am not always after the next thing. Some days, standing still is the whole plan.

Santosh walking a red-dirt path along a rocky coastline lined with palms.
A lone figure standing small in front of a colonial clock tower at dusk.
A single wooden house on a green mountainside, half lost in mist.
07

And then there are the little momentsI end up carrying home.

Santosh holding a small child up to look at a leaf he is holding out.
A small child in a white shirt peering around a weathered wooden post.

That is about all I will say here.

08

Somewhere in all of that,I became a designer.

Not because a trip taught me a lesson I could put on a slide.

More that the same habit, poke at it, look closer, follow the part that is actually interesting, turned out to be a job.

Design is what I do.Curiosity is the thing underneath it.

Boats on still water among karst islands under a soft pink dawn.

Anyway. That is a bit more of me.

Back to the work