Interview with Somya Chowdhary

It started before I had a word for it. As a kid, I was the type who would look at a toy and immediately want to take it apart or make something new out of it — toothpaste boxes, cardboard, whatever was around. I was building things before I knew building things was a career.My formal design education started with fashion design, which was an unusual entry point, but one I'm grateful for. It gave me a deep early understanding of how objects relate to the body, to identity, and to lifestyle — a human-centered lens I carry into everything I design today. Industrial Design was the natural next chapter: a wider canvas for the same curiosity. What kept me in design wasn't a single defining moment — it was the accumulation of small ones. The first time I held a physical prototype of something I'd sketched on paper. The first time someone reacted to a design I'd made as though it was something they actually needed. That gap between how things are and how they could be has always felt worth closing to me.

Three things I always return to: context, physical iteration, and material honesty.Context first — I need to understand who this is for, under what conditions, and what they're really trying to do before I touch a pen. The brief as written is rarely the whole story.Physical iteration as early as possible. I start with pen and paper because it's the medium where I'm most free to be wrong, and being wrong quickly is the fastest route to being right. I sketch through a wide range of concepts, move into Procreate for more developed directions, and get into Rhino and my Bambu 3D printer as soon as I have something worth holding. The physical feedback loop changes everything — a print tells you things a render simply can't. And material honesty — I'm drawn to designs that show what they're made of. Stainless steel that looks like steel. Concrete that feels like concrete. There's an integrity to that approach that I find compelling both aesthetically and philosophically. Stylistically, I lean toward minimalism — but a minimalism that's substantial and tactile, not sterile or cold.

Mostly curiosity. There's a persistent low-level energy running through every stage — an ongoing drive to solve the mini-problem in front of me before moving to the next one.
The most exciting phase for me is early physical iteration — when a rough form is starting to take shape in your hands and you can feel whether it's right or wrong before you can fully articulate why. That physical intuition is something I trust a lot.
There's also a particular satisfaction in the moment a functional constraint and an aesthetic decision converge unexpectedly. With MokaMax, the ridges started as a grip and structural solution and became the product's visual signature. With BloomCase, the weight of concrete — a practical material choice — became its defining character. Those moments of discovery are why I design.
About 10% of the time, I feel genuine frustration — usually when software crashes and I haven't saved. That's why pen and paper will never fully leave my process.

Starting in fashion gave me something most industrial designers don't have early on — a deep sensitivity to how objects relate to the human body, to identity, and to the way people present themselves to the world. That carries into everything I design: I think about how a product feels in your hand, how it looks clipped to your bag, how it fits into the story you tell about yourself.
Growing up between India and the US also gave me a broader frame of reference for what "good design" means. Design isn't culturally neutral — what feels considered and intentional in one context can feel cold or foreign in another. That awareness of context, of user, of culture, runs through how I approach every project.
Non-design skills that have helped me most: communication and curiosity. Communication is the best design in the world doesn't get made if you can't bring people along with it — engineers, PMs, stakeholders, clients. And curiosity, because the designers I admire most don't stay in their lane. They understand materials, manufacturing, software, and human behavior. That breadth compounds over time.

The most immediate goal is transitioning MokaMax from concept to actual product. It started as a self-initiated proof of concept, got picked up organically by design publications and social media, won an A' Design Award, and had strangers asking where they could buy it. That response made it clear that this deserves to be real. I'm working toward making that happen — and using that process as the first chapter of a larger transition from industrial designer to creator.
In parallel, I'm developing OTTO — a desktop co-work bot that uses AI not to do the work for you, but to help you understand and learn the tools that get you there. It's pushing me into new territory at the intersection of physical and digital product design, which is exactly where I want to be.
Longer term, I want to build a practice that's partly professional, partly independent, and entirely driven by genuine curiosity. My dream project is something that has the same qualities as my best personal work — self-initiated, rooted in a real personal frustration, and designed for people who care deeply about the objects in their lives.

Start making before you feel ready. The gap between your taste and your ability closes fastest through volume — making a lot of things, not waiting to make the perfect one. Make the imperfect thing, learn from it, and make the next one better.
Get comfortable being wrong in public. The designers who grow fastest are the ones who share work in progress, invite honest feedback, and iterate openly. Perfectionism in private is just procrastination with better PR.
Learn to work across disciplines early. The most valuable designers I've encountered understand engineering, materials, user research, and business — not as specialists in each, but as informed collaborators. That breadth makes you better at every stage and more valuable in any room.
And finally: design for real problems, not aesthetic exercises. The work that resonates — with users, with press, with the people who eventually ask "where can I buy this?" — always starts from a genuine friction. Follow that friction honestly, and the form will follow.

Follow the problem, not the aesthetic. The best work I've seen — and the work I'm most proud of — starts from a real, specific friction and follows it with honesty. Don't start with a style and force the problem to fit it.
Prototype physically as early as possible. Renders lie in comfortable ways. A 3D print tells you the truth about proportions, grip, and weight in ways that no screen will.
Invest in your communication skills. Design that can't be explained can't be championed, and design that isn't championed doesn't get made. Being able to articulate why a decision was made — not just what it looks like — is what separates designers who influence outcomes from designers who execute them.
And share your work. I've had designs picked up by publications and had people reach out asking to buy things I made as personal projects. None of that happens if the work stays private. Put it out there. The right people find the right work.

I pay more attention to behaviors than trends. Trends tell you what's fashionable right now; behaviors tell you what people actually need, which tends to be more durable. That said, I stay connected to the design conversation through publications like Design Milk and Yanko Design, social media, and just paying attention in stores and public spaces — noticing what's frustrating, what's delightful, what's missing.
For my own work, I try not to design to a trend. MokaMax wasn't designed because rugged minimalism was having a moment — it was designed because I was personally frustrated by portable coffee gear. BloomCase wasn't designed because concrete was fashionable — it was designed because I wanted a desk object that felt as considered as the work happening on it. When the thinking is right, the aesthetic tends to land in the right place on its own.

A well-designed product disappears into use. You stop thinking about it as an object and just do the thing it was designed for. My OXO peeler — I don't think about the handle, I just peel. That invisibility is the goal. Good design doesn't announce itself; it removes the friction between you and what you're trying to do.
The opposite of good design isn't bad design — it's design that keeps reminding you it's there. Products that demand your attention when they should be serving it. The questions I ask: Does this serve its user honestly? Does every detail justify its presence? Does it hold up under real conditions, not just ideal ones?

When every detail can justify its existence and the whole thing feels inevitable — like it couldn't reasonably have been any other way. In practice, the signal is when iteration stops revealing new problems and starts producing diminishing returns. You can feel that shift.
There's also an external signal I've come to trust: when people who weren't involved in the process react to it as a real thing they want in their lives. The people who asked where to buy MokaMax after seeing it published — that unsolicited response from strangers told me something no amount of internal review could. When a design communicates something true to someone with no obligation to care, it's ready.

Professionally, pioneering the software UX for MilliporeSigma's first-ever lab automation robot — the Automated Assay Workstation — is the project that pushed me furthest. Building a design framework from scratch for a first-of-its-kind product, with no precedent to follow, validated by usability testing with over 100 prospective customers, is genuinely significant work. It's also set the standard for how future software development at the company will be approached, which is a legacy I'm proud of.
Personally, MokaMax holds that place. Not because it's the most complex thing I've designed, but because it's the most fully mine. Self-initiated, self-constrained, developed entirely from personal experience. It's been featured in Design Milk and Yanko Design, won an A' Design Award, and had strangers asking where to buy it. For a personal project, that arc — from sketch to award-winning published design — is the most complete design story I've told so far.

Raymond Loewy, without hesitation. The sheer breadth of what he touched — locomotives, refrigerators, the Lucky Strike logo, Air Force One — and the consistent thread of accessible, optimistic modernism running through all of it is extraordinary. He understood that good design could change how an entire culture felt about the future, and he proved it at scale. If I could have one conversation with any designer, it would be with him.
For living designers, I'm drawn to the Teenage Engineering team — the OB-4 Off White in particular represents everything I find compelling: honest materials, minimal form, a product that pushes its user toward a certain intentional lifestyle without ever feeling prescriptive.

I'm based in Boston, which genuinely feeds my creativity. The city layers old and new architecture in a way that's constantly visually interesting — Federal-era buildings next to brutalist concrete next to contemporary glass. Half my camera roll at any given moment is just Boston streets. There's also a density of universities, ideas, and curious people in this city that I find energizing.
Music is part of my process — different phases of design have different soundtracks. Early ideation tends toward something more ambient; the focused modeling phase gets something with more rhythm.
Growing up between India and the US has given me a broader frame of reference for what good design means across contexts. Design isn't culturally neutral. That awareness shapes how I think about users, context, and the assumptions I try not to make.

I believe the best design happens when designers are trusted with the real problem — not just the brief as it's already been framed. The most valuable thing I can do in any project is ask whether we're solving the right thing before we commit to solving it well.
I work well in collaborative, interdisciplinary environments. At MilliporeSigma I've worked alongside engineers, PMs, software developers, packaging teams, and scientists — and I genuinely enjoy that range. Moving between disciplines keeps the thinking fresh and forces you to communicate design decisions in terms that different people can engage with.
What I look for in collaborators — and what I try to bring myself — is intellectual honesty: the willingness to say "this isn't working" before it's too late to change course. That applies to me as much as anyone.

I strongly believe in giving back to the community that helped shape me. When I was starting out, I leaned heavily on designers who were willing to share their time, guidance, and honest feedback — and that generosity had a real impact on where I am today. My way of paying that forward is simply being available.
I'm an active member of Young Designers India, an open design community where I've positioned myself as a resource for students and junior industrial designers navigating the early stages of their careers. Being relatively young myself has helped me connect with them in a genuine way — I remember what those questions feel like, and I try to answer them honestly rather than with the polished version of the story.
More recently, I've been invited to judge and provide feedback to students at MassArt and MIT's College of Design, which has been a deeply rewarding experience. There's something clarifying about articulating why a design works or doesn't to someone who's still developing their instincts — it sharpens your own thinking as much as it helps theirs.
I've also participated in brainstorming sessions where a small group of designers sat with early-stage startup founders to explore how design thinking could improve their products and solve real, everyday problems. That kind of work — where design meets entrepreneurship at the earliest, most uncertain stage — is something I find genuinely exciting and want to do more of.

Entering MokaMax into the A' Design Award was a direct result of the confidence I gained seeing it picked up organically by design publications and social media accounts. The award has been a genuine accelerator — not just for the recognition, but for what it's made possible. It's strengthened the case for developing MokaMax into a real product, given the concept credibility with a broader audience, and pushed me to think more seriously about the transition from designer to creator.
Being evaluated by a jury of 312 international design professionals — academics, journalists, practitioners — and coming out the other side recognized is a validation that's genuinely hard to replicate elsewhere. Design awards at their best do what this one did for me: they take a concept seriously, introduce it to a wider world, and give the designer the confidence to take the next step.

I'm currently an Industrial Designer at MilliporeSigma, where I focus on healthcare and life science products. Outside of my professional work, I pursue personal design projects that let me explore different product categories and push my own creative boundaries — MokaMax being one of them. I'm at a point where I'm thinking seriously about transitioning from designer to creator, developing and bringing my own concepts to market rather than just designing for others.

I feel Design is a language where you communicate with a ton of people at once. You understand what they are going through, find an opportunity, and in your response, you answer back with a product that impacts them and their lives without them even knowing how.

I'm most drawn to products that sit at the intersection of everyday use and outdoor or active life — things that need to be both beautiful and genuinely tough. Products that travel with people, that get scratched and worn, and still work perfectly. There's something deeply satisfying about designing for real conditions rather than ideal ones. I also love products that have a strong sensory quality — things that feel good to hold, that have considered weight and texture, not just a considered appearance.

I am a fan of the Teenage Engineering products, especially the OB-4 Off White. To start, I think it's a design that is really honest about what it is, it's clean and minimal, and I feel it's something that will not get old even centuries down the line. It not only signifies a product line but pushes its users to a certain lifestyle that is design-driven, which is what I really enjoy. Also, personally, I am fond of products that are slightly different from the norm, and I feel with its form and CMF, it perfectly fits the description.

My first major design gig came in the form of a design internship for an accessories startup that excelled in making bags for women. I came in and got the task to create a product line of Men's accessories - everything from Backpacks, sling bags, lunch bags, and a travel bag. Even though I didn't have much experience in this sector, coming from a purely ID background, it was so much fun designing for this brief, adjusting to a different workflow, and delivering designs based on that was truly a treat.

Recently, I have been exploring Claude code and how it could be used in design. I still feel iffy about using AI in final design deliverable but, but I have found Claude works amazingly well in creating tools and conducting design research that could help creatives expand their horizons when it comes to designing products they might not have thought about designing just a few years ago.

More recently, I have discovered that I am most creative when I have a clear brief with concrete constraints and a real deadline. I feel this helps designers get the most creative and innovative solutions to solve a problem, and look for those opportunities.

I absolutely love iterating and prototyping, being able to quickly touch and feel my 3D models in real time and make changes to form and proportions according to that is truly magical. I try to spend a ton of time initially exploring forms through paper and cardboard quickly, and while refining the form, constantly 3D printing my models.

I feel curious most of the time while designing, trying to understand how I could solve mini problems in every stage of my design workflow.

10% of the time, I do feel angry when I forget to save my file and my design software decides to crash.

This is the biggest motivator, honestly, and something that drives me to keep on working on a personal project in between client and professional work. Seeing your design materialize in front of you has to be the best feeling - it also helps you understand what's next. What can be improved and what can be learned going forward?

I think A design should be considered successful if it serves its intended user and is able to fit within the given constraints and budget successfully.

I feel the first thing I look at is context, where, when, what, who, and how this design is made for, and I try to gauge from my experience if it does justice to those criteria. If a design fails in these categories for me, it doesn't matter how a product looks or functions.

I think, similar to artists, we as designers have the ability to influence people on a societal scale - drive purchasing decisions, define trends, and even bring about major economic changes. (How Raymond Loewy, through his streamlined forms, helped take the US out of an economic depression back in the day)

The most interesting shift I see is designers moving closer to making, not just designing for manufacturers, but becoming the originators of products themselves. Tools like accessible 3D printing, better visualization software, and direct-to-consumer channels are lowering the barrier between concept and product in ways that weren't possible even five years ago. I think the future belongs to designers who can hold the entire arc — from idea to object to market — rather than handing off at each stage.

My designs were last showcased as part of the SCAD graduate showcase, and something I worked on at MilliporeSigma was recently showcased at CES, too. I think the next big exhibition I am going to target is the Milan Design Week.

I feel Design inspiration is too overrated. I feel that, as designers living and breathing in an ever-smaller world, we are constantly being inspired by the things around us.

Minimalism, if I had to answer it in one word. I'm drawn to designs that are visually restrained but physically substantial — things that don't shout but reward close attention. I like details that earn their presence by doing something, not just by being there. And I'm drawn to a certain honesty of material — showing what something is made of rather than hiding it. My approach is always to start with the real problem, follow the functional constraints as far as they'll take me, and trust that good form will emerge from good thinking.

Currently in Boston, and I think the culture and architecture really inspire and affect my design. The open and accessible nature of the city, combined with an old and modern architecture, really drives me to just be more creative. I am always left in awe whenever I visit the city, and half my camera roll is just Boston streets at this point.

I like to think I work on a generalist level with companies, with my specialization being in industrial design. I like to get involved in projects for a ton of different fields and use design thinking to solve problems. At MilliporeSigma, I have been able to work on multiple ID projects, packaging design projects, helped teams with CMF, creating product graphics, and, more recently, mapping and creating user flows for a digital interactive screen.

I always start with pen and paper — it's the medium where I feel most free to be wrong, and being wrong quickly is the fastest path to being right. After generating a wide range of rough concepts, I move into Procreate to develop the most promising directions with more fidelity. Once a direction is chosen, I move into Rhino for 3D modeling, iterating on proportions, surface transitions, and details. My Bambu 3D printer lets me test physical iterations in near real time, which has been transformative — holding something changes how you think about it in ways a screen never can. Final visualization happens in Blender, where I try to show the design not just as an object but as something living in the world.

I have an OXO peeler that I love!
My Mac and Apple products are a treat to interact with.
absolutely admire my simple Braun watch.
I don't think I can work without my logitech mx master 3 mouse

Start making before you feel ready. The gap between your taste and your ability closes fastest through volume — making a lot of things, not waiting to make the perfect thing. Also: learn to be comfortable with being wrong in public. The designers I admire most are the ones who share work in progress, invite feedback, and iterate openly. Perfectionism in private is just procrastination with better PR.

I think the positives are being able to create something new on a daily basis - and then seeing that product you just created having a positive impact on someone's life is truly a magical feeling.

The negative is the fact that you are now going to nitpick every design decision on every product you interact with - sometimes you just want to be oblivious, but as a designer, you cannot. Also, as a designer, you have to deal with design software and tools randomly crashing, and that's why I love designing with pen and paper.

If you can't explain why a detail is there, it shouldn't be there. Every curve, every texture, every transition should be able to justify its existence — functionally, ergonomically, or expressively. Design by accumulation leads to noise. Design by subtraction leads to objects that feel inevitable.

Observation first — the ability to notice what's actually happening, not what you expect to be happening. Then curiosity — across disciplines, not just within design. Then the ability to make decisions under uncertainty, because you will never have complete information and waiting for it is its own kind of failure. And finally, communication — because the best idea in the world is useless if you can't bring other people along with it.

I love the traditional pen and paper for most of my initial idea explorations. I have recently started using Procreate for digital sketching and rendering, and my go-to tool for modeling is either Rhino 3D or SolidWorks for modelling. I also really enjoy Blender for visualization over anything else - the community Blender has is second to none. More recently, I have also started diving into Figma, Framer, and Claude code for more digital product design, and it's been fun exploring that side of design too.

I feel taking breaks in the middle really helps. I like to break down big problems into smaller chunks and set reasonable deadlines for them. This really helps me stick to delivering designs rather than being stuck in an endless loop of refining my design.

It varies enormously by complexity and constraints. MokaMax — from initial research through final visualization — took just under two months. That included research, ideation across roughly two dozen concepts, Procreate development, Rhino modeling, multiple rounds of 3D printing and iteration, and final Blender visualization. For professional work, timelines are shaped by the product development cycle, which can be much longer.

"Where can I buy it?" Which is both incredibly flattering and a clear signal that it needs to stop being a concept.

I love to work with diverse and interdisciplinary teams. At my current place of work, I have worked with a packaging team, a Design research team, an engineering team, and a software development team on different projects, gaining skills in respective fields and helping people include good design.

Yes! I actually recently started a new project called OTTO, which is a Desktop Co-work bot aimed at leveraging AI to not do the task for you, but to help you understand and learn tools that can help you accomplish your goals. I am currently modeling and prototyping it and would love to share some visuals with you too.

www.somyachowdhary.com would be where people keep up with most of my latest projects.
somyachow@gmail.com would be the best place for someone to reach out to me for a cup of chai and endless talks about design.