Through a Designer's Lens

Diya Jenil Mookkole is a sixteen year old aspiring designer from Mumbai who works across paint, colour pencils, clay, and graphics, and who believes the best design balances creativity, functionality, and emotion.

A Mosaic Bridge Project Feature · @diya.archived

Aspiring designer · Mumbai, India

Diya Jenil Mookkole

Aspiring Designer

Based in

Mumbai, India

Studying

Design at the Silica Institute, Borivali, preparing for NID, NIFT, and UCEED

Works across

Paint, colour pencils, clay and 3D models, graphics

Inspired by

Music, classical dance, guitar, books, travel

Diya Jenil Mookkole likes to say that art became her language long before she ever learnt the principles of design. She is sixteen, an aspiring designer based in Mumbai, and currently a student at the Silica Institute in Borivali, where she is preparing for India's major design entrance exams, NID, NIFT, and UCEED. Long before any of that formal training, though, there was simply a kid who could not stop making things.

Where it began

She has been drawn to one art form or another for as long as she can remember, moving between music, classical dance, and books, and more recently her guitar, which she names as her favourite thing to do apart from her creative work. Her path into visual art was not dramatic so much as constant. It started with doodles tucked into the corners of her notebooks and personalised handmade gifts for her friends, and somewhere along the way it grew into her way of seeing everything around her.

The process over the product

What she discovered as she went is that the part she loves most is not the finished piece but the making of it. The process is where the real reward lives for her, because it is the process that has taught her the most, both about technique and about herself. That preference tells you a great deal about the kind of designer she is becoming, one far more interested in how an idea takes shape than in simply arriving at a result.

Many mediums, one curiosity

She loves turning her visions into something real across a range of mediums, working in paint, colour pencils, three-dimensional forms built from clay and models, and graphics, and pushing at her own creative limits with each one. Graphics is her newest arrival, something she began only recently and already loves, and she is clear that she wants to keep collecting new mediums as she grows as a designer.

Half scientist, half artist

There is another side to how she thinks. Diya is also a science student on the physics, chemistry, and biology track, and she credits that background for the particular blend of practicality and creativity that runs through her personality. It shapes what she believes about the work itself, which is that good design has to hold three things in balance at once: creativity for the vision, functionality so the piece actually works, and emotion so it stays with the people who see it.

Where the ideas come from

Her inspiration comes from paying close attention. She draws it from her own observations of small details and from her lived experiences, feeding herself through music, dance, travel, and books, and then turning all of it back into art. What she is reaching for is design that connects with people, inspires them, and leaves a lasting impression on their minds.