Funky; yet practical

By Smita Singh
Photography: Courtesy the designer

Skull Panel

Can you imagine a playful, faceted skull-shaped organizer grinning eerily at you on your table-top? Well, what else can one expect from a designer, who names Predator and Predator Vs Alien as some of his favourite movies!

Meet Chetan Sorab, a Delhi-based industrial designer, who “stumbled upon design” as a vocation and is on a quirky-design winning spree, touching ordinary lives with a touch of humour and light-heartedness.

 ‘Switch me’  - salt n pepper shaker

Matchlight Moodlighting

From designs such as ‘Switch me’, a humble salt-pepper shaker, that allows one to switch between salt and pepper at the press of a button, to social relevance via community cooking with the usage of solar energy and bio gas as fuel in his product ‘Sanjha Chulha’, which attempts at reducing the carbon footprint, Chetan gets his inspiration from things around him.

Beach Bellow

Kundi Pen

The ‘Batta’ shaker, the ‘Kundi’ pen and ‘Matchlight’ mood lighting are other such designs that have evolved out of the absolutely ‘everyday’. He believes his ability to question things, which are in existence, inspire him. The ‘Beach bellow’, which he designed is an affirmation and won him the Red Dot Concept Award in 2010. This collapsible beach chair is inspired from a regular bellow; the two sides can be either used for lying down or sitting.

Gottacha

Bone Hanger

So how would he describe his design style? Chetan has no fixed style, he says; but tries to give an emotional connect to the product he works on, other than always keeping the consumer in mind. A look at the ‘Bone hanger’ and the ‘Gottacha’ wine rack makes us believe in this connect. According to Chetan the skill that strengthens a designer’s capabilities is the ability to visualize and have knowledge of the manufacturing process.

Rocker