[SON] Ravi! Please, introduce yourself to everyone and let them know what you do and how you got here.
[RAVI] I’m Ravi, obviously. I’m nothing more than just another ordinary eighteen year old boy who is currently residing in the City of Melbourne in Australia, working as a multidisciplinary freelance designer and a language assistant at a school for final year students.
I started out with a set of steel airplane toys, carving our lounge room walls – getting into trouble for that, every day but seemingly that didn’t stop my parents to get me a set of Crayola’s colored crayons and some papers without thinking twice (which reminds me, I gotta thank them for that), but that didn’t stop me vandalizing our household soon as I’ve used up all the papers, which I’ve resorted to draw n doodle under dining and coffee tables and on a few more walls.
Soon as I started attending school, acquiring proper sense of drawing and doodling – and skip some years until I received my first copy of Photoshop, the rest is history, literally. Add some more years to that, and here I am – collaborating and working with great dude and dudettes and working with a number of amazing companies, colleagues/friends and collaborators.
Here’s something that always manage to marvel people, even though it is a subliminal thing – I were born profound deaf, to two loving deaf parents. I’ve been using sign language as my native tongue (hands, to be precise). But here’s a catch, I can also lip read very well and I can answer back easily by writing the text on my mobile and hand it over to the person, or if there is a set of pen and papers nearby – I’d use it to communicate, or laptops/computers. Thank god for modern technology, otherwise I’d be handwriting all day long with my hearing friends who I haven’t had the chance to teach sign language!
[S] What are the largest obstacles that challenge you in your craft?
[R] First thing first, the largest obstacle that challenges me in my craft is that I am deaf, but to me it is not even a hindrance but to others it may seems to be this way and I’d have to convince them that I can jump over this obstacle naturally, I’ve been doing it since I was a toddler so it is never an obstacle to me, it is an ordinary day-to-day thing, but to others it is not. That’s one of my biggest obstacle.
Some may have asked me how I accumulate my inspiration, because in the majority out there, they rely on music to inspire them. I’ve managed well without music, I find everything inspiring – from the smallest to the biggest details. Life is outrageously beautiful, and inspiring. It’s absolutely overwhelming.
In short, there is no such thing as obstacle that challenges me indefinitely, to a point where I can’t find a way through it. I’ve gotta thank my family and friends for that, for believing in me and constantly telling me that I can do it.
[S] What are the disciplines you are working in?
[R] Considering my experience, I work in various disciplines which probably defines me as a multidisciplinary designer, but as of late I’ve been working on a lot of print-based media and screen-based media so I’d occasionally drop in and out in between both of them.
My heart is large enough to share love for each disciplines I’ve dived into in my life, much as I’d like to believe, I will never ever stop venturing beyond my comfort zone to delve myself into new disciplines such as textile design and pattern making, just naming few of disciplines that I’d very much like to get acquainted with.
[S] How do you get away from it all?
[R] To get away from it all, I’d get up and jump onto a bean bag in our lounge room and watch a DVD we hired or bought recently. But in majority, and my most favored method of ‘get away from it all’ is to head out into the city during the day, catch a latte with a friend and then have a dinner with other friend and end up sitting at a bar having some drinks with even more friends – it spares me from all the technical and graphical babbles, into a huge conversation about something so pointless, but so relaxing. Or clubbing, even. And I’d buy a plane ticket, out of Melbourne- into Sydney, or somewhere new and treat myself to an entirely lazy escapade from work, the epitome of being a freelance is that soon as you’re done with projects you can always drop it and head out for while (bring a laptop with you, and work on it occasionally… haha, defeats the purpose of the escapade, but, you know!)
[S] I see your activity is heavy in online communities, tell me the secret to getting people to participate.
[R] There is no secret in this one, it’s a matter of discovering the right thing to say and bond with others – form a friendship with them, there is always something that will make others feel that it is worth it to register themselves to a new community, these days it’s getting crazy – new community/portal coming after the new one, constantly. So you have to also show them that it doesn’t only benefit you nor the community, that it does benefit them too – to get into a network seamlessly and communicate-interact with like-minded people.
