[100 Emerging Women Leaders] Meet design entrepreneur Shefali Desai, who takes the road less taken

A successful design entrepreneur today, Mumbai-based Shefali Desai started as a graphic designer in the creative industry. After gaining significant experience for almost five years, she went on to start BASE 501, a multidisciplinary design agency, in 2014. 

Akin to the multidisciplinary nature of BASE 501, Desai's earlier professional experience comprises stints in several creative domains such as social media, interior design, branding, and art direction.

“I learned way too much in those five years, got my hands dirty in all possible design fields,” she says.   

The desire to have a work-life balance and take up more creative projects and the need to break away from monotony led Desai to change paths and shift to entrepreneurship with BASE 501 in 2014.

She shares, “I thought of starting BASE 501 as my own design agency for two things—I wanted to have a nice work-life balance, and I wanted to challenge some of the visions I had about how design agencies should work. It was a break of a pattern that led to something beautiful later.”

She has been good at art since her childhood. Teachers would take notice of her textbook scribbles and appreciation came in naturally. She also realised her ability in her early teens. 

“I saw there was something, but it was not something that I took forward instantly. It was my mom who spotted the talent and pushed me into the field,” she says. 

While pursuing a master's in digital media from Raffles College of Design and Commerce, Singapore, she discovered her efficiency in illustration, which she highlights as her core skill. 

Once the realisation happened, the next course of action was to work around her core skill, and Desai did make it happen.

However, the journey was not devoid of complications. Desai explains, “I was not doing illustrations from the get-go. I did not have a fancy portfolio and stuff like that to work on. I had to prove my skills to people by doing some test projects here and there, and I realised that building a portfolio, even on a concept level, is good enough, so that your skills are seen.”  

With time, she overcame her challenges. And here she is today—a thriving multidisciplinary artist and designer and a growing design entrepreneur.  

Desai shares that, to date, her team has not had to approach a single client—the clients have all come to them.

Unfortunately, despite having significant experience in the field, Desai has faced situations wherein she was evaluated on the basis of her age. 

How does she deal with it? “There are times when I brush it off; I do not bother. I do my work and come back,” she says. 

On gender-based bias in the professional space, Desai says, “There is a difference when there is a guy taking a role forward and a woman taking a role forward. It is completely different, the seriousness of the conversation changes.”

What does she have to tell aspiring designers? “Design is a very agile field. You can have one core skill, and it is beautiful if you find it. But find a way to adapt because, with the way technology is moving forward, we have NFT, AR, VR, metaverse, all of those things. You should not feel trapped with that core skill because you cannot go above and beyond it."

“Also, never give up because some people might like what you do, and some might not. It is very perspective based. It is a lot of hard work, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, but, if you are consistent, it is going to work, no matter what," she concludes.