S7E07 Color Rebellion with Mehek Malhotra

This interview features Mehek Malhotra, founder of Giggling Monkey Studio, discussing how her Indian heritage and the psychology of color inform her narrative-driven design work. She describes color as an innate, universal language—akin to a lifelong tattoo—and uses the "masala dabba" (spice box) metaphor to explain India's consistent yet versatile palette. A central theme is her philosophy of "serious play," which encourages designers to reclaim the judgment-free creativity of childhood to develop original, commercially viable ideas. Mehek also explores her preference for "lived-in" aesthetics over sterile perfection, reflecting on projects for IKEA and Google that translate personal memories into universal experiences. 

The colorful and brilliant designs of Mehek Malhotra, a young designer based in Mumbai, India, are well-known for their fusion of modern aesthetics with traditional Indian elements. Malhotra, who has experience in graphic design, visual communication, and drawing, has made a name for herself in the competitive Indian design industry. Her portfolio features a wide range of projects in fields as diverse as product design, packaging, brand identity, and more.

India is where Mehek Malhotra spent her formative years. Her early years were spent absorbing visual culture, during which her budding interest in art and design flourished. She continued her education by earning a Bachelor of Design degree with a concentration in fashion communication and graphic design, while being awarded the best graducation project award at NIFT in 2018. Her formal education laid the groundwork for her to develop her abilities and explore other forms of expression.

She was awarded 25 under 25 in 2016 by TATA Nano and Campus Diaries for the field of Art + Design and was recognised in the Power 25 List of the Rolling Stone Magazine in 2023. In 2025, she received a Special Mention in the Forbes 30 Under 30 India list for Design, acknowledging her growing influence and contribution to creative culture in the country.

Mehek started the graphic design, illustration, and branding studio Giggling Monkey Studio. She has done work for well-known customers like major corporations, young businesses, and non-governmental organisations through her studio. Malhotra's work is readily recognisable for its emphasis on whimsical shapes and vivid patterns. The creative methods used by Giggling Monkey Studio have earned them praise and a dedicated following; with clients such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and others, as well as smaller businesses, to help them find their creative voice and place in Indian markets. The studio loves to collaborate and produce work for music; this has led to numerous projects for various artists, most recently with the Berklee Indian Ensemble, whose album was nominated for the 2023 Grammys.

She is also the Creative Lead for India at Canva. Canva is a website that lets people design and makes beautiful graphics. This makes design more accessible for everyone to use and understand.

In 2025, Mehek brought her perspective on food, memory, and domesticity to the international stage. At Salone del Mobile — Milan Design Week — she collaborated with Maurizio Tentella on Eat With Your Mouth Open, a lived-in dining room installation created in partnership with IKEA. The project wove together Italian and Indian cultural references around food and home, drawing on the stories of both their grandmothers. The installation ran April 21–26, 2025, and invited audiences to sit with the idea that a dining table is never just a table — it is where culture is passed down, arguments are had, and love is fed.

Numerous organisations and publications have recognised and  to name a few. Mehek's passion for art and her dedication to her craft have propelled her to the top of her field, and she continues to inspire and entertain audiences with her unique and captivating work, making her craft more accessible and understood so more people can aspire to work as creatives in India.

Transcript

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Judith van Vliet:welcome back to the Color Authority for this July podcast. And this is going to be a very colorful one because I'm going to be talking to the colorful and brilliant designer Mehek Malhotra, a young designer based in Bombay, India, and she is very well known for her fusion of modern aesthetics with traditional Indian elements. She has experience in graphic design, visual communication, and drawing, and has made really a name for herself in the competitive Indian design industry. No further ado because this is going to be one of the most colorful, I think, podcasts that I've done this year. So stay tuned and listen into what Mehek has to share with all of us. 

Good morning. Or actually good afternoon because we were just discussing the time difference. Meek, thank you for being part of the Color Authority with Giggling Monkey Studio. I'm so glad we finally get to meet.

Mehek Malhotra: Thank you. Likewise.

Judith van Vliet: I came across, of course, your. Your beautiful work in Milan, and I just, I walked into your space, which is, I think, the most colorful space that was around in Milan Design Week. I'm like, I need to interview this girl.

Mehek Malhotra: I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I think the colors that were there fit in so perfectly. Being interviewed by the Color Authority, an honor for me as well. After seeing all the colors over there.

Judith van Vliet: I have one first question since the very beginning of the podcast, already five years ago, and I'm very curious for your answer. What is color to you?

Mehek Malhotra: I, you know, the thing is that I think about it a lot, but I've never put my thoughts in one place when I think about color because it's so innate. And I know I said this before, but it's almost like having a tattoo because, you know, when you get it, you have all these ideas and concepts that, oh, my God, it's going to mean this to me. But then it's so embedded in you that you just carry it with you for the rest of your life. So I think color is like a language for me because when I was growing up, and I think this is a little universal as well, you try to identify things around you with color, like danger is red or love is red or the sky is blue. So you get a sense of openness and freeness from there. Then you see the color yellow in flowers or in butterflies or in bees. So I feel like when you're growing up, you're instantly associating everything around you to meaning because of color. So it's, it's a way of communicating, and I think it's culturally different for everyone. So that is Interesting to me. So I get to learn a new language when I go to a new place because I noticed the color there. So maybe I don't know the language, but I know the color, so I'm able to understand the meaning of it.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. That's when I. What I teach to everybody who comes to my workshops. I mean, even if you don't speak the local language, you can speak color, because even though they perhaps have a different interpretation of what it means in their culture or in their region, it's still a way of communicating. So how you dress, inviting people into your homes, I mean, your home is an extension, of course, of who you are as a person.

Mehek Malhotra: It's.

Judith van Vliet: It's interesting how immediately people get a picture of you because of the colors, right?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. Yeah. It's like everyone has a palette, and then that color palette also changes with age and time and context, which is quite interesting.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I have colors that I used to wear, and now I'm like, no way. Like, not doing that. I think we were just discussing that. Obviously, I've never been to India. Everybody has an opinion about India very clearly. It's. But I do think that I was just comparing it earlier in our conversation between Mexico and India. I think those are two color games different, but, like, it has a threshold for the rest of the world. Like, we can't reach it. That color game that you have in India, why do you think the color game in India is so different from any other place in the world? I mean, what do you guys have that we don't?

Mehek Malhotra: I think color. Like, I'll give you an example from at least what I have understood from looking at the landscape of India. It's so vast, and there's so many people that everyone's interpretation of things around them is different, and that allows for those multiple color palettes to exist together. So, for example, different states have different natural surroundings, but when you see the color palettes that come out of that place, maybe region like Rajasthan, which is dry, they don't get rained so much. It's a desert. But the colors that people wear over there are so bright and interesting. So it's like the lack of something is what they want to sort of have in their clothes or in their appearance, because it has a mood effect on your mood, but it has an effect on how you can see someone at a distance in, like, a dessert and identify them with the color. So, you know, it's almost like a part of branding for them, but they don't know it's branding. So. And there's so many crafts in India. So the natural dyes that are used, they develop differently with different weather conditions. So maybe the colors vary so much. And of course, then we have the bazaars around us where all the businesses come together to sell whatever they're making. And you see so many colors, and for someone who might see it for the first time, they'd be like, oh, my God, this is overwhelming. But I feel like because you've grown up around that chaos of colors, it becomes almost a tool for us to clear out and understand what color is the biggest influence that needs to come across in a project.

Judith van Vliet: So it's funny, there's so many places where the desert, for example, is obviously a surrounding. But then you have the blue men, of course, in the Sahara that wear the blue, obviously, because it's apparently, you know, insect repellent. So that's color. But most people that we're in a desert areas, they wear white or light colors, you know, so not to attract the light and to reflect the light. But India's, for some reason, they're like, yeah, well, whatever is lacking, we're wearing it.

Mehek Malhotra: It's true. It's almost like I use food metaphors a lot in my work because I love eating, love cooking. But the idea is that, you know, there's this thing in India that are seen in most kitchens. It's called this masala dabba, which has all the spices in it. And color then becomes like this masala dabba, and then you can make many dishes with. So it's different for every region because the flavor changes, the heat changes, the fresh produce changes. But those colors, the turmeric, the chili, the coriander powder, they all remain consistent. The salt, the pepper. So I feel like color becomes that tool in everyone's vocabulary, at least, and it goes across your language, even your region where you stay.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's true. And you can add as much as you like to your personal liking. Yeah, true. Your studio name is Giggling Monkey Studio. And, I mean, it's. It's quite the invention of a name, I must say. And indeed, your bio mentions where lots of giggling is happening. And we've been talking now for. People think they're talking since eight minutes. But no, we've been talking for a much longer time than that. And it's so much a core component of who you are as a person, but it's reflected in your work. And I think that's why your storytelling is.

Mehek Malhotra: Is.

Judith van Vliet: Is so strong and comes across as really Something that's. It comes from within you. Right. How does this sense of what you call. I mean, this playfulness, how does it serve in what is, in the end, a competitive market? Because the design industry is getting more and more competitive with the day, I feel.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, no, absolutely. I don't have a very serious origin story for the name because, honestly, when I joined Instagram, I think I was young. Seventeen, I think. Or like, even younger, 15, I think. And I told. I didn't want my parents to find out that I was on Instagram, so I used my email id, which was giggling monkeysupercrazyhotmail.com and just use that as my user id. And I was like, no one can find me. You know, like, I can just write Giggling Monkey. And that ID was made by my parents when I was growing up. And your parents know you better than anyone else. So, like, they made that idea. I used to climb trees. I was, like, having fun all the time. They were like, oh, you're like a monkey. So then it became Giggling Monkey. And I just kept it that from the beginning of time. So when I'm filing my taxes or going for a meeting, and someone's, like, trying to say the name of the studio and they're just like, how do we say it? Seriously? But I think playfulness is actually one of the most misunderstood qualities of creative work, because I feel people associate it to not being serious and. But I think the opposite of it is what I think I function with. I use play as a sense of almost drowning my work, because when you're at a state of play, you're able to create things which you don't shoot down because of judgment, because you're just having fun and you are thinking about all the possibilities. With every project that I do, I want to take it as a place of introducing a new idea that I am toying around with. Because as creatives, we live a creative life, so every single thing we absorb around us. Maybe our neighbor was singing a song in the morning, and you remember the lyrics of it, and then you listen to the song and it sparks an idea. So it's important to be at a state of, like, play and not take yourself too seriously, but you should take your work seriously. But the moment you start taking yourself very seriously, you're like, setting benchmarks for yourself that you have to edit and cross. And I think the best ideas that I've always had have come from a very silly idea at the beginning. And then you keep developing it to make it into a more Solid context based output. So it's generally like working in reverse. Okay, this idea is nice and it's very fun. How can I make it more commercially viable? So then I add those elements to it and play around with it. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: So it's really about not limiting yourself, especially in the beginning of the process. Because if you put those benchmarks and limits, you're sort of like, well, you're, you might miss the whole point. You might miss out of on a great idea just because you didn't allow yourself to play.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, because there's this saying that I don't know if it's a, it's a saying that I misheard or misunderstood, but I remember this, that you're your worst client. So like you should never like give yourself feedback at the beginning of anything and say oh. Like in Hindi we say when you see something which is not funny and you're like, oh, that's not fun enough. You know, when we see a design, that's the feedback that you get. Make it pop, make it quirky. And then I'm like, you should not do that to yourself. You have clients to do that. So allow yourself to come up with ideas like you would when you were 5 year old. Or like just allow yourself to be free in creativity.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. How do you get in that vibe though? How do you get in that vibe of again being the small little child that is developing or designing? I mean it's, it's a step, it's a state you have to put yourself into as an adult that has to pay rent, it has projects, clients come with deadlines. Not easy.

Mehek Malhotra: It's not easy. It's true. And it gets harder as you grow older. I realized. So there's one method that I follow which has worked really well for me on good days and bad days, is that whenever I start my day, I either think of it as a doing day or, or a learning day. Because you can't do both of those things at the same time. Either you are in a state of understanding the world better or you are in the state of closing out the world and learning something completely different. So I think it's just that your mental switch of like today is not output based, it's about enjoyment based. Yeah, yeah. Like so you have to also. I feel like maybe I have the privilege of choosing the work now that I do. But initially when I started working, you have to do everything that comes your way. So you have to find ways to make things joyful for you, even if you're not for the Lack of a better word, vibing with it. So you have to find small things that are like the bright stars that shine in the sky and you can use those to then lead the rest of the map that is there.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly. No, and I think that's also very much what your work is about. About the storytelling, of course, and the playfulness, but also unlike very well many other designers that aim for a very curated perfection. Although I do feel that we're all slowly moving away from that. Your work really embraces the lived in feel. So you use mismatched furniture and textiles, which results are what you did in Milan. I hope everybody goes at least to the pictures online that they can find in your Instagram, et cetera, and just feel that space. Why do you find beauty in what is rather lived, which they tend to call imperfect, which actually I think is not the right word. So where do you find the beauty in spaces that can be lived in and don't look like they're on the front page of a magazine?

Mehek Malhotra: Right, yeah, no, for sure. I think the first time that Architecture Digest ever covered my space, I was surprised because generally the houses that I see in the magazine are always very editorial. The idea of editorial for all of us has always, at least five years ago, was always very minimal and very, you know, like the bed sheets are ironed, they're tucked in properly. You're looking at something that almost feels like a hotel room, but with some big art piece that is interesting. So when that shift happened, and I saw that shift happen when I was also introduced to other magazines around the world, and I realized that what we aspire to show as a home that is inspirational has always been something that feels very out of reach for the people who are seeing it as that. So why can't we look at our own homes and understand that all of us have personalized our lives in a way that means something to us and that I think is beautiful. I think the idea through which I operate is that when I see something pristine, I don't know, my brain instantly relates it to a hospital or a library or something that's very like. I have a fear of dentists. I'm scared to go to the dentist. So whenever I think about, like, sterile environments which are very like, you know, prim and proper, I feel like I can't talk loudly or I can't laugh loudly.

Judith van Vliet: And you can't touch anything.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. Like, it feels like if you drop something, it's the end of the world. You will be in debt for the rest of your life. So I feel like the fear of not being able to fully be yourself in a place is what allows me to lean into a place which encourages people to actually be who they are. Exactly. Encourages them to sort of walk away from a pristine space. Because I feel a pristine place is this space where there are no stories yet. You know, like when you see a dining table, which has maybe a dining table cover, which is much bigger than that, you would start thinking that, oh, was the table bigger in the previous house where it stayed? So you start giving these small stories to objects that allow you to imagine a different life that they've had. Or maybe a circular tablecloth on a square table, which is interesting. So it's almost like going inward for inspiration. Like, for me, it's my grandmother's house and my mom's house. My father's in the army, so we always had to move every two years. So the idea of permanence was something that we never understood. So no matter where we stayed, even if it was a rented space, we were still making it our own. So I really credit that to my mom and the way she put the house together. We never felt like it was a temporary two year shift. So now I sacrifice my security deposit because I never live. Like, I'm not living in a house where I will stay forever. So I get that.

Judith van Vliet: That, Yeah, I get that. We. We cut the table, a beautiful wooden table, because it wouldn't fit the now Madrid apartment after Milan. And now we're moving to a big house. I'm like, we cut the table. Like, now what are we going to

Mehek Malhotra: put it back together?

Judith van Vliet: Like, I mean. I mean. And this is. But it had. But. And we will. So the table has a story and it will have lines and it won't be perfect. And of course, it doesn't look like it came right out of Elle magazine. No, it won't. But it has a story because it's already been in two, three cities and four homes. Right? Yeah, that's a little bit. I love that. But when I hear military, I think like many people, we think about pristine. We do think about control, we think about order. How was that between. Because how I see you as a person and your designs, and probably that comes from the women line in your family, not so much from your father. I mean, what was that like in the home?

Mehek Malhotra: I mean, that's very interesting to me because whenever I do look at military, I feel like I am the result of complying as well as rebelling to discipline. Because the. The way in which I run my studio. I. I have, like, a ambitious mindset to do things. I think that comes from the discipline that I grew up in. But while I look at what I'm doing, it's. I would say it requires discipline, but of a different kind altogether. So the way that I don't want to probably tidy up the dining table or not put the bed in a particular way is a rebellion against that. But the way that I will still make up my bed every day in the morning, because it is a sense of, like, doing something on checklist. It's. It's very interesting. So it's like a balance. It's all discipline, but of a different kind. It's like intelligence, you know, like, there is intelligence in emotion, there's intelligence in maths. Maybe everyone is, like, disciplined in different ways then. But, yeah, like, you're very correct to point out that all the, like, creative things that I learned were from the women. Although my dad did do fine art, like, sketching, because when he was posted at a place where we were not allowed to live as family because of security reasons, he would make sketches of me and my sister when we were kids. He would make fighter jets and, like, other things, but he was really good at sketching, and his handwriting is beautiful. So I think we saw that and then we saw the house. And me and my sister are completely opposites, even though we grew up together. And she's more disciplined than me 100%, but she's still very colorful. So something was there that was a common share. Definitely.

Judith van Vliet: That's really interesting. I love that. I mean, I love digging into why people are who they are. Right. Because in the end, family is the imprint. And I think that's very much of. You're the first person, by the way, on the podcast that comes from India, so that's why. Also, I think it's very interesting for the audience to know so much more about your work, but also the aesthetics, because your work is a fusion of modern aesthetics but also traditional Indian elements. So your heritage, the storytelling, the narrative, is still strongly. It can be seen when somebody, even if they don't write your bio, they can see it. Can you walk us through a specific project that you felt was most successful, where you were able to balance those words, like, you were able to balance that world in having a military father and a mother who was more, let's say, on the color and the design and the chaotic food. You know, I mean, quite opposite. I mean, how do you do that, then, with modern and traditional Indian Elements.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. I think the best example would be the Milan Design Week presentation that happened because even though there was. I would say IKEA has a certain. When you think of ikea, you think of a certain kind of a house. So, like, the discipline of imagining that and then reimagining it from, like, a place of how can it be a house? And the best feedback, and I got this from multiple people was, I wish my house was like this. I'm going to make my house like this. And I think that was the feedback that made me realize that even though we've placed something that somebody can buy and put it in their house, it looked different in every house. So there in that project, I used color, pattern, texture in a way that was used to, like, there were frames in that room that had fabric as a backing with pictures on it. So there was a mix of how. I also have. I studied fashion communication in college, so I have a background in fashion. So I work with textiles a lot. Very interestingly, because of the way they mismatch with each other, even though they mismatch, they work together. So within that room in Milan, I put in a lot of Indian handicrafts, which were. When you think of India and you think of the handicrafts, you think of block print in a certain way, you think of textiles in a certain way. I wanted people to look at the side of India that encouraged me to be a designer, because I've seen these wooden dolls growing up that are used as toys for kids. Then I've seen, like, you know, fabric used in a way that was. I don't know if this is a universal thing, but in India, we don't throw away fabric like a T shirt or like a kurta or something that's gone bad. We use it for, like, it has multiple stages of life. Like, it will go from being something you wear to something you do dusting with. Maybe a leftover fabric that was there for upholstery now needs to be used to be, like, a backing for a photo, for a frame. So we've seen these things. And, like, I used pattern to really bring in the visual. So, like, you would see stripes in that room that make the room look longer because the ceiling was lower. And then there was a sun on top because we had the light coming in and filtering through the canvas. It was giving, like, a very daytime feeling to the place. So I thought, okay, if we have the sun, we can have, like, it mimic the crochet things that your grandmother makes. But it looks like the Room is the table you put that little thing on. So it's built with all of these small nuances that I think I've just picked up growing up in my house, in my, all my relatives houses, everyone lives very differently. And it's so interesting to see color of their life as well.

Judith van Vliet: Comes back to, you know, your house being the extension of who you are as a person. Indeed. So indeed, you're talking about IKEA collaboration. Eat with your mouth open, which I think was a spectacular, obviously story to draw in a lot of people and came from obviously your grandma. How do these personal domestic memories translate in that space? Because of course, Ikea's exhibition was called Food for Thought and they partnered several designers with also chef. Right. And the chef you were partnered with. But how did that trace back to your mom and your grandmother and their, their cooking? You said you loved eating. I mean, how, how did that translate?

Mehek Malhotra: It was a very beautiful, serendipitous moment because I was like, food is something that I, even when I'm doing branding, I'm doing a lot of bars and restaurants and food brands and I never step back to see that's my niche. And only last year is when I realized I've been working with food so closely that there's some sort of a soft spot for it. And when this collaboration came through, I was like, this is such a, you know, like you, you think that this is unlikely for something like this to happen and for you to just be a part of it, you realize that what you put out into the world gets those things back to you. So I feel like all those years of doing it got this exact thing. And with food, me and Maurizio are like, you would see the pairing was very interesting because it was Italian and Indian. And I would have actually, if it was not this collaboration, I would have never been able to see the similarities between the food culture in Italy and the food culture in India. And everyone loves food in the sense that it's not just for nutrition. It's a sense of bringing people together. And when we think of bringing people together, we were like me and Maurizio thought about our grandmother's house on like a Sunday or a Saturday afternoon, when everyone comes over, you share a meal, you have a big laugh, and you don't know where the time flies, so you want to stay there for like the whole evening. So that was the concept we tried to recreate from even the food that was served on the pop up day. It was something that you could hold and eat anywhere in the room, rather than having to sit on the table and eat, it was something you could have more portions of because you are free and you're eating with your mouth open. So I think it got translated to that feeling of being at home at your grandmother's and sharing that meal, and that was more universal than I ever thought it could be. And that was beautiful to see it come to life.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. I've lived in Italy for 14, 15 years, so I know how important, sitting at the table together, especially over weekends with family and friends, that it's so important. So that social choreography that you have created within that space together with Maurizio, I think it was very, very evident. I mean, I think more in the northern part of Europe, there's less of that culture. There's people literally not even sitting together at the table. You know, it's. I can't do it. For me, It's a pity. But it was beautiful to see that back in two cultures that apparently are very different, but when it comes to foods, it's all done with love. I think that's the most important thing. Right, Effy?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. The main ingredient is love. And also, while we were collaborating, we were narrowing down on the dishes, and I told him that he could use this bread from India, and he could make the cutlet, which is Milanese. And those two went together so well. And in the process of making that bread, he realized that there's a version of that bread that's there in Italy as well. So it was very interesting to trace all the origins, and it was very cool.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, it was a learning curve, I guess, for. For both of, you know, to do this together. And the result was fabulous. The attention was fabulous. People loved the food. So I think that's like. Yeah, we nailed it, right?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, it felt nice. I remember sitting with one of the cutlets on the red bench in the room, and I was just eating, and I was like, well, this. This feels like home. Exactly.

Judith van Vliet: Which is what you wanted to create, and that's what you do in your work, right?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: You list also the word nostalgia as a key element in your work alongside everything that is color and. And texture. How do you use a specific color palette, for example, to trigger a sense of past? Because every. Everybody's nostalgia and past is. Is different. But how do you do that for when you know you're going to have multiple viewers from perhaps different cultures?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, yeah. No, that's very. I think that's when I was showing my work outside of India for, like, an interior project for the first time is when I witnessed that being witnessed by other people is when I realized that what we share is more universal than we think it is. And I think a lot of it has to do with the temperature of color. And more than the shade, it's what temperature you're going towards. Anything that makes you feel warmer has a sense of familiarity versus anything that makes you feel colder has a sense of the unknown. And I feel like that's what happens with seasons as well. Like for some reason, like I am not a very. I love layering and dressing up in winters, but I feel like it's so quiet and it always feels like you are alone with your thoughts during that time. So I use that time to write more or read more versus summer is more for doing things. It's like the learning and the same way I divide the day. So I feel like I have divided the seasons as well. But I feel like everyone has a sense of, I don't know, the first thing they ever saw when they were growing up that created an impact in color or in texture. So. So like how geographically also when you see colors being represented, we associate natural elements to certain colors which stays consistent. So I like seeing the universal language of color in a way that there's always a sense of faded color or a faded textile or like something that feels lived in is where I bring nostalgia. Nostalgia is not that yesterday was so much better than today or tomorrow. It's more like, why do you feel comfortable remembering things about the past which inform your present rather than, oh my God, what the future is going to be like? It's almost like reading tarot cards with color.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, it's a feeling. It's creating a feeling of well being in the end. Nostalgia, it's not indeed. I mean, I think nostalgia very often indeed is interpreted wrongly. It's about, oh, I wish we could go back. No, it's not about going back. It's about taking something that you loved from your past and bringing it in today in your current living and your current needs as well and desires.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, I think so much of it comes from lived in experiences. Like something that I love creating color palettes for every place I go to because of the pictures that I click there and then I'm able to get inspired by that. Even like for the Milan trip, I was taking pictures of things because the color of the sky is so different compared to India. Color of the sky is different everywhere, which is so interesting. And I was like, okay, these are different shades of blue. I can put them together and create a color palette out of it. So it's almost like finding something that's accessible to everyone, but understanding it in a way that is personal but still universal at the same time. So I think the temperature of color is what I think I use to trigger nostalgia. And also textiles. I feel like textiles are such an underrated part of a house when you're seeing it. The carpets, the curtains, maybe a tent. I have a tent in my house, which I tried to replicate for the Milan design meeting. So I think textiles a lot.

Judith van Vliet: I think textile is something that, however, is coming back. And you can see, you can see it started a little bit in the art world, where it was always canvases. There's a lot of conceptual art as well, obviously, currently a lot of AI, but now you see there's a lot of textile coming back. And I think it's a very interesting trend. It's so warm. It's obviously great acoustics. I mean, it's everything that brings that homey feeling to a house. You know, it's not going to be, you know, a stone floor.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And I think I noticed this textile thing, even with the way it was used in different rooms at the Milan exhibition. Like, Oliver's room had this window on which they put these curtains that went all the way up to the ceiling and it made the whole wall look warmer, even though the space was smaller. So I feel like the way you use folds of a textile to like, guide the eye is also very like the softness of a place will trigger nostalgia for it.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, that's true. Your portfolio is also really full of whimsical shapes and patterns, you know, and patterns obviously often applied in textile, but I think. I think that's something that's very, very you. But then you sometimes work with corporate giants like Google and Facebook. How do you defend your, let's say, loud, bold choices to brands that are loud, for sure, but perhaps not color wise or pattern wise?

Mehek Malhotra: It's true. I do try to work with companies that have a lot of color in them, but then that's not always on me. I think I have learned this one thing is that color is a very. It's like the language that I know best, more than English or Hindi or any other language that I know. I think I can speak color the best. So I use that as a baseline for defining what the emotion has to be like. Even the work that I did with Google was for a Women's Day campaign that we did branding and design for. And it was called Women Will. And it was using all the colors in a way that are feminine but are not mistaken to be soft. So like it was interesting to use a color palette in that perspective. And for Facebook, I worked with them on a Holi banner, like the festival Holi, which is the color festival. So I got really lucky that I feel like I put so much of what I like to do as personal projects that brands see that and they're like, we want this, we want this language or we this. So I feel like you have to make the work you want to get paid for first and then everything will work and it'll happen. So now people come to me, they know they're coming for a colorful thing and they don't come for like a minimalist thing, although I'm also very good at that. But I feel like this makes me more at a state of play than the other one.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, no, I bet. And obviously if you're going to do something about the holy fest, obviously you're going to go with you. I mean, who else would you go with? I even celebrated it a few years back in Milan. It was, it was fun. I mean, obviously it has nothing to do with Italian culture, but who doesn't love color and throwing color at other people? I mean, that's the playfulness that I think really represents the holy fest, you know, besides obviously the deeper profound meaning of it, but which we sort of lose then in western culture.

Mehek Malhotra: No, but I think it's also the intention with which all the festivals in India have so much color attached to them. Like every religion, every culture has a sense of what flowers to you use for like what festival, what are the colors you should wear, what are the. Like some people play Holi with flower petals, which is also very interesting to notice. And it changes throughout, like everywhere. So I think it's is the geography of the place that enables culture, religion and a festival to come together. And then there's a color palette.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah.

Mehek Malhotra: How interesting. Indeed.

Judith van Vliet: So back to Food for Thought because I think that's something that really a lot of people hopefully have seen. Color was used to reinforce really your idea of cooking as a creative hands on process. And I think that is an interesting connection. It wasn't about food and design. It was also about, as you already said, the masala, the colors in the beginning. I think it's very much of what Indian culture is. But how, how do you use color to move a person from being a passive observer to really live space and being active participants? I think that's that tricky. And I think food can do that, for example.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. I think the trick is that instead of making a statement with the work that you do, you make it into an invitation. So, like, there's a. It's. It is almost like you're kind of communicating with the color or the pattern that come in. Like, see this? You know, like, it's so different. You probably must have not seen so many colors together, but it's nothing to be scared of. And this feedback I got from so many people on the press day itself, they said, we've never seen so many colors together. And it's so interesting that it's not scary, but it feels comfortable. So then I started to think about it. I was like, it's true, actually, because this is so much color and pattern for someone who's not probably been to India, because we have all of this around us all the time. So I think it was almost like inviting people in. So rather than thinking about the. I would say the human interaction that happens with the space at the end of it, you have to start thinking about it in the middle, because then you've done your state of play. You have your idea solid. Then you think about how a person needs to interact with that space. Then you move those ideas around in a way that feel very natural for a person to walk through a room. I also got very lucky that I had three doors in my room. So, like, there was a lot of people going out, and we had, like, the moment somebody was like, okay, this is so much for me. It's overwhelming. They can just walk out from the other door. So we tried to keep it open, but we also created, like, this one corner that was fully open to make it look like a window. So it feels like you're looking into somebody's house. So if you're not comfortable being in it, you're at least an observer from outside. And there was moments where I saw kids come into the room and they were just smiling and they were touching everything. And I was like, this is what it is, that it's universal. We have taken away the intellectualization of a certain thing to now be an experience for people. So I feel like the less there's so many color theory things we can talk about in that room. There's so much, I would say, research that went into certain things, but that research is for that end product to be cyclical for people to understand why is it invitation, like, not a statement?

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. So definitely it was refreshing. In a world that sometimes is so beige, your space yeah,

Mehek Malhotra: thank you so much.

Judith van Vliet: You also have a very deep connection to music. So including your Grammy nominated work for the work Berkeley Indian Ensemble, how does music provide you perhaps a different set of colors and textures to work with compared to what, you know, what more traditional types of work and branding are? Because, I mean, I'm not sure. Are you in a siniste or you don't know or are you one, you know? Do you connect music with color?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, yeah, I do. I like Kandinsky and I use it as a tool for my work. So I started my career off like, if we even go before that. The first. The reason why I wanted to get into design and be an artist was because of the sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club artwork. Like the vinyl. I saw it and I asked my family, I was like, what do I need to do to make this in my life? Like, this should be the output. They were like, it's design. You have to learn design and art. And I think that started off the journey of me going to college. Then the first few projects I did as a freelancer were all for musicians. They were like album covers or music videos or something or the other. And it's quite funny because every music is different, but there's a sense of how does a viewer hear it? How do you make it proper for them to imagine it visually? So the project I did for the music video for Berkeley in an ensemble that was. I didn't use a lot of color in it and I used a lot of texture, which was interesting to have the imperfect handmade texture communicated. There were no lyrics in that song as well. They were like, it was an eight minute long song and it had a few words in it in the middle. And then it was just instruments. So we had to depict the sound using texture, limited color and lines. So it almost became like a visual orchestra of how the, like the story goes from the beginning to the end. So it's almost like this orb of light transforms from different elements of earth, fire, water, nature, back to its original state. And at the end of it is when we introduce color and we worked on it for I think nine months. Almost like a baby because all the frames were made by hand. And I also lost one of my printers, RIP printer. But it served very well. The scanner and printer, we scanned like thousands of sheets. But yeah, like music. When I get an opportunity to make art for music, I just do it because it's music is always playing in my head, in my computer, in my life. I like to believe that there's A soundtrack for every moment in your life. And I quite literally live by it.

Judith van Vliet: And it inspires your work, even if it's not for LPs or music. You know, music inspires the colors that you pick, the textures that you pick for just about any project, right?

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah, yeah, 100%. Even with the IKEA project, we put a small vinyl player in a corner with vinyl, indicating that they're also. It's a. It makes social gatherings more easier. It makes. It adds a layer of familiarity or it adds a layer of conversation that wouldn't exist in silence. So, like, music is almost like one of those important ingredients you put in a social gathering so that things go smoothly.

Judith van Vliet: No, that's absolutely true. Even if you're not directly listening, it's there. Yeah. It's setting a scene, setting in an atmosphere. Always.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: I've been named the Forbes 30 under 30 India and the rolling Stone power lists. I mean, quite the recognition. Congratulations. How has this, however, changed your risk taking in projects? Or perhaps it hasn't, but you're like, okay, I'm on that list now. I can do whatever I want.

Mehek Malhotra: Oh, no. Thank you so much. I truly believe that when you are doing the things that bring you happiness, the world will align and give you things that you deserve and they will come into your life at the right time. So I feel like you have to ensure that you are on the same page with yourself no matter what you do, and everything else just will happen. And of course, you have to apply for things, put your work out there. Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: You have to be out there. Yeah.

Mehek Malhotra: So it's important to share and connect with people. And when you connect with people, it could be through your means of using color. It could be what you're saying. It could be what are the things you're interested in? What's your stand on certain things? But I think it's made me sort of more protective of the work in ways that I didn't expect. Like, there's like a version of recognition that makes you understand that, okay, like in the beginning of your career, you're doing everything and anything and you're kind of molding yourself to the brief in a way that would make the client happy. You should still make the client happy. But I feel like the risk taking factor, now that you know that you've fully put yourself out there in the same version that you are and is being recognized and celebrated, it makes you want to do those things even more. So you're not scared of, I don't know, being not considered or not understood, because maybe the goal of your work is not to be understood by everyone, but the people who understand you will always find you. And I think it's a trust fall. Like, you have to do the trust fall with your work, with yourself.

Judith van Vliet: And not everything can be for you also, because you can do everything, but also not everything is for you. And always when something drops or falls away, there's always something that suddenly arrives to the surface, and you're like, that's why the other thing didn't work out, you know, because this is what I was supposed to do.

Mehek Malhotra: Yeah. And I'm a big believer in this concept that as a creative, I want to be able to practice my art and design and my craft till I die. Like, I don't want it to be a career phase. I want it to be a language that I can. There's this one quote by Paula Scher that I heard when I was in college, and she said that always believe that you're yet to make your best work. And I think that that allows you to really not get stuck on, oh, my God, it's the best I could have ever done. How am I ever going to top it? Lose that sense of attachment to your work. You're always going to be doing bigger things, better things. But do they mean something to you? At the end of the day is what's most important. Because we can make a lot of recognition awards, and a lot of people can get those. But if you're making something that will. There's this saying. It says, things of quality, don't have fear of time. So I think we should aim to do that with whatever we do in our life.

Judith van Vliet: I think that's. That's a good one. Yeah. Anyhow, I'm going to ask you for another one, because I know what you do a lot, because you've stated a dedication to making your craft more understood for those who want to understand. I mean, that's, you know, just what you brought. You were just saying so that people in India can aspire to be more creative. So you're doing this also for the next generations and your colleagues who. Who are not wanting to become you, perhaps, but they're aspiring to also, you know, work like you do, and to expand and to grow. What is the untold secrets about creativity that you think the current Indian design education system is perhaps missing?

Mehek Malhotra: This is a good question, because I've gone through the Indian education system, and I feel like maybe it's coming at the place where I have detached myself from that Experience enough to have a more, like, informed answer. Because I don't have. I didn't graduate yesterday. I graduated, like, in 2018. So it gives me a lot of time to think about the things that I learned and I didn't learn or I would have done differently. But I feel like we don't give people permission to be personal in the way that they design. We always have these standards that are set, like, we teach craft, we teach technique, we teach theory, but we don't really teach young designers that their own specific experience is the most original asset that they have. And that's one thing that I've noticed across the board in different colleges, because you'll have a jury where you present maybe, like, an end product, which is personal to you in a way that you're trying to communicate, say, in Indian craft, but how it impacts you and how you can then make it simpler for someone else to understand it. That is not seen as a skill yet. At least when I was in college, I think that approach will be something that encourages people. Like, in the city that I'm from, it's a small town. And quite honestly, till I went to college, art and design were always considered the same thing. Even for me. Like, fine art and design, I always thought is the same thing, but it's completely different. When I went to college is when I experienced and I understood that, that there's. But because of that upbringing, my work is in between both of those, and it allows me to, like, speak both languages. But I want young people to be more. Just have the courage to tap into their own experiences, to make things. Because I feel like we're always making things that have worked for someone, but we've never really experimented with something that has worked for us in our life. And I really wish that that's the message I can communicate with the work that I do. That even though the project at Milan was so personal to me because I took so much inspiration from my own house, it was still so universal. And that blew my mind as well. When I was experiencing that, seeing people enter the room, their eyes lighting up, and they're just going in there, touching the wall, they're touching the fabric. And it made me realize that even though this is something, I literally got an extra bag from India with all the props in it. You might not live in that area, or the people who are coming to see it might not see it every day, but there was a sense of comfort that it instilled because it had a home feeling to it.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I Remember walking into this space, because I walked. I walked in your space, and the first thought was Marbella, Sicily, southern parts of Spain. Sevilla could also like, very colorful. And then I walked in further, and I'm like, no, it definitely has Indian elements now, but that first colorful. I mean, think about Sicily and obviously also collections from Dolce Gabbana. It's. It's a lot of color. So I was like, oh, I didn't know there was an Italian designer that was, you know, I knew it was Maurizio, but the cook, the chef. So it was recognizable also for, you know, for. For probably Italians and Europeans. And I think that's what made it. But it was still, personally, you. And I think that is something which you said very correctly. I think another guest on my podcast, I think it was Fernando La Posa, also said we were all studying to become the next Apple designers, product designers, you know, and there's so many. And they were all doing the same, and we were all doing the same, and it didn't fit me. And I think you had that very same feeling, like, no, I need to do what comes from here. Like, my soul, my heart, and who I am as Mrs. Forbes under 30 India.

Mehek Malhotra: No, for sure. It's. It's also like, all of these things happen from a place of almost like, what can I do differently in my life that will make me happy? So what can I do differently in a project? Like, for example, designing a bar. There's this bar that I worked on in Bombay recently. It opened up last month. It's called Punchline, which is inspired by the punchline of the joke. But they also only serve punches over there, which used to be inspired. It's an Indian origin cocktail which was taken by the British during. When they colonized us. And then they basically tried to reclaim, like, the chef and the bartenders who made that bar. Because there's artisanal cocktails everywhere. But the idea of sharing a punch in a party is very interesting. So I designed this space thinking that, okay, what if you are in a punch bowl? Like, the whole area, like, the whole bar actually has these windows which are glass and they're orange. So when the sunlight filters through and comes in, you feel like you're in a punch bowl. So the liquid is orange. It's everywhere, so it creates that space. So I think that's how I like to imagine situations. But that bar was informed by so much of inspiration that I had growing up looking at Bollywood movies. Like, old Bollywood set. Like, there was so much wood over there. There's so much light and bokeh. So I use those elements to bring back the glamour of partying in India, in Bombay, how it used to be, the old Bollywood party aesthetic. But it's still so modern, but it's informed by nostalgia that now when people go to it, they're like, this is so new, it's so fresh. But it's not unfamiliar because it's literally like going to see the movie, like an old 80s 60s movie, and you'll feel that sense of being in a different world altogether.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. And I think that very much represents what you do. Yeah. Send me the pictures of that bar because I'd love to see it.

Mehek Malhotra: For sure. 100%.

Judith van Vliet: Thank you so much for being part of the Cola Authority. I have a feeling we're going to be talking more in the future, but this was just amazing. And I think the audience is going to love everything, all those small bits and signals of things that you, you, you. You give them as a gift. So thank you so much for being part of the Color Authority.

Mehek Malhotra: Thank you so much for reaching out. It's so special to share this. And also it allowed me to go over the questions that you gave me from a perspective of a observer rather than a doer, which was nice to have.

Judith van Vliet: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Color Authority podcast. Next month, we'll be talking to a new guest again on everything that is shaping 2026 and color. See you back very, very soon and have a colorful rest of your day.