Subramaniam Sundar

S. Sundar is an alumnus from the National Institute of Design ( industrial design discipline, 1984 ). He was a founding partner and CEO of Tessaract Design, a multidisciplinary design consulting firm established in 1986, and has designed consumer products, exhibitions, modular structures, furniture and retail fixturing systems. He is the co-founder and managing director of Dovetail Furniture, a company that “integrates design happiness with serious manufacturing”. He is a founder promoter of Idiom Design & Consulting, a multidisciplinary consulting firm. He is the president of the Association of Designers of India (ADI) and the vice president of the Store Fixture Manufacturers Association of India (SFMAI).

Sundar’s professional career has seen an involvement , exposure and collaboration with many disciplines : – toolmakers, craftsmen, interior contractors, structural fabricators, wood and metal processing technicians. His entrepreneurial ventures have seen different types of learnings and partnerships – with brand strategists, visual communicators, HR strategists, venture fund managers, financial partners. His concerns about creating an ethical way of working has seen him involved in different forums – the India Design Council, ADI and SFMAI.

Sundar’s interests include organisation building, design methods, manufacturing. He is based in Bangalore and can be contacted at sundar@dovetail.in

Subramaniam Sundar graduated as an industrial designer from the National Institute of Design in 1984. After a brief stint in the R&D department of Wipro Infotech he established two companies in 1985 with his colleagues – one was a multidisciplinary design consultancy called Tessaract Design that became Idiom Design & Consulting in 2004, and the other was a furniture design and manufacturing unit that is now Dovetail Furniture, which ‘integrates design happiness with serious manufacturing’.

Sundar has been a design entrepreneur in many senses: he has been a project head and principal designer for consumer appliances, retail interiors, institutional furniture, has been the production head for the furniture manufacture , has been the CEO of Tessaract, principal of the Design Store and is now the managing director of Dovetail. Sundar is a member of the India Design Council by invitation, is the president of the Association of Industrial Designers in India (AIDI) and the vice president of the Store Fixture Manufacturers Association of India (SFMAI). He is also on the CII National Committee on Design.

Sundar was part of the core group of AIDI and conducted a workshop on the National Design Policy in 2008 attended by 100 design professionals & educators. The ideas generated in this workshop were developed into the AIDI report on the National Design Policy and discussed with the Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The report envisages the setting up of a decentralised model of design hubs – ‘The Design Hub is a facilitating centre that connects, engages and involves people who provide design, people who commission design and people who use design’.

Currently Sundar divides his time between running Dovetail which employs 175 people and is on a 2 acre campus with a design studio, plant & machinery for wood and metal processing – and in pursuing his other interests in furthering design through the designers association and the India Design Council. While he appreciates design as an aesthetic evolution that goes beyond the functional aspect, he is more grounded to design that is practically feasible to a larger reach and is also concerned in the translation of a good idea into a usable product that makes economic sense.