Simrit Brar is the Founder/ Creative Director of the branding + design consultancy Flying Squirrel located in West Hollywood, California. This website is a collection of work she has created while working independently as well as with various consultancies in New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai and New Delhi since 1994. Flying Squirrel's current projects include key art for Jennifer Lynch's feature 'Hisss', and the packaging system for a range of skin products for Activor.

Till recently Simrit was the Senior Design Director at CO-OP, a New York based branding agency specializing in real estate, pharma and various hospitality and entertainment brands. Projects included- the complete branding of the Skidmore Owings and Merrill tower- 'Toren', the rebranding of the French global beauty house 'Maesa' and the entire Loews Hotel group in the US/ Canada including the Regency in New York, and the branding of Forest City Ratner's flagship Broooklyn rental DKLB.

Simrit earned her Masters in Design and Technology at Parsons New School of Design in New York where she was also an adjunct faculty. She spent three years at Smart Design, a multi disciplinary design consultancy on a range of projects including packaging, interface design, in-house promotion and branding. Clients included: Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Omron, OXO, NY city, Johnson & Johnson and Tfal.

Before moving to New York, Simrit spent several years creating the print promotional campaigns for nearly 50 Bollywood features in India. In 2002, her work earned her the Best Publicity Designer at India's highest film awards, the Star Screen Awards. During this time she worked with some of Indian cinema's luminaries, including- Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Farhan Akhtar, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Shahrukh Khan. Her work has been featured in several publications and is part of the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

At J Walter Thompson's first Indian design studio Design Sutra Simrit managed the design team from 1997 to 2000. Her work included the expansion of the ABN AMRO bank's brand to retail environments across six cities and the entire gifting portfolio for Cadbury India.

Simrit began her career with Ray+Kesavan, which is now a part of Brand Union, one of the world's leading branding agenies.

resumé: download PDF

select portfolio: download PDF

{for detailed case studies, click on links on left}

Updates

–Honored by HOW magazine in the Self Promotion Awards Annual– Client Promotions, Merit for Wells Woodwork identity (created at CO-OP New York) | 2009. Link

–'Bollywood in Posters' published by Om Books features five of my film posters. | 2009. Link

-'Designwala' interviewed me recently. | 2009. Link

–'DKLB BKLN', the integrated branding program I completed in Sept 2009 with my team in CO-OP New York is off to a flying start. | 2009. Link

–'Devonshire House', the condo conversion we painstakingly rebranded in Greenwich village at CO-OP New York is proving to be a successful venture for the developers. | 2009. Link

–Communication Arts magazine has selected the Toren tease campaign that I designed at CO-OP, for their exhibit section. | 2009. Link

–Thames and Hudson published a book celebrating the Bollywood Poster. It has five pages of my posters. | 2008. Link

–We launched the redesign of CO-OP identity and the website. | 2008. Link

–My 'Lagaan' poster is now a part of the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert museum, London. | 2002. Toured galleries throughout England and Australia from 2003 to 2007. V&A, NGV, PHM.

–Rebranding of New York city's taxi. I was part of the multi-disciplinary team at Smart Design; and modernized the checker. | 2007. Link

–DNA feature on my Bollywood work. | 2007. Link

–A fabulous new book on the Indian film poster: 'Living pictures' published by Open Editions, UK . My 'Kaante ' poster is featured. | 2007. Link

–Rene Wanner's incredible database on posters now includes some of my work. Link

–I spoke at SAWCC (South Asian Women's Creative Collective) New York. | 2006. Link

–Film International, Issue 4, Sweden. 'The Bombay Film Poster' by Ranjani Mazumdar. The article featured my Bollywood work extensively| 2003. Link