Interview with Ms. Stuti Bajaj, Founder and Creative Director of Scribbling All Day

Scribbling All Day is a lifestyle and stationery brand that pushes its audience toward mindfulness and productivity. The idea is to help people be the best version of themselves. The brand currently offers planners and journals that have introspection pages, goal-setting sections, vision boards, routine-setting pages, monthly reflections, daily journaling/planning sections, gratitude pages, mindfulness activities, and lots of cute stickers. All the products offered by this brand are illustrated and designed by the founder independently. The papers and locally sourced and the printing employs women from villages in and around Delhi.

Ms. Stuti Bajaj is the Founder and Creative Director of Scribbling All Day. Stuti is responsible for the complete creative vision for this design industry. Born and raised in Noida, and having a passion for trends and design she pursued her design degree from Srishti School of Art and Design, Bangalore.

She specializes in creating interactive spaces and increasing engagement through her designs. Her focus is on welcoming new users, especially women into the design industry. She also draws on her educational background in Visual Communication and Strategic Branding. Apart from this, she has done multiple certifications in illustration, typography, and digital marketing.

 

1. Tell me about yourself, your family, education and professional background, etc.

I am a visual communication graduate from Srishti School of Art and Design, Bangalore who designs for a living.

I was a geek who would sit in a corner with her drawing book since I was five. My love for art kept growing as I got more exposure to this field. I would spend all my free time in the library looking at art books as a kid. Like every other Indian parent, my parents would love to show my art books to every guest that came to our house and that would make me really happy deep down.

With a lot of support from loved ones, I decided to make a career in this unconventional field. My parents had no idea what kind of opportunities art and design would entail. Seeing my passion for the field, they started their kind of research – asking everybody they knew. Luckily, I found some really helpful teachers and relatives who connected me to the right people and I landed up at the country’s top design school.

Those were the best four years of my life. After my graduation, I moved back to Delhi and started working with a boutique design agency.

 

2. What made you explore entrepreneurship?

My brand ‘Scribbling All Day’ started as a side hustle. I wanted to create products that I felt a need for, in my life and make them accessible to the masses. I started my research and ideation long back and launched my first product in 2021 using the little savings I had. The idea was to create an amazing product without the expectation of any returns, and thanks to my manifestation power, that’s exactly what happened!

The ninety people who placed orders gave superb reviews, some even called me to congratulate and thank me and the rest of the products kept lying in a store room. I won’t complain, entrepreneurship is surely a learning experience. I faced many hiccups that nobody thought would come up and that delayed my launch. A lot went wrong, a lot went right, overall, it is a very very enriching experience.

 

3. What’s the vision and mission behind the new planner? When was it formally launched?

My mission is to empower more and more people to be the best version of themselves, both professionally and personally. The true success of an entrepreneur is in making money while creating an impact and I have kept this as a core of my brand.

 

4. What are your thoughts on the trends of the online retail industry in 2023?

The future of online retail is surely bright. Our lives are getting tougher and there is intense competition all around us. This leaves us no time to go out and explore a hundred shops before making a purchase. Checking 2 insta pages, exchanging 5 messages with them, and placing orders has become the GEN Z way of shopping. It is interesting to see millennials adopting this route as well. This allows them an extremely personalized shopping experience and who doesn’t love that…

I was selling on 3 different marketplaces when I started out, most customers would still send me voice notes on Instagram chat and discuss their needs. It would give them tailor-made answers to their questions and would give me a chance to get closer to my audience! WIN WIN.

 

5. How has technology reshaped the future of online retail and helped in better customer loyalty?

Technology has helped in building a closer connection between sellers and buyers. Social media platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Clubhouse have helped us in sharing our stories with our audience and get instant responses from them.

 

6. Your thoughts on the growth of the design industry in 2023.

It is beautiful to see more and more people understand the power of design and communication. It won’t be wrong to say no brand (whether B2C or B2B) can function for long without design support. Design determines how you feel about a particular space, digital platform, brand, person, and so on, thus every design discipline, be it, communication design, industrial design, fashion design, or system design is only going to grow in the future.