Meet ARCHIE TYAGI | Spatial Designer and Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with ARCHIE TYAGI and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi ARCHIE, what do you attribute your success to?
They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade! Trust me when I say, life has offered me enough lemons, that I could add some lemon tarts to the menu.
As a designer, artist and a creative enthusiast, my journey has always been a constant hunt of trying to find who I am, what I want to be and where I want be; and with my 9 years of educational and professional experience in the field of design, it took me about 6 years of those to be able to discover who I am, and ever since it has been an uphill journey to finding the answers to the rest of my questions.

Today I am successfully working as a designer at USA’s No.1 hospitality design firm HBA (Hirsch Bedner Associates), trying to bring my vision into reality. However, to reach where I am today, it took me piles of hurdles to get through!
I started my journey back in 2018 when I left my home country India after my Bachelors in Architecture to purse Master in Interior design from SCAD (Savannah). The exposure I gained while being at SCAD was incredible. I got to work with big names like Coca-Cola, Gulfstream, Savannah Economic Development through a program called SCADpro. In addition to that having all the different design background students in the same campus, gave me enough encouragement to push my boundaries and explore how other designers work and process.

While I was gaining insights on other designers success, it did create multiple times a sense of doubt and low self-esteem in me, since I was still battling to figure out my big vision. Amidst all that, I never lost hope, faith or trust in myself, one thing that kept me going was a strong headspace. I have seen almost every possible crisis as an international resident in this short period of time. Such as, I graduated in the middle of the pandemic, when job opportunities where really low, while all my friends were doing internships and carrying forward with their careers with the respective companies, I was hanging on the very last thread of my Visa timeline. In addition to that I have also battled my way out of the wave of lay offs, which everyone has been suffering through. Regardless, of what life had/has to offer, I am a strong believer of ” whatever happens, happens for something good”. This life mantra, is something I abide by since I was 6-10 yrs old.
Where I am today, is all because of the optimistic thinking, never giving up attitude, understanding its a constant battle with oneself but what makes us strong is being able to accept and work on our weaknesses today, building confidence, socializing, constantly learning and knowing who you are as a person. Success to everyone is different, to me it was the day I discovered who I am as a designer and knew that I can make a big difference tomorrow.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I came to states to pursue my masters in Interior Design in 2018 since then I have attained many great and notable experiences. First was, when I got to work in build conceptual designs for SCAD 4D immersive museum, only top 15 students and alumnis were choosen for this project. In 2019, I worked on a short film by Susan McCormic called Hame is Where, in the art department. The film received recognition by National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFFTY) 2019 | Milwaukee Short Film Festival 2019 | Mystic Film Festival 2019 In 2020, I go to work for Coca-Cola Regal film as a member in the production team, we won the Coca-Cola Refreshing Films Grand Prize (2020) and won the best Student Production Southeast Chapter of NATAS (2021)
My thesis, “Resonate – Re-imagining Prison Music Therapy Environments: Immersive Interventions to Improve Rehabilitation of Inmates” won IDEC Virtual Fall Symposium Best Student Presentation Award (2020), along with 2 IDA (International Design Awards) Bronze in 2021 under interior design institutional category and interior design conceptual category.
After that I got opportunity to work at L’oreal Paris Travel retail America as one of their travel retail designer, I had brands like L’Oreal paris, Kerestase, La Roch Posay and Vichy under my care for the time I spent in the company, we were covering the central American, south American and Caribbean regions.
After that I joined MSR Design, An architectural Design firm in minnesota, there I worked as interior designer for a couple of months remotely. At MSR I contributed on some of the space planning, graphic design, wayfinding, and Proposal Development for couple of projects.
Currently, I am working at HBA ( Hirsch Bedner Associates) which is no.1 hospitality firm in USA. I started as a designer in firm in Nov 2022, ever since I have been working on some hotel and high end multi family projects along with managing companies social media platform.
I am also, starting my own design studio for bring some experiential spaces to general audience and industry.

This long journey from 2018-present, has been filled with great exposures and experiences, but as mentioned in the previous section it didn’t come as a smooth sale. Challenges were many, such as not being able to get internship during the university period due to not a well developed portfolio; since I was finding it very difficult to identify my ownself as a designer and was lacking confidence and exposure. taking it as a challenge, I just started to expand my boundaries and platforms to read/ analyze other designers. Later came the challenge of finding a job, since I graduated during pandemic, when there was a massive shortage of jobs. I thank L’oreal for trusting me during that time and giving me opportunity to join the firm and contribute in anyway I could.
Later my student visa tenure was ending and I needed a fulltime job offer, for which MSR design – offered me one. I worked with firm for sometime but due to shortage of projects and I was working remotely, I suffered with the lay off. This was pretty rough on me financially, since I had recently relocated to Atlanta from Savannah, the expenses in a city are overall way higher for to go through something like this. However, what got me going through that was my faith in myself as a designer and strong mentality. I had gone through enough challenges to be shoved by anything at that point, so I picked up the phone and reached out to every possible friend or colleague that I could to help me with any opportunities and applied to as many jobs as I could. I landed up with two job offers within a week and half, as from then you can see where I am today.

My forever weapon in these past years has been, a strong mentality!
Keep getting up no matter what happens.

I want the world to know, I have just began my journey and keep your eyes open for Archie Tyagi, as I am the brand and I am ready to bring some spatial art for people to experience soon!! My brand would serve purely towards your emotions and senses – creating psychological impact.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I took my bestie to the ponce city market and the belt line, when she visited me last month. Purely because of the following reasons:
– Beautiful structure the industrial millwork vibe is refreshing compared to big glass buildings
– Great food and also with diverse options, so good spot to bring my friends when I want them to have food from my culture.
– Artsy vibes specially at the belt line stretch, in addition we get to the mini doors of Atlanta
– lots to do

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are a couple :

University – SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and SCADpro (the program university offers)
Professor – Ricardo B Navarro

My previous other jobs :

-Travel Retail America L’oreal Paris
-MSR Design, Minnesota

My current firm
– HBA (Hirsch Bedner Associates)

My family and friends 🙂

Website: https://www.archietyagi.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archietyagi/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/archie-tyagi-021893127/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArchieTyagi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archie.tyagi.7

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI9SIkNsl3eJJAHLwvGNq0Q

Image Credits
coca cola image by Kendra Frankle