Founder & Creative Director, Aaquib Wani Design
Biography & Career Highlights
Aaquib Wani is a Forbes 30 Under 30 (Design, 2021) awardee and one of India’s leading experiential designers, known for transforming spaces, stories, and brands through immersive design. A self-taught creative force with roots in Kashmir and upbringing in New Delhi, Aaquib blends cultural influences with contemporary design language across festivals, sets, interiors, interactive installations, weddings, and visual identity. Over the years, he has collaborated with global powerhouses such as Apple, Beats, NBA, Spotify, adidas, Coca-Cola, Lollapalooza India, the India Cricket Team, JSW, and the United Nations. His work spans large-scale cultural moments including designing the Commonwealth Games King’s Baton, Olympic and Asian Games as well as the National Indian Cricket team jerseys, and monumental weddings for the Ambani family, cementing him as one of the most versatile creative directors in the country.
Early Career & Music
Aaquib’s design journey began unconventionally through the music ecosystem, where he worked as an art director for a music magazine. His time in the indie and festival circuits exposed him to stage design, visual culture, and the intersection of music and immersive storytelling. Post this, he worked with leading scenographer Sumant Jayakrishnan. This phase shaped his ability to think in both 2D and 3D formats and laid the foundation for his multi-disciplinary aesthetic.
Transition to Entrepreneurship
With no formal design education, Aaquib carved his path through experimentation and self-learning, leading him to establish Aaquib Wani Design, his own experiential design practice. His entrepreneurial leap allowed him to expand his creative canvas from magazine visuals & designing wedding spaces to building cultural IPs, stage worlds, brand universes, and immersive events. Over time, he became the go-to creative mind for large-format live experiences, pop culture moments, and celebrity collaborations, proving that instinct, curiosity, and relentless practice can rival traditional training.
About The Company
Aaquib Wani Design is an experiential and spatial design studio that blends art direction, space-making, visual design, and storytelling into high-impact creative experiences. The studio’s portfolio cuts across brands, festivals, fashion, sports, and culture. It has created work for Apple, Beats by Dr. Dre, NBA, Lollapalooza India, Bacardi NH7 Weekender, AP Dhillon, Ranveer Singh, MG Motors, Nestlé, Levi’s,Serendipity Arts Festival, NMACC x National History Museum, PVR, Phoenix Malls, Fastrack, Superdry, Rajasthan Royals, RedFM, Tira, Anjul Bhandari, Almost Gods, and more. The studio has also designed special-edition shoes for Rohit Sharma for IPL 2021 and 2022 and contributed to his Adidas collection. From wedding scenography to large-format public installations to highly customised brand experiences, the company operates at the intersection of design innovation and cultural relevance.
Impact & Vision
Aaquib’s work has shaped how Indian audiences experience culture, design, and live events, bringing global-standard experiential craftsmanship to the country while still retaining an emotional, local sensibility. His vision is to build design languages that are immersive, interactive, and culturally rooted, while pushing boundaries of material, scale, and storytelling. Through his studio, he aims to keep redefining how brands and audiences connect whether through festival worlds, public art, global collaborations, or next-gen experiential environments. At the core, his philosophy is simple but powerful, creating work that people don’t just see, but feel.
