A studio · Indiranagar
Studio Yantra. यंत्र
Patterns that reflect the universe.
Six controls. A vocabulary as old as the subcontinent. A surface that listens. The piece that arrives in your home is yours, the maker is named, the edition is small, and the motion never quite stops.
Founder · Aravind Iyer
Origin · 2022
For nineteen years I drew, set, and spaced things by hand — and watched them ship as static.
The piece I designed in Bombay didn't move on its way to Tokyo. Studio Yantra is what happens when you let the pattern keep designing itself. Six controls. A vocabulary as old as the subcontinent. A surface that listens. The piece that arrives in your home is yours, the maker is named, the edition is small, and the motion never quite stops.
- B.Des Communication Design · NID Ahmedabad · 2007
- M.A. Visual Communication · Royal College of Art London · 2009
- Designer Pentagram London · 2009–2014 (partner from 2012, European studio)
- Founding Partner Iyer & Soman Bombay · 2014–2022
- Founded Studio Yantra · Q3 2022
- Visiting Critic Srishti Manipal Bangalore
Open editions · numbered · signed
The Gallery Wall
Smart assistant · brief → three variants
One sentence. Three starting points. The studio takes it from there.
The assistant works on a curated parameter space, not a free-form prompt — the studio has decided what the studio can do. Every variant has an “open in editor” handoff. The studio signs the work that ships.
Smart assistant
Try one:
Reference · construction
Motif Vocabulary
Nine numbered cells. The starting points. The studio composes from these, not from a free-form prompt — too many choices is what cheapens generative work.
- 01
Twelve-fold rotational star · radial extruded petals · doubled outline
- 02
Single-axis spiral · counter-curl tail · concentric inner detail
- 03
Six-fold rosette · two-tier petals · open center · gold dotwork ring
- 04
Logarithmic spiral · inset tighter spiral · wave terminator
- 05
7×7 dotwork field · density gradient · soft-fade edges
- 06
Eight-by-eight square weave · alternating over-under · brass hairline
- 07
Twelve-arm radial dot rhythm · outer cluster · inner echo
- 08
Five concentric rotated squares · dot-marked corners · saffron core
- 09
Eight-fold radial leaf rosette · inner-outer dual ring · tip-dotted
The studio
Eighteen-hundred square feet on Indiranagar 100ft Road.
A warm-walnut desk under an afternoon window. A brass lamp. Sketchbooks open to dense linework studies that nobody asked for. The studio is seven people — Aravind, three designer-developers, a typographer, an ops lead, and a print-edition curator who walks every batch from the press to the rolling tube. Every shipped edition has been through that hand.
Said in private · published with permission
From the studio's collectors.
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“I commissioned a piece for a client tea brand, expecting to art-direct ten rounds of revision. Aravind sent me three variants from a single brief. We picked the second one and shipped it. That has never happened.”
Sara V. · Brand strategist · Berlin
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“We acquired the studio's seventeenth edition for our collector. It arrived signed, numbered, with the parameter certificate. He hung it in the entry. Six months on it still moves when you walk past it — quietly.”
Rohan M. · Gallery curator · Mumbai
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“The six-slider tool is unfair to the rest of the design industry. You can feel the studio behind it. I have used a dozen "AI design" things; this is the only one that holds up to a designer's gaze.”
Hiroko Y. · Type designer · Tokyo
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“Studio Yantra is the only generative work I have seen that does not look like generative work. The hand is still in it.”
James O. · Critic, Eye Magazine · London
Eight questions, answered honestly
FAQ
- Each edition opens with a published total — usually 50, 99, or 250 — and a serial counter. When the last serial is acquired, the composition closes. We do not re-press a closed edition under any circumstances. The earliest serials are the most expensive; pricing is published, not auctioned.