Debojyoti Purkayastha at Parul University

Debojyoti Purkayastha made it clear from the first minute that he was not there to be motivational. He was there to make students look inside themselves. He asked the room what The Hunger to Be Inspired really meant. Students answered with curiosity, motivation. He added his own: inspiration is the fuel. A bike needs petrol. An electric vehicle needs a charge. It lives in life: people crossing roads, traffic moving, a cow standing in the middle of a street. That is life. That is inspiration.

He addressed four types of students directly. Those who scroll phones at night watching Instagram reels that make them feel bad about their own work. Those who do just enough to finish an assignment. Those who copy designs from the internet (people will eventually find out). Those with talent who are simply not working hard enough. His advice to all four: delete your Pinterest account. True ideas do not come from a screen.

Debojyoti spent years studying four designers who changed his work. He did not copy them. He understood why they did what they did.

• Stefan Sagmeister: known for emotionally honest, provocative work. Once carved words into his own skin. Asked Debojyoti why his work was only on flat pages and said: add a Z-axis. That one line changed how Debojyoti thought about design forever.
• Neville Brody: British designer from punk music ideology. Fonts with cultural boldness and subversive, sarcastic layering.
• Keith Haring: subway artist who believed art belongs to everyone, not museums. Took work to the streets. Bold, public, simple in form but sharp in humour.
• David Carson: a surfer who became one of the world’s best graphic designers without formal training. He redesigned the magazine Ray Gun and changed typography rules forever. His Macallan whisky packaging sold out on the first day because of the design, not the product.

His advice: find designers you admire and study them closely. Try to make work that would make them proud. Find your people before you find your style. You can explore yours by enrolling in Bachelor of Design at Parul University

Debojyoti introduced a framework he created called the Inspiration Compass and told students to photograph the slide because it is a career map. Four areas work together:

• Chaos: doing things without overthinking, trying new combinations, trusting feelings. This is where ideas are generated.
• System: bringing order to wild ideas. The structure that makes an idea work across different situations. This is what distributes ideas.
• Empathy: the heart of the project. Understanding what is happening in the world (climate change, mental health) and genuinely caring about the audience.
• Emotion: being true to yourself. How much of yourself goes into the work. This is what makes it authentic.

The best designers use all four in a cycle: chaos generates, system shapes, empathy anchors, emotion makes it matter. If you too want to explore this system in depth, explore Communication Design at Parul University!

During college in Baroda, Debojyoti and his friends would go to the railway station at night, sit, and draw. One thousand sketches per day. Each took about three seconds. Over time, they could capture posture, light direction, and shadow portraits in seconds. This daily practice built a deep understanding of proportion, space, and form that stayed with them for life.

After the 26/11 attacks, he was in Hong Kong and lost his job. He came back to India feeling completely lost and fell into depression. Instead of giving up, he started drawing in his diary. He made 27 pictures of Lord Ganesha using only words. When friends saw them, they were surprised by the beauty. They did not see the pain behind them. Art became the outlet for distress that had no rational exit. His prescription: carry a notepad everywhere. Draw what you observe. The act of looking closely enough to draw something changes the internal state in a way nothing else replicates.