Women to Watch: Nidhi Agrawal of DesignNBuy and Girls Who Print

Nidhi Agarwal, CEO and co-founder of DesignNBuy and a member of the advisory board at Girls Who Print (GWP), began designing in 2009. Soon after, Agrawal worked with Warner Bros Entertainment on a project. “They aimed to offer personalisation on their online merchandise store, enabling customers to purchase products featuring personalised artwork. That was my first brush with printing,” she says.

Following the creation of DesignNBuy in 2014, Agrawal mentions her introduction to Deborah Corn, executive director of GWP, and Pat McGrew, managing director of GWP. “I first met Deborah in 2016 during Drupa in Dusseldorf, Germany. I met Pat in 2019 while exhibiting at Printing United in Dallas, Texas, in the United States,” she says. 

At the Inkish Non-event in Copenhagen, Agrawal spoke to Corn and McGrew about launching GWP in India. “I had seen that the Indian print industry had powerful women pioneers who had been at the forefront for many years,” she says. Now, Girls Who Print has 10 chapters, each representing a different country.

When Agrawal started working, the scope of personalisation caught her attention. “I believed that personalisation could be applied to many areas. At that time, personalising business cards or digital brochures excited me,” she says. In addition, she mentions, “The print industry was and is a silent enabler. It empowers businesses with storytelling, branding, and personalisation. What excited me was the opportunity to bring a traditional industry to the design age.”

In terms of skills that have advanced her career, she says, “In my career of over two decades, it’s people management skills that have helped the most: learning to deal with people and customers, and understanding their pain points.” 

She adds, “When I started, I remember there were no trained ActionScript engineers available. So I hired two interns to work with me. That is how we began building the team, which grew larger, and people stayed.”  

Moving forward, Agrawal is focusing on automating pre-press personalisation and post-press processes with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). She mentions, “My product and the research and development team are working on adopting AI in our workflows and tools to automate personalisation processes.” She adds that encouraging printers, publishers, packaging suppliers, and manufacturers to use automated workflows will make business processes more efficient.

Advising young professionals stepping into the industry, Agrawal says, “You need to be passionate about what you are doing. Start by defining what drives you and what would encourage you to give your best, and once you find your niche, then give it your 100%.”

She continues, “Second, be open to learning because learning never stops. Even after 20 years of working, I am still learning. A good chunk of my time even now goes to learning about the industry and technology”

Agrawal says, “I have seen how capable, creative and resilient women in print are, yet often they do not get the visibility, support and voice they deserve.”

She notes that women need a platform to come forward, “Being part of Girls Who Print gives me that platform, not just to represent women in print,” she adds, “but to create opportunities by mentoring, sharing success stories, building a network and encouraging more women to take leadership roles in the industry.”

On packaging design rethink and sustainability, Agrawal shares that replacing various types of paper, inks, and colours with sustainable and reusable alternatives has been eye-opening. She adds, “In five years, because of sustainability initiatives taken by governments all across the globe, especially in Europe, where the use of plastic is banned, we have seen an increased demand for paper and jute bags, and sustainable materials.”

She emphasises taking notice of carbon and plastic footprints, and looking for substrates, materials, and chemicals that could replace them while providing customers the same user experience.

She concludes, “For me, it is a responsibility to inspire the next generation. And help shape a more inclusive and progressive print ecosystem.”