Sushi & ramen art on t-shirts? 😍
In conversation with Nimona Designs.
Think of all that you love!
If petting animals, picnics in the park, slurping on ramen, or devouring books come to your mind, Nimona Designs deserves a place in your closet.
Founder by Nimisha Saikia and her sister-in-law Snigdha Chaya Saikia, Nimona's focus is on art. They first draw things they love and put them on merchandise that come bright with sushi, doggos, koi fish, and coffee art.
When not working on Nimona, their full-time jobs keep them on the go. While Nimisha is a graphic and motion designer at a tech startup, Snigdha is a visual designer and concept artist at a popular children's brand.
I caught up with Nimisha to find out more about Nimona and what inspires them to create. 👇
What made you start Nimona?
I founded Nimona with my sister-in-law Snigdha Chaya Saikia. While I work as a graphic and motion designer, my true passion has always been illustration. Snigdha has been working as a concept artist and loves to illustrate. We both were looking for an outlet or a reason to get back to creating art, and with the help of a few friends and a little diligence, we were able to start this small brand.
Why the name Nimona?
Nimona's namesake is quite frankly, the popular graphic novel Nimona from Noelle Stevensen, which has also recently been adapted into an animated film. I'm a medieval nut myself — the novel is an intense ride of emotions with some comedic and deeply touching moments, all while being relatable. As an artist this is what I aspire to and hope our artwork does the same for our customers.
What's your brand philosophy?
Our philosophy is to create unique art fuelled by personal experiences. Each artwork is a tribute to things we cherish — and for this reason we don’t feel obligated to create artwork that would be fast-sellers. While some of our designs can sometimes be a little offbeat, it feels particularly special when they resonate with some people out there.
Our philosophy is to create unique art fuelled by personal experiences. Each artwork is a tribute to things that we cherish.
Do you work with any indie artists to design your clothing?
Currently, it is just the two of us, but we are open to collaborating with other artists in the future.
What inspires you to create?
Everything that is dear to us — it could be a specific experience that meant a lot to us, a game we enjoyed playing, a meal that captivated us, but mostly our love for pets, music, games and food.
What's a typical day at Nimona?
We both work on Nimona in part-time capacity, so I spend my evenings checking emails, Instagram messages for orders or enquiries. When the orders come in, I coordinate with my manufacturer and spend some time planning campaigns and new releases. To be honest, the amount of time we spend on Nimona varies, greatly depending on how busy we are in general — but we are super appreciative that such a flexibility exists.
As a small business, can you share 2-3 challenges you face?
The biggest challenge we face is getting visibility and exposure on social media. It’s getting harder and harder to get noticed on social media — a plight most small businesses face today. Another challenge is finding the right vendor within the country for samples and prototyping.
If you had to pick three bestselling products, what would they be?
Our best selling products are the Koi Pond, Gojira and Neko Sushi tees. We were also pleasantly surprised by the reception to our God of War inspired tee — the Leviathan Axe.
What are the price points of your products?
All our regular t-shirts are priced at INR 850, oversized ones at INR 1,099, sweatshirts at INR 1,499, and totes at INR 550. We charge about INR 70 for pan-India deliveries. We run two sales in the year (summer and winter) during which all our products are available at discounted rates.
What can we expect in the future?
Due to time restraints and ever-growing material costs, we continue to work on Nimona comfortably without the pressure of scaling it any time soon. However, we would like to introduce some new products in the future, for e.g., accessories like pins, keychains, pouches etc. We are also currently setting up a website. Hopefully, it will offer a better customer experience and make things easier for us to manage.
So that was my conversation with Nimona. You can shop from them on Instagram. They ship across India.
While you're at it, don't forget to send some love to their pets, Kimchi and Pudding.
I’ll be back with another story soon. 👋