Sumanma Wadhwa in front of her creation
Sumanma Wadhwa is a New Delhi–born graphic designer and visual researcher whose work redefines design as a language of empathy, equity, and emotional intelligence. With over 20 years of experience across India, Africa, and the United States, she brings a global and personal perspective to projects merging cultural symbolism, craft traditions, and social purpose.
Her most recognized work, Embrace, began from a personal moment of exclusion and grew into a visual system rooted in care and connection. Inspired by African, Indian, and East Asian iconography, Embrace unites five core values—emotional intelligence, racial and gender equity, income equality, ethno-diasporic harmony, and family bonding—centered around the letters E, I, and Q: a symbolic balance of emotional and intelligent questions that guide how we live, lead, and design.
More than a symbol, Embrace is a visual movement, meant to exist across fashion, public art, digital platforms, and compassionate business practices. Like a B Corp for empathy, it offers a new standard for measuring impact—less in metrics, more in meaning.
Wadhwa’s work has been shown in cultural institutions, academic spaces, and grassroots campaigns. Whether painted, printed, or woven, her designs challenge indifference and invite reflection. She lives and works in Colorado, where she continues to grow Embrace as a cross-cultural, transmedia platform for storytelling and emotional awareness.
Tell us about your creative beginnings. How did your path toward design unfold?
Art found me before words did. I’ve been drawn to Indian classical dance since I was two, and began formal training at seven. That love for movement and storytelling shaped how I’ve always understood the world—visually, emotionally, intuitively.
I grew up in a family of educators. My father worked in corporate HR, and my mother was a schoolteacher. Academics were the focus at home, but I was the one painting, performing in ballets, and competing in dance events. Art was how I navigated everything, especially in a school system where my undiagnosed dyslexia made traditional learning tough.
That instinct found direction at the College of Art, New Delhi, where I ranked seventh nationwide in Applied Art. There, I discovered design as both purpose-driven and poetic—a place where intellect and emotion coexist. And that’s the kind of designer I’ve become.
You’ve lived and worked in India, Africa, and the United States. How have those experiences shaped your creative practice?
Each place brought its own rhythm. India gave me a deep visual culture—colors that speak, symbols rich with generational meaning. Africa taught me texture, material, and how everyday objects hold power. In the U.S., I found contrast: freedom and friction. Navigating unfamiliar systems as an immigrant, a mother, and a designer made me more aware of how identity shows up in design, not as decoration, but as declaration.
Living across continents taught me that empathy is the most universal design tool. It also made me a better listener, whether I’m interpreting a client’s story, a cultural motif, or the silence between two ideas.
When did you realize that graphic design would become your professional path?
There wasn’t one big “aha” moment—just a series of small clicks. In school, I was the one crafting props, designing bulletin boards, and helping with my father’s writing projects. But it wasn’t until I saw how typography could hold emotion, or how layout could guide a reader’s experience, that I understood design wasn’t just about how things look—it’s about how they feel.
College solidified that for me. What started as instinct became intention. Design became the intersection of storytelling, culture, form, and function. It felt like a natural extension of how I saw the world.
Your campaign Embrace has received attention for its depth and design philosophy. How did it come about?
Embrace began in a moment that didn’t feel creative. I was asked to breastfeed my daughter in a department store’s changing room—a quiet exclusion that stayed with me. I wasn’t protesting. I was parenting. But that moment revealed how systems often ignore basic human needs.
That discomfort sparked a question: What does care look like in public? How can design make empathy visible?
From that came a symbol, and from that, a system. Five interlinked values—emotional intelligence, racial and gender equity, income fairness, diasporic harmony, and family bonding—all anchored in E, I, Q. Embrace became a personal philosophy turned public language.
Why did you choose tactile methods—like printmaking and hand-painted installations—over digital formats for Embrace?
Because touch matters. In a world full of digital noise, I wanted Embrace to slow people down. I wanted viewers to feel the repetition, the texture of labor, the presence of a hand behind the form.
Using photolithography and hand-painted techniques brought ritual into the process. Every print pull, every brushstroke was a meditation on care—the core of the campaign. I used vinyl typography, hand-pulled wallpaper, and layered textures not out of nostalgia, but intention. It lets the audience not just see the work, but inhabit it.
Design can scale, but it can also be intimate. I wanted Embrace to feel lived-in.
Where do teaching and research fit into your practice?
Teaching is how I pass the thread forward. I see classrooms as spaces of shared inquiry, where each student carries a visual language waiting to be decoded. My teaching blends empathy, reflection, and cross-disciplinary thinking. I want students not just to solve problems, but to ask better questions.
My research lives at the intersection of culture and compassion. It asks: How do symbols shape collective understanding? What happens when we prioritize emotional intelligence in public visual space? Through Embrace and beyond, I explore how design can be both a mirror and a map—reflecting who we are and guiding who we could be.
What do you envision for Embrace going forward?
I see Embrace growing as a visual language, flowing through galleries, textiles, murals, architecture, and even organizational standards. It’s already being imagined as a design philosophy like B Corp, but centered on emotional intelligence and cultural care.
One day, I’d love to see Embrace adopted globally, not just as a campaign, but as a symbol of shared human values. Maybe even as the 18th Sustainable Development Goal. Because without empathy, the rest are hard to sustain.
Embrace isn’t about perfection, it’s about intention. Like the different widths of brushstrokes in a painting, each stroke brings its own story. But together, they form something whole. When empathy leads, the strokes don’t clash, they complement.
It becomes a rhythm that holds us—together.
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