Elephant Design Pvt Ltd. is a Pune based strategic design & innovation consultancy, founded in 1989 by graduates from the National Institute of Design in India. Elephant has offices in India & Singapore. A team of about 65 people is presently led by three co-founder directors; Ashwini Deshpande, Partho Guha and Ashish Deshpande. Over the three decades Elephant has been in Design business, it has impacted some of India's most well known brands. The company represents India at the Design Alliance Asia as founding associates. Ashwini Deshpande is a part of the core group that steers the Design Alliance Consortium. History 1983-1990: formative years Elephant, was conceived on the staircase of the National Institute of Design campus, as a follow up to a series of philosophical discussions following a 1988 Design Management module undertaken by the batch of 1983. In the events that ensued, a few from the batch got together to seriously put together a multi disciplinary design consulting firm on the Indian landscape at a time when design consulting practice was almost non-existent. The group graduated from NID on 14 April 1989 and took an overnight bus to reach the city of Pune on 16 April 1989. Elephant began initial operations out of hostel trunks, largely thanks to generous help from several kind-hearted souls in Pune city, notable amongst them are Sandhya Potdar, Limaye & Bhamburkar families. Ashwini Deshpande, Partho Guha, Sudhir Sharma, Ashish Deshpande & Vineet Limaye were the first to reach Pune. Gargi Sharma (then Gargi Gupta, 1984 Batch) joined the team in Pune about a year later. Elephant was registered on 2 May 1989, and began operating from a 10 ft. x 10 ft. Room, at 165, Shukrawar Peth, Pune. The space belonged to Ashwini Deshpande's parents (then Ashwini Oak), where stood her ancestral Oak Wada. Initial work revolved around corporate communications and exhibitions. The firm was registered as Elephant, The Design Office. The initial offering was multi disciplinary owing to the different design specialization of the founders. Vineet Limaye specialized in furniture design, Ashwini Deshpande, exhibitions, Sudhir Sharma, visual communication, Partha Guha had specialized in films, Ashish Deshpande, product design and Gargi Sharma, it was animation. January, 1990, the team moved from the Shukrawar Peth office to Ganjve Chowk, Navi Peth where they remained till 1995. Initial years were exploratory, work was sporadic and there were many afternoons spent playing Scotland Yard. Some notable