Ahlawat Gunjan

Multiple award-winning designer, self-taught painter, TEDx speaker, design educator-Ahlawat Gunjan wears many hats. A graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, he has a master’s degree in graphic design from The Glasgow School of Art, UK. Ahlawat has also spent a semester at Indiana-Purdue University, USA, focusing on design thinking, innovation and leadership. His overlapping interests in art and literature not only made him pursue a career in publishing but they also inform his keen interest in visual authorial interventions and curatorship. This allows him to shape the visual personality of the book at every step of its creation. He strongly believes in the art and power of making and therefore himself constructs most of the images for his book covers.
Trained at Lars Mullers Switzerland and Faber & Faber, UK, Ahlawat has worked closely with Penguin, Faber and Faber, Hachette, Little Brown, Hodder, Random House, Quercus, Hurst, Scribe AUS, Pantheon and Knopf Doubleday USA. Currently, he is Head of Design at Penguin Random House, India, and spends his free time painting. His paintings have been showcased in solo shows in New Delhi and Dehradun. He has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Oxford Bookstore cover prize for Gun Island (2021) and the Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival for Rising Heat (2020).
Ahlawat lives in New Delhi with his piano and a room full of paints and brushes. He can be reached at ahlawatgunjan@gmail.com.