Designing Life With Courage

From Thane to Chicago, Ilisha Sharma turned curiosity into courage, building a career in design while quietly shaping how people see, feel and trust.

When Ilisha Sharma looks back, she is still surprised by how far curiosity can take a person. Growing up in Thane, India design was not an obvious career path, at least not in her family. Yet she was always drawn to grids, patterns and the aesthetics of nature, long before she had the words to describe those instincts.

As a child, she explored many versions of herself — basketball player, swimmer, Kathak dancer, singer and pianist. But the artist was the one who endured. She was the child who stayed up late designing school posters, making birthday cards and filling notebook margins with doodles. Creativity was never separate from who she was.

That instinct led to one of the biggest risks of her life. At 18, Sharma moved from Thane to the United States to study design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). She had never lived alone, navigated airports or crossed continents by herself. She landed in Savannah, Georgia, without a U.S. phone number, a bank account or any real sense of how far from home she was — just an email from SCAD promising a shuttle at the airport.

She remembers telling herself, “As long as I get off at the right terminal and find the right bus, I’ll be fine.”

Quietly panicking, she still chose courage over comfort. That journey became the first defining step in a life shaped by uncertainty and conviction.

At SCAD, Sharma majored in graphic design and minored in user experience, discovering that design shapes how people feel, think and trust. She graduated summa cum laude and, more importantly, found the kind of designer she wanted to be — one who blends creativity with strategy and emotion with clarity.

Another leap came soon after graduation, when she secured an internship in Chicago at the exact agency she wanted: Design B&B. Her employment authorisation card had not arrived; she could not legally begin work without it, and she had no housing lined up.

Still, she went.

She booked an overnight flight, packed her life into eight suitcases, reserved an Airbnb for two nights, and arrived in Chicago without knowing where she would live or how long she could stay. That gamble paid off. Within two months, the internship became a full-time role. She eventually rose to the position of designer and head of social strategy.

Brand Collaborations

Today, her work includes collaborations with brands such as Pop-Tarts, Mars, Kellogg’s, Bic, IAMS, Town House, Simple Mills, Cadence OTC, Pull-Ups, Huggies and Aveeno. One of the most surreal moments in her career came during the rebrand of Naked Smoothies, when months of strategy and design finally appeared on supermarket shelves.

In 2026, Sharma is also leading Design B&B’s Good Egg Grant, a programme that offers pro bono branding support to a Chicago nonprofit each year. This year, the agency is partnering with Friendship Center, a food pantry in Albany Park that provides groceries, hot meals and dignity to families in need.

From Thane to Chicago, Sharma’s journey has been shaped by curiosity, courage and a willingness to choose uncertainty over comfort. In the process, she has done more than design brands — she has designed a life on her own terms.