With an art curator mother and a graphic designer father, Kalapi Gajjar was immersed in visual culture from an early age. After studying graphic design at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, in his home town of Vadodara in Gujarat, Gajjar spent a year as an art director at Wieden + Kennedy's Delhi office. Frustrated with the lack of contemporary typefaces available for Indic scripts, he left India to complete a masters in type design at Reading University – where he met Universal Thirst co-founder Gunnar Vilhjálmsson. After leaving Reading, Gajjar relocated to London to work on projects for international foundry Monotype, before joining London type specialist Dalton Maag, where he oversaw the production and engineering of typefaces for brands including Nokia, Intel and HP. In 2016 he launched Universal Thirst with Gunnar Vilhjálmsson.