Location: San Francisco, CA
Medium: Graphic Design, Book Arts, Textiles, Printmaking
Website: savithrivelaga.rodeo
Savithri Velaga is a designer and artist of South Asian descent who grew up in Tennessee and is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned a dual Master of Fine Arts and Master of Arts degree at California College of the Arts (CCA), where her practice expanded across graphic design, book arts, textiles, and installation. Prior to relocating to California, she worked and exhibited in Nashville, where her illustrations appeared in local galleries and she established the Betty Factory studio, known for handmade goods and limited-edition print objects.
Since arriving in the Bay Area, Velaga has built a multidisciplinary practice under the Savi Factory name, working across publication design, wearable art, and community-centered projects. She has collaborated with designer Maria Cardenas, contributing to major cultural commissions including the design identity for the 2025 SF Art Book Fair, held at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco — an event attended by over 35,000 people.
Velaga has been recognized for her interdisciplinary reach across fine art and design. She was selected as a vendor at the SFMOMA Small Press Book Bazaar in December 2024, and has led hands-on workshops at major art book fairs including the Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair at the ICA Los Angeles. Her work consistently bridges analog and digital methods in service of community building, cultural storytelling, and experimental form-making.
Velaga’s practice is rooted in a DIY ethos spanning printed matter, textiles, graphic identity, and wearable objects. She draws on her South Asian heritage — using ceremonial kumkum powder for natural dyeing and incorporating visual material from Indian culture, including auto-rickshaw vinyl decals and Hindu temple iconography — alongside references drawn from American subcultures such as tattooing, skateboarding, and independent music. Her book projects characteristically use riso printing, laser-cut acrylic, and hand fabrication to produce objects in small, tactile editions.
A recurring concern in her work is bicultural identity and immigration narrative. Her artist book Identity Theft explores these themes through essays and interviews, including conversations with her father about his experience as an immigrant. Her typographic practice — best exemplified by her Typographic Spirograph tools — merges geometric drawing with improvisational letterform-making, treating type as both subject and medium. Across projects, Velaga positions craft and making as modes of cultural translation.
This entry was written by the Bay Area Artist Wiki project and is based on publicly available information.
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