FAQ on Design in India
Q: Hey did you get to read Rashmi’s article on Design schools and their future?
A: I did. Well written. But amusing.
Q: Amusing? What’s your problem?
A: The problem is, it is not relevant to India.
Q: Did they not talk about schools like NID and IDC in that article?
A: That’s exactly where I am coming from. To begin with, designers in modern India – be it architects, product designers or interaction designers – are not respected.
If at all they are, it’s usually for the wrong reasons – the glamour factor and how much they earn. To be fair, designers have a role to play in this as well.
Also, I feel all these D schools are elitist. Make no mistake, they are good. But the numbers they produce and their attitude they betray while selecting is more in tune with keeping their brand intact than addressing the industry.
Q: This is just unsubstantiated bull.
A: Let’s take interaction design. IDC IIT Bombay has a grand total of 10 seats in their PG program in Design per year. Same with NID (there it’s called user interface design program). Now apply the reservation quota factor to it. I’ll come to other aspects in a minute.
But every year, the Indian IT industry alone needs numbers in thousands. This is only going to increase with time. So where will the industry go? Hire people who are erstwhile web designers or visual communications graduates or fine arts folks.
If there are some professions which can be described ‘paavapatta’ it’s got to be tech writers and HCI design guys. Everyone wants them but none recognizes the value a good designer or writer can and should bring.
Indian IT industry is predominantly services oriented. Often, the client wants it done ‘yesterday’ or at least it’s claimed to be so. This in itself is a disadvantage for any meaningful research oriented design. Unlike the programmer types who have a recognized BE and MCA, there are very few academic programmes of repute and in decent numbers for these two professions in India. Those who toil in these two areas are mostly self-taught.
The project manager, who invariably comes from a developer background, does not have much idea about the value of a good designer or writer to software development. Nor are the designers able to assert themselves because they themselves know that they do not have any formal knowledge on Design.
The result - most of the major design decisions masquerade as ‘requirements’ which the designer has to comply. These two professions are clumped as ‘shared services’ and ‘documentation’ guys. Add fundas like ‘resource utilization’ and you have the picture complete.
One would’ve thought these design schools would attempt to do something to correct this anomaly. But they are happy producing 10 graduates per year. This way, their brand stays intact.
The admission criteria for IDC reads like this:
Any Branch of BE/B Tech or B Arch or B Des (again from IIT Guwahati) or NID or 5 year BFA graduates. Bottom line – they are IIT.
What’s more, in practice, from whatever I could observe, quite a number of these students in these PG programmes are those who did their UG in IITs. Talk about in breeding. The criteria for NID is even funnier – they have some stupid age limit funda.
So even if a self-taught designer aspires to get hiself formally trained, he has to by and large look for avenues outside India. Fortunately unlike these elite schools, there are plenty of scope to further one’s study in Design in universities overseas.
Only that you need vitamin (M)oney. So these NIDs and IITs neither have the numbers to drive out the ‘on the job trained’ UX designers like me nor are they willing to embrace and train folks like me who are in thousands.
So for now, IITs and NIDs are content to supply designers to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Never mind that design, at the end of the day, is a practical profession where what you do is more important than and independent of where you come from. Those who don’t believe me please visit Taj Mahal in Agra. And no it was not designed by the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture, I’m afraid.
At the end of the day, if the value of design and innovation has to be instilled to corporates, its much more sensible to teach it to management graduates than hype about some D schools. After all, MBAs are the ones who call the shots in business, for right or wrong reasons.
So talking about D School ruling the future helps the publishing industry and the recent design school grads to get a better salary. Bbut for the average designer in an IT service company its Same Shit Different Day and for the industry it’s Same Shit Different Designer.
November 28th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
To be fair, designers have a role to play in this as well. Egjatly, Black t-shirts and blue jeans don’t make you a designer.
But the numbers they produce and their attitude they betray while selecting is more in tune with keeping their brand intact than addressing the industry Good observation. But how are they rated internationally ? I am not familiar with the design world.
Talk about in breeding. The criteria for NID is even funnier – they have some stupid age limit funda. Correctaa sonneenga -god knows what the real achievments (sans media hype) is ? The attitude problem is very real, and they are mostly interested in doing whatever folks abroad are upto. Like you said they are very bright, but have done very little by way of innovation. After working with these folks, I feel brain drain is a net gain. My current CEO is Stanford + Harvard, and the CTO is IIT. I interact with quite closely and ‘am utterly shocked by how little original thinking they have - they are very intelligent, well informed, and mostly interested in aping the white guys. I suspect even when they get into NGOs and like, they just imitate whatever is happening abroad.
No wonder we have the Ekalayvan kadhai - the permanent struggle of the self-taught versus the pedigreed in this country.
As for programmers, and project managers, after close to a decade of industry coolie work, I can confidently claim that they have no taste and most of them are just overconfident, brash, uninformed and uncouth. To be fair, most programmers abroad are also like that. But the better ones abroad unlike the IIT variety are a pleasure to deal with and come from really diverse backgrounds - many of them are actually Art’s degree holders.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
BNB
thanks:)
They are trying to show these schools as ornament pieces in an otherwise poverty stricken india.
nowhere in the world will you see such disparities in education levels as in our IIT/Ms and other lower level institutions.
i was talking to one professor from IIT B IDC.
he says there r four skill levels
Awareness
Competence
Expertise
Leadership
And according to him what IIT IDC is not interested in the first 3 levels.
They try to take in ppl who r already in between the third and fourth levels.
So they’ll take such ppl, make them leaders thereby increasing the brand value of those guys as well reputation of IIT.
You r spot on about arts grads in US. Angey degree matter less, and stuff matter more.
Ingey apdiye ulta. Without degree, you will be not even be considered by the HR.
But then vellakaranukku velai aana podhum. inga apdiya? US consulate la L1/H1 clear aganum. adhaan mukiyam!
priorities differ