No time like today to pursue a career in Design

By Prof Usha Iyer

Professor Usha Iyer explains how a career in design has huge potential in the form of jobs and self-employment opportunities for young learners.

Design has been around for as long as human beings have, manifested in ways to make life easier at every stage. Be it tools for hunting or basic ‘bark’ for protection from the cold, we have always used whatever is close to us to create something that brings an element of comfort of some kind to us.                               

Taking the same need for better products, services and communication, design inputs find more demand today as the user has an array of choices and exposure to the best that is available. Given this push from the consumers who are ever willing to pay a premium price for a superior differentiated product, design thinking and processes are making their way into non-creative areas of work and the results are quite astounding. Globally, the creative problem solver is being applauded and welcomed in areas where earlier the solutions were essentially coming from the right brained individuals trained in domain specific operations both from a product as well as services perspective.

Design education therefore, has more relevance today than ever before. Design thinking is now what takes precedence over hand skills in foundation classes, just so one ensures that the student can adapt and imbibe, analyse and explore options without the usual constraints of discipline or acceptable solutions. For example, in metro trains that run across the length and breadth of Delhi/ NCR, there are spaces that lend themselves to modes of reaching out to create awareness or bring about some change. An advertising person, a fashion designer, a product designer as well as the theatre person might find innovative ways to utilise the space. As also would an artist, a poet or anyone else.

All one needs is the basic skill of ideation and execution that nails the requirement. Imagination is not anyone’s copyright, certainly not a designer’s. Where the designer has an advantage is that he/ she is trained to select the right process to take the idea from concept to completion, using the relevant tools, skills and knowledge of material and methods for realisation of a final design. Communicating the idea well and selling it convincingly is another talent that comes with training on a design programme.

Within the design field the sub-domains have grown exponentially in the last few decades, especially communication. There is artificial intelligence, virtual reality, interaction design, interface design and so much else that we wake up to every morning, when we take out our smartphones. The current aspirants of careers in design are born in the new millennium, into a world of hand held screens and immediate entertainment. Also the world has shrunken and is today just a button away.

The designer of today is aware, responsible and sensitive to sustainability, the environment and the world one inhabits. Whatever be the chosen field within design that one wishes to pursue, the necessary tools of problem-solving and understanding consumer preferences remains valid. Also, one sees that the inter-disciplinary nature of design is becoming more apparent as borders are getting blurred. Adapting one’s design methodology and style across disciplines is something we see around us as fashion designers turn interior designers and also work on branding and product development aspects.

All of the above and more makes it a perfect time for young learners coming out of lower education to consider a career in design given the huge potential that the skills basket that they will pack offers in the form of jobs and self-employment opportunities that will be theirs to choose from.

About the Author:

Prof Usha Iyer

Prof Usha Iyer is Head, School of Design and Creative Arts, Vedatya Institute. She has over 18 years of working as a Design faculty. She has been associated with Apeejay Institute of Design, IILM School of Design, Pearl Academy and Indian Institute of Art and Design.

After completing Bachelor in Fine Art (BFA) from the Delhi College of Art, Usha worked in advertising and as a freelance designer on various prestigious accounts, such as Luxor Pen Company, Taj Group of Hotels, Indian Airlines etc.