Companies looking for people who understand design and apply it: WUD VC

Shiksha spoke to Dr Sanjay Gupta, Vice Chancellor of the World University of Design on career options available after one completes designing courses, how How pandemic affected the design industry, etc., read here to know more.

What are the career options available after one completes designing courses at the World University Of Design (WUD)?

At WUD we have over 15 options in design starting from fashion, communication, graphics, animation, gaming, computer science, and digital. The kind of company and kind of job profiles available are huge and it cuts across all industry segments from IT companies like Wipro and Infosys to retail companies like Amazon, Flipkart, and Nykaa to manufacturing companies like automotive manufacturing, and product manufacturing, all these companies have been hiring from WUD. So, career options are huge, they can get in as a designer, design trainees, or design manager and then depending on their competency, they can reach great heights.

What are your plan and vision to make the institute better in terms of education and placements?

The vision is to become the institute of preference in the country. We are already being considered the best after the government institutions like NIFT and NID. So, we are the third option, the vision is to be the first option and for that, we have been working towards making a very engaging atmosphere and environment for our students so that they acquire the insights and competitiveness and communication skills to be out there in the market and do well and even to start their own companies, and their own products. The vision is that all these people should be able to make a change in the country’s approach to design.

How pandemic affected the design industry, and which are the most notable changes?

When the pandemic hit the whole industry went into shock and it took it somewhere between three months to a year for companies to come out with their digital strategies and start functioning again. We went online immediately during Covid even before when the lockdown was announced and from June 2020 onwards, most of our students were doing an online internship with companies and in July and August 2020 during the placement season, again the placements happened online. 

In March 2020 itself, we designed a PPE kit and at that time India was not making PPE kits, there was a shortage of PPE kits in India. We designed it immediately together with IITs and the medical institute. Out PPE kit was transferred to Loyal Textile in Tamil Nadu who immediately started making and supplying the PPE kits. So, we were instrumental in fighting the Covid.

Have you recently introduced any new design courses?

In the past two years, we have introduced Computer Science and Design. What happening is there are lots of students coming out of engineering colleges and doing coding which is back-end work, and earlier there were no designs available for the user interface. 

The design is not only about how the interface looks but also how the app or site behaves. For eg - if anyone is visiting a particular site, the user should be able to navigate through the site in seconds and get the information immediately and must not waste time browsing, so all of these require an understanding of computers as well as design principles. We have combined the two together and offered a course called Computer Science and Design, and you can call the course Digital Design. It is a very successful programme. The user interface has now become important for every segment even fashion designers are now doing online, and even retailers, and services people are going online. So, the user interface is required by everyone. 

We have also in the same way introduced Digital Illustration – the art of illustration because visual arts have now also turned digital. We are doing digital auctions, the galleries are online. The painting and artwork are also created online. So, the digital tools required for making digital art are being taught, which does not take away the basics of visual arts - the thought process, philosophy, history everything remains the same just the medium becomes different. We are creating the next version of artists for the new generation because tomorrow they are going to design for a digital world and they will need these tools to be working there.

We have also added VR-AR, virtual reality and augmented reality in both our graphics program and animation and game design program.

Artificial Intelligence was introduced three years back and all our students of visual art, performing art, design or fashion, all do artificial intelligence.

Tell us something about the placements at the World University Of Design and which industries hire designers more.

Our packages have been much higher than the industry's averages. For eg- the highest package which was offered to our student was INR 32 lakh but it was not taken by the student and the highest package taken was INR 24 lakh. The median package was around between INR 6 lakh and a half to 8 lakh which is more than the engineers' package. Even in architecture which is traditionally considered a low end in terms of initial salary, our architecture students got up to INR 8 lakh. So our students have done 95% better than other students of architecture.

What would you tell to an aspiring designer, what qualities the candidate must have to succeed in design-related careers?

Design is a career of passion. It is not a regular 9-to-5 job. When you come into designing, work on your passion, and don’t think about the packages. Many people want to join design careers as they aspire to get high packages, but this whole approach is wrong. The approach should be I love doing this, to what height I can reach, to which depth I can go. If you are a good designer, the package in this industry is not the issue, you can get whatever you want. Everybody is looking for good designers. In the first year, the student gets between INR 6 lakh to INR 32 lakh. Imagine what they will get after a few years, package is not an issue here, the kind of portfolio you have is important. You can build a good portfolio and get a job in Infosys and Cognizant, it is not difficult. They are not only looking for IT design, they are looking for people who understand design and they can apply it.

How do you see the future of design, which are the major trend coming in?

In India, the design has started late, in fact, we credit ourselves for making design popular. NIFT and NID are here for 15 years, and nothing changed. It was only when we brought design to mainstream university education and announced the university of design then people began to notice and then everybody started a design course. Today out of 800 universities, 350 have offered this design course because now it is mainstream. The important question is can we make design education good, so that good designers come out of the design institutes? Today every industry segment is looking to add value to their products, even banks are competing, and credit card companies are competing. They all are looking for innovative ways to add to their product profile so that the product becomes more attractive, and more value-added and who can do that – designers. I see design growing fabulously in the coming years. Metaverse is the new trend, it is something that will happen over the next 5 to 10 years and that is where everyone will need designers. Also, without artists, designers, and performers Metaverse cannot exist, and these three are the creative streams which are going to make the future and these are the major trends.

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