Outreach of Design is much larger, from airplanes to tiffin boxes, phones to laptops: NIFT Delhi Director

Shiksha spoke to Manisha Kinnu, IRS, Director at NIFT Delhi on career options available for students, placements at NIFT Delhi, what qualities an ideal candidate must have, and other important aspects of fashion industry.

NIFT Delhi is one of the topmost colleges for design courses in India. Shiksha spoke to Manisha Kinnu, IRS Director at NIFT Delhi and asked for her view on several aspects related design education and career. Read here to get the details.

What are the career options available after one completes designing courses at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Delhi? 

Cutting across specialisms, the Campus offers to its students a multitude of opportunities that usher in a sense of preparedness. Right from their first year of study, the students gain an understanding of integrating real-time industry projects with their learning. Through fieldwork, including partnerships and internships with local organizations, government agencies, and businesses, students explore critical issues, applying classroom knowledge to real-world problems. Furthermore, taking forward the vision of the institute, students find themselves acquiring the capacity to work collaboratively with crafts persons across a wide range of projects and contexts.

Thus, the academic bedrock prepares the students for varied career options wherein they can excel in their individual capacity as entrepreneurs or hold key leadership positions in their chosen design domains.

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

Being a premium education provider in the domain of design, management and technology, the Campus is continually striving to offer the most stimulating environment to its students. The attempt is to bring in a wide range of intellectual and aesthetic orientations with the vision to allow every student to reach their full potential.

The endeavour is to steer the Campus towards a learning environment that inspires students to bring the insights of ‘infrequent’ thinking into practice. This allows arriving at solutions that are refined and perfected against requirements to figure out the best and most efficient way to bring it into being and ensure that the quality of the solution is not compromised. Hence, the students are trained to be industry ready. Soaring placement records stand testimony to this ideology of the Campus.

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

In my considered opinion, the pandemic taught us to transform adversity into opportunity. I say this with specific context to design education. One of the most notable changes was seen in the online pedagogy. Experts from the industry, holding key positions were invited to share their journey and their company projects. The positive impact that these lectures created was the students got a near-first-hand experience of the industry. As physical presence was no longer a requirement, the world had become a class room and every expert in the world was a teacher. NIFT New Delhi took this as an opportunity to invite faculty and experts from various parts of the world to interact with the students.

Have you recently introduced any new design courses?  

Being the flagship Campus, NIFT-New Delhi has been a leader in fashion education for almost three decades now. With the ability to integrate knowledge, traditional arts, contemporary thought, academic freedom, innovations in design and technology, we continuously upgrade our academic curriculum to address the changing needs of the industry.

NIFT has adopted a format of Majors, Deepening Specializations, Minors and General Electives. Interdisciplinary Minors provide individuated pathways that would permit students to acquire interdisciplinary skill sets and opt for a set of subjects that complement studies in one’s major or explore an unrelated area of intellectual interest. General Electives have been offered to the students to help them enhance their personality and develop interests in specific areas like Personality Development, Communication Skills, Critical Thinking Skills, Professional Ethics etc.

Tell us something about the placements at the National Institute of Fashion Technology and which industries hire designers more.

Graduates of NIFT have various options, may work in their area of specialisation; they also work in retail sector in various positions. Currently, several of NIFT- Delhi Alumni occupy very high positions in various organisations. Quite a few of our students also become entrepreneurs and some go into academics.

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

In ways more than one, Design is a keyword of the times that we are living in. The outreach of Design is much larger now in comparison to the gone years. From airplanes to tiffin boxes; from phones to laptops; from skirts to saris, every aspect of life is being touched by Design. For those aspiring to be designers, I feel that these are the best times to study Design.

And, as prospective designers, we must know Design as an enabler of human action. Human values must be at the heart of our design approach. Candidates must be mindful of real-world problems that are posing a threat to the human race at large. Give back to the society and leave behind a legacy our communities can truly appreciate. Success shall follow.

Read more:

• Top Design Colleges: Know about designing career from experts
• Companies looking for people who understand design and apply it: WUD VC