Daybreak - Can the designer who made your mobile phone addictive also make you use your phone less often?

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

A new generation of designers is on the rise. These designers are expected to be  a lot more than just “one trick ponies”. The new-age ‘Designer X’ is expected to bring  a little bit of everything to the table. They understand the basics of sustainability, how their designs would impact things like climate change and culture. And they would also generally know a little bit of coding too. And that is because the whole perception of design has shifted. Just last month, IIT Delhi announced a new certificate course in design thinking. It quoted multiple reports explaining why aspirants should take it. One of them was a 2023 Deloitte report that said companies that integrated design thinking in their innovation process brought new products to market 50 per cent faster than others and saw 2.5 X more revenue growth.The latest batch of design generalists are the products of a new era of design education that has been sweeping through India’s universities. As of now, about a dozen have started their own design schools. Some of these universities are leaning into the industry’s demand for a well-rounded designer.But now that more universities have entered the picture and generalist designers are becoming a dime a dozen, landing good jobs is going to get tougher as the job market matures. Tune in.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at [phone]. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. A new generation of designers is on the rise. These designers are expected to be a lot more than just one-trick ponies.

The new age designer X, as we are calling them, are expected to bring a little bit of everything to the table. They understand the basics of sustainability, how their designs would impact things like climate change and culture. And they would also generally know a little bit of coding as well. These design generalists are the products of a new era of design education. Design education, 2.0, if I may. This new wave has been sweeping through India's universities.

Today, about a dozen Opie General in Haryana, Maharashtra's Flame University have started their own design schools. Some of these universities are making an entirely new pitch. Take Gujarat's Anant National University and Haryana's World University of Design, for instance. They are promising to pump out a new batch of designer X's. They're leaning into the industry's demand for a well-rounded designer who's also a technologist, a strategist, a sustainability advocate, and a lot more. And to keep up with that demand, these universities are finally seeing the vision of the National

Institute of Design, or NID, which has been the North Star of the Design world for well over six decades now. Anandth National University's Anunay Chobby puts it quite well. He says that designers aren't just meant to beautify things. They can create solutions. The whole perception of design has shifted. In fact, just last month, IIT Delhi announced a new certificate course in design thinking. It quoted multiple reports explaining why aspirants should be taking that course. One of them was a 2023 Deloitte report that says that companies that integrated design thinking into their innovation process brought new products to the market 50% faster than others and saw 2.5 times more revenue growth. And this isn't just the industry that is demanding

a new kind of designer. The role itself has become far more design. There was once a time when everybody wanted to be an engineer. But like Rohan, a principal design manager at a global tech company said, now everybody wants to be a designer. And that is because of the opportunities that designers are getting today. They're no longer the sidekicks. They have finally got a seat at the table. In this episode, we dive into how universities are racing to train India's next design generalists.

Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nkda Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philipos and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 4th of November. Back in the day, design was seen as more of a support function in most organizations. One senior design manager told the Ken's reporter Liffia Khan that there was invariably one odd design. designer for every 10 engineers. But now there is a growing number of funded startups and product-led companies and there is a high design maturity, which was not necessarily there before. People are

taking design way more seriously now. And as design maturity grew, so did the paychecks. Typically, designers who've just graduated are paid anywhere between 9 to 15 lakh rupees at tech, product, and commerce companies. Designers who Olifia spoke to, that there is a sharp jump from about a decade ago. Rohan, a principal design manager at a global tech company, said that the biggest change is that designers are now called as early as the building stage, as opposed to when the product is already ready. And it's not just a tech or product companies.

The demand for designers and other sectors too has increased, including industrial design, manufacturing, healthcare and education among others. And all of this is possible because of design thinking. In Ananth National University, this is a user-centered creative problem-solving method. Design thinking is crucial for designers to navigate tasks like policymaking, automobile design, customizing the same product to work for clients in different geographies and sensibilities, or even helping companies meet their ESG targets. The scope is really quite huge.

The whole point of design thinking is to come up with creative solutions. The former dean of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Sanjay, gave us a great example of creative thinking in action. He talked about the Swach Bharat Abiyan, India's national level cleanliness campaign. Sanjay said from building communication campaigns to brainstorming fundamental solutions, design thinking came into play at every step of the way. For instance, in some villages, women refused to use toilets even after they were constructed because they were used to going in groups and that was the only time that they met and stepped out for the day.

So for these villages, public toilets were constructed with only half a wall separating cubicles so that the women could have privacy and still talk. This was a design solution. But to reach this level of efficiency, Gupta says that design has to be understood from a much wide. perspective. And that is where universities come in. More on that in the next segment. Most universities that offer design degrees try to ensure that students have a well-rounded generalist approach by allowing them to pick from a wide variety of subjects as their minors. For instance, at Flame University, students can pick from electives like psychology,

culture studies and even entrepreneurship. Then at Anant National University, Bachelor of design students can major in subjects like moving objects of interaction design and minors in feminism, literary theory or business models. In a majority of these design courses, there is a lot of emphasis on sustainability and climate action. But a common thread across most design schools, including NID, is the inclusion of tech and business courses as electives. In some of these universities, coding is also a compulsory subject for designers. The expectation is not that they become pro-coders, but they have a general understanding of the process. It's not that the interdisciplinary approach here is entirely new. Schools like NID have been offering a variety of subjects and

exposure to a whole range of technical skills for some time now. But the mediums have changed, and of course, the courses are packaged better. But the big challenge that many of these universities are facing is hiring the right kind of faculty. There is an extremely limited pool whose priority will be the older and the esteemed institutions like NID and NIFT. Plus, faculty with industry experience are the real deal and getting them is very expensive. So what ends up happening is that most of these new schools end up competing with each other to bag the right faculty.

As for opportunities, there are many. But with design schools popping up at every corner, recruiters want students to be careful of their options. Even the hiring companies are aware of which design schools have what kind of faculty and industry exposure, which ends up dictating the kind of rules and packages that they are offering. So one thing is clear. Now that more universities have entered the picture

and generalist designers are becoming a dime a dozen, planning good jobs is going to get tougher as the job. job market matures. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras.

To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snigda Sharma and edited by Rajiv C. Thank you.