bright future of indian design in India. The number of design events has increased and many cities now have at least one major annual design event. This vibrancy is indeed strong evidence of the better acceptance of design and design services. There is a buoyant force exerting pressure on our surroundings and expanding design usage. The increasing number of design schools is a good sign. More design schools mean better capacity building. A lot of criticism around these new design schools is heard. On the one hand the community talks about the need for more designers and even quotes Chinese figures. At the same time, they are not open-minded about the design schools coming up. Each of these design schools is doing a great job. It is time we change the lens of how we look at these private initiatives, which come up with heavy investments. Design schools in the private domain are leading the design sector in many ways. They pay well and offer better working conditions. The young faculty in many of these schools are extremely passionate and are bringing new knowledge and teaching techniques to the profession. There are also side effects of this robust growth in the design sector. Certain anomalies are coming to the fore, which need to be resolved. The profession more than ever needs a strong code of conduct and ethics to operate. While many such incongruities could be mentioned, ‘internships’ are the most regressive. Internships have today become a source of cheap labor for most design houses, and a few design departments. The same professionals who advocate against pitching ask young designers after the completion of their courses to join as interns, paying them a pittance instead of employing them and paying
salaries. These kind of practices need to be relooked at and perhaps suggest a larger need for professional ethics to be identified and followed voluntarily. People talk about the strategic use of design and emerging branches of design such as service design, etc. While we must move up on the design maturity curve, let us not forget that in the western world it started with making beautiful objects and thereafter became strategic. Similarly, we as a nation must first master the beauty of design and an equally emphatic realization of design. Sometimes both aspects are lacking in the final design. It is the execution excellence which is the most worrying. Faced with questions about these inadequacies, designers often lay the blame at the door of the client or the top management. It is time that designers assume complete responsibility for their creations and ensure end-to-end excellence. Progress results from setting the stage for a conversation and participating in it. Cynicism will take us nowhere; optimism will. There are many short and long-term challenges facing us as individuals and organizations and they need to be tackled as a community and not individual voices of constant dissent. For design to become mainstream, the only path is for the current practice to demonstrate design excellence and success for others to emulate. The tagline of Pool magazine is quite apt. It says ‘Bright Future of Indian Design’. Over the past few years the magazine has done a phenomenal job of uncovering design and showcasing emerging design talent. That is the only way to go forward; to celebrate what we have, and maintain an optimistic vision of our collective future. www.poolmagazine.in 5