I am currently reading a book by Mike Monteiro and just saw his very famous lecture on YouTube. I also received a long mail from ex NID Director Ashoke Chatterjee on a very interesting topic. How do you tell someone which design school is better, or whether a designer is better than another?
More and more design schools will be putting out more and more designers in the market; and more and more industries in different fields will need designers. This will be a great situation for us Indians and specially Indian designers. But it could also be a curse in disguise. Is it better to have a bad designer than not have a designer at all? I don’t think so.
I believe designers without a sense of purpose – designers who do not understand their responsibility towards society, people and the environment – are as harmful as weapons of mass destruction. Creating is the ultimate power that influences, changes and directs the lives of people…and designers who do not understand the responsibility of this privilege are using their creative power for destruction.
Almost everything today happens by design; they are all designed. For me the answer is very simple. Any school that is teaching ethics to its design students and any designer who designs with awareness and responsibility is a better design school and a better designer. It is not just about skills, technology or infrastructure…it is about responsibility and purpose.
If you care, do write to me and ask for the link for the book and the YouTube lecture.
Sudhir Sharma, Editor-in-Chief
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