Stories
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significance of communication design as an enabler to informing and educating the global population about the novel coronavirus, inculcating a behavioural c...
Rwituja Gomes Mookherjee
29/09/2020
Design Education
Rwituja Gomes Mookherjee
29/09/2020
Design Education
Design, a powerful business driver
Post pandemic, the need is to design occupied spaces with more focus on individual experiences, social distancing, technological advances and innovations, health, safety and security. Similarly, client expectation of finished products and spaces have also changed. This means challenging traditional design narratives and requires architects, urban space planners, interior designers, communication designers, fashion designers and product designers to design concepts with technological intervention so as to create a healthy cultural climate, clean buildings and sustainable working environment both at home and at the workplace.
Through the different devices we use, technology has ingrained itself into our daily lives. It connects us and makes our lives easier. Even though it can potentially isolates us, technology helps to create a collective experience when people personalise it.
With remote working and a growing work from home culture, the line between residential and commercial space design have begun to blur. Mobility, flexibility, efficiency, speed, cost-effectiveness and connectivity are now the new mantras.
The Designer’s Responsibility
Technology has the potential to encourage new behaviours and products can be designed to create habit-forming loops as evident in highly digital-first lifestyles.
Challenges that technology impose on the design process
Technology changes rapidly! Thus, it’s vital to know why something should be built in the first place and the limitations based on how mature a technology is. This emphasizes the need to continuously prioritize, and negotiate what’s possible with the underlying user need in mind.
Designers have always worked at the intersection of cultural trends, whether in fashion, designer products or buildings. But today advances in technology has accelerated these trends making it hard to integrate them into the planning, design and development phase. Augmented reality, virtual reality are becoming mainstream. Home automation apps (Nest, Hive, Smarthome) are changing the way our homes are managed. Personal assistants like Cortana, Siri, Alexa are transforming the way we shop, play and manage our time. The role of designers and architects (especially with the backdrop of the pandemic) need to anticipate people’s interactions with technology and provide them with products, living and working spaces that cater to the challenges of the changing world.
Ever-expanding career opportunities
Talent, creativity, in-depth knowledge of the sector and understanding of changing trends is essential for success. With the increasing competitive environment, these need to be strengthened with technological know-how to create designs, concepts and solutions making products more appealing. Simultaneously, improved usability and lowered production costs is equally essential. Digital transformation has impacted creative professionals extensively and continues to do so. Extended reality (XR) is a term used to imply augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). It’s extensively used in gaming but today marketeers are exploring ways to monetise it, create immersive experiences for clients and increase market share in other sectors too. Content developers, strategists, user experience designers, community and project managers are in high demand.
Creativity in demand
The need of the hour is for students of design, architecture, communication and fashion to embrace the physical, experiential, functional and emotional reality of the world today. They need be flexible, open-minded and audacious in their thinking and outlook. Developing a strong business perspective can help them to position design and themselves as integral to competitive success.
We lead connected lives. It demands a new approach towards bettering our daily experiences. A lucrative design career today literally follows Steve Jobs famous quote, “a lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significance of communication design as an enabler to informing and educating the global population about the novel coronavirus, inculcating a behavioural c...
The COVID-19 pandemic has reimagined the world like never before. Its pervasive impact has been felt on Interior Architecture and Design Landscape as well. With India having entered into Unlock 5.0,...
The COVID-19 pandemic has been considered as the most unprecedented crisis since World War-II. However, the public discourse on the impact of COVID-19 on the fashion industry seems to miss out on th...
From implying aesthetics alone to becoming a full-fledged industry, fashion designing has come a long way in India. According to McKinsey’s FashionScope report, the Indian apparel market is expect...