Chatterjee, Ashoke
Each encounter with design students and practitioners these days acts as a reminder that design education is going places I have never been. The vocabulary used with such ease, and their assumption that I can follow it, makes me long for the bad old days when few understood why design should be taught or practiced. In those days, one searched for terms that could hasten understanding, as even 'design process' was considered obscure. Since then the language of design has been transformed by accelerating technology and the inter-disciplinary demands of a new age. The IT-inspired jargon is easy enough: digital design, design for digital experience, new media design, interface design, human/computer interaction and interactive design are examples. These now form streams of education along with others newcomers: accessory design, design for retail experience, smart design, sustainable design, green design, universal design (to guarantee equality of access), and even social design --- which, come to think of it, is what all design should be about anyway. Much of this language would have been Greek to those struggling to establish the design profession through Indian education back in the '60s and '70s. And if all that is not enough, the fashion industry has decided that India... |