Designers in great demand in India

In India these days Design as a career is big-time and Design graduates from top institutes like NID (National Institute of Design) are commanding high starting salaries are approximately Rs 20,000/- p.m onwards and that’s at the bottom of the ladder. It wasn’t so just 7-8 ago. Corporate India hadn’t quite understood what to do with designers, but due to globalisation all that’s changed, but the change has been gradual. Not that all of corporate India understands the value of design, many still being unsure as to the role designers can play in their company.

And people outside the design industry still do have certain stereotypical ideas of designers. To them a designer means either a fashion or textile designer, although of late they have started to see designers as web designers too.

Opportunities galore
Designers don’t just do fashion, textiles, jewellery or web, they design anything and everything from cars and home products to complete malls. They give companies not just product innovation, but branding and identity design and they are an integral part of industries like Animation and Film. And they can get jobs in IT giants, auto majors, exotic design boutiques, advertising agencies or television channels. Right now in India there is a huge shortage of designers.

Thriving demand for designers in the retail industry
The look of a store and and the ease with which customers negotiate their way through it goes a long way in attracting customers and with the proliferation of malls and retail spaces, these designers are in great demand. Retail design is “a combination of overall look and insight into functionality of retail space” and any person who wants to combine marketing as a career with his/her inherent creativity can opt for this job.

Disenchantment amongst designers?
Part of the dissatisfaction amongst designers is because of unhappiness with the education being imparted. Design institutes have proliferated, but not all institutes have good facilities or faculty. In fact even the top institutes have their problems, which you can read about here.

There are work-related problems too. Although designers have different roles in different industries, several designers believe that they have had to compromise with the quality of their work due to the time contraints…they feel that speed of work is more important to their employers rather than quality of output. Ofcourse in the design industry, the ‘pace’ required is a natural reaction to the zooming entertainment industry. New channels, new websites, new stores and new companies are sprouting up every day and in this fast-changing atmosphere the supply of designers is not keeping up with the demand. To survive, designers have to think fast and adapt even more quickly to places where creativity is less important than output.

Talking about the working life of designers (we’re not talking about the infamous stereotype of a glamorous fashion designer but all the real designers out there) is that the job is a high skilled job which pays well, but has low job security unless you’re working for a huge corporate. Yet, many designers do not like to take up a corporate job as they believe that they will have to compromise on creativity, which in turn could affect their growth as a designer.

Many designers do start out on their own…several small four to five people design studios have done well in India and many designers (all over the world as well) do drop out of the workforce to start out on their own.

Related Reading: India has the world’s two best design schools

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