Focus Area Studies - FASt

Your discipline is a starting point, not a boundary.
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, for the last 30 years, has been practicing an integrated learning model that brought together Art, Design, and Technology within a choice-based navigation. At SMI education is not just about preparing for a career, it is about nurturing the ability to shape the future. The future, therefore, is not something to arrive at. It is something we create, a future that builds new opportunities, strengthens communities, and fosters deeper connections with the world.

FASt units are offered after the completion of the one-year Foundation Studies Program, which introduces students to diverse facets of art and design practice. These units, situated at the intersections of multiple disciplines, provide deeper grounding in emerging fields that are still evolving areas that have yet to become established disciplines.

The highlights of the FASt track are:

Learn Beyond Disciplines
Creative practice does not fit neatly into predefined categories. Students are encouraged to explore the intersections of art, design, technology and other fields to discover new possibilities.
Develop Your Own Creative Practice
Education is about developing the ability to question, experiment, make connections and shape an individual creative direction.
Connect Ideas Across Fields
Interdisciplinary learning brings different perspectives, methods and mediums into conversation. Students learn to combine these approaches to explore complex questions and create unexpected outcomes.
Engage Critically with Emerging Technologies
New technologies expand the possibilities of creative practice. Students must also develop the judgement to question their use, understand their limitations and make informed ethical choices.
Learn Through a Diverse Creative Ecosystem
Encountering people working across disciplines creates opportunities for new questions, collaborations and ways of seeing the world. Learning extends beyond the classroom into a wider community of creative practitioners.

Students encounter areas of practice that are still evolving spaces where disciplines intersect, new connections emerge and new possibilities for creative work take shape. Explore the 15 Focus Area Studies. Discover what lies between.

Art, Place and Society
By working with communities through hands-on, contextual, and media-based interventions, learners develop a practice grounded in social, cultural, and ecological understanding.
Collaborators: Spatial Design, Contemporary Art Practice and Creative Education*
Community Environments
Informed by participatory, socio-spatial and ecologically attuned approach that blends spatial and information design to facilitate inclusive, and responsive community environments.
Collaborators: Spatial Design, and Information Arts and Information Design Practices
Leading Change
Education A space for cultivating creative changemakers who integrate strategic thinking, public practice, pedagogy and policy insight to build equitable and sustainable futures.
Collaborators: Business Service and System Design and Creative Education*
Playing Field
As an emerging field, play is increasingly understood as a powerful mode of thinking, creating, and co-designing possibilities that enable lifelong learning, adaptation, and new ways of being.
Collaborators: Visual Communication and Strategic Branding, Information Arts and Information Design Practices and Creative Education*
Sequential Narratives
Blending research and practice, the focus area immerses learners in the tools and processes of creating compelling graphic narratives, with a strong emphasis on South Asian vernacular forms and publishing ecosystems.
Collaborators: Visual Communication and Strategic Brading and Digital Media Arts
Service and Branding
By aligning well-designed systems with effective communication, the focus area enables the co-creation of adaptable, future ready services across diverse sectors.
Collaborators: Visual Communication and Strategic Branding and Business Service and System Design

Spatial Experience Design
By exploring the interplay of space, media, materiality, and sensory design, it equips learners to conceptualize and curate memorable experiences across exhibitions, events, and brand environments.
Collaborators: Visual Communication and Strategic Branding and Spatial Design
More Than Human World
By integrating non-human perspectives, local knowledge systems, and critical, participatory design, the focus area cultivates holistic ways of imagining regenerative futures beyond human-centric frameworks.
Collaborators: Information Arts and Information Design Practices and Human Centred Design
RE-SHAPE the Future of Living
By blending spatial design with furniture, lighting, textiles, and craft, it nurtures material sensibilities and sustainable thinking to deliver thoughtful, healthy, and circular interior environments.
Collaborators: Industrial Art and Design Practices and Spatial Design
The Art of Persuasion: Promotional Stories for Screen
This FASt rethinks promotional films by experimenting with evolving media and strategies, emphasising ethical messaging and creating collectively aware, short, impactful narratives.
Collaborators: Visual Communication and Strategic Branding and Film
Expanded Media Arts
By merging computation, performative media, and interactive environments, this focus area redefines how stories are created and experienced across collapsing physical–digital spaces.
Collaborators: Contemporary Art Practice, Creative and Applied Computation and Digital Media Arts
Urban Systems
By combining systems thinking, human centered, and data driven analysis, the focus area prepares learners to imagine resilient, liveable city futures.
Collaborators: Business Service and System Design, Spatial Design and Human Centered Design
Aesthetics of the Hybrid
This focus area opens a space for multiplicity and experimentation, using unconventional image-making methods to craft hybrid cinematic experiences across physical, digital, and generative realms.
Collaborators: Digital Media Arts and Film
Textile Futures– Ecology, Economy and Regenerative Design
A systems-led, regenerative approach that blends craft heritage and modern innovation to envision circular and collaborative futures for the textile ecosystem.
Collaborators: Industrial Art and Design Practices and Business Service and System Design
Future of Making
Using a maker-centric, hands-on approach, this focus area builds skills to anticipate trends, adapt to new markets, and create impactful solutions that redefine how technology and humanity converge.
Collaborators: Industrial Art and Design Practices and Human Centered Design

*Please note that Creative Education program is not offered for the academic year 2027-28