“Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” - Charles Eames
Design Process
Vision
What kind of value does design bring to products and systems? If design is about improving quality of life for people, it is also destroying the environment by inundating the world with short-lifecycle products and growing landfills. How can we develop as conscious, creative practitioners, sensitive to the impact of our work on the planet?
In Industrial Arts and Design Practices, we explore different kinds of practices in design, building on knowledge and skills that you bring in from your undergraduate studies.
The last year of the pandemic has forced us to question the way we live and consume and this has impacted the field of design in a fundamental way. This pause has allowed us to refocus and rethink how we design products and systems. Design has become more inclusive of the non-human world, it considers climate change more seriously, and wellness & wellbeing have become more important than ever. This includes the impact that humans are having on the Earth and environment.
While manufacturing technologies are rapidly evolving, the last year has seen a leap in technologies that help us communicate and collaborate. The rate of change in all aspects of life is increasing exponentially with new technologies dazzling us with myriad possibilities. If we define design as deliberate action towards preferred change, then it is our job to imagine what this preferred change could be. Design has already moved beyond the styling of a product for the market, it is about creating value and positive impact, designing products that last, and include not only users, but makers, the environment and all the other stakeholders in the system.
This course helps you to become an art/design professional, who can work in multiple contexts, make complex connections, lead and manage change. We facilitate and inculcate working with autonomy towards a clear self-position, be it as an entrepreneur, a design lead or as an independent creative practitioner.
Studio- Students exploring possibilities with embedded technology
Based on the framework of inquiry and research, this course is designed to help you articulate your practice and situate yourself in the larger world of art and design. This is not a condensed version of the under-graduate program, but will build on your knowledge and experiences, equipping you with creative thinking and making skills using tools like mapping, systems understanding, making informed choices about materials and processes and translating the abstract into tangible form etc. The overall learning experience helps you leverage past education to move to a position where you are able to lead, drive and manage, rather than start afresh in any new field. It combines best practices from art and design methodologies, which then allows you a complex navigation between exploring, conceptualizing and translation.
The artistic practice allows you to develop sensibilities exploring multiple materials, techniques and technologies, craft and mass manufacturing industries leading to a rigorous search for form and content. The program opens up possibilities to establish a dialogue between multiple media, materiality and conceptual rigor.
If you see yourself as a creative textile designer or artist, if you are keenly interested in the way products are envisaged, used and valued, if you would like to influence the way people use furniture in the future, we help you construct frameworks to realize your potential and vision.
Field based learning studio- Student learning about Hand block printing
Studio- Form Generation and Prototyping
Course Structure
- Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary studios
- Workshops
- Seminars
- Lines of Inquiries (Field work, Case Studies, Investigations, individual or Group Projects, Transdisciplinary Research)
- Theory and Understanding
- Independent Study
- Open Elective
- Practice
- Exhibitions
- Culminating Performances of Understanding (Portfolio, Transdisciplinary research, Projects, Colloquium, Capstone/Dissertation)
- Knowledge Enhancement (ability or skills)
Industrial Visit
Learning Approaches
Program learning approaches include:
- Choosing outcomes that can lead to artistic expression, consciously choosing different methods of creative thinking
- Harnessing expertise and rich making skills available profusely at all levels in the Indian context through Locative Making
- Inter-disciplinary and participatory approach through engagement with people
- Expression of acquired learning using a theoretical framework to create a discourse, which sets the platform for new avenues. Understanding and positioning oneself in the larger eco-system
- Self motivated learning and Independent study, which comprises of research and scholarship, intellectual independence, management and supervision of one’s own work and study, being responsible for strategic decision making.
- Working with a line of inquiry that combines past experiences and future aspirations
Student Design Project - Vincent
Capability Sets
- To abstract – navigating complexity and scale, to distil and express the essence
- To envision – an idea, a project, a future, a system, a practice, an industry
- To be industrious – to engage and persist, to analyze and synthesize, to translate and refine, to be proficient
- To be curious – to explore and stretch, to challenge convention, to push boundaries
- To be empathic – to people, to the ecology, to practices, to material
- To be a conscious practitioner – to understand worldviews, develop alertness, to lead and manage with the ability to understand systems
- To be expressive – to be able to construct new theoretical and practical frameworks
Student Working in workshop
Opportunities
These capability sets equip and prepare the student for a wide range of opportunities with:
- Creative Manufacturing Sectors – To be able to lead and drive creative practices in the non-governmental sector as well as mainstream Industry.
- Creative Studio Practice – Set up a studio practice to create and make exclusive high quality artworks and art projects in chosen material and techniques.
- Design studios, R&D departments – Disseminating creative energies as a creative leader in small & large industries, and multi-national corporations, Merchandising and Strategic Product Planning in Retail, UI & UX in e-commerce for the transactions of the future.
- Family owned and managed Businesses – working for or creating a family venture, to bring in new practices and methods to rejuvenate older traditions.
- Start-ups, small and medium enterprises – Propositioning as a contemporary practitioner, entrepreneur or design consultant
Student Working with Artisan
Studio brainstorming
People
Enquiries
Studio- Students discussing about various trades/craft of India
Disciplinary Intersections
The program is informed by the following learning disciplines. The course structure allows you
- To focus on a specific discipline - Textile, Product, Furniture design
- To build an interdisciplinary practice
- To develop an individual art practice informed by a discipline or techniques/material and develop rigor in conceptualization and translation
Contemporary Textile Practices
Experimental Media Arts
Furniture Design
Information Design
Interaction Design
Product Design
Textile Design
Research and Collaboration
The students under this program will have the opportunity to work with the following centers and labs at Srishti Manipal.
(Art)ScienceBLR
Center for Education, Research, Training, and Development (CERTAD)
Centre for Reimagining Transitions (CRT)
Frugal Design DESIS Lab
Impact Edge
LeNS Lab
Natural Fibres Labs
Srishti Labs (SLabs)
FAQs
Industrial Art & Design practices are about the conceptual exploration, translation and expression of three dimensional artifacts and products using the best practices of both the Arts and Design. It encompasses the disciplines of Product, Textile & Furniture Design. It includes thinking and making skills, understanding production eco-systems, markets, trade practices and future ways of making. It develops autonomy and it develops creative confidence.
Most Industrial design courses focus on the needs of only mainstream Industry. The course encourages the exploration of making from large-scale processes to individual studio practice. The student explores different positions and worldviews to eventually find the one that works best for him/her. There is a large degree of autonomy in the course structure that allows the student to propose and execute work while being mentored by faculty drawn from a large pool of artists and designers. The course is designed to help you develop your own inquiry.
This course will allow you to explore creative practices at a more complex and autonomous level. This means that you will learn to devise your own pathway of learning, explore your interests as well as acquire an understanding about the larger eco-systems that designers and artists operate in.(For example policies, management, trade practices etc). After successful completion of the course you could be a part of an organization at a higher, decision making level or be able to set up your own studio practice in a context of contemporary creative thinking and making.
The M.Des course allows you to build on what you already know, whether it is engineering, architecture or art, it allows you to combine it with your own interests and construct new ways of learning and executing complex projects. The autonomy in the course along with the very diverse faculty who are available to mentor you means that you can learn and consolidate at a more complex level. The course will help you develop and follow your own line of inquiry.
The course is designed for different kinds of learners, and is focused on studio learning and trans-disciplinary, independent inquiry. There is an emphasis on exploration through making and doing.
There will be studio courses, workshops, locative making as well as projects (can be self-initiated, client based or classroom projects) and inputs could be in the form of talks, films, seminars and field visits.
Continuous evaluation through seminars, term papers, documentation& exhibition
As a creative practitioner, with an M.Des in Industrial Art & Design practice, there are a wide range of opportunities open to you. You could broadly work in any of the following areas:
- Become an entrepreneur, setting up a creative industry
- Work in an NGO, Export house or governmental agency at a senior capacity
- Set up a studio practice to produce fine art work
- Become a designer to either work free-lance or work in design or R&D firms
You will need to have a (minimum) 4 year UG degree from any stream to apply. You will find more details in our Admissions page. If you have a 3 year UG degree, you could apply for the Bridge Pathway of our PG Diploma Program, which is a 1 year program that prepares you to enter the M.Des program.
Srishti does not offer placement in the way that other Institutes do. We offer interfaces with industry through mentor labs, internships and the Post Graduate Conference at the end of the Course. These multiple opportunities help you to find the kind of work and organization that align with your interests.
IADP offers courses that develop inquiry and core design thinking. The emphasis is on process and not specific skills. Through the learning units you choose, you are free to explore various materials and media.
