Venture into the field of design
Pramod Riswadkar
For a long time, it was perceived that indulgence in creative activities was fine as a hobby, but not as a career choice. This scenario is fast changing now and for good. Many youngsters are opting for such offbeat career choices. They may embrace it out of sheer passion, and the parents are becoming more and more supportive of such offbeat career choices as a profession. Visual design is one such option. As a career it has great potential to fetch fame as well as fortune, while enjoying the sense of being content with what you do.
Work profile
The creative routine of a young visual designer includes receiving a design brief, doing initial groundwork, understanding the aspirations of target audience and expectations from business stakeholder, coming up with multiple ideas for the same brief, evaluating them for pros and cons, nurturing the best ideas, creating initial design dummies and final artworks or prototypes using digital design tools and sometimes with physical materials, reviewing and testing it with experts and target audience, refining further and finally getting it ready for the production.
As a senior member in the creative team, one may juggle between various responsibilities like managing team, contributing to new business development proposals, reviewing the designs of the fellow designers, and occasionally working on fresh ideas from scratch to let creative juices flow. Individuals climb the ladder in the organisation, step by step, while gaining more exposure, experience and expertise on the way.
Skills
There is a popular misperception that creativity is inborn. But it is true to a certain extent only. Creative aptitude can be nurtured through regular practice of drawing and sketching, acquiring design-related knowledge through various sources, tickling individual thinking towards innovative solutions for various challenges around you. What you need is the right aptitude to join such academic programmes. Design schools do work with budding designers to empower them with further knowledge and skills that they can apply in design profession. It is achieved through various activities starting with internships, industry-sponsored projects and ultimately through professional engagements.
Opportunities
There are plenty of opportunities available for visual designers across various industry sectors. The list of opportunities can include Branding, Advertising, Publishing, Multimedia, Web, Animation, Gaming, Special Effects, eLearning, Corporate Communications, Environmental Graphics, Visual Merchandising, Packaging, Social Media, Digital Marketing, Immersive Media, and of course IT Products and Services. The demand for such talent is exceeding the supply from academia. And such trend will continue in future as well since industry has started realising the value of design.
Instead of seeking employment with large organisations, one can venture into different creative journeys as well like being with design studios or design entrepreneurs or even practicing as an individual freelance designer or creative consultant that provides more flexibility and freedom to creative souls.
Where to learn
There are several design institutes across India, that offer range of specialisations, including visual design, graphic design or communication design. It includes handful of government institutes like IITs, NIDs and NIFTs that offer programmes related to visual communication design. Their intake is quite low, compared to the growing number of design aspirants, year-on-year. However, there are several private institutes across India that offer similar programs, and their collective intake is relatively much higher. In addition, there are many fine arts / visual arts colleges that offer courses like Applied Arts which are similar in nature that enable entry into the creative industries.
The writer is Associate Dean – Academic Affairs, School of Design & Innovation, RV University, Bengaluru
