I’ve always been a writer. There’s always this flurry of thoughts and opinions rushing through my head. Like a ticker tape on a news channel. That’s why I prefer microblogging to actually writing large pieces of text. Somewhat explains why I’m a sucker for social media.

Anyway… By profession, I’m a designer. In India. It’s mighty difficult, in my opinion. Being a junior designer in a country with little to no sensitivity towards design is one of the toughest tasks out there. No one takes you seriously, and over time that just undermines your confidence. The difficulty lies in the fact that I chose the design field because of my passion for it. No one likes being told that they are bad at what they do. But what’s worse is if they tell you what you LOVE doing is not worth doing in the first place, and that’s what happened with the entire design profession in this country. Design’s always been in the shadow of more exalted professions like engineering or architecture.

So I decided to collect my thoughts on this matter (most of it stems out of angst) and talk about why design hasn’t attained that status in this country yet. I primarily look at Jugaad (knack to solve a problem with minimal resources) and how it’s deeply rooted into the Indian psyche; and how although it sounds like something to do with design, it just might be the one thing that’s suffocating the design culture and profession in this country.

Here’s a link to the article. It may be a lengthy read, but I assure you it’s worth it.

View at Medium.com

Sincerely,
Sarang.

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Prof. Jitendra Arora, of the DSK Supinfocom International Campus. He has been more than generous with his advice and critique, and has always held the blinders up, and pointed me in the correct direction whenever I needed help with my writing.