Expanding the Envelope
By Anand Palsodkar
For designers, one of key drivers at a design consultancy is the variety of design assignments one gets to work on. It expands the designers’ perspective about the design as a faculty and helps a designer ‘Grow’. With that said, it also expects a great deal from designers in terms of the skills, knowledge and ability to understand complex nature of new design opportunities.
With competition increasing, the industry becoming aware of role of design in keeping their products, brands alive and relevant, designers need to meet with ever growing expectations from industry on various fronts. Designers ought to do conscious efforts to push the boundaries of skills, knowledge and communication beyond what has been traditionally taught in schools and expand the envelope. Availability of the latest information at fingertips, rapidly changing tools for design and manufacturing, the designers have to straddle between keeping abreast with the latest in design and dynamic business environments. Designers are a bridge between the users and businesses, technologies. In present scenario, it has become crucial more than ever to develop a better understanding of complexities businesses concerns, market challenges and to be able use design as tool to solve it.
Design has always been teamwork and the designers deal with diverse stakeholders in the process. Ability to communicate effectively and accomplish the task, from a supplier or a client is a key to the success of a design assignment. Teams are an asset; to be able to effectively use team skills and deliver the right solution in shortest possible time has constantly been a challenge. Managing a team of designers, keep them motivated all the time is a constant endeavour.
Such efforts to learn and achieve something new, add a great value to an individual and the task at hand. Pushing the boundaries has always helped designers remain on their toes and keep the ‘designer’ inside alive and that’s what a designer should always strive for.