The Hindu Business Line : The business of design

Europe has designs on India. And quite literally too. As designers from Europe look at the Indian market keenly for work, India is slowly lapping them up. And do not mistake designing for fashion designing alone. We are talking of design for the much talked about, hyped about sector - retail!

Driven by the lack of adequate design talent in India, the country has been forced to look yonder. While the number of designers in India is woefully inadequate, the scene is just the reverse in Europe - where there is huge supply and very little work.

Just sample this. Bangalore-based Idiom Design and Consulting a few months ago employed about six designers on a “time-bound” “contract basis” from France and Poland to work on its various projects. It is open to employing European designers again in future too. In fact, it is in “evaluating” opening offices in West Asia, the Far East, Europe and America soon.

While Titan’s design studio does not employ any designers from abroad, it does work with some Swiss and French designers. Design firms such as JHP, Astound and Fitch have also worked on Indian retail projects. London-based JHP has designed the retail stores of some of Arvind Group’s brands, while British design firm Astound has worked on Reliance Fresh stores. Fitch works with the Aditya Birla group on its ‘more’ stores. This is only the tip of the iceberg - the reverse outsourcing story is set to grow if the demand-supply situation in India continues.

Says Girish Raj, Founder Member, Idiom Design and Consulting, “European designers love the fact that there is so much work in India. Also, there is an emerging market here compared to saturated markets in Europe … besides, like in every other industry, they think that sooner or later, there is money to be made for them in India.”

With retail set to expand its tentacles far and wide, the role of retail and product design has gained prominence. Retail design involves the whole umbrella of services from product packaging (designing SKUs, labelling and such), product design (how the product should look and feel in order to appeal to consumers, its features) to visual merchandising (this involves the store interiors, the furniture, the product visuals, hoardings and other in-store merchandising). Design services are also required in branding (creating the logo and other visual identities) – whether it’s brand makeovers such as Canara Bank or Vodafone or a mega event such as the Commonwealth Games.

A booming economy, a new aspirational India, a jet-setting young India - all these point to a greater inclination towards things that are trendy. Indian consumers no longer want to settle for tacky-looking but functional products. Function is still key, but it has to be backed by aesthetics and innovation as well.

With greater exposure to global trends and heightened sensitivity towards design, good design and aesthetics are growing in importance and retailers cannot afford to have a blinkered vision anymore.

“With money floating around, people are willing to spend. People have also started appreciating design more. Today, it’s not just about making a good-looking product. It’s about storytelling - people are not buying products or pieces. They are buying a story and an experience,” says Revathi Kant, Business Head - Design, Titan Industries.

Agrees Sujata Keshavan, Director, Ray + Keshavan, a brand and design consultancy firm, says, “For long, we blithely ignored design. We merely copied products. But now involvement in design has become an absolute must for retailers. They can ignore design at their own peril.”

All of this has suddenly revealed the pent-up demand for designers. While adequate skilled manpower is the need of the hour, for now the numbers just don’t seem to add up. According to an Indo-Dutch market survey by a Dutch delegation in August last year, India has about 3,000 practising designers, compared to one lakh designers in the EU.

Says Kant: “While around 1,000 people pass out of the top design institutes every year (from NID, NIFT and IIT), the industry’s demand is eight-fold,” she says. Titan’s design studio is open to the idea of recruiting designers from Europe in future, says Kant.

Raj of Idiom explains: “Idiom has in the past employed the services of designers from Europe … not for global involvement or understanding but because of lack of design talent in the country. There are just a handful of design schools. In fact, Idiom alone can absorb all the designers from every reputed design school every year.” The crunch is both in terms of numbers and skill, he adds.

Do we need more design schools? Says Keshavan: “Even China – known to be a mass producer and the cheapest manufacturer – has invested hugely in design. The Chinese government sends its designers to Italy and America and pays for their education so that they come back and set up design schools in China. China today has hundreds of design schools. In India, we just do not have enough design schools.”

But here again we are dealing with a double-edged sword. While we do need more quality people and design institutes, care must be taken to ensure the design industry does not meet the same fate as the animation industry has. While animation schools and quick courses have cropped up in every nook and corner, the quality leaves a lot to be desired, cautions Sonia Manchanda, Co-Founder, Idiom.

There are other challenges. Today it’s not about pure design alone. Besides an eye for colour and details, designers need to possess smart thinking to align the design elements with business strategies. Design has to meet the overall business objective. “Designers must be trained in strategic design thinking, design management and business designing,” says Manchanda. Are our design schools equipped to meet industry requirements? Concerns indeed!

Where Europe falls short

But amid the concerns and challenges lies our inherent advantage, that of cultural understanding. A good design is one which understands the cultural context well.

While it does definitely makes sense to “try out” European designers since there is an obvious interest from Europe and also considering that there are not many in India to choose from, a word of caution. European designers have limitations of lack of understanding of the Indian cultural context, besides reluctance to work in the “chaotic” environment that India provides.

Raj of Idiom puts things in perspective: “European designers find it traumatic when they have to deal with the ‘hyper-active’ and even chaotic Indian design support scenario. In fact, they have to be given a crash course on design in the Indian environment for them to be effective, here in India. European designers are accustomed to working in ’organised’ systems. They are ‘single’ assignment people and find it difficult to ‘multi-process’. The need of the hour in India is for designers to work on multiple design projects. International designers are by and large ‘specialists’…furniture, product, graphic etc. But we need specialists who are holistic. And all these issues have a bearing on how much you can charge your clients for employing international designers.”

So Indian designers do have the edge – that of Western education besides understanding the Indian environment! And as far as remuneration is concerned, it depends on whether you are a freelancer or with a firm. Says Idiom’s Manchanda: “If you are in a boutique firm - small in size doing small work for small business, the remuneration may be stagnant. But as the firm grows and becomes a large institution doing large projects, the remuneration certainly can look up.” It is certainly not a gloomy place to be in, she assures. Times are exciting, says Manchanda. Any takers?