An educational Journey...
Recently, I got a chance to visit my college and it has been a decade since I have been there. I first visited the college in 2013 and seeing the same place in 2022 made me realize how much the design industry and Design College have changed. No I don't have 10 years of experience but this is the journey of how I started and where I am now.
In 2013 I first visited UID (United World Institute of Design) as a visit while I was still in high school. Various crafts were displayed, and we also got a chance to practice some of them with them. It has a great campus and taught me the basic knowledge to start a design career. It's been around 9 years since I first went there 10 years from being a person who does good art to a person who can design good experiences. There has been a lot of transition in my career and thoughts regarding design.
Design Journey
2012-13 (Year 1)
I started my Design journey when I was in 11th Standard. Looking back to the time when I started to relearn to hold a pencil in my hand. I have always been crafty and lived in my imagination. After the boards, Everyone has an important decision to make, choosing the first direction for their career. I liked to fidget with different materials and make crafts. It is often heard from engineers that they used to open up things and look inside them, and along with that, I was more interested in fixing things. I got to know that there is a possibility of a career in Design and started to prepare for entrance exams.
2013-14 (Year 2)
I started applying to colleges along with final board exams. I did not perform well in the curriculum as I was too focused on the entrance and luckily I got selected in UID. It looked like an excellent option to kickstart in the field. During this period I learned a lot of basics.
2014-15 (Year 3)
The initial 6 months were very basic in design. We also worked with different mediums. Following up with the 1st semester, 2nd semester had an overview of the design principles. In the end, we were made aware of the design process during which I observed that I was coming up with product solutions for most of the problems. Even during discussions with friends, I was inclined towards physical products to solve problems. I went out to conduct research and observe the workings of a post office. I had made numerous mistakes while working as I considered it a project and not the same way I would design today. But it helped me to understand the direction I would prefer to work in.
2015-16 (Year 4)
I selected Product design for specialization. We sketched products, material handling, and photography, and used Elements of Design. Worked on my first simple product. Ad-Frame, an adjustable photo frame.
Principles of products and designing products using different inspirations. We moved from 2D to 3D and started learning methodologies to think in three dimensions. Understanding ergonomics, inclusive designs, and technical-aesthetic details of a product. We got to learn about different materials and how to use them.
2016-17 (Year 5)
Introduction to UX design. User experience design is about how a user experiences the product or space, today most people are all focused on the digital aspects like applications and software and everyone seems to be an expert. I am really glad to learn this crucial topic of today/future as an experience design. We in teams of three were given tasks to improve the gaming experience of some classic games. Our game was limbo and we created an experience by taking elements of the game and recreating them in reality. This enabled me to understand UX in an open-ended form and the possibilities around it.
In the next semester, we also learned digital product design through Justinmind program. It is interesting to see how the industries, software, and features are evolving in the past few years. When we learned we were given alternatives such as follows and I do remember the UI they offered at that time.
Sketchapp.com For wireframe, MAC users
Invisionapp.com, Marvel.com , Adobe XD experience design, Axure , Justinmind
Ambient intelligence. https://www.axure.com/
2017-18 (Year 6)
As part of my graduation project, I worked on a Portable Infusion Pump with a team of professionals at Orthoheal. Pvt. Ltd. It was an Innovative medical device for Cancer patients. We followed a good design process and I was able to reach the prototyping stage within six months. My role as a product designer was to find out the need for the product and define the features of the product. Firstly I didn't have any medical background so I had to understand a critical disease like cancer. Then I went to hospitals for user interviews and to understand caregivers' perspectives. I have been working under the guidance of Dr.Pankaj Chhatrala (MD Orthoheal) and Vinay Kumar (Prof. UID)
2018-19 (Year 7)
After the internship, I wanted to learn more and got interested in animation to represent my products better hence, I joined ADMM (Advanced Diploma in Multilingual multimedia) at C-DAC. As it was a part-time course, I also started freelancing and worked on several projects with 2 friends and created 3 Shots, and started job hunting along with that to learn from teams. I started working with Ar. Sanket Patel with building a brand Solvers. I learned to brand and set up a business, the most important element of keeping it going is determination and persistence.
2019-20 (Year 8)
I started working at Monarch Innovation in 2019. I worked on several interdisciplinary projects along with engineers as an Industrial Designer. Here I worked on client projects directly. Being the only designer among almost 100 engineers, I got to learn to deal with problems and this elaborated my characteristics in a team. Which made my goals even stronger. I got to work on different problems related to products, graphics, branding, and UIUX.
2020-21 (Year 9)
In 2021 I was able to work with a designer who interned at Monarch. My goal was to become the leader that I had been while I was interning and better. I believed that experience brings resources and newcomer brings fresh ideas along with new ways to implement. I learned a lot from her as well and realized that design is a fast-growing industry and I need to learn more to achieve my goals. I started with a 5-month executive program from IIM Kozhikode in Design Thinking and Innovation Management. The Idea of Innovation resonated with me hence I took forward in pursuit of better ways to synthesize my process.
2021-22 (Year 10)
I liked MIT's Idea of combining Design, Business, Technology, and Humanities for explaining Innovation hence I enrolled in the Innovation Program. I was able to learn everything I hoped for and better. met with industrial professionals who are implementing the idea of innovation. In-depth understanding of the implementation of ideas and development of innovative thinking approaches toward any problem. Modules like Digital product design, Business design, Innovation lab pitch, Megatrends and Design future, Design with Data, AI-ML(data science process), Blockchain, and AR-VR. Building a community of like-minded people. After this, I was an intern at TCS R&I (Research and Innovation) where I got hands-on experience in implementation. Currently, I am working as a UX designer at Quartic.Ai.
It's already been 10 years. Let's start a conversation if you are planning to be a designer or if you have already started the journey share your experience.
Hello, This is Sukoshi Nagar. A Multidisciplinary designer. I am willing to share my thoughts on Design and Innovation. Please Subscribe to receive notifications when I post. I am planning to post a blog monthly.