Design in India

Bruce Nussbaum argues that Design in India is beginning to take off, as American companies discover the inexpensive but high-grade work consultancies such as Elephant Design and others, and alerts me to the great Design in India website, where you can find links to a wide range of design firms, including usability and design strategy companies.

The India Times reports that the Indian Government has developed a five-year roadmap [Draft National Design Policy, pdf, 243 kb, 12 pages] to place India as the global design hub, by constituting an India Design Council (NDC) and a number of specialised design centres, enhancing the status of the National Institute of Design (NID) as a global centre of excellence and launching the Good Design Mark to promote domestic designs.

Grant McCracken meanwhile provides a thoughtful comparison between India and China: “In the international economy, China is a commodity player. India’s promise lies in its control of cultural particulars. And by this I mean, India understands and participates in the culture of the First World West in ways China does not.”

“As long as the world wants its merchants to “pile Â’em high and sell Â’em cheap,” China will flourish as Wal-Mart does. India [on the other hand] has a large intellectual and creative class. Many of these people are worldly in ways the chattering classes of the West are not. More than that, India is its own intellectual challenge, a culture that knows a thing or two about diversity and discontinuity. Moreover, India has been drawing on the intellectual and educational resources of the West for several hundred years.”