Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort in commemoration of the 78th Independence Day of India. In his remarks, he briefly mentioned that “Design in India, design for the world . . . is known for its best quality . . . Now we need to focus on “design in India”… we need to try that Indian standard become the world standard . . . when this happens, approval will be easier for our products.” He went on to lay the conditions for this design leadership “We have talent . . . in the field of design, we can contribute immensely to the world…we need to move forward with design with India  . . . We need to move forward with a vision of design in India and design for the world.”

In 2025, after thirty years of economic liberalization, the world’s largest democracy aspires to become the most powerful $30 trillion economy by 2047. India has walked away from being a former British colony and second-class partner. It is now a self-confident entity that wants to compete internationally. India is part of BRICS and has participated in world economic forums to share its perspective on global issues. The United States and China are at odds with each other, forcing many countries to choose sides. Again, India is seeking another way to project and influence world actions based on its history of being non-aligned.

Designers in India are also more self-confident about their role in this fast-moving and dynamic ecosystem. I recently attended the 2024 India’s Best Design Awards in Pune, where the event organizers broadcast the Prime Minister’s speech. The organizers stated that design is now a highly visible activity due to the Prime Minister’s recent comments. The implication is that design could finally secure a seat at the policy table as a needed stakeholder to meet India’s aspiring goals to become a global player.

Since modern design was introduced in India in the 1950s through the Eames Report and the establishment of the National Institute of Design, the design infrastructure has surged by 2025 to include hundreds of design programs, numerous independent design consultancies, and in-house design capabilities within many companies. Design is now regarded as a desirable skill to differentiate products and services for an ever-expanding Indian middle class that comprises approximately 30% of the population.

The Make in India initiative, launched in 2014, aims for India to become a global design and manufacturing hub. It is trying to unwind government control and update outdated processes.

The goal is to encourage private sector economic growth through private investment, innovation, protecting Intellectual Property (IP), and building best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure. This program aims to raise the manufacturing sector’s contribution to 25% of the GDP by 2020. The government created an Investor Facilitation Cell (IFC) to expedite resource allocations. Simply put, India has to become an export-driven economy as it imports too much higher value capital goods and electronics to support the desires of the Indian middle class.

While these factors bode well for designers, design communities, and companies, India’s current hyperlocal design landscape is confusing and cacophonous. When I was in India in 1990, design was a fringe activity. Most citizens, companies, and government entities did not understand the value of design outside of the crafts sector, and it was not viewed as a stable professional choice. Many designers, upon graduation, ended up leaving India for economic opportunity in international markets, where they did very well as non-resident Indians. 

Design typically begins with a bottom-up, hyperlocal microeconomic project that impacts local and regional communities. While some designers and design firms operate on a national or international scale, these cases are exceptions to the primarily hyperlocal focus. As design becomes more widespread, there may be opportunities for design capabilities to expand to national and international levels. However, without a coherent set of policies from both the government and the private sector regarding the integration of design, the organized participation of design and its impacts will be inconsistent. .

Challenges to design being considered research and development

India lags behind much of the world in research and development investments in relation to GDP. India’s research and development (R&D) investment is approximately 0.64% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is notably lower than countries like China (2.41%), the United States (3.47%), and Israel (5.71%). India’s R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of other BRICS nations, such as Brazil spends 1.3%, the Russian Federation 1.1%, and South Africa spends 0.8% of their GDP on R&D. It has made progress as its economy grows and economic liberalization becomes more expansive. In the Global Innovation Index, India advanced from 81st place in 2015 to 40th in 2023.

Much of India’s research and development funding comes from the central government to academia. Approximately 43.7% of the Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) is funded by the central government through academia. Historically, the National Institute of Design worked on government initiatives, primarily documenting the state of specific craft sectors. It was key in the creation of the 2007 Indian Design Policy.

While India produces many college graduates, its rigid educational system focuses on linearity and theory rather than critical thinking and application. While research and development occur more frequently in India, how much is moving toward utilitarian value? How could underfunded research and development investment impact the role and importance of design in India?

Private industry investments are growing, but in 2020, they accounted for only 4% of India’s domestic research and development funding. This may be due to businesses focusing on international partnerships that bring brand recognition, desired knowledge, and product capital to Indian markets. Then, hybrid modifications are quickly made for the domestic markets. So, there is no need to do domestic research and development; the focus is on how quickly production can bring things to market for domestic competitive advantage and revenue generation.

Why is research and development important to design? Because design is maximized as a future looking research and development activity.

Design is about challenging the status quo and using creativity and imagination to explore, reframe, and propose future scenarios and prototypes that create enhanced or new types of value. Design endeavors to uncover things that matter and make the intangible tangible by creating informed hypothesis prototypes validated through market testing and acceptance. Unfortunately, these efforts are associated with product creation and production, not development, so design is not codified into a company’s research and development investment intentions. 

Design if it is not to be commoditized, needs to be associated with research and development because it is focused on what Investopedia frames as “. . . the systematic process of investigating, experimenting, and innovating to create new products, processes, or technologies, essentially combining the act of gaining new knowledge through research . . .  to develop something useful, like a new product or service . . .” Design at a strategic level should be about creating a portfolio of choices to address gaps and creating the conditions to create specific capabilities for market advantage. Possible products and services can be conceived and made viable through iterative releases to control market and financial risk, which businesses want to avoid. 

However, designers have blind spots in researching beyond talking with users (which is essential) rather than as a systematic activity of structured exploration. Design methods, defined in the 1960s and 1970s, were an attempt at codifying design research into divergent and convergent cycles by applying specific methods to reframe the understanding of problems, has been unevenly accepted by the design community. Design Thinking, a way to explore problems in five phases to reframe problems and rapidly iterate prototypes, has also been unevenly understood and used by design communities. Democratizing “design” in many ways has reduced it to design theatre with questionable outcomes and benefits. Designers tend to over-emphasize desired short-term indicators and do not understand long-term indicators. 

This has had the unfortunate effect of relegating design to opinion rather than shared understanding. John Heskett, in his book “Design and the Creation of Value,” eloquently articulates the problem with design and research by stating, ” . . . performance characteristics that scientific knowledge or techniques cannot predict very accurately. The performance of these products, therefore, is highly uncertain. Moreover, many significant attributes of such products are revealed only after intensive or, more significantly, prolonged use.” (p 148). This is where human-centered design, sensemaking, and design thinking through insights can propose unfamiliar better futures. This gap can be bridged by “good enough” prototypes that allow iterative improvements and expansions by prolonged use.

Coupled with problems in design research, organizations that desire innovation are concerned with the risks associated with challenging established thinking, behavior, and outcomes. In India, as in most countries, critical thinking and challenging the status quo are complicated for cultural and mindset reasons. The risk of disrupting any current state is higher than leaving key issues unattended. Heskett discusses the role of innovation and design related to the maturity of markets and why most design recommendations are declined. Familiar design responses can used proven procedures within stable market conditions; uncertain where design can be used as an exploratory process within uncertain market conditions; and unknown where design can be used as a trial-and-error process within unknown market conditions.

Heskett goes on to state, ” . . . the cost of generating ideas in the vital early stages of a project is comparatively small. Alternatives can be tried and parameters altered with little cost or consequence as this stage . . .” Using design to generate alternatives are to address levels of uncertainty by getting accurate upfront by testing ideas with actual users and to ” . . . avoid costly and time-wasting changes downstream in the process . . . The role of design is to make innovation acceptable to users by balancing what users think and do as well as what they say they want. Design can therefore create greater value by ” . . . deliver[ing] to users . . . what they never knew they wanted or realized they could have.” (p 176)

This is not to say that design research is not happening in India. I have been exposed to design research practitioners using methods on client projects to gain insights for informed action. Unfortunately, intentional and structured design research programs in India are few. Even in Western countries, design still has an uneasy relationship with research methods. The focus has been primarily on qualitative methods, which are difficult to connect to quantitative metrics. 

Designers should integrate qualitative and quantitative methods to gain valuable insights into human cognition, behavior, how artifacts affect people’s ability to achieve goals and objectives. This may be a mixed method integrating humanities and sciences to verify outcomes. Google has advocated for Model-Based Inquiry, which integrates epistemological real-world data with formulating hypotheses through critique of several disciplines working together.

 

Attempts at creating design policy

Design has sought to transition from a hyperlocal creative practice, gradually moving up the macro ladder to influence national and international impact and policy. In the 1920s, the Bauhaus, during the Weimar Republic, articulated the social implications of design and addressed societal issues such as improved housing for state governments. In Sweden during the 1930s, the Acceptera Manifesto acknowledged that domestic architecture was not keeping pace with rapid social and technological changes. After WWII, ULM in Germany integrated social science courses into its curriculum and aimed to incorporate more significant social and economic factors into its pedagogy. The United Kingdom established design councils that collaborate with local and regional governments on projects to implement specific policies. 

For over fifty years, design has been moving from an updated notion of hyperlocal craftsmanship working on specific projects to linking design to more extensive design programs, which inform many related projects to a higher organizational purpose and desired outcome.

Systems design, which views design efforts as part of large systems and sub-systems, has linked design to the rigors of macro processes and procedures, which can lead to more resilient outcomes. Still, design is associated more with requirements than more significant questions of purpose and outcomes, which drive and inform policy. 

In terms of national design policy, Denmark was the first country to publish a design policy in 1997 with the goal of “. . . enabl[ing] Danish industry, as well as the public sector, to become more innovative and competitive through the use of design. Denmark also wants to maintain its international status as a “design nation,” and to realize design’s potential in the new century.” This was done in coordination with the Danish Design Center and demonstrated how design in Denmark “. . . was able to show design’s positive impact on export, revenue, and job creation . . .” It is estimated that 12.5 percent of Denmark’s private sector employees work in the design industry. These workers design products and re-engineer business operations. They account for 5.3 percent of GDP. Overall, that sector is growing at around 20 percent a year. A cohesive design policy can provide the conditions for greater economic growth and competitiveness. (Anders Kretzschmar, “The Economic Effects of Design” p. 1.)

In England, the Behavioural Insights Team, commonly known as the “nudge unit” was part of the United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office and integrated design thinking, public policy, and behavioral science to improve public policy and compliance. The London Design Council, a gold standard of professional design, has advocated for design’s role in regional and national policy. In Japan, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry for over fifty years was influenced by the ideas of total quality thinking of W. Edwards Deming for post-war Japan. It sent Japanese designers to study abroad to build design capacity and upgrade product export quality. Sony was the representation of his thinking on corporate thinking and product development.

John Heskett argued that design should evolve into a strategic activity by clearly articulating a portfolio of products to markets and determining how an organization must respond to bring them to fruition. Design planning can connect any strategy to an organization’s resources for change and adaptation (strategy + optimization). Design management would be employed to activate design practice from the perspectives of integration and implementation (organization + implementation). He believed that design could transition from a micro-economic level, concentrating on specific tacit design practices at the product level, to a macro-economic level, where enablers focus on the collective design of systems. His four orders of design link simple hyperlocal design to macro organizational design. Unfortunately, most design practices worldwide are structured to address only the first two orders and are not equipped for the fourth order, where design policy is necessary.

This transformation of design from low-level creative implementation to a strategic activity that defines policy by rationalizing the purpose, structure, and delivery of products and services could ” . . . create value, generate breakthroughs that open new markets or fundamentally redefine existing ones, and subsequently sustaining and extending them is a continuously evolving process.” (p 176) 

 

Articulating an Indian design policy

While not a policy document per se, the Eames Report was the first formal reflection on contemporary design that informed Indian government action. It was drafted in 1958 by Charles and Ray Eames after their three-month visit to India hosted by the Ford Foundation and the Sarabhai family in Ahmedabad. This report articulated the need for modern design practice to address the glaring deficits of quality of life in post-independence India, where there was little access to basic human needs such as food, water, shelter, and extended services to increase human agency through design. 

While the Eames Report was not a formal design policy, it was a foundational design discourse document that highlighted the strengths of Indian culture and the challenges in post-independence India. The report articulated a roadmap to create a design institute, train designers, and focus on rural projects.

This report was the blueprint for decision-making on design’s purpose, role, and outcomes for the next fifty years. Eames mentions the Lota as a symbolic representation of good design, unintentionally setting many early designers and institutions into trapped thinking and actions that design was mainly connected to the Indian crafts sector. 

After fifty years of design percolating and growing, in 2007 the Indian Government approved its first design policy. Ranjit Menon, a graduate of NID who has been involved professionally in macro issues of design, innovation, and design policy, reflected that Dr. Darlie Koshy, the former Director of the National Institute of Design and member of the Governing Council, set up India’s first Design Business Incubator in collaboration with the Ministry of Science & Technology. This first National Design Policy approved by the Government of India “Realizing the increasing importance of design in economic, industrial and societal development and in improving the quality of products and services, the Government of India had initiated a consultative process with industry, designers and other stakeholders to develop the broad contours of a National Design Policy.” This goal of the report was to “. . . enhance the competitiveness of Indian industry by :

• globally positioning and branding Indian designs
• making “Designed in India” a by-word for quality and utility in conjunction with “Made in India” and “Served in India”
• ‘Designed in India, Made for the World’ integrates India’s rich tradition with contemporary innovative processes

Design was positioned as a competitive edge for entrepreneurship and innovation and to drive a “design-enabled innovative economy.” The formation of The India Design Council through the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) emerged from this design policy to activate, manage, and monitor progress and create a baseline foundational infrastructure for design and industry. While the 2007 Design Policy was a good foundational document trying to position design to enhance economic competitiveness that could be marketed, this policy was crafted with government bureaucrats. It may not have had adequate stakeholder consultation from the design community, industry leaders, and academia. 

In 2016, the London Design Council Report speculated that at the time, approximately 7,000 designers would need to scale to 60,000 designers by 2020, working in a market of potentially INR 188.32 bn (£1.43 bn). The report calculated that the number of applicants for Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) programmes was 10,451 for every 100 available seats. After graduation, 56% of graduating students go on to work in the industry, and 10% enter academia. 75% of report respondents felt the graduates were narrowly focused and low on general design knowledge. After fifty-seven years, “Design education in India lack[ed] coherent structure because of the lack of well-articulated accreditation or affiliation procedures.” To reverse this perception, the Ministry of Human Resource Development announced a National Initiative for Design Innovation where 20 new Design Innovation Centers (DIC), one Open Design School (ODS), and a National Design Innovation Network (NDIN) would be created to elevate the pedagogical quality of design education in India.  

India’s Design 2007 Policy and the London Design Council 2016 Report have not been updated, despite the significant social, political, and economic changes the country has experienced. These changes have led to a surge in design programs, an increasing number of design graduates, and a broader job market for designers. In 2022, Anurag Jain from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade announced plans to revise the 2007 design policy. This revision aims to incorporate many developments in India since 2007 and align with the Gati Shakti (National Master Plan), which focuses on creating integrated infrastructure to lower logistics costs. Additionally, the recent 2023 G20 meeting in India presented the “Civil 20 India 2023 Policy Pack,” an intriguing policy roadmap designed “… to act at both national and international levels to address these fundamental questions and to work steadfastly to strengthen and reform the multilateral framework of the United Nations.”

 

Progress of design policy as design planning and implementation in India

India is in a very different position in 2025 than when the first design policy for India was published in 2007. The speed and impact of social, political, economic, and technological change in eighteen years and the rapid expansion of design programs, design visibility, and designers warrant an updated national design policy. This is more than the requirement to use Indian designers. While positioning Indian design and marketing to help manufacturing initiatives could help, design should be involved with more significant social and economic policies that improve quality of life and increase human agency through government and private sector initiatives.

Policy is the advancement of social, political, and economic initiatives into a codified set of deliberate guidelines for making decisions on specific priorities and allocating resources to meet particular objectives. Key to any policy is the informed creation of laws, regulations, procedures, administrative actions, and incentives to animate and activate the desired outcomes of policy.

The difficulty of implementing policy is securing apparent shared interests between stakeholders and transparent criteria for evidence to interpret the desired effects of a policy. Also, regulations and constrain. Design thinking and human-centered design will need the opposite – regulations that promote measured and measurable un-regulation – or the ability to challenge regulations that are no longer relevant or need to be updated.

Designers outside of the Nordic countries have little experience with national policy-making. Policy is about defining national priorities and desired outcomes for a stronger nation. It is also about understanding tradeoffs and the leading and lagging indicators of progress. There have been attempts at creating design policies in specific countries, but the results have been inconclusive. This is because many policies have a gap between what needs to be accomplished and what happens when the policy is implemented. Most designers have little to no experience at this level of thinking. 

Indian designers who have experience in articulating and applying design at the more extensive system and programmatic level connecting economic and social dimensions to problem definition could use their experience working with the Indian central and state governments with the private sector and their now-mandated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) investments to define policies that integrate human-centered innovation. Encouraging central/state governments and the private sector to improve living standards and the quality of products and services is essential for the middle class, the underserved, and the unserved to provide balanced growth where Indian society as a whole benefits. 

Social dimensions and the unique nature of qualitative human actions pose distinct challenges to social policy aimed at addressing social deficits and promoting desired improvements. Social design, a relatively new field, seeks to enhance relationships through direct stakeholder collaboration to foster economic empowerment, equity, inclusion, and sustainability. Similarly, business design focuses on developing innovative business models and enhancing products and services for competitive advantage. This area is equally vital and can be integrated with behavioral and service design, bridging the social and business design gap.

The best design policies are the ones that encourage integrated thinking and collaboration across stakeholders, which can inform regulations that would be of greatest value for specific markets, sectors, and the country.

Traditionally, policy focuses on industrial policy to create the priorities and downstream regulations to create the conditions for economic growth. For external markets and exports, revamping research and development priorities around intellectual capital, technological innovation, and integrated products and services that meet or exceed international standards, This outcome is critical if India plans to become a thirty-billion-dollar economy by 2050.

The State of Kerala, for example, is in the early stages of creating a design policy and is currently defining a design policy. This southern state has key economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, manufacturing, and tourism. It also consistently has the highest literacy rate in India. The draft design policy, completed by state government functions, business community, and design professionals, describes how to create a design-based economy for the state ” . . . to promote innovations and competitiveness and to guide through a design integrated ecosystem.” 

The draft report describes the design’s purpose: to provide innovative approaches to create preferred outcomes supported by design planning and design management of effective collaborations between government, advocacy organizations, research and education, consultancies, and professionals. What is optimistic about the draft report is that it highlights the core purpose of design to create “effective & efficient” processes that are “well-aligned with the values and needs of the people they are intended to serve,” which informs better products and services. It identifies ten areas where design could contribute and improve, such as landscape & water design, building codes, sustainability and conservation, GIS mapping & data management, visual identities for localities, and support tourism needs. These activities would be activated by a public participation process and the creation of a universal set of design principles supported by human-centered design. The end goal is to ” . . . improve functional efficacy and enables [the state] . . . to develop new ways of thinking and doing as characterised by design.” 

In eastern India, the National Institute of Design (NID) has signed an MoU with Meghalayan Age Limited (MAL) and the Government of Meghalaya. Although this policy has yet to be started, the memorandum of understanding outlines the creation of a design policy framework, the establishment of the Meghalaya Design Lab, positioning Shillong as a UNESCO design city, design thinking and innovation workshops, exposure visits and training, and the development of a bamboo handicrafts cluster.

While it is a positive development that states want to create a design policy to improve what exists and unlock new types of value that can support economic activity, the track record so far of published design policies in India is questionable.

At a recent 2024 Lopez Design / BITSDesign event with Don Norman and Amitabh Kant facilitated by Anthony Lopez to discuss design policy, there were diverse discussions about where India was before liberalization and post-liberalization.  The “Make in India” initiative and how design could become a more visible contributor to economic and social progress were discussed. A related capability-building initiative called Mission Karmayogi enables the adoption of a citizen-centered service for India’s civil servants. “When asked about creating a Ministry of Design, Kant dismissed the idea. Design is multidisciplinary, he said, and no single ministry could contain it. Instead, he advocated for nurturing design entrepreneurs to meet the diverse needs of 1.4 billion people.” 

What should be contained in design policy and the role of design?

Design policy should articulate clear goals and objectives for design’s inclusion to attain greater social, political, and economic progress and strengthen a sector or national aspirations. Any design policy should describe what design does and what benefit design application(s) provide(s). I would also propose that while design policy is important, embedding design into wider industrial, economic, and technological policies may also be a way to have a greater impact. 

Design’s inclusion as a capability by governments tends to default on using designers’ creativity and imagination to embed desirability and new types of value in products and services. Design policy is not a design brief. A brief is related to a project, and its content is about micro-economic scope, process, and outcomes.

Design policy should articulate clear goals and objectives for design’s inclusion to attain greater social, political, and economic progress and strengthen domestic and international aspirations. Embedding design into broader industrial, economic, and technological policies may also be a way to have a more significant impact. Any design policy should describe what design does and what benefit design application(s) provide(s).

Up to the present, design’s inclusion as a capability by governments have tended to default on using designers’ creativity and imagination to add desirability and new types of value in products and services on top of things. Design policy is not a design brief. A brief is related to a project, and its content is about micro-economic scope, process, and outcomes. Design should be a programmatic capability of change and innovation for effective and efficient processes. Design should also be about increasing human agency and fairness. Both should be required as active ingredients in design policy. 

For example, the Eames Report had more impact on design in India than being an official design policy because it emphasized design as problem-solving, culturally rooted, and human-centric in its process and outcomes – not just focusing only on beautiful objects. The purpose of the design was to address societal problems and to make an impact on the bottom of the economic pyramid at the village level. While India is in a different reality in 2025, over 700 million people are still in the “need economy” shaped by persistent poverty. 

Unlike other nations, India has a history of serving its diverse populations’ social and economic needs to improve daily lives. Companies have historically volunteered to implement specific Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives to better the lives of their employees or of the markets they serve. Social innovation, coupled with increasing access to basic infrastructure and services, is a significant role design can play in improving daily life in India.

The 2007 Design Policy and the draft Kerala Policy highlights innovation and competitive advantage as what design is expected to provide in terms of value. Kerala’s and Meghalayan’s policy desires specify :

• Position design as an intentional ingredient to meet specific goals
• Define a design “framework”
• Facilitate co-creation sessions
• Create a design/innovation lab
•  Prioritized programmatic investments

Like any other organizational capability, design should increase organizational and market effectiveness. Any contemporary design policy should address : 

• clear government, industry, and academic collaborations to leverage design
• connecting economic and social progress through sustainable development
• addressing production and manufacturing but also social, digital transformations, and computational design 
• structured design research labs linked to industries to do research & development, leading to innovation

A design policy would be grounded in :

• applying critical thinking and human-centered design to address social and economic challenges by accelerating the adoption of human-centered capacity building in critical thinking, systems thinking, sensemaking, cultural authenticity, and sustainability
• reorganizing the current confusing design education landscape by coordinating the top-tier design programs to focus on research, theory, and application for innovative but utilitarian outcomes

The India Planning Commission (IPC) created five-year plans from independence until 2014. During this time, the National Institute of Design was a good example of government/private partnership, as the school is nestled within the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The dissolution of the IPC led to the creation of NITI Aayog, which continues to promote economic development by formulating plans for the national agenda of priorities, which in turn affect state priorities.

Should there be a national design policy, and what would be its benefits? Like the NITI Aayog, should a foundational design policy inform state design policies that meet their regional social and economic objectives? As J.K. Dadoo, a retired Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer, stated, “A country like India has to have the design impact in such a manner that it is agile and flexible. This requires it to follow a strategy of not having gigantic projects, but a thousand small ones which are agile to create and implement.” 

A national design policy should provide the foundation for design goals, including flexibility for state design policies. A related challenge is uneven national and state governance and inconsistent policy implementation, which could adversely affect the desired benefits of design policy. Due to decentralization and liberalization, a better way may be for national and state governments to collaborate with industry and prominent four-year design programs to inform a foundational design policy. Any design policy must be monitored to determine how desired outcomes are actualized. As a course-correcting process, it must be modified based on actual leading and lagging indicator data that do not meet policy expectations.

Companies will need to significantly increase their investments in research and development and mature their thinking of what design capabilities they need to meet their business goals and objectives. If it is to improve styling and differentiation, they can use the existing creative capabilities of designers.

Historically, Indian companies bought innovations through foreign partnerships to expedite knowledge transfer and speed to market. They should now secure design capabilities that foster innovation, portfolio planning, and service design as research and development investments. Governments that want increased economic and social value must consider design to integrate human-centered thinking and methods into national and state priorities. Design elevates thinking and outcomes that provide greater competitive advantage to sectors, greater value to markets, and greater agency to citizens.

Design is unique because it is both part of the status quo and meant to challenge the status quo. This seemingly contradictory position has historically neutered design’s value or reduced it to concepts that cannot be implemented. Design is transitioning to capability-building innovation and defining design’s efforts as research and development, not just about expression to production. Design policy should address improving environments and objects and the increasing role of digital systems that are increasingly integrated into environments and objects.

What knowledge must designers possess, and what capabilities are required to shape and activate any design policy? While many design graduates fill roles in design firms, consultancies, and corporations, many are for entry-level creative to production roles—not as decision-makers or collaborators with professional agencies. Experienced designers in India will need to ramp up their exposure and knowledge of programmatic and systems design, which informs specific policies and the creation of regulations. More significant national or state issues will challenge design practitioners to grapple with complex groupings of business, political, and social stakeholders. If designers want a seat at the policy table, their knowledge of macro political, social, and economic issues will need to increase. While empathy is essential, it is rarely enough. Designers will have to learn not to shy away from matters of stakeholder self-interest, leverage, and power.

A design policy should focus on using human-centered design and design disciplines to increase the competitive advantage for Indian products and services through innovation from purpose, concepting, production, and distribution that can either address export or domestic benefit. This may mean that the Association of Designers of India and other Indian design organizations collaborate with corporations and governments to align on the purpose of a design policy and the minimum policy structure that should be created to support any competitive advantage. Specific corporations and governments can expand upon a design policy to meet particular market or regional goals.

Hemant Suthar, a former NID graduate and founder of one of India’s most successful design firms, articulated it best by sharing, “For India to set global standards, it must embed design thinking into governance, urban planning, and public utilities. Well-designed public services create happier citizens, stronger economies, and a more efficient government. By making design a fundamental part of governance, India can solve domestic challenges and export these models to the world by finding synergies to enable locally relevant and globally competitive products/services to fulfill the vision of “Design in India, Design for the World.”