India’s Design Guru: MP Ranjan A Final Interview

Abstract

MP Ranjan was an influential senior faculty at India’s National Institute of Design and was on the editorial board of this journal. This article shares an interview with MP Ranjan that was recorded just two days before his untimely death. In this lively interview, he shared his rich vision for the future of design in India. He shared fascinating and original ideas about the difference between design and engineering, the future of design education and its institutions, as well as multiple approaches for improving design publishing, conferences and pedagogy. MP Ranjan’s final recorded words are presented here as a message to future designers.

Full text

Accepted Manuscript
India’s Design Guru: MP Ranjan A Final Interview
Derek Lomas
PII: S2405-8726(15)30036-8
DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2015.11.004
Reference: SHEJI 11
To appear in: She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation
Received Date: 31 October 2015
Accepted Date: 4 November 2015
Please cite this article as: Lomas D, India’s Design Guru: MP Ranjan A Final Interview, She Ji: The
Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.sheji.2015.11.004.
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She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation
Paper Template for Manuscript
India’s Design Guru: MP Ranjan
A Final Interview
Derek Lomas
The Design Lab, UC San Diego
dereklomas@gmail.com
Abstract: MP Ranjan was an influential senior faculty at India’s National Institute of Design and
was on the editorial board of this journal. This article shares an interview with MP Ranjan that was
recorded just two days before his untimely death. In this lively interview, he shared his rich vision
for the future of design in India. He shared fascinating and original ideas about the difference
between design and engineering, the future of design education and its institutions, as well as
multiple approaches for improving design publishing, conferences and pedagogy. MP Ranjan’s
final recorded words are presented here as a message to future designers.
Keywords: Design Education, Design Thinking, Design in Academia, Publishing, India,
Interviews.
Introduction
Many have recognized the potential value that Design and Design Thinking can bring to rapidly developing
countries like India (IDC, 1989; Brown, 2010). Every year, there are thousands of places and products and
services that are built; the promise of “Design thinking” is to augment engineering practice with methods and
attitudes that ensure that the “right” things are being built.
Therefore, this article seeks to recognize MP Ranjan, who has been a leader in promoting Design Thinking in
India. As a faculty at the National Institute of Design (NID), he influenced thousands of students over 35 years of
teaching. His sudden death on August 9, 2015 came as a shock to many in the design community in India and
around the world. MP Ranjan cared deeply for design publication and so this interview is submitted with the
hope that his words will continue to inspire the next generation of designers and design thinkers.
Brief Biography of MP Ranjan
Born in Madras in 1950, MP Ranjan joined NID in 1969 and became faculty in 1972. He ran the consulting arm
of NID from 1981-1991, during which time he facilitated over 400 collaborative projects between NID faculty
and their corporate or government clients. From 1991-1995, he was chair of publications, where he set up a

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prolific set of design publications at NID. Among students, he was well known for teaching the core design
theory course, starting in 1981, which he named “Design Concepts and Concerns”. Ranjan was also a prolific
writer, both in formal publications and informal channels (such as his blog and the PhD-Design-List). His two
best-known books are his encyclopedic documentation of traditional Indian crafts (Ranjan, 2010, 2007) and his
book analyzing the cultural and material potential of bamboo (Ranjan, 1987). When he died, he had just begun to
teach a new university-wide course at Ahmedabad University on Design Thinking. His expansive syllabus
1
is
evidence of his deep knowledge of the field of design and his ability to communicate it to students.
The Interview
After spending several hours chatting with MP Ranjan at the NID campus in Ahmedabad, he graciously offered a
time on the following day when we could have a recorded interview over the phone. This interview was
conducted as part of a design research project to understand the nature of Design as an academic field. I
communicated to Mr. Ranjan that my goal was to create a map of Design, as it stands today within the university
system and to understand where Design is going, as an independent academic field. While questions were
prepared in advanced, the interview was largely open-ended and unstructured. In the following week, the
interview was transcribed using Transcriva, a manual transcription program. It was then edited for readability
and length. The original transcription and audio recordings are available upon request.
To support readers who wish to skim the contents of this interview, the following topics were covered in the
following order:
• The future of Design in Indian universities
• The difference between engineering and design
• Is design an integrated field of study?
• Identifying “design attitudes” as well as abilities
• The importance of undergraduate “Design" majors
• Discussion of the top design schools in India
• Barriers to creating design departments in Indian universities
• The sad state of publications in design
• The importance of design publication
• The need for a national design award
• Discussion of PhD programs in design and design criticism
• “what design faculty must do”
• The need for small design conferences
• Relevant networks of design thinking in India
• A reflection on Don Norman’s work
• A personal reflection on 45 years at NID
• The opportunity for documenting design assignments and projects
• The future of entrepreneurship in design education
1
https://www.academia.edu/13596219/University_wide_course_on_Design_Thinking

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Figure 1. MP Ranjan selfie with the interviewer on August 7, 2015. Ranjan had a well-known habit of taking selfies to
document his everyday encounters and meetings. Copyright © 2015 MP Ranjan.
I’d like to ask you some questions about the field of design in India and where it is going.
MP Ranjan: Of course. Recently, the government of India set out to build a new set of NIDs
2
in various parts of
the country. For some reason, good or bad, the current NID faculty and alumni have been kept out of it. So, some
of us raised issues with the government and said “this is not the way forward”. We put out a call saying that we
need vision first. We need to revision what shall be the new colleges and the new kinds of programs—and based
on that, the government should go ahead and invest monies. We have made it into a movement. So there is a
website called www.VisionFirst.in where you can see our arguments (Vision First, 2015).
It became a kind of activist movement, trying to tell government what they need to do, looking forward. I can't
say we have been successful. But, we have been successful in preventing what they were contemplating, where
each of the new institutes would be given to a new industry partner and they would run the place on a profit
sharing basis. Which I thought was a fundamentally wrong approach. So yes, there is a need for new design
schools, but what should they teach and what should they do? So, your research could be very valuable for that.
Yes, I’m hoping that the evidence I gather will be useful for policy decisions.
MP Ranjan: Certainly. But where does the evidence lie? I believe it lies in the work of 3200 graduates of NID
and in the 815 graduates of IDC (Industrial Design Center). They were the first schools set up in India to look at
design, or modern design. As for traditional design, if you take a broader net, there are many, many more schools
that have started up, long before NID and the new design movement had risen.
We have to go back a little bit to understand the context of design in India. Just by looking at the NIDs and IDC
you won't get a complete picture. Where the capabilities for Indian industries come from, where the capabilities
of any form of innovation—it isn't just in the industrial design space, it is also in the branding and
communication space and in the textile and production space. There are broadly these areas—and many of the
new spaces have been merged. There have existed forerunners in other institutions that need to be mapped out, if
you wish to do a thorough job.
2
National Institute of Design

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Many of the art colleges also spawned design-related disciplines, as did the architecture schools and the
engineering schools. So if you were only to look at the design schools you would get an incomplete view. Most
of the science and technology institutions have had a design component. There have been a lot of innovations
that have come out of those institutions that are not mapped and identified as possible foundations for the design
platform in India.
In every IIT, for instance, in the area of mechanical engineering, machine tool making, automotive—there has
been a lot of design work that has been done which is dealing with engineering solutions. However, it is not
dealing with people-engineering-relationship type of problems but rather technical issues. They use
mathematical modeling and things like that, with the promise of delivering a better solution to solve very
complex problems. And they have been hugely funded.
For instance, India’s satellite program has two dimensions: a military dimension (which is ok, it is happening)
and another dimension that involves the promise that our lives will be better due to better communication, better
access to information, better data on the ground, a greater degree of visualization, mapping, modeling, and all
this will help in our governance systems.
But the question is: has it helped? Or not? And to what extent has it helped? These kinds of studies, which are
critical studies, just have not been done in my view. And they will need to be done.
How do you see the difference between engineering and design?
MP Ranjan: Engineering, in my view, represents the technical competence of both the product and the offering.
In design, the intention is not only to make the product better, but in some cases, to replace the product all
together. For, the offering may not be a technical solution, it may be a social solution. If the solutions lie outside
the engineering realm, engineers will never attempt it. I'm not claiming that designers are doing this, but that is
what design is supposed to do. To be able to assess what needs to be brought to bear on the problem and to
realize it.
But even designers don't have the bandwidth to move way outside their own field of expertise to bring in
expertise that may be needed to solve some categories of problems. But it is beginning to dawn on us that it is
becoming more and more important.
The early stages of how you set the goals becomes very critical. Once the goal is set, we know how to get the
hammer and tongs and try to resolve it. Everyone is very good at managing projects. But if the goal itself is set
wrong? One goal is to build a bullet train from Bombay to Ahmedabad. Another is to say that we need good
mobility between these cities, or for the population. So the problem can be defined in a whole lot of alternate
ways. And in alternate definitions, the answer may not involve a train at all.

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So, who does this early stage reckoning of what needs to be done? That, I believe is the domain of design. It is
still unacknowledged in our country. And in many other places, not just our country.
Would you say that design is a collection of independent fields or an integrated field of study?
MP Ranjan: Design, in my view, is a set of related abilities and a set of related attitudes. Abilities include the
knowledge components and the skills. All of these things need to be developed… For instance, one attitude is
when scientists ask for rigor. On the other hand, when you want to explore, you want to play. That is also an
attitude. Because at an early stage, when you don’t know where to go, I think play is very good. Now, play
seems like a very frivolous way of addressing a very serious problem. But from my experience, many serious
problems need careful ways of finding answers. Otherwise, we can remain serious but not take it anywhere
because we are still looking within the limited frames that we are familiar with. So, when you want to change
your frame of reference, that is a big challenge today. And, I’m not sure which discipline today is able to give
this alternate framing other than design. Or, what you call integrated design.
There are different terms being used today. If you go to Carnegie Mellon, they talk of Transitional design (Irwin,
2015). They are putting together new courses online; if you haven't seen those, I strongly recommend them.
Quite a good line of thinking.
Do you think that “Design” has potential as an integrated field, or do you think it really makes more sense for
design to be treated as a collection of different fields…
MP Ranjan: Domain skills are important when you design. But, when you want to talk about design and meet
with other people, domain skills are not so important. You need to be convincing and you need to be able to
negotiate, and build and talk and share and partner with people. So you don't need to pull that domain knowledge,
because it exists outside. But you need the ability to connect to that domain knowledge. Do you understand?
If these attitudes of co-creation, of collaborative working, of team-building – if these are embedded into a person
or small group of people, then the chances are that they will be able to mobilize and bring in the required
disciplines from outside.
The second capability is to know, even, that something is needed. I am talking about truly transformational work
where there is no reference point available for you to say "should we do this or not?" For instance, if we are truly
getting into a new breakthrough area.
Are you saying that these attitudes are common across different fields of design?
MP Ranjan: What I am trying to say is that attitudes towards these issues, one of which is dealing with other
people who have expertise, is critical. So, the question is, how does one embed this kind of capability, quality or
sensibility in a person? Any design program in the future needs to do that.
This means that one of the most important things you would want to teach, if at all you can teach it, is to build an
ethical standard within the person or group going forward. What I mean by an ethical standard is to be able to

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honor the other – which is necessary to get that connection. Also, one needs to believe that the other person also
knows something; and, that there are alternate ways of doing the same thing. One needs to be open enough to
look and share. Because it is not like saying, "I know the answer, I am going to solve it." Sometimes, you truly
do not know. In brainstorming we defer judgment for a short time. But in design decision-making, are we able to
do it? That is where some of these design attitudes become very critical.
To be clear: are you saying that these same attitudes are applicable in all fields of design?
MP Ranjan: All fields? You see, there will always be verticals. I don't think there will ever be fewer verticals;
instead, there will be more and more verticals. I've been constantly thinking of the 230 sectors of our economy
that need design. What are these 230 sectors? They are broad sectors and they need a variety of types of design.
They need design thinking at the leading edge to try to define what could be and should be done. They also need
the how and what of design to figure out how best these things could be done. At what cost they can be done,
what efficiencies can be built and so on. A body of design experience needs to be built up in every one of those
domains. I don't think any one person is going to sit and do all of them!
So, obviously, there will be differences. For instance, somebody working in banking and finance will accumulate
a lot of resources and insights that are applicable in that domain. But the same person who has that kind of
capability could contribute to another sector altogether by being a partner over there. So there are going to be a
variety of different types of design, working deeply in a particular domain—but, at the same time, there will be
people who are crossing over and building cross-disciplinary or transdisciplinary models.
Perhaps the future university will have to address both of these needs. How is it to be done? I don't have an
answer right now. But we will figure out a way. We have to figure out a way to do that. But, there are some
underlying principles that are definitely within the domain of design. Design itself is built from gathering
together and mastering a host of disciplines: it borrows from art, borrows from technology, borrows from the
sciences—methodologies, tools, attitudes, processes, approaches—everything! But again, within design, when
you are trying to integrate, you will need to look at what and how these are actually helping us.
I don't think a serious review has taken place, with very few exceptions. Of the published resources, there are big
gaps in knowing what design could be and what is actually needed. Largely, there has been a focus on the
aesthetic dimensions of design. And, in recent times there has been a serious focus on systems design. But, that
leaves a lot of unanswered questions that need to be discovered or organized. So, a typical engineer, yeah, I don't
think they have an inkling what design is or what it could offer them. Or, if they do know, it will be a really
surface view of the field, which will largely be with aesthetics and stories that are available in mass media.
Are there undergraduate "majors" in design that exist outside of design schools? Can one get an
undergraduate degree in design?
MP Ranjan: Yes, there are several schools now that are within universities that are offering this. Now, the claim
is that the masters degree is superior to the undergraduate. I think it is completely fallacious. It is completely
ungrounded. I have always been at NID and you have the IIT/IDC faculty claiming that the masters program is

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better. My argument has been that the masters program takes people from a field of engineering, sciences, some
of them in architecture, and reorients them to design within a 1.5 or 2 year program—which is an inadequate
amount of time. It lacks the rigor to actually make them crossover into being designers or to becoming design
theoreticians. Although they have a beginning into the journey of design, they have not yet arrived.
Then, when you follow their careers, as I have, over the past 25 years, you will see that some of them have made
the grade and others haven't. They have become better administrators of design in various places, but they have
not really furthered the field of design. This is a very political statement, because we are really comparing two
institutions and two approaches and unfortunately, NID has now adopted their approach. NID is now producing
more students in the so-called masters program, which is their first degree in design. So you take a raw engineer,
who according to their education has absolutely no idea what design could be and then you put them through a
program within a very rich environment, but after the end of 2 years you expect them to understand design,
which I think is fallacious. It is their first degree in design.
Whereas the undergraduate people, they are not that capable at the end of 5 years of training, in terms of being
articulate and well-read and things like that, but in terms of their deeper understanding of design, it seems to be
far richer. And when you look at the same people 5 years down the line, you find them as global leaders in their
own domain of work. How did they get there? Not by virtue of their degree. Something else. What is that
something else? You can find out and you will be able to articulate it better. That is a research question that I've
been asking somebody to do follow-up research on.
Take the NID graduation list, which is 3200 people, in the past 60 years, and you take the IDC graduation list,
which is 820 people, over the past 40 years (from 1970 to today) and then you can even take Srishti and other
schools and the numbers would still be small. And you could easily put the metrics and say where are they today,
what have they been doing, what is the journey they have gone through, where do they stand. And do a rating on
that. And then see what correlates back to their education. It has never been done. I have been asking both the
government and the institution to do it, but it needs some money and it needs an investment of people behind it.
You know, people who are capable of gathering the data, analyzing the data and coming back and giving us a
categorical perspective, to say "yes, there seems to be something of value in our undergraduate."
What other design schools in India are leading the way?
MP Ranjan: Srishti is a good place to look at. In my view, Srishti is showing signs of excellence that you can't
find anywhere else in the country. They are going all the way now, because they are offering a PhD program. So
they are no longer an undergraduate school, in that sense. Somehow they managed to break that and get the best
of both worlds. Another school is ISDI Indian School of Design and Innovation, which is located in central
Bombay. They are new—they haven't completed one undergraduate batch yet, but they also have a multi-layer
approach for interaction design and offering a short-term program for people from Industry.
The other program is the Pearl Academy, which used to be the Pearl Academy of Fashion and Technology, but
they are realigning themselves towards design. In fact, they have 5 campuses now, each offering multiple

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programs with over 300 faculty. They have been bought over by an American group, the Laureate Group, which
has also bought the Domus academy and other schools in Europe.
Obviously, they have a profit motive and see education as a big corporate thing but they have a long-term vision.
I just attended their faculty conclave in Delhi. Their declared intentions are to become the biggest design school
in the country and in this part of the world. However, for them, design is a very very small vertical. Because
there are millions of students in all their verticals. So they are free to scale up. However, a lot of people have
been critical of them from a quality front. But, no one has done a thorough study of any of these. Least of all, a
comparative study. Everyone just makes claims that they are the best.
What are some of the barriers to establishing a department of design within a typical Indian university?
MP Ranjan: Yes, there has been an attempt to do that. Have you seen the "Design Manifesto?" It was put
together by an IIT team, under pressure from the ministry of human resources. It is called the Design Manifesto
for putting design into the technological institutions of India.
A lot of the technological institutions, while making big promises, are not always delivering on the ground. This
is beginning to be visible, because people on the design side, without much money, are actually showing results,
and people are beginning to ask questions "why don't you use Design?" That is how the Design Manifesto came
into being.
But, it will continue to be a political issue and there is tremendous resistance to that within the engineering
colleges. Many architecture and engineering colleges claim that they already know Design—they are already
doing it. What they mean is that they are designing jet airplanes, they are designing hardware, they are designing
technology, but it isn't really end-to-end Design with complex social-technological-political-economic kinds of
problems.
That is a paradigm around the world because everyone is running after patents. Whether your patent is effective
or not, it is already giving an edge that is valued by industry and by government. But in design, none of the
patents do anything. When it comes to the larger good of society, do those patents actually help? Those are
questions that have not been answered properly.
Patents can be seen as a form of publication. So, let me ask about that more generally: what is the situation of
design publications in India?
MP Ranjan: Publications. The situation, in one simple word, is Pathetic. Pathetic. There is no better word for it.
I've written a lot on publications in design in India. Look at the latest issue of Pool magazine annual (Ranjan,
2015), published last month: I wrote the forward for that on design publishing in India over the past 40 years and
how it stands now. I have not used this word in that article, but I can on record tell you that the status is
pathetic.

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What more is there to tell? It can only get better. How does it get better? It will get better when the challenges
are set and there are platforms of encouragement so that both design schools and design practitioners can be
roped into writing more, sharing more, debating more and bringing it out so that a third party can evaluate.
All levels of sharing are missing. Primary documentation is missing. The secondary level of reflecting on that
documentation is missing. The tertiary level of philosophizing and building theory on it is missing. There are
thousands of design experiences that very few have been through—so design is happening—but, there is very
little publishing happening to reflect on or share that. Only very commercial types of design in corporate India
are typically visible. Yet, there is a whole lot of design work happening in the non-corporate space, in the
government space, in the non-government space, in the rural sector and others. It is happening, but it is flying
under the radar.
What do you see as the purpose of design publications?
MP Ranjan: There are many levels. It will build awareness. It will build interest in people to come into design
as a profession, to connect with related disciplines. And, it will also help change mindsets in government and
business administration to change the funding patterns that are happening, vis-à-vis design-related
research. Design research is almost non-existent today. Some of us have been working in the field of design
research, but we know the struggle: personal sacrifice and institutional sacrifice. We do it for a fraction of the
money as scientific research, both in terms of personal remuneration and in terms of the facilities to do the work
itself.
At present, there is no platform for recognition. I say that because the government of India offers a number of
national awards for various fields. They have awards for film-makers, for scientists, for artists, for people who
contribute to social and economic things, but not a single person in the country has been recognized for anything
relating to design. How is it possible? When I can list out 10,000 things that can be done in design. It means we
are really flying under the radar. This situation does not hold good for the future, where we could put into place a
better educational system and attract talent into those institutions and so on. It has a cascading effect. Both
recognition and publication would change that.
Pool magazine has produced an annual review of design publications. I can send it to you. It will give you some
answers about the publishing status in India. But, out of the thousands of people who have been trained in design,
there are only 10-15 people who contribute to design publications in this country, over the past 50 years. This
number has to change. It may change, as there are the new PhD programs. But the problem with the new PhD
programs is that they are again following the science pattern. There is a lot of confusion because a lot of people
talk about "design is science" or "design is art"—this needs to be debated. We need to get people to understand
that design is not science nor is it art.
So, there is a huge scope for a university program in design that can actually change this situation. The ordinary
university program in design, if it doesn’t create designers, it should at least create design critics. Someone who

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is articulating and expounding about design—and raising issues and arguing, to shed light on how design could
go forward.
If something is done today, how can we reflect on it? For instance, who will take up the case of the bullet train
and say whether it is the right thing for India or not? What else could be there? We leave it to a politician to
design a dream, but that dream is only a wish, there are no details in it. Then you call multinational groups and
say "you've got a solution in Germany, put it in India." Is that going to work? Can you imagine the self-driving
Google car in Ahmedabad? I'm not challenging their ability to do it, but look at our chaotic traffic conditions:
there is a long way to go. So, is that the way forward or is there another way? When you talk about advanced
technology, intermediate technology and appropriate technologies (these terms have all been used in the 70s, 80s
and 90s) where should we go? How should we grow forward? We also need to understand the ethical parameters.
It is not only the technology elements that need to be designed, but we also need to change a whole host of laws
and attitudes in society.
Where in India are there PhD programs in Design?
MP Ranjan: There are Design PhD programs at IIT Bombay, Goharti, Srishti, NID, CEPT and Ambedkar
University. IIT Hyderabad is offering it in a big way. They are starting a big PhD program. Other art colleges
have also started offering a phd program. But, because there are no design schools offering a PhD, designers that
wanted to enter academics in a formal way, where compelled to enter any old program. So they were compelled
to enter anthropology, sociology, technology and other PhD programs. They were trained to put their questions in
a way that would fit into their programs. but these were design-related people. And their intention was to come
back to design. So I don't think that was such a productive way. They are qualified with a PhD but they haven't
furthered the design agenda.
Someone has to do serious research on this. Another big design program is NIFT (National Institute of Fashion
Technology). I helped to set up their accessory design program in 1993-1995. The accessory design program got
into the fashion design school. Through the fashion design school, design has spread to 22 colleges. They have
become the biggest school in the country in design, by virtue of their numbers. And NIFT is government owned
and government controlled. They are of varying quality, as they expanded very fast. Some of them are terrible
but some of them have good people who are trying very hard. However, the climate around them, in terms of the
policy frameworks and all that, they are not favorable for design. For instance, the policies for getting materials,
the kind of studio exposure, the time that is justified for doing a certain activity, all of these are open to question.
For instance, how long should one assume it takes to learn drawing? How long would you invest in that one
activity?
It is interesting that in an educational setting like a university, plenty of theories will be offered but the project
experience is zero. Whereas, the people coming out of design schools have the ability to do projects, as they
have iterated through many projects—that is how they learn. But on other hand, these students have very little
theory.

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Is there a format for design publications that you think would make more sense?
MP Ranjan: Yes, I think things should be more accessible via web would be of much more service than print.
But it should be authentic. Authenticated and peer reviewed and things like that. So that it has credibility. Costs
are important as well. But even print publication, if there is vision, you can make it accessible to all the costs.
Because what are we talking about? 500 books? A thousand? 2000? Every school in the country can get those
books, if the government decides to do so. It is no big deal. It is doable. But locking things away in a library is
not the answer. We need to make publications accessible and available to students. When I do my course, I try to
put my students in touch with the thought leaders directly. I think that result is paying off. They might not be
talking to the very best people in the word, but they are talking to some very credible people with some very
compelling personal direct knowledge and who are accessible. But the only thing is how you find such people?
This is what design faculty must do. They must be pathfinders and indexers. This is what I have tried to do. To
index people and say, so and so persons, like John Kolko, what is his body of experience, what can you hope to
get from reading him, and which papers of his are good starting points. I must make things accessible by
advocacy and connect them. Like, if I am reading Don Norman, which books of his should I read first? What
aspects of it should I take on and study? And so on. I think the teacher’s role becomes more like that. There is a
long way to go. The university needs to change, always.
I think good educational conferences would be a great platform for publication. But not large conferences; we
need small archival conferences where subject-domain people can meet together year after year to share across
schools. The numbers may be small but you need to build a community that is large enough. That kind of
platform has not yet been built, other than PhD Design (a platform which is available for discussing), but that is
too diffuse. It is not domain specific. Suppose there are basic design teachers. Where do they go to talk to each
other? Who has created a platform for teachers of undergraduate curriculum to talk to each other? and what
about basic design teachers who are dealing with more advanced concepts? Where do they get together? You
can’t leave this to chance. It has to be moderated and grown as a collective field. That is not happening. These
are challenges the university can address. Beside the core teaching activities, there can be many other events and
activities that should be cross-university. And, open sharing ethics should be a part of that. So, if the University
of California San Diego were to create a conference...
Well, I'll tell you one conference that I attended, organized by the University of New South Wales in Sidney. I
think it was a brilliant move. The university had grants from multiple countries because the government of
Australia has bilateral treaties with India, China, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam and many of the Asia countries. They
had large grants aimed at research projects in various fields, but you need collaborators in those countries to be
able to access the grants. So, what the University of New South Wales did was, instead of all their people
traveling to all these countries, which would have cost millions of dollars, they created a clever strategy. Their
faculty selected 70 people and gave us all a $1000 for travel and took care of our accommodation for 3-4 days in
Sidney. So, for very limited costs, they were able to get 70 people from design and design related areas from
these countries, where their entire faculty would meet them. And each one of them made presentations with
breakout sessions and all that. At the end of the sessions, they gave us all a fellowship, like an honorary degree.

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So, this created fast track access to research collaborations between institutions. A lot of different projects and
activities have come out of that because people were introduced and the platform and channel were set up. I
thought it was a brilliant move. So for a limited amount of money, the objectives they gained were enormous.
I think we need to think about these kind of strategies. This is just a particular example of how we could achieve
this collaborative research. So, for the same money as appointing 4 professors, the university was able to pay for
200 large collaborators around the world. Instead of being an elephant, you can be an ant, and nibble away at
these things! Many people don't need money; they need an enabling environment, they need facilitation and they
need to be encouraged to move forward. And then eventually you need a platform to showcase it. Which can be
done via the web, easily.
I'm sure you will find many approaches that can do the same thing. And if you have a lot of money, sure, throw
the money at it and you will get some results. But we have been fighting in a space with very limited money.
And we have had to be more inventive about getting forward and getting results.
Do you have any further advice for me?
MP Ranjan: For you? Do a lot of work! Meet a lot of people! I told you, there are 10,000 people to meet!
Your map of design is a worthwhile task. To this end, there are many design summits on record, so you can find
out the topics, the speakers and what they do. For instance, the Pune Design Festival run by the Association of
Designers in India (ADI). Then, there is Design Public, which is Aditya Dev Sood. Then, the India Design
Foundation. They are very high profile because they are teaching design at a very sophisticated level to industry.
The other channel you can look at is the journalists who have been covering Design. For instance, the Economic
Times ran the Design Summit this year in Bombay. Similarly, Mint is a Bombay journal that has been writing
about design. These journalists can connect you. Finally, there have been some large individual promoters, large
families and industrialists, who have started investing in design because their family members have got trained in
design. Many of the younger generation sees design as a way forward and I think this is going to change
business in the country. In Godrej, for instance, each of the family members has a foot in design. One went to IIT
Chicago and then came back to build design at Godrej, focusing on developing new products for the bottom of
the pyramid market. They have been bringing in IITC professors as their consultants. This will be an expensive
strategy, but they have the money. Godrej is a large industrial house, a multi-vertical company, so they can go
anywhere in the planet and get people. But, I’m not aware of any design school in India that is connecting with
them. Similarly, the big retail chain the Fisher group, the younger generation is all connected to design. So that is
good news for design in the country. But it happens because there are pressures from the outside that are pushing
these companies into design.
For instance, there is the new design thinking platform for Infosys, who has announced that they have trained
70,000 engineers in design thinking. Indian industry is under tremendous pressure to put design into their
products, because the global competition is heating up for them. So now they are running around the world

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looking for design expertise. We need research to know how much money is being spent on design at these
companies. We need this kind of information so we are not running in the dark. So that is up to you to see.
Thank you so much for this interview. I will have to thank Don Norman for introducing us.
MP Ranjan: He is an amazing chap. I think that what Don Norman is doing with The Design Lab is an amazing
thing. He is trying to get into a technological university and look at design as a big question, a really big
question—and then try to evolve a new strategy and methodology for design, design thinking and design
education. For him to be able to validate it and be rigorous about the whole thing, it is a big challenge. I first met
Don in 1995 at Apple, with my student who had won an award from Apple. And at that time, I gifted him my
Bamboo book. He gave me his signed copy of the Psychology of Everyday Things. We’ve met a few times since
then and have been in conversation on the PhD design list.
It looks like we are out of time, but I should mention that I am hosting a game design workshop on campus
tomorrow.
MP Ranjan: Ah, I can't come. I'm totally tied up. I'm in the process of shifting house, so it means I am busy
packing things and organizing my books. There are thousands of books lying at home, some of which we have to
get rid of. We've been staying on campus for 15 years now and this is the first time we are moving out after a
long time. I call it moving from the frying pan into the fire! But we are moving out to a nice place nearby, but we
won't be on campus. So that is tomorrow. I've been at NID since 1969! So that's a good 45 years. So there are a
lot of stories to be told.
I am working on a blog to build reflective stories
3
and to reflect on other people’s work. Yesterday I wrote a
piece on an NID faculty who set up a very lovely design assignment. She wanted to teach students that, if you
take a picture of a world leader, you don’t just take a picture of their head, you take a picture in context. So, she
asked students to follow faculty around to photograph them in context. So I had one student following me for 15
days!
It was a wonderful assignment—there is no problem with the assignment. But, the teachers who assign these
wonderful assignments have not left behind a way to extol the virtues of the assignment and why and how it
should be done, what are the qualities that come out of it, and what is the sense of learning that comes out of it.
This is a sad loss because if we had done it, there were 10,000 assignments at NID over the past 30 years which
might have been written about: in composition, in photography, in typography, in material studies—in all studies.
There are so many great projects that have not been reflected upon. They have not seen the light of day. So, this
is a sad loss. If a design school doesn't disseminate what they are doing, they are missing huge opportunities!
So, this is why I believe now that future design schools will have to look at entrepreneurship. That way,
whatever they develop as part of their journey of learning can actually go into society. So, the student who
produces something can become an entrepreneur… or partner with an entrepreneur… and move on.
3
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/ Unfortunately, this final post remains unpublished.

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Conclusion
MP Ranjan influenced thousands of students during his years as faculty. He was beloved, as can be seen by the
outpouring of online support following his death. What can be taken from this particular interview?
First, design in India is increasingly recognized, but there is a long way to go. Design lacks recognition in two
places where it could have massive impact: within standard engineering curricula and within the government.
His definitional distinction between design and engineering is outstanding. His advocacy for a national design
award is important to note, as this has the potential to increase the recognition of the value of design in India.
Second, the issues of design publishing are not unique to India—and they must be addressed. Ranjan’s
suggestions for documenting and reflecting upon design assignments and projects should be taken seriously.
Similarly, the small conference publication format he recommends is an intriguing model, both for improving
design publication but also pedagogy. His idea that effective design instructors must be able to network their
students and connect them to thought leaders is both valuable and unusual.
Third, his identification of design attitudes and abilities is a simple yet strong way of classifying the knowledge
that is intrinsic to design across different design verticals. His advocacy for a strong integration between
practical project knowledge and general design theory is critical to the success of an independent discipline of
design. His rejection of “design as science” appears based on his recognition that playfulness is an essential
method of design; his rejection of “design as art” appears based on the idea that design must be useful.
MP Ranjan’s creative viewpoints have primarily inspired designers in India, yet they are truly global in scope.
After all, the institutional role of design-as-a-field is far from determined anywhere; similarly, the lack of
publications in design is not unique to India. So, by documenting some of his last words in a new and ambitious
design publication, both the man and his body of written work can help guide and inspire future designers.
Acknowledgments
Much appreciation to MP Ranjan, his wife Aditi Ranjan and NID. Thank you to Don Norman for connecting me
to MP Ranjan!
References
Design Manifesto: for a Design Enabled Technical Education, IDC at IIT Bombay, January 15, 2014. Accessed
October 26, 2014. https://www.academia.edu/8377351/Design_Manifesto_Brochure_2014
Design as a Strategy for a Developing Economy, the National Design Committee, 1989. Accessed October 26,
2014. http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/resources/reports/desing-as-a-strategy-developing-economy.pdf
Brown, Tim, and Jocelyn Wyatt. Design thinking for social innovation. (2010).
Irwin, Terry. Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research. Design
and Culture, 7(2), 229-246. 2015.

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Ranjan, Aditi, and M. P. Ranjan. Handmade in India: A Geographic Encyclopaedia of India Handicrafts.
Abbeville Press, 2010
Ranjan, Aditi, and M. P. Ranjan. Crafts of India: Handmade in India. New Delhi: Ahmedabad National Institute
of Design, Published by Council of Handicraft Development Corporations, (COHANDS), 2007
Ranjan, M. P., Nilam Iyer, and Ghanshyam Pandya. Bamboo and cane crafts of Northeast India. Development
Commissioner of Handicrafts, Govt. of India, 1986.
Ranjan, M. P., Syllabus for University-wide course on Design Thinking. Ahmedabad University, 2015. Accessed
October 26, 2015. http://www.academia.edu/13596219/University_wide_course_on_Design_Thinking
Ranjan, M. P., What’s Next? The Future of Design Education. Accessed October 26, 2015.
http://www.academia.edu/9767396/Whats_Next_Future_of_Design_Education_PDF_3.4_MB_December_20
14
Ranjan, M.P., Reflections on Design Publishing. Pool Magazine Annual. Volume 2, June 2015. Also accessible:
http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/2015/06/reflections-on-design-publishing-in.html
Ranjan, M. P. Call for a New vision: Design Education for an Emerging India. Deconstructing Design Education
conference, Ministry of Human Resources, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Mumbai. New Delhi, 6th November 2013.
Accessed October 26, 2015. http://deconstructingdesign.iith.ac.in/documents/01_Ranjan.pdf
Vision First. Accessed October 26, 2015. www.VisionFirst.in

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• The future of Design in Indian universities
• The difference between engineering and design
• Is design an integrated field of study?
• Identifying “design attitudes” as well as abilities
• The importance of undergraduate “Design" majors
• Discussion of the top design schools in India
• Barriers to creating design departments in Indian universities
• The sad state of publications in design
• The importance of design publication
• The need for a national design award
• Discussion of PhD programs in design and design criticism
• “what design faculty must do”
• The need for small design conferences
• Relevant networks of design thinking in India
• A reflection on Don Norman’s work
• A personal reflection on 45 years at NID
• The opportunity for documenting design assignments and projects
• The future of entrepreneurship in design education