Design literacy, in the field
Watch it before you read about it.
Short interviews with people shaping the design of everyday India, in their own words. A video says more than a definition can.
What is design literacy
Design literacy is the ability to see everyday decisions as design, to reason about them, and to make them on purpose. It is not about turning everyone into a designer. It is about recognising a capability people already have, and giving it language.
India needs this because its design capability is vast and mostly unnamed. When people can see and name what they already do, they can use it with intent, teach it, and be recognised for it. The interviews above are that capability, speaking for itself.
The capability is everywhere. The word for it is not.
How design gets decided in India
Short studies of real decisions, built to sharpen how you see, not to be admired. Each one ends with a question, not a verdict: what would you have decided?
Justice has quietly run in English. Is multilingual access a feature, or a right?
Should a system that can silently block your payment be contestable by design?
Writing
Longer essays on design literacy and where design lives in India. New pieces as they publish.
Design Literacy as a Missing Layer
On the distribution of design capability in India, and the gap between the trained few and everyone else.
Reading the Lineage of Distribution
How India long recognised everyday design capability without ever naming it.
Follow the inquiry
New interviews, essays, and case studies as they publish, and five signals every Friday in Design Futures India.