The National Institute of Design (NID) is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

design university in Paldi,

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

, with extension campuses in

Gandhinagar Gandhinagar (, ) is the capital of the state of Gujarat in India. Gandhinagar is located approximately 23 km north of Ahmedabad, on the west central point of the Industrial corridor between Delhi, the political capital of India, and Mu ...

and

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. Regarded as one of the foremost design schools in Asia as surveyed by ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' in 2009 and on

Ranker Ranker is a digital media company located in Los Angeles. The site features polls on entertainment, brands, sports, food and culture. Ranker claims to be one of the largest databases of opinions with more than 1 billion votes gathered on over mil ...

, it is ranked 51-100 among the top art and design institutes in the world as of 2022 by '' QS''. The university, along with the other NIDs across India, functions as an autonomous institute under the

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is a central government department under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in India. It is responsible for formulation and implementation of promotional and developmental me ...

Ministry of Commerce and Industry A Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry or variations is a ministry that is concerned with a nation's trade, industry and commerce. Notable examples are: List *Algeria: Ministry of Industry and M ...

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. NID has been accorded an

Institute of National Importance Institute of National Importance (INI) is a status that may be conferred on a premier public higher education institution in India by an act of Parliament of India, an institution which "serves as a pivotal player in developing highly skilled per ...

under the National Institute of Design Act, 2014.

History

As a result of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956, the

invited the design team of

Charles and Ray Eames Charles Eames ( Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames ( Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture through the work of ...

to recommend a program of design to serve as an aid to small industries in India. Based on their document, ''

The India Report The India Report was prepared by Charles Eames and Ray Eames in 1958. The Government of India had asked for recommendations on a programme of training in design that would serve as an aid to the small industries; and that would resist the present r ...

'', the central government set up the National Institute of Design in 1961 as an autonomous national institution for research, service and training in industrial design and visual communication. The Sarabhai family, especially siblings

Gautam Sarabhai Gautam Sarabhai (4 March 1917 – 28 August 1995) was an industrialist and businessman from the Sarabhai family of Ahmedabad. Birth Gautam was born to industrialist Seth Ambalal Sarabhai and Sarladevi on 4 March 1917. He was the fifth child an ...

and

Gira Sarabhai Gira Sarabhai (11 December 1923 – 15 July 2021) was an Indian architect, designer, and a design pedagogue. She was born into the Sarabhai family and was the youngest of eight siblings. She is known for contributing to several industrial and ed ...

, played a major role in the establishment of the institute. Designer and sculptor

Dashrath Patel Dashrath Patel (1927 – 1 December 2010) was an Indian designer, sculptor, and was one of the first teachers at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, from 1961 to 1981. He was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 1 ...

was its founder-secretary, and industrial designer H. Kumar Vyas served as NID's first full-time professor. Patel held the post until 1981, and was awarded the

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

by the central government the same year. In 2011, Vyas was awarded the Sir Misha Black Medal, given to individuals across the globe who have made a significant contribution to design education. The Sarabhais were instrumental in helping NID to form a structure of its own in its early ears by inviting a number of foreign designers, architects and artists to India. In the 1950s, Gautam,

Gira Kvass is a fermented cereal-based low alcoholic beverage with a slightly cloudy appearance, light-brown colour and sweet-sour taste. It may be flavoured with berries, fruits, herbs or honey. Kvass stems from the northeastern part of Europe, w ...

and

Gita Sarabhai Geeta Sarabhai Mayor (; 1922 – 11 March 2011) was an Indian musician, well known for her patronage in music. She was among the first women to play the pakhavaj, a traditional barrel-shaped, two-headed drum. She promoted exchanges between India ...

were learning from, collaborating and organising educational exchanges with designers like

Frei Otto Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for ...

Adrian Frutiger Adrian Johann Frutiger ( ; 24 May 1928 – 10 September 2015) was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digital t ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, the Eameses, and

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. Whi ...

amongst many others, at NID. The first Moog synthesisers were brought to India from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the United States by

David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan ...

when

Billy Klüver Johan Wilhelm Klüver (November 11, 1927 – March 20, 2004) was an electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories who founded Experiments in Art and Technology. Klüver lectured extensively on art and technology and social issues to be address ...

suggested that NID should collaborate with the international arts collaboration organisation

Experiments in Art and Technology Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit and tax-exempt organization, was established in 1967 to develop collaborations between artists and engineers. The group operated by facilitating person-to-person contacts between artists and e ...

. In the 1970s, Lowell Cross, a close collaborator of Tudor and Cage, worked at NID as a professor and technical advisor for electronic music. In 1979, NID hosted the United Nation's first global congress on design from 14th to 24th January. Along with the

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay or IITB) is a public research university and technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is considered as one of the best engineering universities in India and is top ranke ...

, NID hosted the ‘Design for Development’ congress in 2016, following a series of working party discussions and initiatives led by the

International Council of Societies of Industrial Design The World Design Organization (WDO) was founded in 1957 from a group of international organizations focused on industrial design. Formerly known as the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the WDO is a worldwide society th ...

(ICSID) and the

United Nations Industrial Development Organization The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (French: Organisation des Nations unies pour le développement industriel; French/Spanish acronym: ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that assists countries in e ...

(UNIDO).

NID's logo was designed by the Swiss type-designer

in the 1960s, while he was visiting NID as a consultant. The institute was founded and initially known as the 'National Institute of Industrial Design', and then as the 'National Design Institute', before being renamed to its final and current name, 'National Institute of Design', in the 1970s.

Extension campuses

A historic monument within NID campus, Ahmedabad

The institute has its main campus in

, with additional satellite campuses in

and

Bangaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Main Campus, Ahmedabad

After the Eameses presented ''The India Report'',

and

, in consultation with other notable architects and designers, felt that Ahmedabad, not Bangaluru or Fatehpur Sikri, as the Eameses had suggested, was the most suitable site given its architecture and textile hotspots, and should be the institute's primary location. The main campus in Paldi, Ahmedabad offers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in design across several disciplines.

Conception

Initially operational out of the Calico Mills complex loaned from the

Sarabhai family The Sarabhai family is a prominent Indian family active in several fields. The patriarch, Ambalal Sarabhai, was a leading industrialist. While he created significant wealth, his children interested themselves in a wide variety of other endeavou ...

, it moved to the Sanskar Kendra, a building designed by

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

. Eventually Seth Chinubhai Chimanlal offered a vast expanse of land for the NID campus for a token fee of one Indian rupee. The buildings, as per Charles Eames, were to be "un-monumental, anonymous, unpretentious, pleasant, workable and non-shoddy". Gautam and Gira Sarabhai worked on the building plan for NID in consultation with various architects, engineers and designers. It was meant to be a modern experiment and its underlying philosophy was that the problems of architecture, structural design and construction techniques should be resolved integrally. The Sarabhais said that the two qualities that resonated deeply with the architecture are the Bauhaus aesthetic and modern sensibility.

Planning and Construction

The building is constructed on stilts. The ground floor was utilised as a public area with common rooms and a canteen as storage for raw materials. Workshops and laboratories were on the first floor. Wrkshops for photography, wood, metal, plastics, ceramics and glass were given separate wings. All wings were connected to the core building. Drafting studios, seminar rooms and the library were on the second floor. Double glazing between the studios and the workshops enabled students to observe the proceedings on the production floors without being disturbed by machines. Classroom spaces at NID are modular and transparent, which the principals said emphasised NID's core philosophy of "learning by doing".

PG Campus, Gandhinagar

The 'PG campus' at

is an extension campus of NID, established in July 2004. It provides postgraduate courses in several disciplines.

PG and R&D Campus, Bengaluru

An additional extension campus for NID was later planned to be built at Yeshwantpur, a suburb in northwestern

. The new campus was built for IN₹ 7.5 crores and was inaugurated on 31st March 2006 by Dr. Darlie O'Koshy, who was the executive director of NID at the time. The 'PG and Research & Development campus' of NID houses additional facilities for industrial development and design research, and offers doctoral courses in design as well as postgraduate courses in many disciplines. GG Tree or Gautam Gira Sarabhai Square

Admissions

NID is known for its very limited seats across its courses, and its incredibly low acceptance rate of around only 14%. The NID Design Aptitude Test (NID-DAT) is a two-stage national-level entrance examination for the NIDs, organised every year by the NID Admissions Cell for admissions to undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the universities. The first stage of the examination is NID-DAT Prelims, which is a pen-and-paper design and general aptitude test, and the second stage is NID-DAT Mains, which is usually an in-studio design test and may also include a personal interview and portfolio review. The tests aim to evaluate the candidate's visualisation skills, creative & observation skills, knowledge, comprehension, analytical ability, et cetera.

Academics

The courses available at NID span a wide range of disciplines (like graphic design, product design, interior design, filmmaking, animation, photography, etc) and include Bachelor of Design (B.Des.), Graduate Diploma Program in Design (GDPD), Master of Design (M.Des.) and doctoral programs (PhD). Several international programmes and foundation courses are also available.

Notable alumni

Notable alumni of the institute include: * Prateek A. Sethi, communication designer and television personality *

Dayanita Singh Dayanita Singh (born 18 March 1961) is an Indian photographer whose primary format is the book. She has published fourteen books. Singh's art reflects and expands on the ways in which people relate to photographic images. Her later works, draw ...

photographer and contemporary artist *

Lekha Washington Lekha Washington is an Indian actress, artist, and product designer who has predominantly appeared in Tamil and Telugu language films. She was first recognised for her work as a sculptor in 2002 and then as a theatre actress in Chennai based sta ...

, actress, artist and product designer *

Harun Robert Harun Robert (born 28 December 1978), known professionally as Rob, is an Indian professional artist, YouTube and TV personality. He was the host and creative director of popular Do it yourself (DIY) TV show '' M.A.D.'', which aired on Pogo. He ...

, artist and television personality *

Orijit Sen Orijit Sen (born 1963) is an Indian graphic artist and designer. His graphic novel River of Stories, published in 1994 by Kalpavriksh, is considered as the first graphic novel of India. He co-founded People Tree in 1990 as a "collaborative st ...

, graphic designer *

Aditya Vikram Sengupta Aditya Vikram Sengupta (born 6 September 1983) is an Indian film director, cinematographer and graphic designer. His first film '' Asha Jaoar Majhe'' or ''Labour of Love'', released in 2014 which premiered at the 11th Venice Days section of the ...

, film director, cinematographer and graphic designer *

Pan Nalin Nalin Kumar Pandya or Pan Nalin is a filmmaker of Indian origin. Nalin is best known for directing award-winning movies like Samsara, Valley of Flowers, and Angry Indian Goddesses. His debut feature SAMSARA (Miramax) was worldwide critical a ...

, filmmaker *

Prasoon Pandey Prasoon Pandey (born 1961), is an Indian director of advertising films. Advertising Age listed him among the Top 100 advertising film directors of the world. Gunn Report ranked him at No. 24 in a list of the best and most awarded ad film direct ...

, filmmaker and advertisement designer *

Rahul Mishra Rahul Mishra (born 7 November 1979) is an Indian fashion designer based in Delhi. He is the first Indian designer to be invited to showcase at the Haute Couture Week in Paris. He won the International Woolmark Prize in 2014 at Milan Fashion We ...

, fashion designer *

Aditya Pande Aditya Pande (born 1976) is an Indian contemporary artist. His technique often involves a layering of surfaces along with mixed, diverse media ranging from vector drawing, digital photography, ink, acrylic paint to tinsel. His work combines the s ...

, artist * Sujata Keshavan, graphic designer *

Ishu Patel Ishu Patel is an animation film director/producer and educator. During his twenty-five years at the National Film Board of Canada he developed animation techniques and styles to support his themes and vision. Since then he has produced animated ...

, filmmaker *

Nina Sabnani Nina Sabnani (born 1956) is an Indian animation filmmaker, illustrator and an educator. She is known for her films which blend together animation and ethnography. Collaboration with diverse ethnic communities as well as storytelling with words a ...

Pandu (actor) Pandu (19 February 1947 – 6 May 2021) was an Indian Tamil actor and graphic designer who appeared in many comedy roles in Tamil cinema. He made his acting debut in the film ''Maanavan'' (1970). A Doctor of Philosophy graduate in arts fro ...

, Tamil comedian * M. P. Ranjan