The students of Diploma in Interior Design January 2023 batch showcased a display that explored Design Thinking on 17th March 2023 under the guidance of Ms. Shruthi Krishnamurthy.

As diploma batch students come from varied academic backgrounds, it was essential to have their design thinking journey start off with a fun and informative learning process. Hence, a brief introduction about different types of thinking was conducted as a workshop to inculcate in students the sense of design right from the beginning.  

The activities mainly involved the 6 types of thinking to bring out the student’s skill set to full potential.

Activity 1 

The first activity was called divergent thinking or blackout challenge. In this activity, the students were asked to bring a cut-out of a newspaper to the class and the module mentor made them pick up a few words from the cut-out and create a sentence out of it. This was quite a challenging task for the students as the words were limited to form a sentence. This overall activity would be of help in the future if a situation arose wherein they would have to design in a very limited space.

Activity 2 

The second activity was called the 30 circle challenge. In this, the mentor asked the students to draw pictures with the use of only circles under a 30 minutes time frame. This made them unleash their creativity. The students drew objects from day-to-day life, car logos, applications like YouTube, food items, animals etc. Some even went out of the box and created a story line out of it. 

Activity 3 

The third activity was called Logo makeover or convergent thinking. This involved making corrections to the existing logos while keeping in mind the brand’s belief and principles intact. For example, a student took the logo of Polar Bear and modified it by adding an ice cream, as the company represents an ice cream outlet. Another student used the logo of McDonalds and added an infinity symbol which indicates the student’s forever love for fries and burgers.

Activity 4 

The fourth activity was quite a simple one which was called ‘analytical thinking’ or ‘add something new’ in which the students analyzed a picture or a situation and added an extra element to the existing picture. Few examples were, deforestation turned into afforestation, desert turned into green land and many more.

Activity 5 

The fifth activity was called  abstract thinking or continuous line drawing. In this activity, the students drew objects inspired from day-to-day life with some elements and principles of continuous lines. 

Activity 6 

The last activity was called Six Thinking Hats or Critical Thinking. The students were given in-depth knowledge on this topic. Each hat represented a colour which held some significance. 

This activity also showcased the challenges faced by products in the market and the possible evolution of each product.  

For example, a student took the classic Reynolds pen and presented its transition from a decade ago to the present times.

 After all these small activities, the students moved on to the core of the module Design Thinking. They were first told to select an object which they closely relate to, such as a laptop bag and then asked to redesign the bag according to them by researching trends and creating empathy maps etc.

 Last part of the module was a client brief. The students were given a task to design a flat of 1BHK or 2BHK according to the client’s requirement and come up with a brief. 

For a better understanding of this, the students were paired into groups and the client briefs were interchanged to empathize and ideate them to arrive at the  conclusion. 

Design thinking requires  in-depth knowledge of the module. If a student aspires to pursue a job in the interior industry. In order to do this, a structured course provides a good base to learn about elements and principles of design. Learn the importance of design thinking from JD Institute of Fashion Technology, one of the best interior designing institutes in Bangalore.