Design body to set up industry benchmark

Design houses will soon have their own standards for certification, if the recently set-up Pune Design Foundation (PDF) has its way.

The Pune Design Foundation, a design industry body, feels these standards will benefit its members and lend credibility and authenticity to their work.

The body plans to set standards of infrastructure as well as methodologies for its members.

Foundation chairman and head of Design Directions, Satish Gokhale, told delegates at the first Pune Design Festival last week that the body will strive to create a definable level of quality in the field of design.

Gokhale said the Foundation will function as a regulatory body for the design companies allied with it by creating specific standards and ensure that the members abide by certain detailed methodologies.

"The members will have to possess the required facilities to back up their claims (about their creation)," Gokhale said.

"If a certified design company says it is engaged in industrial design it would need to have the prescribed manpower to back up its claim," he elaborated.

The organisation hopes to create a "template" of facilities, methodologies and training which all the members will have to follow to acquire the status of an accredited design firm.

Apart from that, PDF will also create a regulatory panel that resolves issues between design firms and their clients and provide guidelines for smooth relationship between the two.

Pune houses over 15 design firms that work for both national and international clients.

They include Elephant Design, Design Directions, Cluster One Creative Solutions, Onio Design or Ticket Design and DC Design, automobile designer Dilip Chhabria's firm.