NID keen on national expansion

National Institute of Design (NID)'s next centre might soon come up somewhere in the North East if NID's governing council has its way.

The institute is mulling options to set up the next NID centre in the North East and other parts of the country who have a rich history of designing.

NID is also in the process of approaching many leading industrial houses of India to set up chairs and other design facilities bearing their names at one of their three campuses; Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar or Bangalore.

"The Autodesk of USA is funding a chair on the design education innovation while Asian paints is setting up a colour research lab at Bangalore. Hermis of France has also promised support and we intend to approach other Indian corporates to set up similar chairs in the near future, " said Ajay Dua, chairman, governing council, NID on the occasion of NID's 27th convocation.

This year, 222 students passed out from NID of whom 140 are post graduates and 82 are undergraduates. This was also the first time that the PG Graphic Design and Apparel Design and Merchandising as well as Ceramic and Glass Design students received their diplomas.

Alyque Padamsee, the advertising guru and actor was the convocation speaker and spoke on the need to develop the emotional retina. "The emotional retina can be impacted by a visual where words are not needed. Visual design speaks for itself and that is what the students passing from here today must always remember," he said.

He threw a challenge to the NID students to redesign history books so that people would realise that they are far from boring. He compared different visuals and spoke on how some people had it in them to think completely out of the world.

Ending his address, the ad-man said that he believed NID was set up to facilitate better communication and not just design.