Nov. 10-25
AI has democratised design but also widened the gap between amateurs and professionals. The key to India’s creative leap may lie in the country’s design DNA, writes Sanat Sinha.
It wasn’t long ago that visual design was the bastion of a select few. Those who spent years mastering tools, honing their skills, and became the final word on what looked best. Updates to software rolled out predictably, and expertise was gatekept behind expensive licenses and steep learning curves. Today, anyone with access to Canva, Figma, or Generative AI can produce acceptable images with just a few prompts.
Design today demands ‘temporal resilience’ – the ability to create design systems that know how to change without losing themselves.
You can see it across India – kirana stores, family-run neighborhood grocery stores, previously reliant on brand-supplied billboards, are now designing their own festive posters. Small-town wedding photographers use the same Lightroom presets as urban studios.
Productivity gurus mimic Instagram-trendy typography for online course promotions. It’s no wonder Canva sees India as its largest potential market in the coming years.
The gap between casual creators and professional designers isn’t closing. It’s widening.
The resulting increased digital literacy has empowered many, but also moved the goalpost. What was once acceptable visual communication has now become table stakes. The optimists would call this democratisation. And in many ways, they would be right. The sceptics, commoditisation. Here is what we are not seeing – the gap between casual creators and professional designers isn’t closing. It’s widening.
When smartphone cameras achieved mass adoption, everyone could be a photographer. But did that close the gap between casual photographers and the professionals with a Canon and Nikon? No, it widened it. The playing field hadn’t levelled; it had levelled up.
We have reached this moment in design. The Dunning-Kruger Effect, a cognitive bias where amateurs overestimate their competence, has only intensified with AI. The polished images created aren’t ‘design’. They are ‘image creation’, of which more and more are termed “slop” content.
When smartphone cameras achieved mass adoption, everyone could be a photographer. But did that close the gap between casual photographers and the professionals with a Canon and Nikon?
Design has evolved to surpass individual images and artefacts. It’s about building adaptive systems that can flex across context and time and still maintain coherence. It’s not simply about what looks good now but what can adapt without losing core meaning. It’s about knowing what stays for parity and what goes away for difference.
Design today demands ‘temporal resilience’ – the ability to create design systems that know how to change without losing themselves. This is a way off from the democratised “I made this in Canva”.
Temporal resilience isn’t new to India. Hand-painted truck art evolves as routes change, reflecting government campaigns and cultural narratives. Amul’s topical, hand-drawn illustrations have adapted to politics, cinema, and sports for nearly six decades – proof that design can change context without losing coherence.
Indian design has never been about permanence. Rangolis wash away, festive decoration is rebuilt annually, and painted cinema hoardings are repainted. We have always designed for change, not against it. We just didn’t have a term for it.
Design’s value is a point of view. Not a prompt that produces 50 logo variations en masse.
Now, as brands and agencies adopt AI suites to accelerate production, the ones to stand out won’t be the ones producing the most content. They are the ones with intention and understanding behind the speed. Whether it’s Unilever’s Sketch Pro or WPP’s very own WPP Open Pro, design’s value is a point of view. Not a prompt that produces 50 logo variations en masse.
If we mislabel Canva literacy as design literacy, we may be stopping short of achieving our potential. Fluency in architecting adaptive design ecosystems is the future. Some will chase timeless aesthetics, but we’re already comfortable with something better: timeful.
In an age where anyone can create visuals, India’s advantage is our fluency with impermanence. As design evolves into temporal resilience, that fluency is exactly what’s needed. Here’s how to practice developing this skill, whether you are a designer, strategist, or keen to enter the field.
Temporal resilience is not a new concept. It’s been our design DNA for centuries. As design execution continues to get democratised, so too must design thinking. The question is whether we’ll recognize and act on it before the moment passes.
Sanat is Strategy Director at Landor in India.
