Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Panel Overview
• Opening Question: What Is Design Thinking — More Design or More Thinking?
• Q: How Do You Balance Complexity and Player Experience in Level Design?
• Q: How Does Branding Shift When You Add Marketing Strategy?
• Q: How Do Eastern Philosophies Influence Design?
• Q: From Zomato — A Risk That Paid Off (Design System Story)
• Q: What Should Students Learn to Thrive in Design?
• Q: Visuals vs Player Flow — Which Matters More in Games?
• Q: Mistakes Businesses Make When Trying to Look "Premium"
• Q: What Would You Change About Design Education in India?
• Audience Q&A — Select Highlights
• Rohan Mishra: A Deep Dive on Themes and Practical Frameworks
• Key Takeaways — A Practical Playbook
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Closing Remarks

Introduction

On the Day of Design 2025, a diverse, energetic panel came together to decode what design means today — from playful philosophies rooted in Indian traditions to practical systems that make large products consistent and reliable. Moderated by a product design student and a director of entrepreneurship, the session brought voices from game design, branding, marketing, and education into one room. This article repurposes that panel discussion into a long-form interview-style piece focused on the exchange of questions and answers, while adding context, highlights, and practical advice for design students, practitioners, and founders.

The following is structured as an interview: each major question from the panel is presented in bold, followed by the panelists' answers and my expanded breakdown of the insights. The goal is to preserve the original conversation while drawing out practical lessons and frameworks you can apply in your own work.

Panel Overview

The panel included multiple design practitioners: a game level designer (Dhruva), a brand and social-media strategist and founder (Simon Sarkar), a product designer who helped build design systems at scale (Rohan Mishra — who shared detailed, practical experiences from his time at Zomato), and a design educator and thinker (Niam Bhushan) who connected design practice to Eastern philosophies such as Leela and Shunya. Their combined perspectives covered the tactical (design systems, playtesting) and the philosophical (playfulness, beginner’s mind).

Opening Question: What Is Design Thinking — More Design or More Thinking?

Moderator: Design thinking — is it more of design or more of thinking?

Panelists gave complementary answers that together form a useful framework for understanding design thinking in 2025:

• Design + Thinking = Design Thinking: One panelist stated clearly that design thinking is a "mix and match" of design and thinking — you need both to create solutions that are easy for users to understand.
• Emphasis on Thinking in the Current Age: With making and execution becoming easier thanks to tools and platforms, several panelists emphasized that the differentiator is how you think — the strategy behind the idea, the clarity of the problem, and the framing of the user need.
• Doing Matters: Another view stressed that design without shipping is only art — "design is about shipping." Thought alone is dreaming; design requires deliberate action anchored in conscious thinking.

Takeaway: Design thinking is an integrated practice. In modern product environments, thinking and strategy create differentiation while execution tools accelerate delivery. But the practice should culminate in shipped outcomes.

Q: How Do You Balance Complexity and Player Experience in Level Design?

Moderator to Dhruva: You design game levels. How do you decide complexity so that levels challenge but don’t frustrate players?

Dhruva (Answer): Start very simple. Keep the level straightforward in the beginning, then iterate. Playtest the level hundreds of times and with different kinds of players — parents, non-gamers, gamer friends — to gather diverse feedback. Maintain a challenge scale of 1–10, and aim for the "sweet spot" (around 5) where the level feels challenging but not frustrating. Use playtesting feedback to balance mechanics and pacing.

Expanded analysis:

• Start Minimal, Then Layer Complexity: This is a principle that applies beyond games. A simple initial scaffold allows you to understand the core mechanics and whether the intended experience matches the actual experience.
• Playtest with Diverse Users: The difference between a "gamer" and a "non-gamer" perspective can reveal assumptions you didn't know you made.
• Use a Quantitative Proxy: The 1–10 challenge scale is a pragmatic heuristic — it gives the team a numeric target when qualitative feedback is messy.

Practical checklist for level designers (or any experience designers):

1. Create a minimal playable prototype.
2. Define the intended emotional experience.
3. Run targeted playtests across varied user types.
4. Aggregate feedback and score perceived difficulty.
5. Iterate until the median score sits in the desired band.

Q: How Does Branding Shift When You Add Marketing Strategy?

Afsana to Simon (brand/marketing founder): When branding meets marketing strategy, do you change design direction?

Simon (Answer): Start with market research to learn the current category conventions, but do not follow those conventions blindly for personal brands. You must understand the client's personality and center design decisions — color, typography, animation, tone — around who the person truly is. A brand that reflects the real person energizes both creator and audience. My agency focuses on making the process fun and collaborative rather than churn-and-burn commodity work.

Why this matters:

• Category Conventions Provide Baseline Expectations: They tell you what audiences expect. Use them to avoid surprising the user in the wrong way.
• Personalization Beats Imitation: Especially for creators and personal brands, authenticity yields stronger long-term engagement than copying the category look-and-feel.
• Collaboration and Experience: Branding work is co-creative. Involving the client — and making the process enjoyable — increases ownership and likelihood of adoption.

Q: How Do Eastern Philosophies Influence Design?

Moderator to Niam Bhushan: You've linked design to Eastern philosophies — can you share how that manifests in projects?

Niam Bhushan (Answer): He emphasized two principles drawn from Indian philosophies: Leela (playfulness) and Shunya (emptiness or nothingness). Leela — the joy and playfulness that underpins creative work — should be present in every project, whether education, health, or telecom. Shunya contributes to minimalism and the "beginner's mind," where you challenge assumptions and focus on the empty space in a design as much as the elements themselves. He talked about having 118 design techniques inspired by Indian culture and spirituality, and proposed sharing them to spark a design revolution rooted in deep cultural insights.

Key reflections:

• Playfulness as a Design Principle: Design isn't only about solving problems — it's also about making interactions delightful and human. Leela reframes productivity into a joyful, creative process.
• Emptiness and Minimalism: Shunya reframes minimalism: it's not simply removing elements, it's celebrating the "spaces" where meaning happens. Minimalism in design is historically influenced by Eastern aesthetics.
• Beginner's Mind: Adopt continual curiosity to avoid trapped assumptions. This keeps designs fresh, disruptive, and user-centered.

Q: From Zomato — A Risk That Paid Off (Design System Story)

Audience to Rohan: From your Zomato days, what feature or decision seemed risky at first but proved essential?

Rohan Mishra (Answer): He described joining Zomato and being humbled by the scale and complexity. The risky but crucial move was building a company-wide design system (named "Sushi") across twelve products. Back in 2018–2019, design systems were not common in India. The risk included convincing leadership and aligning teams, each with their own UI patterns and preferences. They even named their font "Okra" — intentionally quirky. The early months required heavy persuasion and uncertainty, but the impact was clear: reduced shipping time, fewer UI inconsistencies, and a shift from pixel-level debates to solving real user problems. Ultimately, they completed a redesign across the entire ecosystem — measurable evidence that the design system paid off.

Why this example is important (Rohan's deeper lessons):

• Design Systems Are Strategic Investments: They reduce duplication of effort and quality inconsistencies across teams, and scale product design thoughtfully.
• Stakeholder Alignment and Culture Matter More Than UI: Rohan highlighted that design problems often mask organizational and alignment problems — convincing people to change how they work is the real challenge, not the pixels themselves.
• Measure Impact in Business Terms: Rohan emphasized talking in terms of shipping time, bug reduction, and focus on core problems rather than corner-radii. These are the metrics stakeholders understand.

Practical framework for building a design system (inspired by Rohan):

1. Audit existing products to identify inconsistencies and redundancy.
2. Define the system's scope (components, tokens, guidelines).
3. Choose an identity (name, tone) that the organization can rally around.
4. Pilot the system with one or two product teams to demonstrate value.
5. Measure outcomes (shipping time, defect rate, designer velocity).
6. Iterate and scale; use metrics to persuade stakeholders.

Q: What Should Students Learn to Thrive in Design?

Audience to Rohan: What should students do to prepare for the design industry?

Rohan (Answer): He gave a compact, tactical "design hack": any design assignment comes down to four (he oscillated between 4–5) questions — who is it for, when will it be used, what do they care about, and what does success look like. If you can answer those, you'll produce strong work. He added two essential skills: learn how to learn (meta-learning) and observe relentlessly. Design is everywhere — the hot/cold water confusion in a hotel is a design observation. Designers don't make experiences from scratch; they improve existing ones. Map observed behaviors to human psychology — he claimed people optimize for ten human needs (money, saving money, saving time, saving effort, reducing physical/mental pain, status, safety for family, etc.). Answering those human needs is the core of long-lasting design.

How to apply Rohan's advice in practice:

• Adopt an Observation Habit: Keep a daily "design observation" log where you note a friction, why it exists, and a possible intervention.
• Answer the Four Core Questions: Before starting any project, document the who, when, what they care about, and success indicators. Make it your brief.
• Map to Core Human Needs: When ideating, cross-check proposed solutions against the ten common human needs Rohan mentioned to ensure product-market fit at a human level.
• Measure Outcomes: Define success metrics early that align with business or human outcomes (time saved, retention uplift, satisfaction scores).

Q: Visuals vs Player Flow — Which Matters More in Games?

Vinod: When designing a game environment, what's more important — visuals or player flow?

Dhruva (Answer): Both go hand-in-hand. The intended player experience must align with the narrative. Less is more — you don't spoon-feed the player. Environmental cues (graffiti, blood, notes) hint at backstory. Also design "breathing spaces" — moments of respite — and "actionable spaces" where drama occurs. Horror might be silence or loud noise depending on your audience. Again, extensive playtesting across different demographics resolves subjective differences in perception.

Adaptation for other design domains:

• Narrative + Interaction = Experience: Visuals set the tone; flow determines emotional pacing. Both are mandatory.
• Design for Multiple Audiences: What frightens you may amuse someone else; test across segments.
• Use Environmental Storytelling: Imply backstory through context rather than expository text — it's more engaging.

Q: Mistakes Businesses Make When Trying to Look "Premium"

Afsana to Simon: What's one mistake businesses make when trying to look premium?

Simon (Answer): The mistake is focusing too much on superficial signals of premium — looking big, expensive, or "high-end" — instead of delivering reliable, consistent quality. Premium, in his view, is trust and reliability. He emphasized consistency as the path to premium: consistently good output, consistent experience. He also mentioned a personal practice: if he lacks capacity, he refuses new clients until he can deliver at the promised standard — even if that means turning down attractive budgets.

Rohan's addition:

Rohan (Addition): He argued that storytelling and agency are critical: storytelling differentiates premium brands; people remember and value how you tell what you did. He also contested the idea of refusing work due to bandwidth — if the work matters, high-agency teams find a way to deliver: hire, upskill, or secure funds. The point: product leaders need problem-solving muscle, not excuses.

Practical notes:

• Premium = Reliability + Story: Consistent execution builds trust; narrative framing (why you're different) builds desirability.
• Capacity Management vs Growth: Turn down work that risks reputation if you genuinely lack capacity; alternatively, signal scarcity strategically while planning scalable responses.

Q: What Would You Change About Design Education in India?

Moderator to Niam: If you could change Indian design education, what would you change?

Niam (Answer): He proposes transformation rather than incremental change. Instead of compartmentalized subjects, he suggested that education should teach "design" as the central discipline because every academic subject teaches some form of design — physics (design of the universe), chemistry (design of molecules), language (design of communication), mathematics (design of logic), music (design of harmony). Teach design as a universal skill and you wouldn't need a separate "design department" — everyone would become a "design animal" who sees and applies design thinking in every context.

Implications for curriculum:

• Interdisciplinary Design Literacy: Embed design principles across STEM and humanities courses.
• Observation and Application: Focus on observational learning, prototyping, and iterative problem-solving from day one.
• Culture and Context: Incorporate local culture and philosophical traditions (like Leela and Shunya) as design lenses.

Audience Q&A — Select Highlights

Audience: What was your first prototype (Niam)? What did you learn when it failed?

Niam (Answer): His first prototype was an entrepreneurial magazine product in 1990. He printed copies, sold them in music shops for Rs.1, and used a Maruti Gypsy to distribute. The experiment taught him about adoption behaviors. When shops started lending magazines rather than selling them, the team switched to shrink-wrapping to create retail demand — a quick operational fix based on observation. The lesson: prototype fast, observe adoption patterns, then convert prototypes to adoption through operational solutions.

Why this story matters:

• Prototype ≠ Product: The prototype's job is to validate core assumptions, especially around distribution and adoption.
• Iterate Tactically: Sometimes the fix isn't product redesign but an operational tweak (e.g., shrink-wrapping) to change user behavior.

Audience: What advice would you give your younger self about constraints and entrepreneurship (Rohan)?

Rohan (Answer): Constraints are inevitable and often beneficial. He suggested reframing constraints as "playfulness" — a creative catalyst rather than a limitation. Instead of complaining, change what is possible with the given constraints and focus on solving what matters. Designers can be pivotal by using constraints as design drivers rather than obstacles.

How to operationalize this mindset:

1. List real constraints (budget, time, regulations).
2. Identify which constraints are flexible and which are hard.
3. Invent solutions that exploit fixed constraints to your advantage (e.g., limited budget => guerilla tactics).
4. Prototype quickly and fail fast to refine approaches within constraints.

Audience: Which design trends will define the next 3–5 years (Simon)?

Simon (Answer): He cautioned against chasing trends as an end in themselves. Instead, the essential skill is "learning how to learn" — quickly adopting new tools and techniques (AI tools, UI patterns) as they appear. Trends are short-term; the durable advantage is the ability to pick up, test, and integrate new approaches quickly. He also stressed strategic thinking about where and how a brand's identity will be used (badges, banners, physical signage), not just the trendy aesthetic of the moment.

Action items for designers:

• Set aside time for tool-learning: Try new AI or design tools within a sandbox environment.
• Prioritize adaptability: Build templates and processes that are flexible for new tooling.
• Design for context: Ensure your identity scales across formats — web, app, badge, physical.

Audience: How do you balance creativity with client demands (Dhruva & Simon)?

Dhruva (Answer): In the games industry, a director establishes the vision — designers bring that vision to life. Market research often informs the director's directive, so your job is to execute the vision while keeping an eye on long-term evolvability.

Simon (Addition): When you work professionally, you are solving a client's problem. Treat design as communication and deliver reliably. Preserve time for personal projects where you explore your creative voice. These personal projects serve as an incubator for ideas and a portfolio of your capabilities.

Practical balancing tips:

1. Clarify the brief and the client's goals early.
2. Deliver a professional solution that meets business objectives.
3. Reserve deliberate "creative time" for self-directed work and exploration.
4. Show prototypes that range from conservative to bold to find acceptable creative latitude.

Rohan Mishra: A Deep Dive on Themes and Practical Frameworks

Given the panel's breadth, a few themes from Rohan's contributions deserve deeper emphasis. They represent practical, repeatable approaches for designers and leaders building products at scale.

1. Measure design impact in business terms

Rohan repeatedly framed design improvements as business outcomes: reduced shipping time, fewer UI bugs, more focus on solving user problems. When you propose design work to stakeholders, give them measurable expectations: "We will cut release time by X%," "We will eliminate category of UI inconsistencies resulting in Y fewer defects," and "We will free engineers/designer time to focus on features, not design mismatch."

2. Design systems are organizational change programs

Building "Sushi" was more than building a component library. It was about culture: aligning teams, convincing leadership, and changing the way product teams work. Rohan's playbook includes pilot teams, evangelism, naming and branding the system (it helps!), and measuring early wins to create momentum.

3. Observe — then design

Rohan stressed observation as the starting point of design. The hotel hot/cold tap example is telling: observe common user problems; they're often an artifact of being designed by "makers" not designers. Cultivate a daily practice of recording micro-friction points and ideating small interventions.

4. Learn to learn and explicitize core human needs

Teaching yourself to learn applies to tools, patterns, frameworks, and emerging tech like AI. Rohan's "ten human needs" heuristic provides a filter for design decisions: choose the need(s) your feature addresses and validate it in user testing.

5. Convert prototypes to adoption

Prototype validation is step one; step two is conversion — the operational and go-to-market tactics that make a prototype used by real people. Niam's magazine story illustrates the operational pivot — sometimes small changes to distribution or packaging convert prototype interest into purchase behavior.

Key Takeaways — A Practical Playbook

Below is a synthesized checklist you can use to act on everything discussed in the panel:

1. Define who, when, what they care about, and success metrics before ideation (Rohan).
2. Start minimal, iterate fast, playtest widely — including non-experts (Dhruva).
3. Center brand around personality and context, not category tropes when building personal or creator brands (Simon).
4. Invest in design systems with clear KPIs (reduced shipping time, fewer inconsistencies) and treat them as change programs, not just technical deliverables (Rohan).
5. Make playfulness and emptiness (Leela and Shunya) conscious levers in design to create delight and meaningful minimalism (Niam).
6. Reframe constraints as design drivers and play with them to generate innovative solutions (Rohan & Rohan’s “love the constraints”).
7. Tell stories about your process and outcomes — storytelling differentiates premium offerings (Rohan & Simon).
8. Learn to learn — commit to rapid tool adoption and meta-learning for future-proofing your skills (Simon & Rohan).
9. Prototype to adoption — validate distribution and operational hooks as much as product features (Niam).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: What is the core difference between a "maker" and a "designer"?

A maker builds to test capabilities; a designer builds with purpose and intentionality. The designer answers who will use it, when, why, and how success is measured. Both roles overlap, but the mindset differs: makers experiment; designers craft with human needs and constraints in mind.

Q: How do you convince stakeholders to invest in a design system?

Translate the investment into measurable outcomes: reduced shipping time, fewer UI defects, lower QA cycle time, and faster iteration. Start with pilots to show immediate wins and use metrics to scale buy-in. Brand the system internally and have an evangelism plan.

Q: As a student, how should I spend my time to be industry-ready?

Practice meta-learning: learn how to learn. Build an observation habit and maintain a portfolio of case studies showing the four-question brief (who, when, what, success). Work on personal projects to show breadth and keep a buffer of creative time for experimentation.

Q: Should designers follow design trends?

Be aware of trends but prioritize adaptability. Trends can help with short-term discoverability; durable value comes from unique storytelling, consistent execution, and learning new tools quickly. Build flexible identities that scale across contexts and formats.

Q: How do you balance client demands and your creative voice?

Treat professional work as communication: solve for client goals first. Reserve separate time for personal projects to grow your creative voice. Offer multiple solution tiers in proposals to negotiate creative latitude: "Option A — conservative; Option B — bold."

Q: What is the "beginner's mind" in practice?

Beginner's mind means deliberately suspending assumptions, asking "why not?" and re-evaluating commonly accepted designs. Use it during empathy research and ideation to challenge established norms and generate novel approaches.

Closing Remarks

The Day of Design panel was a reminder that design sits at the intersection of thinking and doing. Thoughtful strategy, rigorous observation, and practical action are all necessary. Rohan Mishra's pragmatic approach anchored the conversation: measure design by impact, invest in systems for scale, and learn how to learn. Niam Bhushan tied it to a philosophical lineage: playfulness and emptiness can guide meaning-making. Dhruva and Simon provided applied examples from games and branding — where player flow and personality matter more than fleeting aesthetics.

For students and designers: adopt a hybrid mindset. Learn tools quickly, observe constantly, design with clear human needs in mind, and communicate results with stories that stakeholders understand. Finally, don't mistake design for art alone. Design that matters ships, scales, and changes lives.