Each month, WhatTheyTh!nk, in partnership with The Foundation for Graphic Communication Education (formerly the Print & Graphics Scholarship Foundation), profiles a promising student in a graphic communications or related program. The goal is to raise awareness of graphic communications programs, as well as help students like Srikanth Gunduri get a “leg up” on entering the industry after graduation.
It’s a new school year, and we kick off our second year of the Student of the Month feature, developed in partnership with WhatTheyTh!nk. Each month, we profile a promising student in a graphic communications or related program, the goal being to raise awareness of graphic communications programs, as well as help students get a “leg up” on entering the industry after graduation.
This month, I talked to Srikanth Gunduri, a Master’s student at the University of Sydney in Australia specializing in Strategic Design/Design Innovation.
After Srikanth received his Bachelor of Technology in Printing Technology from Guru Jambheshwar University in Hisar, Haryana, in his native India, he had been exploring graphic design and similar courses. “I did some research and I found out that the University of Sydney provides a good Master’s program focusing on design innovation and design,” he said.
“Design innovation will help you develop problem-solving, user research, and decision-making skills,” he added. “It’s more of a leadership-plus-design thinking process. How you develop a product is more product management, and how you develop a product is solving real-world problems.
“Strategic design is where you develop a strategic framework or strategic roadmap that will challenge you on a real-world issue,” he said. “And then you frame the problem and you do the user research. Then you develop the prototype and you iterate it and you develop a solution for the problem.”
Phillip Gough, who had nominated Srikanth for Student of the Month, teaches the capstone design studio class, one which “demands a high level of collaboration, working with industry partners, and translating a complex design brief into an outcome grounded in primary research with end users of the design.” In that class, Srikanth achieved a High Distinction (85%) grade. “He demonstrated leadership of his team and a depth of research to support the innovative design that the team developed over the semester,” said Gough.
For this class, Srikanth and his team collaborated with the Frazer-Nash Consultancy on a project brief that comprised a “resilient infrastructure”—essentially, how can design help combat some of the impacts of climate change? Specifically, how to help people during what have become more and more frequent and severe heat waves. They first framed a problem statement: How can they help communities—and, specifically, apartment-dwellers in those communities—cope with rising heat issues.
Read the Full Artcle about Srikanth Gunduri Here
Watch Srikanth’s interview with WhatTheyTh!nk Here
Learn more about The FGCE Here
