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The Holistic Path to Design Mastery: Balancing Depth and Breadth

The Holistic Path to Design Mastery: Balancing Depth and Breadth

Arjun Phlox

Karthi Subbaraman

Audio Clip

The Real Reasons People Get Into Design: A Candid View

7:32 min

This clip explores the ideal learning path for aspiring designers, emphasizing the importance of a balanced approach that combines various aspects of design and human understanding.

Highlights

3 min

  1. The Ideal Learning Path


"So, if UI is the place to start and understanding human nature will allow me to do better UI, is there such a path where I can go just deep enough that I can just deep enough in multiple aspects, multiple fields, a bit of human nature, a bit of research, a bit of understanding value proposition and then a bit of machine understanding how to craft a machine, then is there a path like that which can help me crack my first job and then I can keep learning?"


Of course, a path like that exists and I don't want to sound salesy, but this is exactly what I did in my school because this is exactly the curriculum that was missing in the universities.


  1. The DPDI Approach


"See when you're taking two years of a person's time, I'm thinking purely from a time is life perspective, right? It's two years of somebody's prime life. So I felt what is most important is not focused in universities, but that's not the point, right? The why we are talking about this is it takes a lot of effort to curate and find a teacher who will be able to take you through that path. Exactly how you said, it's like a buffet, little, little, little, little of everything and a composite amalgamation of it tied into a beautiful bead and that becomes a jewel, you know, that's a starting point for you in your career."


  1. The Evolution of Teaching Methods


"I did DPDI three times and every year I did it very differently. But the last year before I went to corporate in 2022, the 2021 DPI is my most favorite because I think I cracked the right formula, the right method of teaching and radical method of teaching. It's just a name, but that's the right way for somebody to learn. My neuroscience of learning degrees, you know, really getting into how learning works in an adult brain really, really helped me in coming up with those things."


  1. DPDI's Value Proposition


"There are things in this world, even when you pay money, you don't get it. And to me, DPDI is one of them. Even if you paid all of that, you wouldn't find somebody who will teach you little, little, little of everything. And that's the truth. And the best part of that is we kind of, you know, divided it into a tool track and a skill track. So Figma was also covered on the go. So while we are building skills, you're also building your tool expertise. And there is a point where the skill and the tool merges together."


  1. The Efficiency of Structured Learning


"If you sat close, locked yourself into a room and obsessively did it, you should be able to crack it in 100 days. That's it. If it takes beyond 100 days, then I don't know how to teach. That's it. That's my take."


  1. The Value of Guided Learning vs. Self-Teaching


"But right now, it is not about DPDI. It's about learning from base and being a self-taught designer. If you are a self-taught designer without a mentor, without a catalyst, then that path is harder, isn't it? Without GPS, how far can you go? So the debate is not about whether we are intelligent or not. The debate is about how to learn. How to learn or start learning as a designer. So, yeah, salesy it is, but you will not find it in the rest of this world."