What Parul Institute of Design Students of Each Design Discipline Took From the Twelve Industry Leaders They Met in Mumbai: The Fashion, Interior, Product, Animation, and Visual Communication Outcomes of the 2026 Industry Tour

For Interior Design students, the tour ranged from heritage spaces to demountable climate-adaptive structures to large-scale luxury residential.

Interior Design students engaged with sessions that addressed spatial planning, material selection, climate, heritage, and large-scale residential coordination. Kiran Kapadia at Kapadia Associates covered spatial planning, functionality, materials by climate, and the principle of designing for the skies of your specific location rather than borrowing Western conventions. Robert Verrijt at Architecture BRIO covered minimal and experiential spaces, the integration of light and materials with environment, and concept-driven simplicity. Abha Narain Lambah addressed heritage spaces and the architect’s responsibility toward restoration and adaptive reuse. Kayzad Shroff and Maria Isabel Leon at ShroffLeon covered spatial experience and storytelling. The Lodha team covered large-scale execution across architecture, interiors, and MEP coordination.

• Spatial planning fundamentals (Kiran Kapadia): The backbone of interior design. Materials and lighting define the mood of a space.
• Climate-adaptive materials (Kiran Kapadia, Robert Verrijt): Design for your skies. Strong Indian sunlight and Western overcast conditions require different material choices.
• Minimalism and experiential design (Robert Verrijt): Less is more; clarity creates stronger impact. Light is a powerful design element.
• Heritage spaces (Lambah): Heritage buildings are cultural assets, not obstacles to development. Authenticity must be preserved while functionality is upgraded.
• Spatial storytelling (ShroffLeon): Architecture is about creating experiences, not just buildings. Context and site deeply influence design outcomes.
• Large-scale residential coordination (Lodha team): Coordination and communication across architecture, interiors, and MEP are critical in execution. Functionality is as important as luxury aesthetics.

The product design students got an opportunity to engage with speakers of the session. The session focused on user-centric designs, functionality, and integration of the design with business, engineering, and end-user experience. The founder of Kapadia Associates, Kiran Kapadia worked on framing design as a service business with user needs deciding every choice.

Robert Verrijit at Architecture BRIO talked about design, and it should have clarity along with a contextual response to the environment. Gayatri Khanna at Milaaya Embroideries offered an in-depth knowledge of material, fabric, texture, and craftsmanship in functional yet that looks aesthetic. Sameer Nair at Applause Entertainment uses Steve Jobs principle that design is not how it should be, but how it should work, with reference to OTT user experience as invisible craft.

The Lodha team and ShroffLeon contributed structural and material thinking applicable to the product.

• Design (Kiran Kapadia): A design should be user-friendly. Apart from making it visually appealing, user experience should be the main focus to make its functionality and accessibility better.
• Clarity and simplicity (Robert Verrijt): Clarity in design. Less is more. Sustainability must be integrated rather than added on.
• Material and craft (Khanna): Material selection, surface treatment, and craftsmanship as design levers. The discipline of luxury detail.
• Invisible UX (Nair): Design is not how a product looks but how it actually works. The Steve Jobs principle applied to product, OTT, and UX.
• Functionality and execution (Lodha, ShroffLeon): Functionality is as important as aesthetics. Materials and structural choices define product identity.

Across the sessions, the consistent message to Product Design students was that successful design is not visually appealing alone but practical, accessible, and capable of improving user experience.

Also Read: MUMBAI BUILT ENVIRONMENT: HERITAGE, SPATIAL ARCHITECTURE, AND LARGE-SCALE RESIDENTIAL

For Animation students, three conversations redefined the field: AI-assisted production pipelines, game-engine technology in architecture, and visual storyboards as professional pitches.

Animation students engaged with three specific conversations that addressed their field directly. Sameer Nair at Applause Entertainment revealed that the studio had halted traditional 2D and 3D animation on the Amar Chitra Katha catalogue and pivoted the entire pipeline to a generative AI-assisted workflow, citing significant gains in cost-effectiveness, speed, and scalability. He compared the panic around AI to the corporate panic around Microsoft Excel in the late 1990s, arguing that AI displaces tedium rather than imagination and that animators who master AI tools will thrive. Kiran Kapadia at Kapadia Associates argued that game-engine technology is the future of architectural presentation, with major firms globally already using it to produce walk-through cities. He told Animation students directly that their training will be central to the design of the future. Sameer Nair also emphasised that storyboards beat verbal idea pitches by a wide margin, citing The Walking Dead as a global case where a black-and-white independent comic-book series proved the narrative concept before TV networks greenlit the show.

• AI pipelines (Nair): Generative AI as a production accelerator in animation. The Amar Chitra Katha pivot as a real-time production case. AI displaces tedium, not imagination.
• Game-engine technology in design (Kiran Kapadia): Animation training is central to architectural presentation of the future. Game engines are increasingly used for walk-through cities and built-environment communication.
• Visual storyboard pitching (Nair): Storyboards beat verbal ideas in pitching to studios. The Walking Dead case as the global precedent for visual-first development.
• Visual storytelling across speakers: Narrative structure, character, emotion, and the audience as final judge.

The discipline came out of the tour with a clear strategic message: master AI tools, learn game-engine technology, pitch with visuals, and understand that storytelling structure has not changed even as distribution has been transformed.

For the students pursuing visual communication at Parul University, the tour focused on editorial voice, design as invisible craft, brand voice, brand identity, and the role of narrative in design execution.

The students interacted and engaged with sessions through the tour that addressed their core skills required for visual communication and creativity. Skills of narration, brand identity, editorial voice, and the relationship between visual elements and audience perception matter.

Rochelle Pinto at Vogue India directly addressed editorial voice and storytelling techniques, framing communication design as a medium for conveying emotion, ideas, and social relevance rather than aesthetics alone. Gayatri Khanna at Milaaya Embroideries demonstrated how subtle design elements (texture, detailing) contribute to audience perception and emotional engagement. Sameer Nair at Applause Entertainment introduced the principle that good UX design must be invisible because the moment the user notices the design, it has failed, drawing the parallel between cinematic visual effects (Jurassic Park dinosaurs that must feel alive) and streaming-platform interfaces. Kayzad Shroff and Maria Isabel Leon at ShroffLeon addressed concept-driven work and the role of strong concepts in creative output.

Shubhika Sharma at Papa Don’t Preach demonstrated how bold visual identity differentiates a brand.

• Editorial voice (Pinto): Storytelling techniques, narrative as a tool for emotion and social relevance, communication design beyond aesthetics.
• Detailing and texture (Khanna): Subtle design elements contribute significantly to audience perception, emotional engagement, and visual impact.
• Invisible UX (Nair): Design that disappears when it works. The Jurassic Park parallel: if you notice the design, it has failed.
• Concept-driven creative work (ShroffLeon, Robert Verrijt): Strong concepts lead to timeless designs. Light, simplicity, and intentionality.
• Brand identity (Sharma): Bold aesthetics, storytelling as differentiator, the visual signature of a recognisable label.

Beyond the discipline-specific outcomes, four themes reached every student in the cohort regardless of field.

• AI as tool that displaces tedium, not imagination: Every speaker addressed AI in some form. Master the tools; do not become dependent on them.
• Indian creative identity: India has cultural depth, craftsmanship, and economic momentum that exists independent of Western validation. The case for decolonising the Indian design imagination ran across multiple sessions.
• Practice over theory: Six speakers from radically different fields recommended internships, mentorship, and direct exposure to working studios as the substance of design learning.
• Ethics and accountability: Journalism ethics from Pinto, leadership responsibility from Kiran Kapadia, social impact from Robert Verrijt’s Billion Bricks, audience as final judge from Nair, cultural preservation from Lambah, problem-solving over signalling from Lodha. Design as service to society rather than self-expression.

The discipline to discipline results are not the end points. They are connecting points of how PID continues to work and upgrade its curriculum, internship placements, studio visits, and industry experiences for the new batch.

The conversations from the 2026 tour have shaped how individual departments think about what their graduates need to be ready for, from AI fluency in Animation to bespoke production management in Fashion Design to large-scale coordination in Interior Design. The tour is documented in the Mumbai Industry Tour hub article alongside the dedicated sessions on each speaker.