Mumbai : ITM Institute of Design & Media (IDM) has become India’s first design school to integrate artificial intelligence into the curriculum across all five of its Bachelor of Design programmes. Introduced from the first day of learning, the AI-integrated curriculum spans Animation & VFX, UX Design, Visual Communication, Fashion Design and Interior Design, equipping students with the skills required to work in an increasingly technology-driven creative industry.
The institute’s approach rests on a simple premise: designers who learn to work alongside emerging technologies are better able to adapt to the evolving demands of the creative industries. IDM has accordingly embedded these tools into the core learning experience rather than treating them as mere add-ons, with a strong emphasis on practical application and the goal of helping students graduate with creative confidence and technical proficiency.
At IDM, students across programmes are trained to use industry-relevant tools that are now actively redefining creative practice worldwide. These include Maya, Unreal Engine, Runway ML, Midjourney and Adobe Firefly for Animation; Figma, Adobe XD and prompt engineering for UX Design; CLO 3D and Krea AI for Fashion Design; and SketchUp, V-Ray and RoomGPT for Interior Design. Students also gain exposure to Adobe Creative Cloud, ChatGPT and Adobe Firefly across all programmes.
The curriculum adopts a practice-first approach, where students first build strong design fundamentals before applying their knowledge to real projects through a four-month paid internship. Along the way, they develop professional portfolios and learn how emerging technologies complement human creativity.
“We didn’t want our students to learn these tools only after the industry had already moved on. So by introducing them from the first day of learning, students develop the ability to work with and direct the various tools, and in that way, they’re ready to view them as an extension of their own creativity rather than as a replacement for it,” said Ms. Nisha Chanda, Director, ITM Institute of Design & Media.
The institute continues to focus on delivering design education that enables students to use technology as a creative tool rather than a replacement for their own creative judgment.
