By: Candya Pradipta
Everyone recognizes the importance of globalization, in part brought about by the growth of Internet users. Finding new suppliers and lower cost suppliers for everything has become markedly easier in the last 10-20 years. The range of products and services has expanded from merchandise to parts to software development and tax preparation. Quality is still an issue as standards vary around the world but much progress has been made.
One area where standards have improved internationally is in design. Design quality around the world has risen markedly in the last ten years as sites such as ISSUU and Behance demonstrate. For example, in the 1990s nobody in Indonesia produced the quality of design work that Candya Pradipta regularly delivers. When I shared Ms. Pradipta's portfolio with my oldest friend in Indonesia (who attended Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC), she made an interesting comment:
"She's really Good!! The quality of design education in Jakrta and Bandung especially has grown by leaps and bounds! The internet is the great leveller!"
I like that phrase, "The internet is the great leveller". The force that is leveling the field is the informal education one can gather from the Internet in the "creative arts", such as design, art, music and film. A good example is all the high quality content on design thinking. We all tend to focus on MOOCs and EDx and Khan Academy, but the much more powerful tool is just Google search in the hands of a motivated learner.