The National Institute of Design (NID) has invited applications for admission to the two-and-a-half-year, full-time Master of Design (M.Des) programs offered at various campuses of NID.

M.Des programmes are offered at Ahmedabad and extension campuses at Bengaluru and Gandhinagar.

The campuses and Programmes are as follows:

(i) Ahmedabad: Animation Film Design, Film & Video Communication, Graphic Design, Ceramic & Glass Design, Furniture & Interior Design, Product Design, Textile Design

(ii) Gandhinagar: Photography Design, Toy & Game Design, Transportation & Automobile Design, New Media Design, Strategic Design Management, Apparel Design, Lifestyle Accessory Design

(iii) Bengaluru: Universal Design, Digital Game Design, Information Design, Interaction Design, Design for Retail Experience

Eligibility

Applicant should have been born on or after 1 July 1994. Applicants of OBC-NCL, SC & ST, born on or after 1 July 1991 and those of PwD Category born on or after 1 July 1989 are also eligible to apply for admission.

Educational Qualification

Applicant should have a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in any discipline awarded by any university or educational institution as incorporated by an act of Parliament or state legislature in India or declared to be a deemed-to-be university under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification recognised by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

In case the degree/certificate has been obtained from a university/board of any country other than India, an equivalence certificate must be submitted to the Admissions Office by the candidate from the AIU, New Delhi/Ministry of Education, Government of India, at the time of uploading of documents as announced in the Admissions Handbook. Applicants may visit https://www.aiu.ac.in for more details about obtaining an equivalence certificate.

Those who are in the final year (appearing for the academic year 2025-26) of their bachelor's degree or its equivalent in any discipline whose universities may not have issued the final degree certificate before the last date of application to NID are also eligible to apply, provided the applicant must have passed the final qualifying examination in the first attempt and submit the final result/mark sheets of the qualifying degree examination, proving his/her eligibility to the academic cell by 31.7.2026.

Selection

Selection is based on the Design Aptitude Tests (DAT) to be conducted in two stages: Stage 1: Design Aptitude Test (DAT) Prelims and Stage 2: Design Aptitude Test (DAT) Mains. DAT (Prelims) for Master of Design will be conducted on Sunday, 21 December 2025. M.Des. DAT Prelims paper will evaluate the Design Aptitude of the candidate. This is a paper-and-pencil/pen test, and the question asked may involve text and visuals. Candidates must choose one faculty stream from the following: Industrial Design (ID), Communication Design (CD), Textile, Apparel, and Lifestyle Accessory Design (TAAD), IT Integrated Design (ITID), or Interdisciplinary Design Studies (IDDS). Candidates can apply to a maximum of two disciplines within the chosen faculty stream only. There will be a single common test paper for the DAT Prelims exam for all the faculty streams. The DAT Prelims exam score will be used only for shortlisting to the DAT Mains Exam and the weightage of DAT Prelims exam score will not be carried forward to the DAT Mains Exam.

The question paper will be in the English language only.

Based on the DAT Prelims scores, separate merit lists shall be prepared for each category (GENERAL, GENERAL-EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST & PWD) as applied for by the candidate for each discipline. Only shortlisted candidates as per merit will be eligible to appear for the DAT Mains exam as per the schedule announced. Details are given in the Admission 2026-27 Hand Book (M.Des) at https://admissions.nid.edu/

DAT Prelims will be conducted at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jorhat, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi and Patna.

Application

Applications can be submitted online at https://admissions.nid.edu/ latest by 11.59 pm on 1.12.2025 (Monday). Application fee is Rs. 3000/- (Rs. 2000/- for females, Rs.1500/- for SC/ST and Rs. 500/- for PwD/Third Gender) for appearing for 1 discipline, to be paid using Net Banking or Credit/Debit Card. For appearing for 2 disciplines, it is Rs. 6000/-, Rs.4000/-, Rs. 3000/- and Rs. 1000/- respectively. Window to edit the application will be open during 4 pm on 2.12.2025 and 11.59 pm on 4.12.2025.

For more details, visit https://admissions.nid.edu

Institute website: https://www.nid.edu/