Education

Design education for a post-AI world — built on fifty years of teaching and four decades of Sugiura's methodology.

SAKS offers two distinct programs: a series of short courses in Kohei Sugiura's design methodology — taught nowhere else in the world — and a one-year postgraduate program training the design educators India needs for the next generation.

I
Post-Graduate Program

PG Program in
Design Education

A one-year program training design educators for the post-AI moment. Not how to produce design — but how to nurture it in others. Led by Prof Kirti Trivedi with a faculty of India's most distinguished design educators. 12 seats. Applications open 1 August 2026.

Duration One year · two semesters
Seats 12 — selective admissions
Location Villa Appavou, Puducherry
Applications Open 1 August 2026
View program  →
II
Short Courses

Sugiura
Design Methodology
Courses

Six one-week modules across the year on Kohei Sugiura's design methodology — book design, typography, information design, and the Asian way of seeing. Led by Prof Kirti Trivedi from four decades of close study. Taught nowhere else in the world.

Format Six one-week modules · two-month intervals
Participants 12–20 per module
Location Villa Appavou, Puducherry
Next module Module I — September 2026
View courses  →

Why SAKS

One place.
Unmatched
lineage.

The only place this methodology is taught

Kohei Sugiura's design methodology is not available in this form anywhere else. Prof Trivedi has spent forty years developing these materials directly from his own training under Sugiura in Japan.

Puducherry — by design

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville, and the creative community that has formed around them make Puducherry an unusual place to study. The location is not incidental — it is part of the program's intellectual premise.

Explore Puducherry →
Faculty of founding practitioners

The PG Program faculty are among India's most distinguished design educators — several of whom are founding partners of SAKS itself, teaching here because they believe in this project, not as hired lecturers.

Built for the post-AI moment

Both programs take seriously what AI changes about design education — not as a threat to manage, but as a clarification of what only human educators can actually do: nurture a person's own creative voice.

Currently
Sugiura Courses — Module I, October 2026
PG Program applications — open 1 August 2026
Commences — 15 September 2026