The establishment of UNDP-supported National Centre on CAD and the collaboration with MIT in the Media Lab Asia project provided the immediate impetus to initiate a programme that would focus on form and function together in the areas of product design as well as visual communication. 

The establishment of Design programmes at other IITs (Delhi and Guwahati) around the same time also acted as a spur, prompting an IITK team to visit ten well-known Design institutes across the world.  This resulted in the proposal for the IITK Design Programme with its USP of interdisciplinary that clearly marked its difference from existing Design programmes at other institutes within India, including other IITs.