Suresh Sethi began his career in Industrial Design at Philips India in 1983, soon firmly consolidating his position among India’s best designers through various projects. He went on to pursue further study in Italy, receiving his MA from the Domus Academy in Milan, where he studied under design icons like Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, and Gaetano Pesce and established strong links to Italian design.In 1988, Suresh began his own company, Circus Design Studio, focusing on product design and continuing, throughout the 1990s, his professional work in consumer products and lighting design for firms in Asia and Europe, including Philips, Alessi, Akai, Eveready, Proctor & Gamble, and Videocon. Suresh’s guiding belief that products must be user-friendly has seen a number of his designs successfully re-run in various markets worldwide.
From 1989-1993 Suresh collaborated on the project, Organic Houses, with Nari Gandhi, an architect associated in the past with Frank Lloyd Wright. During the same period he also worked on Strategies for Living Crafts with Rajeev Sethi. From 1993 onwards he worked on the design of maritime-related projects, notably, the Mumbai Maritime Gallery, and an installation, “Sea-India” in Mumbai, for the International Fleet Review in 2001
Suresh has been a Visiting Professor, and has led many workshops and seminars at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India; the National Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur, India; the National Institute of Fashion and Technology, Mumbai, India; and SNDT University, Mumbai. Before joining NTU as the lead faculty in Product Design in 2005, Suresh was a tenured Professor at the Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, India.
As of 2010, Assoc. Prof. Suresh Sethi has stepped down from his position at NTU to continue his pursuit of perfection in industrial design at a leading design firm in Shanghai.