Success Story : Kavya Gandhe (NID PD and IISc)

Hi Design Aspirants,

I m Kavya.  I am a Mechanical Engineer from BITS with a goal of becoming a good designer. I have prepared for CEED and NID. Didn’t get through the first time but successfully got into both IISC Banglore and NID Ahmedabad both for Product Design for the second attempt.

So first point, believe in yourself and don’t lose hope. I prepared while I was working at FMC technologies. So this preparation doesn’t need much time. Two hours a day is enough for this. I am not much of a writing person, so I’ll make this short.

For CEED part A/ NID paper one:

For the general knowledge browse as much as possible on the net. Google maatha is always there. Keep a separate notebook or a folder in the computer for this. Better to have them along with their pictures.  List of

Rivers,

Musical instruments

Artists

Indian designers

Photographers

Singers

Dancers

Architects

Animators

Painters

Famous paintings

Art forms

Automobile designers

Graphical designers

Authors and books

Directors

Cars

Dance forms

Indian animated movies

Logos

Tools

Camera

Colour theory

Government symbols/logos

Materials

Printing types

Prototype types

Animal skin texture

Golden proportion/ ratio

Manufacturing processes

Some analytical thinking

CEED Part B: Then for the drawing part, daily practice is very helpful. Rough sketching of daily life objects increases your observation and drawing skills. First practice drawing objects, then hands, then human body and go to Perspective drawing and sequences drawing. Sequences like:

Making of coffee/tea

Making of paper boat

Making of paper kite

Washing of clothes

Hosting a flag …..

Perspective drawing of:

Bus stop

Railway station

Cricket stadium

Public mela

Traffic jam

Rainy day

Khumbmela….

For the portfolio keep your best 10 or 15 works in them. Take your other work too, in case the interviewers have time for them too. Keep your best first. Make sure your portfolio is unique. I made my products to make it unique. You can use simple stationery and hardware like aluminium sheet, wires and so on for that. Drawing your concept is completely different from making it. As it needs more thinking, patience, interest and hard work, the interviewer gets more impressed.

Give your interview in a happy tone. Express them how much interest you have in design. I recommend you to apply for only one branch for an institute. Or else you will get stupid questions like: Why did you choose the other branch? Or Which branch interests you more? I had to encounter this situation at IDC Bombay when I gave interview for both Industrial Design and Transportation Design. So to avoid all these, Choose one and be confident about it and do the interview well.

All the best. And best of luck too.