Success story : Rohan Dinde (NID Retail Design)

Writing the story I wished to write.

First of All

A ton of thanks to Prasanna sir for creating this wonderful blog!!!

Don’t look at this blog just as a blog helping to crack CEED and DAT, but consider it as an honest attempt to incubate Design as a field in India.  Talent from all over the country is getting benefitted from this blog and India is moving forward in design field.

It is going to be a lengthy story, and u may find some grammatical and typographic mistakes. Apologies for that, in advance. :)

About me:

I am Rohan Dinde from a beautiful village called Abloli in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. I completed my Mechanical Engineering from Finolex Academy, Ratnagiri in June 2014. I came to know about CEED in 2013. I googled for CEED and IDC, I was redirected to teacuplog. I read success story of Trivikram. I tracked him on FB. We then started the conversation on FB and sooner on call. I remember when I first called Trivikram, he was in train, travelling to Mumbai since he has already got admission into IDC. It gave me a push to look CEED as my path. I gave my first attempt to CEED in 2014 when I was in final year, but I could not crack CEED. Thus, It was my second attempt to CEED and first attempt to NID-DAT. in 2015.

But meanwhile what I did from June2014 to May 2015 is the real story!!!

After failing to crack CEED and completing my degree, I was looking for a job or internship in design field, as I had decided to give CEED again. I found an internship with a UX designer in Pune….I joined.. I was feeling lucky…but after 3 days I came to know about his business model. I was shocked! He was NOT at all a designer, except the degree he had got from NID a few yrs back. He was just a UX trainer and I was supposed to do online marketing and back end office kinda work with NO DESIGN!!! Imagine how horrible it was! I left the internship within 25 days! (Please be aware of such people!) After that, I searched for another job… I found one in a software start up but since only 25 days were left for CEED, I had to leave that as well. 

About my preparation:

Observation and hard work were the key factors of preparation for me.  Before CEED and DAT, I had never missed a single opportunity to observe how the things look in perspective view, how the wheels of car appear to be ellipses. I was lucky enough to get a room mate who was 35 yrs old and had a BFA degree and working as a design head of a leading Marathi publishing house. Guidance from him for my approach towards design and sketching had played a vital role in my preparation.

My portfolio:

All my portfolio was hand crafted! There was not a single digital work because I was not having the laptop!

My portfolio at NID interview was divided into two parts. 1) My portfolio for VC interview at IDC. I have given info about that in the experience sharing section of teacupblog. 2)Portfolio specially made for DRE interview at IDC. It included 5 projects of brand design+ a model of thermocol of a concept coffee cafe+one of my practice sketchbook+ small diary of poetry in which all the poems were written in calligraphy In addition to that I had a cherry on cake, which I have described below:

What was different in my portfolio?

After exiting NID campus on the day of studio test, I directly went to Orion mall with one of my friend. I bought a nice diary from Landmark store in the mall and started doodling in the mall itself! I observed different stores. I observed that there was a lot of scope for improvement in the stores with context to retail experience design. I observed that Bangalore metro was very empty. the stations were very empty. so I took a photograph of mine on the empty platform and paste it in the diary to tell the panel that we can design a market on every metro station to enhance travelling experience and people will travel by metro to enjoy shopping!

Through this project , I wanted to show my thinking to the panel.

Studio Test:

We were asked to design a counter top design for a newly launched drinking water brand. We were given a copy of a magazine which was full of images and a piece of cardboard along with an actual 500 ml water bottle. We had to design everything…right from suggesting a name to the brand to doing a sticker, logo, tagline, counter top etc.

I chose name as jeevan (Life) but I interpreted it as “G1”! I chose the shape which has all india presence for making the logo.(shape found on the entrance frame of almost every mandir , masjid , and  gurudwara) accordingly made everything. Time constraint is very imp in the studio test , as i could not complte it in time…it was very lengthy to be honest. But the key to tackle studio test is that, u should be able in a position to explain ur design philosophy behind ur design during ur interview.

My Interview at NID for Design for Retail Experience:

(So far the success stories which I have read, people haven't written their exact answers to interview questions. I am attempting to tell it in detail, so that new aspirants will get an idea of how to tackle such questions.  One should not say a single negative word about him or herself or about anything! thats the key to succeed in the NID interview!)

 I entered the interview room with backpack on my back and a big thermocol model in my hands. The door was pretty tight and thus it took some efforts to enter. There was a psychiatrist inside and I knew that my every movement in that room was going to be assessed to judge my personality.  I entered and kept the model on the big interview table. When I settled down in front of them, they asked me to tell about myself. 

I started telling- “My daddy has a grocery shop in our village and I have grown up with the retail. This has been the inspiration for me to apply for this course. It has been my personal observation that, like the human factor which is considered in interaction design, there can be a term like ‘human factor for retail experience design’. Meaning, due to the people working in a particular retail store, customers visit that shop. I have seen my dad catching customers just because of his personality and communication skills.” Then they asked me whether I want to show anything. I started explaining my work, starting with the model I had kept on the table.They asked me how I had carried that to Bangalore, as the size was around 4*3*1 feet. (I had carried it in a box.) I told them that it is my dream to create a place where people will come , have some coffee, grab a book and even play some music. I explained my projects. Sir asked me for my practice sketchbook which I carried. He appreciated my sketching. I was also asked about what I did in the studio test. I explained the philosophy briefly. My philosophy was like…I wanted people to see my water from top to bottom and should confirm its purity on their own and then take the purchase decision. In this way, the brand will gain the trust of the people!

 I told them that I write poetry. Madam asked me about the topics I write poetry on. I replied…love, patriotism, social issues and on the direction where society is moving and where it should move etc. She then asked a tricky question, “Did you really enjoy mechanical engineering?”  I replied “I enjoyed design more than engineering!” with a genuine smile on my face indicating the truth. Next question was which was my most favourite and least favourite subject in mech engg. I told Supply Chain Management and Business Process Reengineering were my favourite subjects but thermodynamics was my least fav subject. 

“ What would you do if you don’t get the admission?”

I told them that i don't have any other interview in NID and thus i will find a job or internship n will come back again next yr , but that would be a difficult journey for me.

when the interview was over and i stood up for leaving the room, I realised that I had forgot to show them my diary of poems. I asked for the  permission to show it and then showed the diary to them. they were very impressed. Even Sir asked me, “Is it really handwritten?!” 

 This way I could tackle almost every question.  My work showed them my efforts and passion       (I think so!)

People who helped me: 

My parents!!! Their support was my oxygen to try for this!

This journey of getting into NID has given me a lot of friends and mentors. 

Let me tell u an incident:

I met Trivikram for the first time in IITB campus. I was in IITB to give interview of a research position. (By the way, till date, I have given around 25 interviews for different reasons. I failed in 22, I got jobs in 2 but failed in both of the jobs! but I have succeeded in the one I always wished for.) We were sitting on a bench near his hostel. Our conversation soon turned into his lecture on “How I was underestimating myself!” He made me realise that I have the spark and I am hard working. My perception about me till that time was based on negative comments that I had received from the people surrounding me. Trivikram told me that if I really want to become a designer, i must change my attitude towards myself. That was so motivating. A ton of thanks to Trivikram for that life changing speech! ;)

Reason behind sharing this incident is that, many aspirants have the same  kind of complex in their mind and confusion as I used to have. I am from a small village. I did not have  laptop. I was poor in English, I am from vernacular medium in schooling. I used to get staggering while talking to the others who have good English than me. I urge all the aspirants not to have any such complex.

Whenever u feel your moral is down…just go to youtube and watch “Steve Job’s  speech at the convocation of Stanford university”. It will get u going…believe me. :)

Like trivikram, there are many people like Dhoomal dada, Dev Vaishnav, Prashant(my room mates in Pune), Vishesh Tiwari, who provided me the resources which made the journey very easy for me. Roshan Kove, Aashish Kulkarni, Yogesh Rathod, My mentors in my village- Sudhir Kajrolkar and Kelaskar Sir

Resources that I Used

I have got a list of resources from a senior designer who has a bachelor’s degree in design and some resources which I used for the preparation. So please read it carefully and work accordingly.

Physical resources for Part A:

Purchase a Manorama yearbook of the same year u gonna apply (if u gonna apply in 2016 u should wait to release that)

Don’t get afraid by watching its size as u only need to read the INDIA section in that, especially the culture and heritage section.

keep googling current affairs

read TOI newspaper daily!!!

for part B

Basic practice for beginners:

1. Draw horizontal equidistant lines (One line in one pencil stroke)
2. Draw vertical equidistant lines (One line in one pencil stroke)
3. Draw free hand ellipses and circles
4. Draw concentric circles
5. draw spirals of varied sizes

(Do it for 1hr per day…its compulsory for ppl having poor sketching skills)

drawing made easy by subodh narvekar..its a basic book on sketching.

 Solve CEED previous papers

see if u could get practice papers from classes also...dont purrchase them spending 5000 bucks!! u can get them from frnz who have bought them earlier.

I will upload if possible.

Google for following terms:

teacupblog...read this blog thoroughly...see the resource section..and read every success story..someone has listed the topics for Part A....Trivikram has given a good list.

Perspective sketching pdf,

concept  of Golden Ratio

Basic elements and Principles of Design

basics of photography

Full forms of terms like DSLR, PNG etc.

colour theory , RGB and CMYK colour model, printing technology  

Websites u must visit:

Sketchaday.com

dsource.in (website maintained by IDC and NID...a very good resource for understanding basics of design)

designboom.com

core77.com

Quora: u can ask any question or even search about some topics

carbodydesign.com

behance

issu

coroflot.com

pinterest: search for any kind of images like “concept sketches” of “car” etc.

http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/design-articles/car-design-from-the-drawing-board-to-production/

Reading suggestions for book worms:

“The Old Man and the Sea” by Earnst Hemingway (gives u confidence to get going)

“Lateral Thinking” by Edward De Bono (u may get bored with this but try to acquire central theme of it) 

“The Golden Sparrow”  weekly newspaper (only available in Pune and Mumbai)

“manat” (Marathi book on psychology)

“The Fountainhead” by Ayen Rand

Topics to be searched on Youtube:

(This section is a must)

Practice for industrial designers,

Scott Robertson free tutorial Friday (and other videos of him)

Spencer Nugent tutorials

watch documentaries on works of:

Michelangelo, 

Leonardo da vinci

EC Escher

very very important:  

search for

Design for life by Philippe Stark (link is included in resource section of teacupblog) watch all the 6 episodes in the respective order, this is really an important show that anybody should watch before appearing to CEED

Ted talks of designers

Ted talk of Prof. Balaram from NID

(each talk will give u a different insight in design!...watching these will take u to a different height of understanding)

Recommended tools and materials:

1)Fastest Internet connection is a must. Please don’t rely on your smartphone.

2)Staedtler pencils HB, 2B and 6B  (costly but worth spending money.)

3) Good colour pencils, mostly 36 shades

4)newsprint papers or old newspapers for practicing lines , ellipses etc. as written above

5)Purchase a whole rim of A4 papers, mostly 80GSM and make 4 binding notebooks for practice sketching. Have target of feeling two of these before CEED.

(I have done this. Binding the papers together will help you in analysing your own improvements. I can now see my sketching skills improved from practice book 1 to practice book 3! These sketchbooks u can present to the panel as an additional material!)

bottom line:

its ur efforts and perseverance that will keep u going and not the resources...

practice at least 2 hrs a day to be honest. 

“If I can do it, anybody can do it!!!”

BEST OF LUCK!!!!!

I can be reached at dinderohan@gmail.com
my blog dinderohan.blogspot.in