the e^xponential stress

This is in continuation of part one - How I Messed Up My First Interviews: Chapter I It was December 1st, the 'Day 1' of the 2015 placements, and Honda R&D happened to be the second company to have come after Microsoft. We were 4 students from the batch who opted for the Honda interviews. After a hiatus from my previous interview experience during engineering, I thought that this time I was prepared and would have learned something. I was excited for the interview although not much excited because I wasn't into two-wheelers as much as I was into cars. In a batch of 20 M.Des students at IIT Delhi, I too was amongst the 5 people who wanted to become an automobile designer. In our multi-disciplinary course, we studied product design for both tangible products as well as for digital products. We worked closely with Maruti Suzuki India R&D for more than 6 months and learned the entire process of car design right from research to clay modelling, but despite our efforts an...

Dealing directly with clients is fun :D But, sometimes when things get boring and redundant every week, one loses the excitement :( So, during one such call with a client, I started sketching a car though I sketch a lot of things these days. Currently, I am trying to make myself better with women portraits :D and human illustrations. Anyway, so during this call, I sketched with pen and coloured it with the only colouring tool available at my desk, a board marker. This car is my favourite sketch that I did at Infy Bangalore.

362 digital frames with an effort of 24 hours and somehow I still don't feel satisfied despite it being my first attempt. Perhaps it's monotonous. :p After making the first car with more than 72 frames, I realized that I can't put all Maruti cars in the video, so I ended up putting the 3 iconic cars from MSIL (Yeah! I had planned of putting all cars). This assignment was really tiring! But the music is kinda stupid hehe :D 

In order to send works to a company, I made my portfolio in just a day. That means, one year of M.Des work compiled and composed in one day :D Despite several rechecks, I didn't notice the silly spelling mistake :( Unfortunately that blunder went to the company.  Not only this, I had uploaded this portfolio on SlideShare, which resulted in 125 views within the same day from around the world except India (my own country). The funny part was, portfolio was trending there, lol and to add more fun, two UX magazines (from Japan and America) who liked my work had also tweeted the link of my portfolio :p Anyway, first professional portfolio, first blunder, first lesson. Up for it!

Although it's quite late to upload these papers, I'm sharing the documents because till date, there ain't any previous year papers of NID Postgraduate Program available online. NID PGDPD DAT QUESTION PAPER 2013   NID PRODUCT DESIGN QUESTION PAPER 2013 NID TRANSPORTATION AND AUTOMOBILE DESIGN QUESTION PAPER 2013 I hope these help in understanding NID's thinking methodology. Though, one should not trust on the pattern of the paper because it keeps changing. Will upload 2014 paper as well. ________________________________ I gave this exam on 19th January 2013 and I still remember the day. The morning of exam day, I discovered that I was way too unwell, fever was so high that I couldn't walk and was almost fainted. I wanted to give exam because this was the exam which could fulfill my dream of becoming what I strived for. So, with the suggestion of my parents and myself being unable to lift even a leg, I decided to stay at home a...

Writing after a long time... Kanpur! An awesome experience because it taught me a few lessons and I blew panel members' heads off (rhetorically). I was second-last on the second day, i.e 10th May 2014. My turn came at around 5 or 5:30 pm though as per list sequence, my turn should have got over by afternoon. It took almost an entire day for the process since the reporting time was 9 am. Unlike other design schools, they didn't take any aptitude tests. The wait for the interview felt really long for me since I didn't have breakfast because there wasn't any; the hostel they allocated, Hall V, didn't have any mess or canteen nor did they provide the candidates with any bedding so it was quite obvious for me to get a little temperamental. But the wait for the interview cooled me down gradually. And, I entered the room with great calm and composure. I entered and greeted with 'good afternoon' and they were like, 'yeah! yeah! talkin...

Qualifying CEED is not enough to get admission in M.Des. The admission process of reputed institutes is quite exhaustive and tests candidates' aptitude at several stages, DAT and Interview. Here, I'm sharing my experience of the interviews at IDC (Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay) during March'14. I was lucky to be called for interviews of all the three disciplines I applied for. Visual Communication Interview: I am a product designer by passion. I had no VC work to show except a collection of my cartoons- my free-time fun and my second passion. I guess, I should have applied for Animation Design with my cartoons but I didn't do so because I wasn't sure of getting placed after studying Animation.  VC! My first meeting with professors of an IIT. The panel didn't seem interested, because of my portfolio? Who knows? They asked me to show the best three works of mine.   "Sir, all are my best. You can see any of these," I said. ...

Food is healthy, whether you eat it or talk about it. While returning from IIT Bombay, on my journey to Delhi on August-Kranti Rajdhani, an incident happened when food actuated a political discussion. The man in his 40s seated opposite to me asked what a Jain-platter was pointing towards my plate which happened to be Jain. [I figured out the availability of Jain-platter on the train last year while on my way to Ahmedabad on Swarna-Jayanti Rajdhani when my fellow passenger ordered it. I went there for the NID interviews.] "It doesn't have onion!" I replied after swallowing. After a while when we were finished eating, he tried to crack a conversation again, "Now you also have got a reservation!" "Sorry?" I said keeping my book (a Paulo Coelho's...) aside as if I heard something wrong. "Jains have got reservation too," he said. "I'm not a Jain! I'm Hindu!" I modulated my voice. "Jains are also Hindus!...

These are some of the links I referred to get inspiration while preparing for M.Des (Master Of Design). This collection contains some great works of many artists, tutorials for product sketching and much more one would need while preparing design portfolio as well as while learning to sketch. These would even help in cracking the design entrances (CEED, NID-DAT, etc.) plus their design aptitude tests (DATs). These links are randomly ordered. To know more about Design in India:- http://www.designinindia.net   (This link would give information about various design entrances, design colleges in India, etc.) http://teacupblog.blogspot.in (This link is the one-stop solution for the preparation of design entrances, DATs, interviews and more.) Another link which speaks a lot about Design:-  http://thedesignsketchbook.com/ Product/ Industrial Design sketching tutorials:-  https://www.youtube.com/user/sketchadaydotcom https://www.youtube.com/user/...

I always knew that the education in India is in a tattered state with IITs being an exception...And when such reputed exceptions make mistakes, it is simply unacceptable. I had applied for three disciplines for M.Des at IIT Bombay viz., Product Design, Visual Communication and Mobility-Vehicle Design. After the announcement of result I found my name among the shortlisted candidates in Visual Communication and Mobility-Vehicle Design only. I thought that maybe they didn't like my Product Design application (Portfolio plus SOP) and started working on the portfolio for the other two disciplines. Upon reaching Mumbai, in order to pass my time I started reading names of the candidates in the other disciplines...and there came a 'Shock!' I was shortlisted for 'Interaction Design' as well; the 'discipline,' I didn't even apply for.   I instantly called the Admissions Office and explained the situation. The woman on the other si...

Finally! A good result of 2014. Industrial Design Centre ( IDC ) of Indian Institute Of Technology Bombay (IIT B) has shortlisted me among the students called for Design Aptitude Test (DAT) and Portfolio presentation (Interview) for their Master of Design (M.Des) course. Phew! The results are a sense of relief after a series of unfavourable results post graduating. Well, it's not sort of an achievement because I've to go through some more tests and interview to get The seat. But receiving an interview call from the nation's most prestigious institute is a nice feeling in itself. I've been called for two disciplines viz., Visual Communication Design and Mobility & Vehicle Design. Don't know what they liked- my portfolio which included The Most Common Sight On Delhi Metro , my academic profile, my SOP (quite an exhaustive one) or my performance in preliminary CEED (Common Entrance Exam For Design) in which I had secured All India Rank 166...Doesn't mat...