Click on the image for a larger view.

Ripples 2011 is happening on 08th and 09th of July (Friday and Saturday).

The speakers in Ripples 2011 are:

• Mr. Jagannath Raju, Director & Co-founder of Systemantics, a robotics company.
• Dr. Suresh Nagesh, Managing Director of Voith India Ltd., a Mechanical Engineering conglomerate.
• Mr. Tassin Hubert, Automobile Designer at Pininfarina, Italy.
• Mr. Jayant Karve, Product Designer specialized in medical equipment design.

We invite you to visit IISc and Ripples. Enjoy!

Update: 09-July

Ripples 2011 was a huge success. The student organizers did a fantastic job!

Read this newspaper report on Ripples 2011. Deccan Herald: IISc students’ designs cause ‘ripples’

Here are some photos of yours AnaskA truly attending the function on 08th July. Photos are courtesy of Mahesh C Menon.

Pramod Khadilkar, AnasKA, Himanshu Chaman, Tojo Thomas and Manoj Mahala.

Prof. J E Diwakar and AnasKA

Saleem Ahamed Sir and AnasKA

Himanshu Chaman and AnasKA

Even during the logo competition for BarCamp Bangalore 9 (BCB9) in August, 2010, I was thinking about the logo for BCB10. BarCamp Bangalore 10 is happening on 11-June-2011 at SAP Labs. Being a fan of films, I have decided to make a typographic logo for BCB10 similar to the title design of the Hollywood flicks X-Men and XXX.

This is my logo that was created as part of the BCB10 logo competition. Click on the image for a larger view. Read on to know more about the design thoughts.

‘Genesis’ of the BCB-X logo

Michelangelo painted some scenes of Genesis in the Sistine Chapel, Rome that shows God creating man. The ‘touch of life’ is an inspiration for countless stories and designs.

BarCamp Bangalore is infusing life to the minds of Gen X and Gen Y. This idea made me to depict the ’10′ using the Roman numeral ‘X.’

The fonts used are ‘Magneto’ and ‘Niagara Solid.’ ‘Magneto’ has a classic, yet modern appeal. It is seen widely on modern technology based products. The ‘X’ is actually a flipped version of the ‘X’ found in the ‘Magneto.’ I did this to have a uniform width connection between the ‘bcb’ and ‘X.’ To gel both the fonts, I had to convert ‘Niagara Solid’ to a slanting format.

Version 2.0

As the logo started growing on me, I chanced upon an improvement of the logo. This modified version 2.0 shows the ‘X’ as a younger person who hand-holds the ‘bcb’ and marches on to a new future. The BarCamp logo is shifted towards the ‘X’ so that it forms a face that smiles.

Wish me luck for the BCB10 logo competition.

Image Credits

• Genesis by Michelangelo: Jeff and Joy Scott Family
• Signboard: Ilker, Turkey
• Rusty sign: Zsuzsanna Kilian, Hungary

Update on 10-June-2011

The results of BCB10 logo competition is announced.

And, I didn’t win. I would like to thank you for your ‘likes’ and comments in the competition page.

Design date: 03-Jun-2011

You all may have seen the pictograms of Olympic events. I am told that the pictograms of Munich 1972 Olympics are the most popular, even today. When I sat down to design the SnT Run logo, I did a small research on these simple, yet powerful pictograms.

The idea

A running person is the central theme in all marathon logos. I also decided to go as per this custom and include one in the logo. My attention was mainly on the font so that the whole experience will be unique. I decided to include a reference of the shape of a racing track in a stadium.

Execution of the Idea

The SnT Run logo is constructed using parallel lines of uniform width. A constant radius is maintained for the curves. The ‘n’ and ‘u’ of “SnT Run” are aligned in such a way that an abstraction of a racing track in a stadium is visible. The running man is also created by applying the same rules.

A 3D version of the logo is also created that can be used in print media for publicity.

The Result

Stage Backdrop for SnT Run 2010;
In the foreground you can see AnasKA / antzFx, Urvesh, Ashveen, Tojo and Praveen

Stage Backdrop for SnT Run 2011; A proud winner on stage.
Photo Courtesy: Mahesh C

This blog post explains the design of SnT Run 2010 Poster.

Design Date: 07-Feb-2010

Barcamp Bangalore 9 (‘BCB9’) is happening on 18-Sep-2010. They are conducting a logo competition. I was brainstorming for a logo idea.

‘Talk of the town’
Much later, from the phrase ‘talk of the town,’ I came up with the above logo. Base of the design is a ‘9’ in Century Gothic font. The appearance of ’9′ is changed so that it looks like a single quotation mark that represents ‘communication.’

A speech bubble is incorporated into the design that contains the BarCamp logo. The placement of the elements is manipulated in such a way that ‘Bangalore’ on the logo is speaking about BarCamp. Clearly ‘the talk of the town!’

Following is an attempt on the branding of BCB9. Click on the images for a larger view.

An earlier version

This option with a green tint and a different placement, size of elements is later replaced with the current version.

Update on 13-Sep-2010

The results of BCB9 logo competition are announced today and I didn’t win. Thanks to all the people who voted for my design.

And, congratulations to Soujanya Sreenath, the winner!

Update on 21-Sep-2010: BarCamp Kerala 9 — BCK9

BarCamp Kerala Edition 9 is happening on 14-Nov-2010 at Amrita Campus, Karunagapally. Thanks to the organizers of BCK9, they adopted a reworked version of this BCB9 logo.

BCK9 Logo

BCK9 Wallpaper (1200×900)
Click on the image to download the wallpaper.

Photograph Credits

1. ‘Billboard’ by Asif Akbar
2. ‘Auto rickshaws on the way to Mysore’ by Matthew Logelin
3. ‘Hand tag’ by Marcelo Silva

Softwares: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Design date:
Ver.0.9 BCB9 — 12-Aug-2010
Ver.1.0 BCB9 — 20-Aug-2010
Ver.2.0 BCK9 — 21-Sep-2010

On 11-Apr-2010, IISc Alumni Cell is organising ‘Science & Technology Run’ or better known as ‘SnT Run.’ I got a chance to do the branding work. I have handled the branding of SnT Run of 2008. People liked the banners and posters very much: especially the ‘shoelace’ one. Read the full story here.

So here I am, trying to outrun myself.

I am doing three separate designs for SnT Run 2010. They are:

1. Logo Design
2. Poster Design for publicity
3. Banner design for the event

In this post, I am explaining only about the item 2: ‘Poster Design for publicity.’

Initial Ideas

I exactly know what I am NOT going to do this year. I am not going to use the imagery of a robot running. I am not going to use shoelaces. Although the run happens in the green campus of IISc, I am thinking about a race track. I am thinking about the markings on the turf. Then I have a view of somebody running towards the camera. He is running to me as if there is not much time left for the event. Wait, can ‘he’ be the date on which the SnT Run is happening?

The setting of the stage

This photo is taken by Sanja Gjenero (Lusi) from Croatia. Thank you Sanja for allowing me to use this photo.

Applying Gaussian Blur to a feathered selection showing depth
3D rendering of ’11 April 2010’ in SolidWorks 

Arranging the numerals and alphabets and applying blur

Adding shadows and applying blur

Adding the SnT Run logo on to the turf

The idea was that the date of SnT Run is approaching, so don’t be an onlooker, be a part and so ‘Better run…’

This is the finished poster. Click to enlarge.

Environment friendly posters are Green!

‘Run for science, run for environment’ is selected as this year’s SnT Run theme. Nowadays whenever people think of environment or eco-friendliness, the ‘green’ colour fills their imagination. So I am told to come up with a green version of the poster.

Desaturated image
 

‘Feathered’ track

Adding original image in the background

Adding a green layer on top of the feathered track only

Changing the opacity of the green layer and applying ‘Overlay’ blending mode

This is the finished green poster. Click to enlarge.

I will be writing about the other two designs (logo and banner) soon.

More Photos of SnT Run 2010 are uploaded here.

Software: Photoshop, SolidWorks
Design Date: 07-Feb-2010

Download the ‘CPDM Illustrated’ newsletter from here (PDF, 2.3MB).
Download the High Quality Version of the same from here (PDF, 11.3MB).

The three generations
It is decided to devote pages for three batches of M.Des. Students with contact information.

1. 2007-2009 Batch who are no longer in the institute and have started their career in various organizations. The farewell group photo of this batch is included.
2. 2008-2010 Batch (Final year students) has done summer internship in different reputed companies. Their internship work is featured in the news letter.
3. 2009-2011 Batch (First Year Students): Since they are the newcomers, I asked them to e-mail me any work they have done in the past. So I got a lot of good works like photographs, drawings, paintings, collages…

The cover
I started the layout pixel by pixel and word by word. In the cover, I wanted to showcase the idea of ‘pixel’ as a basic building block. This led me to choose a photograph of a yellow flowered tree in our campus (Photo: Urvesh Bharambe). The image was rotated 90 degrees clockwise and the ‘stained glass’ filter is applied. Two versions are made by using white and black as the cell wall colour. I finally chose the black cell wall color.

The font of ‘CPDM Illustrated’ was retained from the first issue of the news letter (Designer: Arunkumar Francis). CPDM logo was dropped from the design and a round post-it sticker is used to denote ‘Issue +2.’ A transparent ‘Seal King’ like band was added to make the newsletter look unopened.

Page Layout

A clear heading and subheading are present on almost all the pages. Images are surrounded by a halftone patterned frame in grey and light yellow. The contents of the pages have 5 degrees of tilt. This tilt and the presence of ample white space in a page favour marginalia. As footer, a small band of single layered cells of the stained glass pattern is placed. Full page photographs are used to separate the three sections.

Software: InDesign, Photoshop
Design Date: 11-Nov-2009

Organized Trade: End Caps

Emerging Channels: Interactive Kiosks

Token of appreciation received for the designs

Greg Norman T-shirt

Dhoni & Ishant USB Memory Sticks (1GB)

Fastrack Sunglasses

Software: SolidWorks, Photoshop
Design Date: 31-Oct-2009

‘SunFlow’ is an LED (Light Emitting Diode) Solar Lantern designed and prototyped by Geo Paul and I. The lamp on the left (Orange color) is a 3D rendered model and the one on the right (Yellow color) is the final working prototype.

We did 3D solid modelling, impact analysis, electronics design and integration testing.

Anas K A and Geo Paul with ‘SunFlow’ prototype
(Photo Courtesy: Urvesh Bharambe)

Software: SolidWorks, Photoshop
Design Date: Project finished on 8-Dec-2009

I won third prize for this design that can be placed on the dining tables.

Design thoughts
In Kerala, snake boats are traditionally used for boat races and ceremonies related with temples. Miniature models of snake boats and Kathakali faces are the most gifted items or souvenirs from Kerala.

In the place of oars, holes are provided for lacing the toothpicks. Space between two toothpicks are sufficient for picking one easily. Provisions are provided for placing menu cards, if this design is used in hotels.

Judge’s comment
Amit Dongre, Desmania Design, New Delhi
“WOW is clear as the Indian form is used with good usability. I can imagine that the South Indian restaurants can use this happily and the customers will relate to it instantly. If the menu cards were like flags, it would have been even better. Picking the toothpick seems easier. The form will look great on dinner table.”

Acknowledgments
The background image used is ‘Attorney’s table in a courtroom’ by Jason Morrison, US.

Software: SolidWorks, Photoshop
Design Date: 20-Nov-2009

Software: SolidWorks, Photoshop
Design Date: 13-Nov-2009