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

Thus ‘dpe’ was born. ‘dpe’ means ‘Design | Participate | Excel.’ I made plans for a teaser kind of series ads to generate interest among the students.

Following are the three posters that were circulated as e-mails, one poster a day.

Notice the transition of background color and the change in the point of view of the box. ‘Provocative’ wordings like ‘We are second to none’ and ‘You are not a designer till you take part in this competition’ are coined and used. The box is open in the third poster only. The box and the alphabets are 3D modelled in SolidWorks software. We received quite a good number of responses for the first contest.

Software: SolidWorks, Photoshop
Design Date: 10-Nov-2009

The alphabet ‘M’ in the department name ‘CPDM’ is modified to resemble a heart or love symbol. Using appropriate color coding, the message can be read in two ways. It can be either ‘I am in CPDM’ or ‘I am in love with design.’

Originally, I wanted this graphic to appear above the heart of a person when he wears the T-shirt. Some of my friends decided that the graphic should be bigger and so it got printed on the rear side of the T-shirt. The front side of the T-shirt has the following words: ‘Student of Product Design, CPDM.’

Pankaj Upadhyay (The organizer) and I (The winner)

The other five
Here are my other five design submissions, in no particular order:

Ripples

Could you recognize a ‘cpdm?’ ‘Ripples’ is the name of the Annual Design Degree Show in our department.

IISc and CPDM

Car

‘U’ r here!

Department Building

Software: Adobe Illustrator
Design Dates: 08 to 28-Mar-2009
T-shirt released on: 01-Oct-2009

Click here to download the CPDM Placement Brochure 2010 (PDF, 426KB) »

The task was challenging, as design is highly subjective. Everybody had ideas on how the brochure should look like and selling my idea to them was difficult.  It was a great learning experience because some observations made by my design friends helped me to see areas that I overlooked.

Here are the design decisions I made while designing this brochure.

Requirements
Following are the requirements I fixed for the brochure.

• The look and feel of the brochure should be formal. Because it will be sent to corporate companies and they should not take us lightly as a bunch of kids who know drawing.
• There should be a subtle touch of playfulness. This is the main reason for using a doodle logo on the front page as opposed to the official version. One of the inside pages features a character illustration by a fellow student.
• Samples of student work – 10 designs — are featured on all the 12 pages including cover. This will be a temptation for visiting the student portfolios.
• CPDM is a younger department in IISc and many people don’t know the existence of this Master in Design Course in Product Design. So, an introduction to the department, M.Des. Course Structure, Faculty Profile, Student profile of 2010 Batch… are added to the brochure.
• A very clean and structured layout is used for the brochure.

The Layout

1. Picture band – One student work is featured per page.
2. Sidebar – Sentences that need immediate attention are featured here. Font size is larger than the body text. A lighter version of the main color palette is used as the background.
3. Body text area – The title and descriptions run here.
4. Footer – This area is practically empty and features the main color palette. Various shades of grey, a dull flesh colored brown were tried before fixing the present fresh yellow color.
5. The facing page also features the same layout, but the features are mirrored to give a sense of equilibrium and stability.

Featured Works
Following are the works that are featured in this brochure.

The watch — Sharath Kumar

The Torch — Pavan Sridharan & AnasKA

The Refrigerator — Renjith Koshy John & Urvesh Avinash Bharambe

The Washing Machine — Sharath Kumar & AnasKA

BMW — Renjith Koshy John (A wireframe of this model also feature on the front cover).

Audi — Pankaj Upadhyay (A wireframe of this model also feature on the back cover).

The Bamboo Chair — Pankaj Upadhyay

Highway Mohawks — Pankaj Upadhyay

‘Sagat’ The Super Hero — Pankaj Upadhyay

‘I am in Love with design’ — AnasKA

I hope that all the 17 students of 2010 Batch will find good jobs with design studios and corporate companies.

Software: Adobe InDesign
Design Date: 07-Aug-2009

Last year, we designed a greeting card to mark the occasion.

The raw materials
The base image for the design is an illustration ‘Diagonal Color Stripes’ by Miamiamia. I used the ‘Image -> Adjustments -> Replace Color’ command in Photoshop to convert the yellow stripe in the original image to a white colored, ‘brushed’ stripe.
Original image is on the left. The other one is the modified image that alludes to the tricolor.

The quote “Freedom lies in being bold” is attributed to Robert Frost, the famous American poet (1874-1963). The slogan ‘Jai Ho!’ needs no introduction.

Download this Desktop Wallpaper Calendar
Click here to download this ‘Jai Ho!’ wallpaper with calendar (August and September 2009), 1280 X 800 pixels (JPG, 410KB)

Click here to download this ‘Jai Ho!’ wallpaper (no calendar), 1280 X 800 pixels (JPG, 378KB)

Software: Photoshop
Design Date: 10-Aug-2009

So today morning, I spent some hours digging through my back-up data in CDs and got some old stuff. For those who are interested, here is my story.

“What is a computer?”
I am one of those very few ‘youngsters’ out there who have actually used Windows 3.1 OS in 1996. Windows 95 had appeared by that time, but my village in India was far, far away from the latest technology (Now it is better!). For a long time, computer for me was the CRT Monitor. I never really observed the box with a power-ON switch near that monitor. Yes, yes, now I know how a Mac looks like.

Going digital
I bought a ‘Dummies’ book and started learning Adobe Photoshop 5.5 in August, 2000. Since it was a limited day trial version without the ‘save’ command, I couldn’t save the early designs I did. I vaguely remember making a composition of a straw in a glass of yellow fruit juice. At that time, I was not a technologically advanced guy to think about ‘Print screen’ and ‘MS Paint.’ Alas!

This is the oldest Photoshop work I could get from the archives. The time stamp of the file says 28-Nov-2000. I created this on my friend’s PC while I was staying with him in Bangalore, in search of a job. You can see the influence of Hollywood in my earlier works.
I followed it up the next day with the ‘Perfect storm’ scene, a space shuttle and a satellite and some logo renderings of DOLBY Digital and DTS.

Animation
I started to learn Macromedia Flash 4.0 in August, 2000. I made a DTS trailer and fortunately I have the original file with me. It is fun to see it now. It even had a typo – ‘Aiso featuring…’ instead of ‘Also featuring…’ — just after the appearance of DOLBY logo! And, there is no audio in this file.

Then I made a ‘Jurassic Park-Lost World-Godzilla’ inspired short animation. After a couple of years, I lost interest in animations completely.

Website
As per records, on 03-Sep-2001, I made an htm file to use in a server for my colleague’s project. I don’t have that file with me, but I remember placing the LINUX logo in it. The project was called ‘Peripheral Sharing Device (PSD),’ I cannot remember what it was. I may have used Microsoft FrontPage to design the page.
The first website I made is for my own use and it was hosted in a FreeServers domain. The date of upload is Saturday, 22-Sep-2001. This domain is still active and what you see there now is an updated version I did in 2005. Click here to see the original version. If possible, view in Internet Explorer to see the gliding effect of the background. I designed it in Macromedia DreamWeaver.

I also had a mirror of this website in the now defunct Geocities account.

Back to 2009
That was a nostalgic journey. I am surprised to see how much design I was doing back then. I took a mental note to design more diverse stuff from now onwards.
So, what is your story? What was your first design? The below space for comments is all yours…