Catchy words, attractive phrases and minimalist content that conveyed the essence of the events and workshops were easily one of the reasons for the huge success of Kurukshetra 2017. Reshma Pothen, the Student Director of the Creativity and Content Management Team, talks to GT reporters during a quick interview.
Can you tell us about the role of the Creativity team in organizing K! ?
We primarily brainstormed ideas that went into the posters. My job involved directing the flow of ideas and co-ordinating with the juniors. Another facet of my responsibility was the content – all of Kurukshetra’s content, ranging from banners to event descriptions, was written by our team.
How did you finalize on designs that could attract a wide variety of students? How has the response been this year?
The response to the posters has been really good, because we have got a fantastic Design Team on board. Decisions are not instantaneous- we generated many designs and ideas, and the ones that stood out as best (after multiple rounds of discussions) got converted into the final end-products.
Have you overhauled any designs this year?
Designs are based on what the trend is at the moment, and what people are thinking about right now. It is not just about what you put up in the design, it is also about how spontaneous you are with it and how quickly it is shared. This is where the creativity part plays an important role. The sheer volume of ideas has been increasing every year, and this edition has been no exception.
Have you met with any negative feedback for the designs or contents?
There were definitely times when we thought things could have been done better, both with contents as well as design. Nevertheless, there is always a time crunch, especially when there are many people involved at each stage, which makes it harder to move from one point to another.
How did your organize your meetings? Would you prepare an agenda beforehand?
The Creativity team did not meet up as regularly as the other teams did. This is probably because creativity and content require only a laptop and an open mind for great ideas. Yet whenever we organized meets, we discussed about the different types of posters, how content was to be written and a variety of other issues.
To what extent did the Creativity team and Design team collaborate?
The creativity team usually generated ideas, which the Design team tried to implement. If not feasible, the Design team provided constructive feedback so that the process either went for another iteration through consensus, or towards a wrap as the Design team would find an effective way to convey the information.
What, in your opinion, is the importance of the Creativity team to the success of Kurukshetra?
Creativity is merely one aspect of what we do. As such, the team does not function alone. We do not have a set of defined tasks- rather, we function as a support team to help other teams. Particularly because I handle content, the work I would usually handle would be to decide content and caption for a poster that has been designed, or perfecting an invitation, etc. Checking on such fine details is necessary, as it sets the standard for us to maintain our ISO certification.
