The Design team of K! is most often an unsung hero of this grand fest, whose success, boils down to the way it is being portrayed to others, be it anything from the invitation, to the various depictions of events, workshops and quizzes conducted. The design team takes utmost care and is constantly innovative to pull off a grand show. So, read along, what is being done back stage, headed by, Deepika of I.T , Ashwanth of M.Sc CS and Kavya of Media Science.
Can you tell us about your team?
The design team is made up of 11 - 2nd years, 17 - 3rd years and 3 K!ore members in total.
What are the challenges/difficulties faced by the design team?
In the midst of the design work, other K!ore members give their opinion in between regarding a change in the theme of the design. Sometimes they even tell us to include extra content, be it an additional tag line or contact info, which pushes us to a situation where in the whole design must be started from scratch. Another major issue faced by our team (majority of whom are hostellers), is the uncertainty of power and wifi facility, which makes us unable to meet our deadlines.
What are the pre requisites needed for joining the Design team?
Passion for designing and a basic knowledge on Photoshop, (which is the only software that we commonly use, though some of our members use Illustrator or Flash) is required. Anybody can learn Photoshop. It is only an advanced version of paint! For that matter, most of the K!ore members did not undergo any official course for it at all. It is just our love and determination for designing that helped us to master the skill.
What is the work done by your team during K!?
Well, since all our work gets over before the start of K!, we would be by the side of our HR team and would be helping the members at the Hospitality Desk, whose work will be at the peak during K!
Which are the other K!ore teams would you coordinate with, for the design work?
First, the Requirement team gives direction for the design, after which the poster is made with the consultation of the Contents and the Marketing team. The brainstorming of ideas with various other teams also plays a crucial part in designing. Finally the design would be approved by the people at QMS. Sometimes, we help the web team to design the comic strips or some templates for the online events; we give a hand to the tech team in designing the user interface for the mobile application.
Is there any specific theme for K! on which you design?
Well, since this is not a cultural fest like Techofes, there is no a particular theme that we follow each year, but we use the concept of minimalistic design (which is the art of expressing a complex topic with a few simple objects or geometric figures) for events.
What are the different types of media you design on? And which would you give more importance to?
We design Posters, Banners, Standees, Cut-outs, Hang-ups to name a few.
The banners are the ones which are the most important from the marketing and the design point, as it is hung at prominent places across various campuses for weeks and thus, we must give it our all, to make them eye catching. Designing of E-posters should also be done with great care, as it goes on to a much larger group of audience.
How long will it take to design a poster on an average?
The actual design phase of a poster takes a matter of ½ an hour, but the idea and the design concept is what takes time to form shape, which may take up several hours or even days. A relaxed mind has a major say on the time factor. So we don’t do much work during our assessments, rather we sleep on our forming ideas.
Who is the inspiration for your work?
Ashwanth, was really eager to answer this question. “My father, a drawing master, is the one I look up to, and I believe that my work should be on par with him, something that is really appreciated by others.”
Will there be any changes to the Kurukshetra Logo?
Why, what’s wrong with the current one? It gives a sense of power seeing the vortex like curves in it. The actual logo was designed 5 years ago. As of now there are no plans of changing it, though we are planning to make some fine changes to the CTF logo.
