Afraid of design exams ? big mistakes that you should avoid during preparation

I have been interacting frequently with many CEED/UCEED/NID/NATA/NIFT aspirants, because of which I came to realize one big thing (call it a set of questions) that usually disturbs the aspirants. The questions are :

• "Will I clear/crack the design exam ?"
• "Am I prepared for the exam?"
• "Is the time sufficient for the preparation ?"
• "What questions or preparations, should I be going through ?"

These questions generally role in your mind and most of the time you may get confused as well as get frustrated. Well, friends trust me, there are no such things to fear. That's why I decided to write this post to explain in detail some general things that you should note; so as to bring some inspiration to you as well as boost your confidence level, without which your preparation may not go well. I will now clear the question "Will I clear/crack the design exam ?" here (along with the big mistakes that you should be avoiding during preparation), while the remaining questions will be taken care in the coming posts.

Ok, as a beginning part, I will share a small story that I liked very much; found in one of my favorite books "Explore yourself". The story goes like this

Once a man was about to cross the sea. A saint wrote 'have faith' on a leaf, tied it in a corner of the man's linen, which he wore on his shoulders and said to him; "Don't be afraid. Have faith and walk on the water. But the moment you lose faith you will be drowned".

The man was walking easily on the water. Suddenly he had an intense desire to see what was tied in his linen. He opened it and found only a leaf with the words 'Have Faith' written on it. "What is this?" he thought, "Just the words 'Have Faith'". As soon as doubt entered his mind he sank under the sea.

Moral of the story :

• Faith once lost is lost forever.
• Our Faith in what we do gives us strength.
• Suspicion drowns us.

Nice isn't it. The Sea mentioned above seems to be your CEED Exam. We should be comparing this story with our actual life as well as career. By now you should have noted that "there are no special requirements for things like seed or talisman that best work or helps us". It's your inner confidence, belief or faith that makes you excel in life. Impossible things can be easily done with the power of your self-confidence. The more you fear and get doubts (about your proceedings) more will be your problems and thus your achievements will ultimately dropdown. Doubts should be erased from your minds and your concentration should be totally on the focused part. 

In our case; focus should be on gathering adequate information for preparation as well as developing our thinking or observation skills minding sketching. I remind you once again that "everyone is creative by birth". Un-knowingly you did many creative works during your child-age; you have been developing creative thoughts through-out your education and you will be developing the thoughts in the future also. The big thing is you need to wake it up, wake the creator in you as it is the right time to do so. 

Most of the issues or problems that even great learned people (like scientists) feel difficulty in solving, can be easily solved by people applying common sense. It's the 'common sense' that works most of the time and not your technical or artistic skills. Professionals will agree with me, because they might have experienced the same. 

Elders say that children are more creative and get more ideas compared to them. it's true, but did you ever thought why? that's because children think in impossible ways; and if you hear their thoughts you might be wondering "what rubbish is this? had he/she gone crazy?". Yes, definitely he/she is crazy and that is what required for idea generation.

'Necessity is the mother of creativity', the more you feel like "something is missing and this should be included to make it better", the greater will be your creative power.

Think like a child, apply your common sense, and find problems for things around you (even though there is no problem !!!). Don't have fear like 'If I tell this idea to my friends or any others, they might laugh at me', Let them laugh to the full, thinking about silly problems is far better than not thinking. Silly ideas group up to a greater invention. My definition of a Designer is "one who searches for problems or even creates problems and finds a solution for that". You are using a mobile phone right and even though you are satisfied with that, the companies or marketers always look for Re-designing their products by creating or finding problems with the existing. 

So, what I'm saying is you should always be a problem finder. You try to identify problems on whatever things you see. Say while you are Travelling in a car, you think for the comfort of the interior, analyze the design, think for the sitting arrangements, positioning etc. Say if you are standing in a public bus; think how the top hand-support could be more comfort, the height of the steps, and more. 

Say you are washing your hands, think about what could be the best height of the basin, what type of tap is best for easy operating, and so on. I will give you one more example to make you more clear; say you are sitting in your office in front of a computer, try to analyze for a desk that will hold all the accessories required during your work. 

If you similarly practice the above concepts for every day things, you will be noting the awesome designer in you, and clearing CEED or NID will in no way be a problem for you (of course with some revisions on awareness). Designers should have good observation as well as analyzing skills. 

Design should be your all-time passion and if not nothing to worry about, make it your passion right now; because without which you won't taste the sweetness of it. If you dig deeply into the design, you will definitely enjoy it and even technical things won't entertain you like design did !!!

OK, as we had gone through some inspirational quotes for making us realize, I will now discuss some major mistakes that I hope most of us were doing until now. These mistakes might be drowning your confidence and also act as obstacle to your preparation. Please go through it.

1. Prepare for the design exam (CEED/UCEED/NID,NATA etc.) and not for M.Des, B.Des, B.FTech, B.Arch etc.

The big mistake (I think so) that many of you might be doing is 'Preparation for the course rather than for the exam'. Yes, you should be targeting for the design exam right now. The course is the later part of the design exam, where you will be developing your designer skills while the exam only tests your basic design thinking skills, it's just an entrance exam.

Most of you might be making a heavy artistic sketch works thinking that design is all about art. Well, maybe you are right but at least not now !!! You will be given two years of time (during your masters) to develop your design skills and right now your limit should be up to Portfolio level. Even after writing CEED or any design exam, you will be getting more than one month's time; during which you may plan for the portfolio (for some exams this is not even required). So, right now focus only on the basic sketching level (with time constraint !!), giving more priority to idea/concept generation and awareness. 

2. Concentrate only on a particular Design stream?

I had seen many people concentrating on a particular stream (say animation) as part of preparation. Well, it's a kind of a bad idea and I'm really sorry to say this. Because if you observe the pattern of CEED Part-A, questions were asked from different fields like Product design, animation, VC, interaction, and even fashion design (of course with some basic aptitude and awareness). 

And if you prepare only for say Animation design, then you will be in big trouble and will have to face difficulty in solving other questions. Even Part-B is a mix of questions. Think what happens if animation questions went difficult or time-consuming?. Then you are forced to attempt another question, which you had failed to practice !! Friend's don't let this happen and focus on overall structure and pattern. You got my point right?

3. Facebook, Wapp forums and other Groups

Social networks? Yes, its a good place where similar-minded people share their knowledge. You even got the advantage of getting useful resources from social networks. Well, it's true up to a limit only and the fact is you are even being distracted because of social networks; especially so-called Facebook forums. 

The thing that I noted is some of the aspirants seem to be great artists. Facebook is a place where every individual likes to get highlighted (I too do), so all the great artists will be competing with one another by posting their great artistic works. But because of these works, ordinary people like me are getting confused. For the first time when I happened to see these groups, I was struck and my confidence level dropped - like someone falling from a hill because i'm average in sketching. But slowly by re-organizing my mind, I satisfied myself by assuming that this many skills can be developed later; but for now, my basic skills are enough. 

So, if you are a good artist, then well, it's great.....but please at least leave a comment something like "not for the exam preparation" or "my time pass works" on your uploads. It will give great relief to people.

4. Portrait Sketching 

I had not seen a single question on human portrait sketching in CEED/UCEED previous question papers (NID is a diff story). But I wonder why most of the people concentrate and practice only portrait sketching. Is portrait sketching really useful for your design preparation ? Check the previous paper as a confirmation. If not important, use the time productively for the required topics that will help you clear the exam, you can do, sketch or even paint the portraits or for something like 'Inktober' in the coming years. You have plenty of years and time to do that later!

As part of my preparation, I will give less importance to portrait sketching.

5. Portfolio works

It's true that Portfolio is the most important part of your selection process, to any of the design institutions as well as for your design career. Portfolio Showcase your creative and design aptitude works that you did. But friends, people do mistake of concentrating on portfolio generation before attempting CEED. Until CEED/NID exam, your portfolio works is little or in no way useful. Portfolio works are time-consuming, and if you concentrate on that during your preparation, then your other preparations gets affected.

After attempting CEED in December, you will get more than one month of time, during which you may specifically concentrate on portfolio works. So, I suggest you concentrate on preparations rather than on the portfolio, at least up to the exam. You may keep your exercises or any other sketching works (that you do during preparation as practice) with you. It could be helpful for your portfolio generation. 

6. Involvement

You got plenty of resources for better preparation. A number of websites, blogs and books were available for your preparation. But the question is 'are you really involved in the process ?'. Did you really practice sketching and observing things ?. Unless you don't practice and put the pencil on paper, you won't make up in the final minute. You may be getting suggestions from every corner like IIT'ians, seniors, designers, professors and web, but it's your practice (of say 1 or 2 hours everyday) that makes you succeed. Working professionals can also make it a habit. Spend greater part of the time on preparation rather than on social networking.   

7. Not reading questions

Most of you (I can say 98% of you) are very good at creating design problems but honestly speaking - you are very very poor at 'Reading the question and understanding the requirements'. That's very true, whenever someone drops a design/sketch to my mail, I find some mistakes - well, of course, those are not mistakes but I can say - mismatch to the requirement. Yes, everybody will be in a hurry and so won't be sparing time for reading the question carefully. 

Let me clear this with an example. Last year I received many concepts from many people. I noticed that their works are great but interestingly they make unrelated concepts. For example, someone included a whistle, a stick and so many things in a multi-purpose torch design question. But the actual question says "Innovate and Design a multi-purpose torch that would effectively use the power source for alternative uses". 

The student missed the important word in the question 'incorporate the power source for alternate uses' and so did the mistake of including whistle etc, that in no way uses power source! This is what happens when you don't understand the question. The whole answer will get wrong and your answer will be getting few marks as the examiner wouldn't find what actually he required!

Reading the same question twice or more will itself provides you with what you need to do. Develop the habit of observing the given question. You may use the below strategies

1. Read the question until it's understood
2. List - what is to be done with what?
3. Don't include the unnecessary concepts in the design
4. Limit the ideas - without including 'n' numbers in the same concepts

Hope this helps!

I thought the above tips could be an important concern for your best preparation plan, that's why I went frank. I expect you to clear the exam with a good score. Do a regular internet search for something on the latest products and utilize social media only for knowledge gathering or sharing (at least up to the exam).

Here is my video guide on - "Big mistakes to avoid during CEED preparation"

All the best and happy preparation. . . . .