NID Communication Design - MDes Domain Specific Practice Questions

The following questions are meant to assist you with your NID preparation (MDes domain-specific subjective part), especially fro the domain-specific test 'Communication Design' as per the new pattern from NID 2020. I've made the following question to make you realize how easy it is to come up with your own questions using the situations around you, including the use of the internet. 

I. Question Type 1

Prepare a campaign for the below-given design problems. Tasks to be done

• Write about 5 situations in the locations mentioned in the problem statements, where the given problems can be improved, each situation not more than 2 sentences. 
• Design posters to communicate the situations you have identified for each of the problems.

Problems:

1. Prepare a campaign to spread awareness of handwashing, sanitizing and social distancing in your community or society where you reside 
2. Prepare a campaign to demonstrate the need of avoiding plastic waste as an environmental concern towards the diversity of birds. This campaign is for online sharing.
3. Prepare a campaign, to be displayed at villages, about the importance of open defecation.
4. Prepare a government-initiated ad campaign to highlight the importance of saving water at homes. 
5. Prepare a campaign - in an attempt to prevent the issues of ragging in your college.   
6. Prepare a government ad campaign to bring awareness of having a maximum of only two children - as part of the population and economy control.
7. Prepare a campaign to demonstrate the ill effects of drug addictions happenings in your college and write 5 situations in your college where the issue can be prevented. 
8. Prepare a campaign in an attempt to reduce the open splitting of pan everywhere. Write 5 situations in your city where this issue can be mitigated with some proposals. 
9. (optional) Prepare a campaign to bring awareness of the effects of forest encroachment on the ecosystem of wildlife. 
10. Prepare a campaign to bring awareness and stop the thought of abortion and killing of newly born girl babies in a nearby village. Write 5 situations where the parents thought process can be modified. 
11. Prepare a campaign to highlight the importance of education to children in a nearby local community staying inside a city. Write 5 situations showing how an educated children's life would bring a change and positively impact their next generation and hence the country.

II Question Type -2

Write a story that includes the sensory attributes or the images shown in below set of problems using all the given objects for the problem. 

• Your story should be within 12 lines.
• The objects may appear in any order in the story

Problems:

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

Q6

Q7

Q8

Q9

Q10

Q11

Q12

III. Question Type 3

For the following set of scenarios stated below, visualize the situation and communicate that in 4 frames. 

1. Assume that you are an examiner and have found a student cheating by using slips. You will catch the student and ask them to leave the hall. 
2. Suppose you are walking along the roadside footpath and you saw a blind girl crossing the road and looking on the other side while a bike was about to dash her. How will you save her? Visualize it in 3 frames. 
3. Illustrate the situation in 3 frames where you were standing on the terrace of your home enjoying fresh air when you saw a sparrow escape from an attacking eagle. The frames should depict you as well. 
4. Suppose you are inside a bank, waiting at the counter when a robber tried to threaten the cashier to give the money from his cash box by showing a pistol, you act immediately by punching him and locking him on your hold, making his pistol fall down and helpless in escaping. Visualize the situation in four frames
5. Suppose you are traveling in a plane and a terrorist aims his gun towards an air hoster to control the plane when you and a girl sitting on the opposite of your seat act and take control over him - you stopping the terrorist and freeing his gun while the fellow traveler girl frees and save the air hosters as she tries to make the terrorist fall down. Visualize the situation and illustrate in four frames on how you and the fellow traveler girl act and help with the situation. 
6. Suppose you are having a conversation with your mom in the kitchen. Your mom is cooking food when you noticed a plastic container/box with wheat in it, improperly stacked at the top cupboards, which was about to fall on top of your mother. Visualize in 3 frames how you prevened that to happen. You could've alarmed and pulled her or could have prevented the fall or even both.  Also, include the frame that illustrates you observing the box improperly placed and was ready to fall down. 
7. Visualize in three frames a dance sequence that you remember, no need to draw the backgrounds but the frames should make the viewer understand the step.
8. Visualize in three frames a self defense sequence. No need to draw the backgrounds but the frames should make the viewer understand the action step. 
9. Visualize the scene of your pet dog chasing away a cunning cat, that is trying to drink the milk in your kitchen.
10. Visualize the several scenes of a hospital where social distancing, precautious etc. were taken care in every frame as part fo COVID preventive measure. 
11. Suppose you saw an adult suddenly falling down in the road due to COVID affection, how will you try to give him the vaccine that you had been carrying for your safety to him ensuring your own safety? Visualize the situation in 3 frames.
12. Suppose you are enjoying the freshness of nature near a river and you saw a small kid of around 7 years old, who somehow got into the water and is now struggling to swim to the shore. How will you help the kid? given that you don't know swimming. Use some situations like availability of say a rope, a net, a tire, or even a small boat or a combination of a couple of them. Visualize and draw the situation.

(I hope the above sample exercise will make you confident enough to come up with your own practice questions) 

IV. Question Type 4

Given pictographs (graphic icons), draw one scenario using the given pictographs. Include the pictographs in your designs, at the appropriate locations/color/scale. Use color if needed. 

Evaluation criteria:

• Creative utilization of the given icons
• Scenario generation and communication

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

Q6

V. Question Type 5

Use each of the following incomplete objects and create at least five identifiable objects using any no. of lines or shapes. Provide a title for each object. 

(Taken from CEED 2020 updated practice exercises found here) 

(solution for similar questions available here for CEED 2020) 

Using each of the visual elements given below box, create at least three recognizable objects/elements (for all the seven images below) and give a title to each. Use only BLACK pencil/pen. Draw only within the boundaries of the boxes.

I hope the above questions helped you.....

Further - NID Subjective Practice questionsGet complete Stuff You Look blog's NID links in this pdf

CEED 2020 Part B sketching solutions

In this post, I will share my sketching attempts for CEED 2020 Part B subjective paper to give you an idea of how I would solve the questions if I were to give the exam. The way I solved might not be the correct way, but at least I don't want to stop myself from sharing how I would do. Hope you find this helpful.

Note:

1. I drew all the sketches digitally. However, you are supposed to do this using pencils/pen as instructed in the question paper.
2. I might have missed perspective or some important elements, you can understand that. As you know I'm just average at sketching. This post is just to give you an idea.

Tips for answering the subjective questions

I keep repeating the below tips to stress the importance of the points

1. Read, read, and read.......read and understand the question carefully. Sketch only that asked in the question. It's not necessary to do the extra portion...no need to prove your artistic skills. If mentioned specifically (like in Q1 they mentioned not to draw the environment), don't do the extra works. It will result in minus marking!
2. Make sure you show everything required in the questions....the specific things like for ex. the flies in Q1
3. Understand the evaluation criteria and try to meet them.....to your level best
4. Use only the media mentioned in the question
5. Try not to use rulers/scale even if not mentioned in the question

You can check a detailed list of tips for subjective question in this post - walking stick design problem sketch

Q1) 

My sketch solutions for Q1

Points to remember:

1. Maintain the same size and proportion of the lady and her features - this includes smaller details like eyes, eyebrows (which is not required here), size of the earrings, bangles etc. In short, you are supposed to replicate the same character as given in the question
2. Maintain the same perspective as far as possible - my suggestion. Like for ex., I've tried to maintain the same view of the basket with the fishes. 
3. Attempt only those parts that are required in the questions

Mistakes that you should avoid:

1. Drawing the platform on top of which she was seated.
2. Sketch of the surroundings like market scenario, fellow sellers etc. Sketching her in a standing position for both the two questions.
3. Giving additional features to her, like wrinkles, shades, eyebrows, changing ear rings, bangles etc.
4. Missing the towel in the first sketch or showing a handkerchief instead of the towel. 

Here is the timelapse video of how I drew this (just for understanding. Nothing to do with sketching)

Q2) 

My sketch solutions for Q2

Mistakes that you should avoid:

1. Resizing the shapes (line as well as the circle), like using smaller/bigger size circle, changing the arc radius, or making a longer/shorter length line. You should use the same line length and the same radius of the circle. 
2. The three objects should maintain the same orientations in all the sketches. 
3. Missing one or two of the shapes given.
4. Try making the shapes in the correct distances with respect to the enclosing/bounding box as shown in the questions, like I've maintained in all the 10 solutions - just my suggestion.

Q3)

My sketch solutions for Q3

I would prefer not to draw the backgrounds for the icons. In fact, for the 4th solutions, I should've used one or at the max two flowers, which I feel is sufficient and makes a good icon.

Q4) 

My sketch solution for Q4

Points to remember:

1. Understand and figure out the light direction, that would result in the shadow as shown in the question. Based on that, you can consider showing the shadows for the body. Remember, the body shall be mostly plastic or plastic mix and so you won't see the shining reflection as seen for the metal top mixer.
2. Knobs and the switches should be drawn with the utmost care. In my sketch, I could've drawn it even better. 
3. The view (3D orientation) of the mixer should match the view of the body to be drawn. But, don't change the orientation of the top mixer to match with the body (in case you end up drawing the body first and then the mixer). I would prefer to draw the top mixer first and match the bottom body according to the top mixer's perspective. 

Q5) 

My sketch solutions for Q5

 

Problem description 

1. Sharp pain at the palm surface where the toothbrush tail end is being pressed hard
2. Uncomfortable and slip of grip at the mid-level while brushing
3. Pain and rubbing of the brush back on the gums of the tooth during the front and back action
4. Difficulty to reach the backmost teeth, causing discomfort of opening the mouth wide
5. Difficulty in stretching the mouth wide when the brush is used to clean the front sides

Oops....I think I forgot to draw the 6th problem :D I hope that's ok. 

Points to remember:

1. Don't spend time drawing a complete person or complete hand. The solutions should highlight the key highlights - the problems because of using the toothpaste. Draw only those parts that are required to express the problems. You can see how I have drawn partial hands and facial features. I think this should work.
2. You don't want to draw the backgrounds and all. Not at all needed. 
3. The problem description is supposed to come beneath the respective image. I've shown them separately for my convenience. 
4. Don't show the solution :) or propose/suggest solutions in the description.

Sketching Level required/sufficient for CEED and UCEED exams

Hope this is useful.

Tips for Exploded views drawing

Hi,

I got a couple of comments on this blog asking to deal with Exploded views. So, today, I will be covering on some tips for exploded view drawing. Note that these topics are not at all required for UCEED students, so they are not advised to go through this or any of sketch/design related post as of now. CEED and NID students would find this helpful. 

Before explaining exploded view, let me introduce you with assembly drawing, the most common term for mechanical engineers. 

Many of the products in our surroundings are made of several small parts. Take the example of a Pen. A typical pen is a combination of rifle, outer top case, outer bottom plastic/metal case, cap and a holder to the cap. A combination of these we call as a pen, and representing the parts together intact in their working position is termed as 'Assembling' or 'Assembly drawing'. 

Exploded view is quite opposite of assembling. Although the view should show all parts in unassembled part, the parts are not intact, meaning they will be shown separately, which are ready to be assembled. Again, let us take the example of a simple bolt-nut combination with a washer in between, as shown in the below image.

Clearly, the above product is an assembly of three parts, viz. bolt, washer and nut. (If you're not able to identify the three parts, check the below image). As indicated by the blue lined arrow in the above image, the two parts (nut and then washer) has to be moved in the direction in order to disassemble it (along the axis indicated by red line in the image). The separated parts would look something like below.  

The above picture could be considered as exploded view, since it clearly specifies the individual parts in their assembling positions. If we undo the process, I mean slid the washer and nut along the axis of movement (red line), then it will get assembled, right? This is a proper way of representing.

However, people often do the mistake the showing parts in different directions/axis not in-line with the assembly. For example, in the above image, we know that the washer and nut should lie along the red axis line to be assembled, now consider the below image 

Both the parts are on the other side of the bolt face, and if we try sliding it in the axis direction (along red axis as shown by blue arrows), we cannot assemble it, so, this is not a good way of representing. 

Also, check the below image, 

The axis of the two parts (green line) are not in line with the axis of the base part (bolt - red line), and so any movement of the nut/washer will not end in assembly, except you take it from green axis and place it in red axis. So, this also cannot be considered as a good exploded view. Now, check the below image which again violates and cannot support assembling of parts to form a single product with a single slide.

With the above simple example and several set of images, I hope you now got an idea of how actually to represent exploded views. Individual parts (that forms the complete product) has to be shown apart from the base part, such that they are inline (along the same axis) while during assembly. 

Below design is my solution to CEED 2009 product design problem in which we have to design a multi-purpose walking stick for the elderly, complete design and detailed discussion are available in this link. 

For the above design, one possible exploded view could be drawn as below

Although, I could've showed exploded details of more features/parts like the compass, mp3 player, switch, LED light in the top front as well as at the bottom etc, still it is valid since, whatever separate parts that I've shown including the screw, they were placed at the proper place in the proper direction.   

Below, is one more design question from CEED 2013 solution to Part B question paper, in which we were supposed to design a mop that will allow cleaning in nuke and corners of the home. 

For which, one possible exploded view could be 

Another example design (exploded view) that I did as part of My portfolio with tips and guide

Hope, you can now deal with exploded views easily. For more examples, just go through google images and type for any specific products exploded view say pens.

Step-by-step sketching examples

You are here Practice >> step-by-step sketching

I have included some basic step-by-step sketching examples from around the web to let you learn 'How to sketch as a beginner'. Understand how the images/cartoons are sketched from simple basic line sketches. Just go through and understand the process.

(Source - thedrawbot)

(Source - thedrawbot)

(Source - thedrawbot)

(Source - howtodrawrealistic)

(Source - howtodrawrealistic)

(Source - kurohika)

(Source - blazedent)

These are some simple basic sketches illustrating how by following basic steps can we sketch any figure. These pictures are not meant for practice. Of course, as time moves and as you move on to intermediate level of sketching, you will find this easy and in fact you might skip starting from line drawing.

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Also SEE

How to start and what to practice for CEED exam

Perception sketching guide and exercises