Free Design Courses on Web

Now that you all are done with your Phase 1 exam, why not have some fun?

What to learn that new skill? Interested in animation? Need tips to learn basic photography? How about some Design Basics?

So, here is a list of few online Design Courses you may be interested in:

• Design Course on Product Drawing 
• Design Course on Design Management 
• Design Course on Photography 
• Design Course on Digital Illustration
•  Design Course on Handmade Paper Making  
• Design Course on Calligraphy 

For more such courses , visit D 'source website: Click Here

• Design 101 (or Design Basics) - iversity web course 

 

We will update and add more such courses soon. Stay tuned!

NIDians create smart gas-stove knob

It is rare when a product is developed keeping the elderly of the society in mind. Three young guys from National Institute of Design did just that and won a national award for it. Orb, an LPG gas knob automation that can turn itself off, control the flame and even track the number of whistles is a product that has recently won the Tata Elxsi's Ignite competition that aimed at designing a smart kitchen appliance for the elderly.

Created by fourth semester postgraduate students - Sushant Darake, Tawfik Manham and Arjun Raj Kumar - Orb was developed keeping in mind the competition, held on the World Industrial Day. "Elderly people often fail to keep track of the whistles blown by their pressure cookers. They also tend to forget to switch off the gas stove. We had a lot of ideas but decided to work on creating a knob that can do all these things for them," said Tawfik.

Orb is designed in a way that allows it to be used on all existing gas stoves and in fact, turns them into smart appliances. "It has three modes for various functions: timer mode that informs one about the time left, flame mode that tells if the flame is high or low and the whistle counter mode that shows how many whistles are remaining. The dials are mechanical and the knob has a display screen as well," Sushant explained.

The gadget additionally uses a simple microphone and a micro-controller coupled with a low latency e-ink display system to monitor time and count the whistles. A stepper motor is used to disengage the lock enabling the knob to turn off after the set time. "With this innovation, we can bridge the divide between gas stoves and new age electric ovens," he added.

Not just for the elderly, this automatic knob can be handy for working women who multi-task, or hostel students who study for long hours and tend to forget that they have kept something on the stove to cook.

Source: TOI

Target NID to launch Short - Term Design Courses

Design education in India is having a steady growth with good number of National and Private institutions coming up. Many institutes are providing modern and industry based courses to make students ready for jobs right after their graduation.

Target NID has decided to introduce short - term design courses to help enthusiasts learn basics to advanced design knowledge right from their homes.

Our courses will be internet based and is being developed by design mentors and current design students. The entire course can be downloaded and shared with certain restrictions.

To receive the course modules, one has to register with Target NID. After successful registration, you will receive the course modules periodically by email.

List of courses being currently developed:

*  Foundation in Design

*  Fashion Design

*  Graphic Design

*  3D Animation

*  Product Design

*  Architectural Design

Those interested to help us in development of the above courses, can leave us an email. This is an open project meant to promote design education in India. Conceptualized by Target NID.

Choosing Applied Arts as a Career

Applied art is the application of design and aesthetics to objects of function and everyday use. Whereas fine arts serve as intellectual stimulation to the viewer or academic sensibilities as well as produced or intended primarily for beauty; the applied arts incorporate design and creative ideals to objects of utility, such as a cup, magazine or decorative park bench. There is considerable overlap between the field and that of the decorative arts; to some extent they are alternative terms. 

The fields of industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, decorative art and functional art are altogether considered applied arts. In a creative and/or abstract context, the fields of architecture and photography are considered applied arts. Many applied art objects are collected, for instance ceramics, textiles, jewelry, glass, furniture, children's toys, cars, electric guitars, as well as various forms of images produced in commercial contexts, such as film posters or old advertisements.

Target NID PICK - Undergraduate Applied Arts Colleges in India 

We have shortlisted colleges based on independent surveys and student friendliness index. 

• MS University Of Baroda - Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara 
• Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai 
• College of Art - University of Delhi, Delhi 
• Bharati Vidyapeeth's Bharati Kala Mahavidyalaya, Pune 
• Faculty of Fine Arts - Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
  
• Rachana Sansad College of Applied Art & Craft, Mumbai 
• Padmashree Dr. D. Y. Patil College of Applied Arts & Crafts, Pune 
• Goa College of Art, Goa 
• Government College of Art, Chandigarh 
• Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad

Need Help about admission process? Shout your queries at Query Zone now.

Basics on Light and Shadow

Knowing where and how to draw light and shadows can turn shapes into forms, such as a circle into a sphere, and give your drawing life and depth. Figuring out where light and shadow is in your drawing isn't tricky, but it does take practice. In this guide, you’ll learn how to see the lights and shadows and how to transfer what you see to the paper.



Learn More about Light and Shadow:   
http://idiotsguides.com/static/quickguides/artphotography/drawing_101_seeing_light_and_shadows.html

Plan For New NIDs Gains Pace

Plans to set up four new National Institutes of Design (NID) across India are gaining pace with land for the new campuses at Jorhat in Assam, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh having already been transferred while the proposed site for a campus in Kurukshetra, Haryana, has been finalised and awaiting a final transfer.

In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to lay the foundation stone for the Hyderabad campus, to be located inside the Central University's sprawling campus there, sometime next month. Singh had last year laid the foundation stone for the campus at Jorhat.

Meanwhile, the governing council of the existing NID — which currently has campuses in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bangalore — has been directed to begin brainstorming on how the four new NIDs would be governed, particularly on whether they should each have their own directors and governing boards like the IIMs and IITs or be more centralised with one director-general looking after operations in various campuses, as is the case with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT).

A final call on this is expected to be taken once the Planning Commission (PC) finalises the financial allocation for the new NIDs although the current NID is most likely to handhold the new institutes at least in the beginning, according to NID Director Pradyumna Vyas, who has lately been frequenting Delhi and the planned sites as part of finalisation moves.

On the other hand, the PC has also been lending an attentive ear to a group of senior design faculty calling themselves the Vision First Team and is reportedly considering setting up an Open Design School (ODS) and several Design Innovation Centres (DICs) alongside.

The team enjoys strong backing from Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Innovation Council, and had in fact gotten a considerable toehold in after the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) — under which NID functions — was forced to float new Request For Proposals (RFPs) for new NIDs in mid-2011. Bids for the first RFP had been found unsatisfactory.

The DIPP had been struggling to get funding for the new institutes after the PC did not provide the Rs 534 crore that were estimated as needed for the project, and had to resort to seeing if a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model could be explored.

Source: Indian Express

Elevations | Advanced Exercise 3

After lots of practise on Human Anatomy, it’s time to learn about elevations. Hence, here’s exercise 3 on elevation.

In the entrance test, the concept of elevation carries a little weightage, but it is important to know how to draw objects from all views to render a proper 3D object on paper.

Posterous Blog (For Online View): 

Target NID Advanced Exercise 3-Final.pdf   Download this file

NOTE: In reference to the modules given in the advanced exercise 3, you should take a printout and fold the page as shown below.

National Institute of Design to help pep up Khadi Products

Though the country's famous Khadi Gram Udyog chain has grown in terms of products and designs in the recent years, a massive makeover is in the offing with the National Institute of Design stepping in to provide professional help.

This week, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) signed a memorandum of understanding with the design institute, which will provide the swadeshi promoting organisation with faculty and student support to smarten up its range of merchandise.

The help will be given by NID in four major areas to make the difference – product design, branding, packaging and retail. The agreement entails the two entities working together for a long length of time through an interdisciplinary team on design related projects for the khadi and village industry sector. Towards this end the two have set up what has been christened a Design Innovation Centre at NID in Ahmedabad.

“The areas of thrust shall be in need assessment, product development, technology up-gradation, developing standardisation and quality assurance norms, packaging design and promotional strategies for khadi and village industry products,” said an NID spokesperson.

KVIC has been given assistance earlier under the Khadi Reform and Development Programme where the Asian Development Bank had extended $ 150 million to modernise the organisation. 

The aim was to position the organisation such that it could face market competition and simultaneously enhance the revenues of its village artisan.

News Source: The Hindu