This article is interview-based. For this article, Mr Kushal Manandhar and Mr Sushant Subedi, the Design community coordinators, had been interviewed with a series of questions by the Documentation team.
Q1)Tell us about yourselves!
Ans. Hello, I am Kushal Manandhar. I am a 3rd-year Computer Engineering student. I am the coordinator of the Design Community. I am an ambitious person who likes to set goals and work on the goals systematically rather than following a blind approach. I create time blocks to achieve my daily goals and usually stick to my routine to be productive most of the time. Playing games is my way of releasing stress and refreshing myself. I am very open-minded and calm by nature.
Kushal Manandhar, Design Coordinator
Hello, I am Sushant Subedi. I am from Nepalgunj. I completed high school at KMC. After high school, I planned to go abroad for my higher education but later studied Computer Science at Kathmandu University.
I was most of the time involved in a youth leadership development organization named AIESEC Nepal. Being involved in different clubs at KU, I got the chance to explore my best interest. I also contributed to a few clubs at KU and explored many fields to find what was suitable for me. I later found my interest in designing. I am very fond of designing and being a creative person I find this field exciting. I am presently the Community Coordinator of KUOSC Design Community. I am a foodie and speaking of my hobbies I like to travel in my free time.
Sushant Subedi, Design Coordinator
Q2) Define the term ‘Design’ in your own words.
Ans. According to us, the term ‘design’ is neither technical nor professional but a way of sharing ideas, thoughts, emotions, and overall creativity. It’s a very creative field, where the design elements (such as typography and images) convey information. For us, design has always been a mood freshener that allows us to increase our creativity to a whole new level.
Q3) What according to you makes a good graphic designer?
Ans. Well, that’s a great question. According to us, Graphic designers must possess certain qualities. The first and foremost is patience. Patience is the key to success in this field. You cannot create a masterpiece in a single day, it requires a lot of hard work. You must be patient enough to learn all the concepts and not rush to complete the topics and concepts. Another quality a good designer must possess is competency. A designer must be competent and at every point try to push himself or herself to get the best possible results. A good designer should always have a good idea and gather the energy to create new designs. A good designer is also a good listener who constantly tries to learn from others. Last but not least, he/she should be a constant learner and should possess the ability to accept criticism.
Q4) If you had to learn everything from the beginning, how would you proceed?
Ans. If we had to get back to those days when we just started to learn design, we would concentrate more on the basic theory. Tutorials too would be helpful, but we would avoid depending only on tutorials since watching too many tutorials makes you dependent and less creative. Our focus would be more on the concept and apply the concept learned from the documentation to our design. Copying the trendy design would also be a good idea to learn in the beginning phase. Staying close to the design community for feedback would also be a very good option.
Q5) How do you get new design ideas? Describe your creative process.
Ans. That’s a tough question! We think that there is no need to brainstorm for creativity. We observe trends in the digital market, get different ideas from other designs, google, and in our free time when we use social media, we just take a screenshot if we see any interesting design and try to learn from it. If you professionally work as a designer you should first see the requirements of the company or client and then after proper research and taking help of proper references (if necessary) you can draw your idea. For us, creativity may come from anywhere, and no matter wherever it comes from, we give in our best to make it perfect use in our design. We also sometimes spend hours thinking about suitable topics and sometimes when we are not satisfied with the design we again in the middle of creating a design just have to stop and start again with a new topic or design.
Q6) What were/are your struggles as a Designer?
Ans. Learning design is a very long process, and first and foremost the main struggle we faced was impatience. Even after learning continuously and creating various designs we didn’t have good results at first and sometimes in a hurry of learning everything we would skip various important concepts. This used to make us frustrated and impatient. In the beginning, we also did not plan a proper routine for ourselves, which also was the cause of imperfection. Sometimes in our initial days of learning, we also felt that other people were very biased as they would select other ideas instead of ours, which later we realized was not true, gave us a very hard time. These struggles now shaped us to become good designers. There is also a huge gap between self-learning and taking internships and jobs in companies and exploring how things worked there fixed everything up.
Q7) There are many fields in Computer Science, but what made you choose to design?
Ans. Well, it’s very simple. We simply chose to design because it excited us the most than any other field. When choosing your field, you must see how passionate you are about the field. We found out our passion for designing and learning to design was more like fun and gave us immense happiness. We can wake up fresh every morning, even after spending a long time creating designs the previous night. Even when travelling by bus, our eyes automatically go to the hoarding board, seeing the designs implemented there and thinking about what would have made it more attractive and beautiful.
Q8) What are your visions and goals as a coordinator of the Design Community?
Ans. The Design Community has some flaws which we would like to correct at first. First of all, we would like more people to come for design as there is less number of designers on the team. Also, whenever programs are being held, the designs and posters should be made beforehand by the Design Community. We are also planning to inform the students about careers in design. We have also prepared a one-year plan in which we plan to bring new design podcasts, and challenges, publish magazines, call mentors for guidance and provide field training. We are also going to bring new projects and activities for the students.
Q9) What changes would you like to bring via your committee?
Ans. Well, we would like to set a benchmark through our committee. Students should know what to work on and explore, and we as the coordinators of the design community would like to guide the students on that topic. We would also provide mentorship and feedback to the students who are learning to design. We would like to create friendly teaching and learning environment via our committee.
Q10) Some words of motivation to the one in this field of designing or one scared to enter this field.
Ans. If you are new, first of all, try. Always remember, a good starting is half done when u try. You will get to explore many things in this field. Express your creativity freely and work on yourself to make yourself better day by day. If you are a beginner, complete the basics fully and implement the concepts in your design. Don’t lose hope and always remember, that bad design leads to the best design. If you are in this field, brush up on all your concepts properly and implement them in your design. Be as creative as you can be. Take inspiration from other designs.
Fellow designers always remember “Good Designers Copy, Best Designers steal”.
Interviewed by: Sushankhya Chapagain