Candidates seeking admission to the B.Des and M.Des courses at the NIDs will have to appear in a drawing and sketching exam. The NID DAT 2025 (Prelims) exam will be held on Janaury 5, 2025. Here we share tips to master drawing and sketching skills.
Candidates seeking admission to B.Des and M.Des courses offered by NID participating colleges must take the NID DAT 2025 entrance exam. The National Institute of Design (NID) will conduct the NID DAT 2025 (Prelims) exam on January 5, 2025. The exam will held in a pen-and-paper mode in 22 cities across the country. The candidate had to choose the NID DAT 2025 exam center when filling out the application form. Note that the NID DAT 2025 application form closed on December 6, 2024. On the day of the exam, bring your NID DAT admit card 2025 and photo ID proof. Also, when inside the exam center, make sure that you follow NID DAT 2025 exam-day guidelines. The DAT Prelims question paper for the exam will include textual and visual questions. The scores of NID DAT Prelims will be used to shortlist candidates for DAT Mains.
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There is a 90% more chance of getting best college recommendations by sharing preferences.M.Des DAT Mains (Studio Test) for shortlisted candidates will be conducted starting March 3, 2025. B.Des DAT Mains will be conducted from April 26 - May 4, 2025. The Aptitude part will contain questions on Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning, GK and Current Affairs, and English. While the NID drawing part will have questions related to rendering, sketching, human figures, color schemes, scale, proportion, design solutions, and more. One must have a good presence of mind and long drawing practice to crack this. Check out the below-mentioned tips and tricks to understand the NID entrance exam’s drawing part.
Q: When will list of exam centers for NID DAT 2025 (Prelims) be released?
The National Institite of Design (NID) has released the list of exam centres for the DAT Prelims exam on September 3, 2024.
The list of exam centers have been published in the respective admission brochures for the B.Des and M.Des programs.
The DAT Prelims exam will be conducted in 22 cities across the country - Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kurukshetra, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi, Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada.
Note that each of these cities may have one or more exam centres.
The candidate can select their choice of exam centre at the time of filling out the application form. The NID DAT 2025 application form opened on September 3, 2024.
Q: When will the NID DAT 2025 Prelims exam be conducted?
The National Institute of Design (NID) will conduct the DAT Prelims exam on January 5, 2025.
The B.Des exam will be held from 10 am - 1 pm; meanwhile, the M.Des exam will be held from 10 am - 12.30 am.
The DAT Prelims for the B.Des programme will be conducted in a paper-and-pencil/pen mode. The question paper may incude both textual and visual questions. Other details like duration of the exam, marking scheme, etc. will be published in the DAT Prelims admit card.
The candidate needs to report for the exam at 8 am. Gates closing time is 9.30 am.
The DAT Prelims exam for the M.Des programme will be conducted offline and include a mix of objective and subjective questions. The paper will have a total of 100 questions.
Q: How can I select exam centers for NID DAT 2025 (Prelims)?
The NID DAT 2025 (Prelims) exam will be conducted on January 5, 2024. The exam will be administered in 22 cities across India. Note that each of these exam cities may have one or more test centres.
The candidate will have to select their choice of exam centres for the DAT Prelims exam when filling out the NID DAT 2025 application form.
The candidate must be careful when selecting the exam city, because they might not be allowed to change it later on.
Develop Visualization skills
A budding NID 2025 candidate has to work on qualities like creativity, observation, and imagination. Qualities like these can't be developed in an interval of time. So, if you wish to be best at drawing and sketching it's advisable to start as early as you can.
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Understand Memory Drawing
Memory drawing is one of the important parts of preparation for the NID DAT test. Most of aspiring students can do excellent copy drawing but find it difficult to draw from memory. One can start developing observation skills and lots of practice. Live sketching will also add to refine this part.
Practice Technical Drawing
To crack the NID drawing section, an understanding of Technical Drawing is a must. Technical Drawing or Engineering Drawing is not conventional drawing. It includes mandatory drawing topics:
- Perspective Drawing
- Composing 3-Dimensional elements
- Light and Shadow
- Scale and Proportions
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Q: What is the reporting time at NID DAT 2025 exam centre?
The reporting time for NID DAT 2025 will be mentioned in the admit card, along with gate closing time, and exam timings and date.
The candidate needs to report for the DAT Prelims exam at 8 am. The gates of the exam center will close at 9,30 am (or 30 minutes before the commencement of the exam). After that no candidate will be allowed inside the exam hall.
The DAT Prelims exam for the B.Des and M.Des courses will be conducted tentatively in the 4th week of December 2024.
Exam timings:
- B.Des - 10 am - 1 pm
- M.Des - 10 am - 12.30 pm
Q: Will I be allowed to enter NID DAT 2025 exam centre if I am late?
The reporting and exam commencement time for NID DAT 2025 will be mentioned in the admit card. The candidate must arrive at the exam centre as per the reporting time.
If the candidate is late, there is chance that he or she will not be allowed entry inside the exam center.
So, the candidate must start a bit early on exam day, taking into account the traffic situation. Note that exam officials will conduct registration formalities and frisking, etc. befor allowing the candidate inside the exam centre.
Q: When will the National Institute of Design conduct the NID DAT 2025 Mains exam?
The National Institute of Design (NID) will conduct the DAT Mains exam separately for the B. Des and M.Des programs.
The M.Des DAT Mains will be held from March 3 to April 6, 2025. The National Institute of Design will release the detailed program-wise schedule for the Studio Test and Personal Interview on its admission portal.
The DAT Mains exam for the B. Des program will be conducted from April 26 to May 4, 2025. The DAT Mains exam for the B. Des program comprises a Studio Test.
Meanwhile, the DAT Mains for the M.Des programme comprises a Studio Test and Interview.
The final results of NID DAT 2025 will be declared by considering the performance of the candidate in the DAT Prelims and DAT Mains.
Q: What will happens if a shortlisted candidate pay the fees and uploads all the required documents, but fails to attend NID online counseling?
In case, the candidate fails to report for the counselling, then his/ her candidature will be cancelled for that round. Such candidates, however, can still participate in the corresponding rounds. The only exception is for candidates who fails to attend the counseling in the last round. In such a case, the candidate will no longer be considered for admission. The counseling for NID that 2024 will be conducted separately for B. Des and M.Des courses.
Also, note that B.Des candidates will have to submit campus preferences as part of the counseling registration process.
Q: Will NID 2025 studio test and personal interview be conducted on the same day?
The studio test and personal interview for M.Des DAT Mains are conducted on the same and in some cases different days.
For instance, in the previous edition of the NID DAT exam, for the New Media Design program, the studio test was conducted on March 4, 2024. However, the personal interview were conducted between March 4 & 7, 2024.
Therefore the candidate has to consult their DAT Mains admit to confirm their studio test and interview schedule.
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Drawing Straight Lines
Design students must practice freehand straight lines: verticals, horizontals, and diagonals. Avoid using scales, and other drawing accessories. Doing it daily will help to create a balance in drawing and reduce dependability on scale. This is one of the important points to remember in the preparation of the NID entrance exam.
Knowledge of Figure & Live Drawing
Figure drawings or still-life drawings are practiced by making observations of the physical world. These can be human models, but can also include objects like fruit, vehicles, or items in nature. It helps students to learn perspective, proportions, and shading.
Practice without Eraser:
Erasing the drawing takes a lot of time, smudges your work, and makes it unfit to render later on. It leaves an adverse impact on the person checking that drawing.
Ideas of drawing tools and medium:
Students must have a proper understanding of drawing tools and different mediums. Read out the below-given list to recall the important drawing tools before appearing in NID 2025 DAT:
- Chalk is a powdery drawing tool suitable tool for blending and shading and works on many surfaces. It's easily transferable among surfaces.
- Charcoal is a crumbly black material made of carbon. It's often sold in sticks or pencils, an excellent tool for shading and blending.
- Colored pencils are wood shells with wax or oil-pigmented centers. They're less likely to smudge but still blend easily.
- Wax crayons add color to drawings in a non-transferable way. These are difficult to use for blending and shading.
- Graphite is a metallic gray powder that comes in pencils and sticks. It's often used for line drawing, blending and shading.
- Pastels are sticks of powdered pigment made from oil or water-based materials. They're excellent for blending.
NID Study Materials for drawing:
There is no prescribed syllabus for NID DAT 2025 drawing test. However Shiksha has jotted down some good to read books and test paper to get an overall idea of drawing questions of NID.
- Rendering in Pen and Ink by Robert W. Gill
- Basic Rendering by Robert W. Gill
- Design Drawing by Francis D.K. Ching
- NID Entrance Exam Question Papers
- Arihant's Ultimate Guide for NIFT/NID/IIFT Entrance Exam by Arihant Publications
- Solve NID DAT 2025 sample papers
Sample Drawing Questions for NID DAT 2025
The DAT Prelims exam will include textual and visual questions.
The NID DAT question paper has two sections, with drawing-based questions typically asked in Part II.
Given below are a few sample sketching or design-based questions asked in the DAT Prelims exam. You can download and practice them for free.
Other Tips:
- Practice drawing whatever comes in your imagination, or anything around you.
- Try various forms of drawing, like caricature, photorealism, figure, cartoon, animation, doodling, gestural, technical, etc.
- Draw light outline instead of rigid ones in the design exams in order make it look clean.
- Do you own research of drawing along with some good online drawing series. It will add to your preparations.
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FAQs on NID Entrance Exam
Q. When will the NID DAT 2025 exam be conducted?
A. The NID DAT 2025 entrance exam has two stages - DAT Prelims and DAT Mains. The DAT Prelims will be conducted on Janaury 5, 2025.
Q. What is NID DAT Prelims?
A. NID DAT Prelims is the shortlisting round for NID admissions. NID DAT Prelims comprises a written exam that candidates need to clear in order to be eligible for NID DAT Mains.
Q. What kind of questions are asked in NID Entrance Exam?
A. NID Entrance Eexam consists of two admissions tests – NID DAT Prelims and NID DAT Mains. NID DAT Prelims is a written entrance exam and NID DAT Mains comprises a studio test and interview round. In NID DAT Prelims, candidates are asked both objective- and subjective-type questions.
Q. How much time is needed to prepare for the NID DAT 2025 exam?
A. A candidate would ideally need 6 months to one year to prepare the NID DAT exam. This time frame will allow the candidate to go through each topic in detail and prepare for the exam effectively.
Q. What is the syllabus for NID Entrance Exam 2025?
A. The NID syllabus for DAT Prelims will include questions from topics like Drawing fundamentals, Innovation in design, Theme development, Exercises on imagination, Graphics & pictograms, Principles of composition, Design theory, etc. The syllabus for NID DAT Mains will include topics like Model making, Material manipulation, Audio-visual exercises, Importance of body language, Doodling, Creative thinking and the likes.
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Student Forum
Anything you would want to ask experts?Answered Yesterday
Yes, the correction window will open in the NID application form where you can edit your SOP questions. The correction window for the NID DAT 2025 application form will be available from December 6 to December 11, 2024. In this time, you can login to your registered account on the official website
A
Contributor-Level 9
Answered 2 months ago
The application fee once paid will not be refunded. It is the responsibility of the candidate to ensure that the information entered in the application form are correct and verifiable. If at any stage, NID deems the information provided to be incorrect, the candidate can be disqualified.
Also, the c
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
No, unfilled seats in SC/ ST category will not be de-reserved. Meaning, such seats will not be transferred to the open category. The same applies to GEN-EWS category seats.
So, even if there are vacant seats left in SC, ST, and GEN-EWS category, such seats will lapse.
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
Yes, if there are unfilled seats in OBC-NCL, such seats will be de-reserved. Meaning, such seats will be transferred to the open category. Allotment of de-served seats will be same as open category.
The allotment will be based on NID DAT 2025 merit rank.
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
When filling out the form, the candidate needs to upload the relevant caste/ tribe certificate (in English/ Hindi).
The certificate should be :
- Issued in the name of the candidate.
- Should clearly mention the caste/ tribe the candidate belongs to
- Be issued by a competent authority
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
Candidates who are yet to appear for Class 12 exam in 2025 must have passed the exam in the first attempt. If the candidate has any backlog/ compartment/ supplementary or have not cleared the Class 12 exam, the candidate will not be considered for admission.
Also, any fee paid by the candidate will b
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
Seats that are left vacant/ unfilled in overseas (supernumerary) category will lapse. This means such seats will not be transferred to other categories.
Candidates applying under overseas category are advised to go through the detailed admission process and eligibility criteria before applying.
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
Candidates seeking admission under overseas category will need the following documents:
- Self-attested copies of the relevant pages of their passports.
- Self-attested copies of their grade sheets/ marksheets of SSC (Grade X) and HSC (Grade XII)
- Candidates in the process of completing their Grade XII need
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
As per information given in the NID admission handbooks, overseas candidates cannot apply for admission to GEN-EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, and ST seats. Such candidates can't also apply for age-relaxation, scribe, etc.
Also, the fee structure for overseas category is different.
M
Contributor-Level 10
Answered 2 months ago
To apply under the overseas category, the candidate needs to be holding citizenship of a country other than the Republic of India. However, such candidates will have to meet the eligibility criteria prescribed for admission.
The candidate will be able to check the eligibility criteria in the respecti
M
Contributor-Level 10
Can I edit the SOP Questions in NID application form (2025) when correction window opens?