NIFT Entrance Exam Analysis 2016 by Experts

The NIFT written entrance examination held on February 14^th, 2016 aimed at reaching out to a wider section of students including the uninitiated ones. For the design students, the aim was to test their innate ability of colour sensibilities and aesthetics while also testing them for their understanding of the brief and technicalities of the product designing skills. NIFT Entrance Exam 2016 was quite a departure from the last year where the focus was on visual  graphics.

Discussing DESIGN, the first paper of Creative Ability Test (CAT) had three questions to be attempted.

The first question was based on colour sensibilities, where the students had a choice of four themes from which they were required to attempt any 2. They were to show the progression from one to another only through colours which were to be filled in a series of 10 blocks. The choices were (a) Cocoon to butterfly   (b) Dawn to Night            (c) Spring to Autumn and (d) Shiny metallic to Rust. The students needed to show the visible changes that occur in each process only through the expression of colours.

For Example: The Dawn to Night could be shown starting from very light peach to pink to yellow to orange to white to mauve to purple to grey then black and gold. This aimed at testing the observation of everyday life & physiological connect of the students with the colours. This was a 30 marks question.

The second question again provided with 4 set of choices of which the students had to attempt any two again. This question again was based on individual colour interpretation to test the psychological and emotional connect of the students with colours. This had to be done in the format provided which comprised of seven concentric circles. The themes were (a)Sorrow (b) Happiness (c) Rebellious (d) Astonishment. It was again a 30 marks question, where the student’s ability to connect to intangibles and be able to express the same through colours is being tested for.

For Example: One could depict the pleasant astonishment of surprise arrival of a long awaited loved one. Which could start on a grey note for a gloomy self who is missing the loved one, then it could be a sudden burst of bright colours of purple and orange followed by red to denote love n loved one to end with silver and gold metallic to denote the stars dancing in the eyes with a very light blue thrown in to show a stray tear which may just escape the eye due to the overwhelming astonishment. It would have been great to have titled the work.

The third question was the NIFT type aiming at testing the designer in you and also to find out if you read, comprehend and stick to the brief given. This was a question where the students were specifically instructed NOT to colour or shade. This was also a 40 marks question, where the students had to design 4 products, giving as much three dimensional details as possible, with the condition of basing their designs on any one of the shapes out of triangle, square, circle and rectangle. All the four products were to be designed from the one shape chosen. The categories asked were (a) A textile print (b) A footwear product (c) A table utility product (d) A clothing utility product. This was a good platform to judge where the faculties of the student lie for they covered all specialisations offered by NIFT. Here the point to be noted was that a footwear product need not be a footwear always or a clothing utility product could have either been a garment or a custom hanger design too. A table utility product required one to first identify the table type viz. dining table, dressing table, study table etc, then zero in on a product like a tissue holder or a lipstick & hairbrush holder or a book rack/ends etc. it would become more scoring if one would identify the user/ client and also incorporate a creative theme in the design all the while adhering to the shape constraint as well. This was seemingly the decisive question of the paper.

The NIFT CAT 2016 was similar for both Bachelors & Masters in Design course admissions.

NIFT GAT 2016 Analysis for BFTech, MFTech & MFM

The General Ability Test (GAT) for Design, Technology & Management was the projected mix of English language, comprehension, quantitative, reasoning & business domain, though a little lengthy with eight comprehensions, two cases and three situation passages, besides other segments). Just as the trend is with every entrance that there is a certain difficulty level focussed upon a particular section, which keeps varying every time, it can be said that this year it was Maths. The questions were a good mix of averages, ratio proportion, profit and loss, ages, simple & compound interest etc. but the students found the questions tricky.

Read more: NIFT Entrance Exam 2016 Student Reaction

The comprehension saw eight passages of moderate length with fairly comprehensible language. Reasoning and English language were of expected nature while this year the business domain section concentrated more on awareness than general knowledge as such with questions from advertisements regarding company names, products, brand ambassadors, tag lines etc., costume designer of acclaimed movie Bajirao Mastani etc.

Over all this year the Creative Ability paper seemed more approachable to the aspirants as compared to GAT. The competition is tough as lot of students had satisfied smile on their way out, giving their best for the 80% (BDes) and 70% (MDes) written weightage but a competition is a competition and always expect the most unexpected!! Work hard under expert mentorship of competent and proven mentors for the next stage of situation test (bachelors), which will have 20% weightage & GD PI (masters), which has 30% weightage in the final merit as that would be the golden opportunity to ace you score and better your rank. For the BFTech aspirants this is the only stage…make or break…God bless!

Wishing luck for the results of the written examination to all aspirants!

About the Author:

Shipra Anand is the Founder Director of Academy for Fashion Careers in Lucknow