Popular Design Entrance Exams & MDes Selection Process

Do you see those wonderful cars swooshing around you? Or those advertisements which simply make you want to buy the product? Or do you visit a website and just love it?

That is the beauty of design. It just sweeps you off your feet, makes you think and can even bring tears in your eyes!

Did you ever wonder- where does this all come from? Who is the mind and head behind all this? Do you think you can do better? Then step up. You might be the next Steve jobs or Ian Callum (designer of Jaguar F-Type).

It’s not that hard to be a designer. All you have to do is simply find out what people would want to buy, listen, see, smell and touch and then just give it to them! “But”, you ask, “How would I do this?” That is where you need to be taught by expert designers. The best designers in India are mainly from IITs and NIDs.

History of Design as a Course

Prior to established design degrees, designers used to learn the ‘trade’ from experts in the field directly. This was known as apprentice system and the design knowledge was handed over from the master to the pupil. There was no set norm or standard or even a process. In India, design was mostly viewed as something wherein one had to ensure that things looked better rather than something that can be used to solve a problem. The first formal design school was established in 1857 known as Bombay Art School (now known as Sir JJ School of Arts). Though fine arts course was taught in this school but we are mentioning it here because it was the first school to recognise “design” as we know today. As the demand for these skilled designers increased, IITs and NIDs were established to offer specialised design education in interaction design, animation, industrial design and even, most recently, universal design.

Popular Design Entrance Exams

With the Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India initiative, a new plethora of jobs have opened up in Indian industry and therefore, the number of applicants for these premium D-schools have gone up exponentially. In order to get admission in IITs, an aspirant needs to first clear Common Entrance Exam for Design (CEED). Upon getting a qualifying score, they need to wait for the institutes to release the forms. There is no centralised procedure for the form; therefore, the forms are made available as per the plans of the individual institutes. Design aspirants need to be vigilant about the dates of submissions of these forms. Upon submitting the forms, the institute carefully evaluates the applications of the individual candidates and invites the candidates for a branch-specific written exam, called design aptitude test (DAT) followed by personal interview.

Unlike IITs, NIDs do not consider CEED score and hence, have their own entrance examination called – NID Entrance Exam and hold admissions separate from those at IITs. NID also follows similar procedure of inviting applications, shortlisting applicants and inviting them for DAT and interviews.

Seats in Design Courses in India

Taken together, IITs have about 300 seats for Master in Design course. Based on several years of study it is estimated that this year about 8,000 students will appear for CEED to fill these 300 seats. These numbers will give you an idea about the level of competition one faces and explains how coveted the Master of Design course is.

Design Entrance Exam Pattern

Since 2012, CEED has introduced a new pattern of splitting the paper into two parts, viz. Part A and Part B. Part A is computer based test that consists of design related multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and Part B tests the candidates ability to sketch, propose an innovative design solution and express her/his ideas clearly using sketching. Part A and B are to be completed by the candidate within duration of 3 hours. Part B score is reported as ‘CEED score’. The catch is that, Part B will be evaluated only if the candidate scores specified marks in Part A. That is to say, if a candidate does not clear Part A, she/he does not clear CEED. Planning of time for each part and for each question is crucial, because most of the candidates find that they have lots to say and time is quite short. The candidate further needs to employ various strategies for making a short work of Part A questions.  Similarly, for Part B questions, one can score better by employing various strategies that will express the relevant information in fewer line strokes and with concept that will help you score higher.

Read more: How to prepare for CEED Part A Exam.

NID follows similar pattern to CEED, but NID entrance exam paper is quite different from CEED paper. NID paper does not have Parts and it tests different skills of candidates which is not the case in CEED. Detailed strategies for cracking NID entrance will be discussed soon.

CEED exam is held in first week of December and forms are typically released around last month of February. In this two months period, we recommend students to spend some time thinking about the branch they would like to apply to for, gather relevant previous works and if needed make new work samples which they can use while filling the application forms and also present during interview round. This will help aspirants improve their chances of selection greatly.

About the Author:

Prasanna Gadkari is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. Along with a career in Product Design spanning over eight years, Prasanna has mentored hundreds of aspirants to reach their dream of doing Master in Design (M.Des) from IITs, IISc and NID. He runs TeaCupBlog, a place where he and other students share their tips and experiences on pro bono basis.