ABOUT THE COMPANY

The Computer Science and Engineering Association is the student-run association of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SRM IST.

The Association organizes events, guest lectures, workshops, and student competitions. Each year, a team of student representatives is nominated by faculties into positions of responsibility to help manage and run the Association. The student leads (often from junior and senior year) are responsible for overseeing the rest of the team that comprises freshmen and sophomore students. 

DURATION

August 2017 - Feb 2018

TYPE OF ENGAGEMENT

For the academic year 2017-2018, I was elected the Student Secretary for CSEA. Was a member of the CSEA Creatives Team the year prior.

MY ROLE

As a team lead, I envisioned strategies that might positively impact our student organization. I designed the visual identity, helped student designers implement it. 

Outside of design, I was involved in administering domain leads and coordinating operations of a team of 80+ undergrad students.

STANDING OUT FROM

The task at hand was the development of a fresh, unique brand experience for CSEA that would establish its visual identity within the campus and improve the reach of print and social media.

A new identity would also help it stand out from other departmental associations and clubs that exist within the institute. 

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION

Most of these departmental associations’ logos do not seem to convey their respective department's features. They conform to a standard template of ‘tech’ logos. Furthermore, the variety of visual media produced by the organizations was not coherent with the logos and their respective themes. 

UNDERSTANDING

The task at hand was the development of a fresh, unique brand experience for CSEA that would establish its visual identity within the campus and improve the reach of print and social media. 

A new identity would also help it stand out from other departmental associations and clubs that exist within the institute. 

The key agenda during my tenure as Secretary of the Association was to make students on the campus identify our events and posters instantly. This repetitive recognition, combined with the highest quality of experience during events, would develop a sense of connection with the brand of CSEA. In my opinion, brand value is generated by the emotions of your audience and not only through visual identities.

DEFINING

A notable insight was that these logos often tend to highlight a certain element of the department’s study, for example, the Electrical Engineering Association showcased microprocessor circuits in the background.

After initial interviews with my fellow CSE undergrads, their message became clear. They stated that Computer Science, as a field, is too expansive to be represented by one visual motif. Hence, a pattern library was created to be the essence of our brand. Each core pattern of this identity represents a certain part of Computer Science; which is present in our curriculum and taught on a daily basis.

This dynamic pattern library also serves as a reminder of continuous change in the organization. As seniors graduate and freshmen join CSEA each year, the core team of the organization is created anew annually.

This is also parallel to the dynamism of CS as an academic field. Core curriculum subjects such as Data Structures and Algorithms that are being taught now, will be accompanied or possibly even subsumed by electives such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in the upcoming years. The core patterns of the brand system can be supplanted by those designed by the newer generation of students which represent their fields of interest.

The visual style was designed to be fluid and easy to use. Freshmen and sophomore students willing to learn visual design were given an opportunity to work with this identity and design deliverables for the Association.

It was used to design several touchpoints with the Association over the academic year. These included posters, banners, social media posts, event deliverables, and sponsorship documents.

DELIVERING

increase in Facebook page likes in 2018-19

approx. participants across events in the academic year

MoUs signed with event sponsors in 2018-19

At the end of the academic year, our team reviewed the impact of several executive strategies that were implemented over the course of the year. The decision to update our visual identity proved decidedly successful. The team noted a sharp increase in our engagement on social media platforms over the year. Also, several valuable sponsorship deals such as McDonald's, Red Bull and HackerRank were successfully pursued this year. The addition of these organizations to our events noted a distinct increase in quality over the previous years.