On the warm afternoon of August 26, 2013 (Monday), Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam unveiled the second issue of Quarks in front of a crowded audience at the J.N TATA Auditorium. This was at the scheduled interaction session with the former President, moderated by the Assistant Director Prof. Balakrishnan. The members of team Quarks had contacted Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam only two days before the session and he agreed to unveil the most awaited next edition of the magazine. At the occasion, the Assistant Director remarked “When I saw the first edition of Quarks, it was better than any foreign publication, I have ever come across”. After the unveiling, an issue was presented to Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and the Dean of Engineering.
Both the Editor-in-chief Pratibha Mahale and the executive designer Naveen Sendhilnathan were present at this occasion. After the event, I got an opportunity to interview the executive designer Naveen Sendhilnathan. I asked him what we can look forward to, in the second edition of Quarks, to which he replied “This edition has better quality, content and the next level of designing”.When asked to comment on the theme of Quarks second edition- “A leap ahead”, the designer replied that the first edition came out in the first year of undergraduate course, symbolising the theme “Creating a difference” and the second edition's theme was based on moving forward and also commented that the quality of the magazine has supplemented the theme. When asked about his design experience he replied, he had not had a formal training in design and had to pick up relevant techniques and tools through concurrent study. He also told that the design team was small, but dedicated, supportive and understanding, with whom he shared a learning experience on design by browsing magazines etc. He told that the design team also had to be good at photography and cooperate with the arts team to make up a good magazine. I asked him what was his favourite piece in the design of Quarks 2 to which he replied “Centrefold is a design I am proud of, It took some time to design and was very tedious”, remarking on the info graphics and data representations on the centrefold of Quarks 2. When asked on the appraisal of members of Quarks on the second edition, he replied that they had expected the magazine to have been completed by July, but due to an unexpected increase in size, the release was delayed. He also said that the members of Quarks team are very satisfied with the issue and thought that it was well worth the delay. As a concluding question I asked Naveen to describe his Quarks design experience in a sentence to which he replied “Fundamentally unique, Fundamentally different”.
---Vignesh A N
