NEXERA · CATEGORY · TYPE
Nexera
Nexera is the debut techno-cultural fest of the Industrial Engineering department at College of Engineering Trivandrum — 15+ events, workshops, and talk sessions, running for the first time with no prior website or brand to build from.
- Engagement
- Independent freelance work
- Duration
- 2 weeks
- Scope
- Landing page design
- Year
- 2025
Nexera is the Industrial Engineering department's first-ever techno-cultural fest at College of Engineering Trivandrum, running March 5th, 2024. The Convenor reached out directly to design the landing page — there was no prior Nexera website, no existing brand, nothing to redesign from.
15+ events across two weeks — workshops, talk sessions with industry figures, night shows — built around live topics in industrial engineering: data analytics, supply chain management, optimisation. The fest's ambition was real. What it lacked, being first-year, was an identity anyone could point to yet.
That uncertainty went deeper than the website brief. By the organisers' own account, the team itself was still working out the fest's true spirit and essence — hard to hand someone a clear brief for something you haven't fully defined yourself.
The engagement ran as a two-week sprint, independent freelance work ahead of uxbubble's founding, with a team of two and Edwin as UI/UX designer.
With no existing site or brand to work from, the process started by talking to the people who'd actually use one — the Convenor, the marketing head, and a student — and by looking at what other college fests in the same building had already tried.
Based on three stakeholder interviews (Convenor, Marketing Head, one student) plus a review of two comparable fest websites — not a large sample, but enough to surface real, specific gaps.
Three stakeholders, three different jobs for the site
The Convenor, the marketing team, and students weren't asking for the same thing. Organisers wanted the site to carry weight and credibility for a first-year fest. Marketing wanted a funnel that could actually move people from curious to registered. Students just wanted to know what was happening and how to sign up. A separate interview guide was written for each group rather than one generic set of questions.
Every comparable fest site had the same missing piece
Usability review of Dhwani and Drishti — two other major fests run in the same college — found neither site listed contact details for the organising committee. Students had no way to raise a query. Sponsors had no way to reach the team. A gap nobody else in the building had fixed yet, and an easy one for Nexera to win on.
Registrations crossed 3,000 — for a first-year fest with no prior website, no existing audience, and no brand to lean on.
Confirmed by the Nexera organising team and consistent with what showed up directly during the sprint — real traction for an event that had nothing to point to before this website existed.
The number matters more here than it would for an established fest. Nexera had no prior year to compare against, no returning audience, and no name recognition going in. The site was doing the work a brand usually already has in place.
The engagement was one-time — scoped to Nexera's first edition and nothing beyond it. No retainer, no second-year contract. But the patterns set during those two weeks outlasted the engagement itself: later editions have moved on from the exact colours and typeface, yet the underlying design language is still visible in how they build the site.
The palette changed. The pattern didn't.