This started out as a thought after the DebConf 2020 which was the first online DebConf. It's been a while since the last MiniDebConf in India. We had conducted 'Debutsavs' during this time which were more informal in nature. The Debian India team (me included) definitely wanted another MiniDebConf in India soon as the wait was already long enough. Things being online sort of helped ease the process of organizing the event. We had a wonderful and diverse team who were nothing short of joy to work with. I was responsible for all tasks related to design and with valuable inputs from rest of the organizing team I believe I was able to fulfill my duties.
My Contributions
The Logo
When it was time to get started on the logo I wanted to get some fresh perspectives. I wanted to do something new, so I got in touch with a fellow designer and friend Radhika Sharma who is also a FOSS Designer and we worked together on the early drafts of the logo. She is a talented designer and her inputs helped me find the direction I wanted to take with the logo. I made multiple drafts which included a few which were suggestions from the team and few experiments from my side. The one that got selected in the end was this simple but elegant beauty:
The CFP posters
I got a little busy with my academics and everything for a while and CFP posters were realeased a bit late. I felt very guilty about not being on time. I probably would've blamed myself to misery if we didn't have enough proposals at the end. But luckily towards the end the proposals started flying in and we had more than enough proposals in the end. Yay \o/!
Oh and yeah the posters were available in 2 regional languages apart from English.
Tshirts
And finally the t-shirts! No conference is complete without a t-shirt to remember it by. I wanted to incorporate our cultural diversity into the design without making it too cliche. I hope I was able to convey the diversity of our country through this design. I want give a shout-out to Anupa the main organizer of the MDCO and the rest of the team without whose valuable suggestions and ideas this t-shirt design wouldn't be the way it is today.
The source files for all design assets related to MiniDebConf Indian 2021 can be found here.
Two talks and two BoFs
Apart from working as a designer for the conference I was also a speaker and organized to BoFs.
Talks
I had two talks, one was about my journey as a designer who uses FOSS tools primarily for his work which was in English and the second was an introduction to Debian in Malayalam. I will update this post with links to the talk videos once they're released.
BoFs
I also organized two BoFs about two things that were really close to my heart. FOSS Clubs and GNU Emacs. Special thanks all my co-organizers namely Jayaraj J (NSSCE), Bhadra Jayakumar (NSSCE), Dharwish Raj (FISAT), Sreeram Venkitesh (MACE) and Subin Siby (VAST) for the FOSS Clubs BoF and Pirate Bady and Gokul Das B for the Emacs BoF. (Again, will update video links here once they're released).
In Conclusion
Overall this was a great experience for me. I'm definitely looking forward to more events such as this. There was a joke during the after party that it was about time someone formed an Arch Linux Community in India :p. Debian Bullseye release party is the next big event on Debian India community's map. Hopefully we'll be able to do multiple release parties like we did for Buster.
Lots to look forward to. :)