The entry of a set of college students into custom designing was not that planned. When they found that they all had similar talents and interests, then the five degree students found it a good idea to launch Rage Pulze Customz (RPC) six months ago, which custom designs helmets, mobile phone panels and vehicles; particularly two-wheelers and cars.
It was out of mere fascination of designing the helmet of Yedu A Krishnan, a RPC member, with funky graphics that Akhil Ganesh, Jerry Paul, Vishnu B K and Anoop S Ajay took as an interesting vocation. Later, they began making the designs on helmets. “A good part of our clientele comprise our friends in colleges. We are not seeing it with an eye on profit as it is more of a passion for us all,” says Yedu.
Usually, weekends are set aside for doing the work as all are busy with their studies on other days. Each of them have their own areas of specialisation. If Akhil is skilled at designing, Yedu deals with mechanical aspects, Jerry brings orders, Anoop provides advice and Vishnu takes the photographs of their works.
Akhil and Jerry are pursuing their degree at John Cox Memorial CSI Institute of Technology, Vishnu at Narayana Guru College of Engineering, Yedu at St Thomas Institute for Science and Technology and Anoop is studying at Chand Academy. Mobile phones and helmets are designed by them at their own homes. “Like professional custom designers, we do not use machines for making the designs. The spray cans we use are bought from a local paint store here,” says Akhil.
Since the formation of RPC, they have designed so many helmets and mobile phone panels, three bikes and a car. All RPC members have also custom designed either an electronic equipment or vehicle in their possession. The custom-designed vehicles of theirs were displayed in auto shows held on the sidelines of various cult fests in the colleges.
“But there is strict instruction from our parents to erase the designs soon after the bikes are back from the expos,” smiles Vishnu. They take lessons on custom designing from the Internet and apply them in their own fashion. “From the commercial perspective, the demand is to get the custom designing done in accordance with the latest movie trend,” says Akhil.