I have been wanting to share these for quite sometime now, especially since we made the presentation to the honorable Minister, in early april.
Thanks are due to each one of you who took out time to give feedback to the initial work which was shared on this blog earlier.
Four ideas were presented to the Government of India –
the hand raised to ask a question, the answers leading to empowerment
empowered hand holding the piece of information. two way process of sharing the information
open file so typical of government, information being shared between the govt. and citizens
sharing of information portraying the two key stakeholders, dispelling darkness through information
Well, it was a good meeting, and for obvious reasons, the government representatives (both the executives and the people’s representatives) decided to avoid any imagery dealing with ‘hands’ or ‘fists’. There were two ideas, which were shortlisted to be worked upon furhter.
As a designer, I was dealing with this issue of designing symbols/logos for the masses, where due to linguistic and literacy aspects, one can not take the path of designing a logotype.
While designing for the urban, english reading audience, several options open up where one can use typography and create wordmarks. On the other hand, when we look at developing logo for the industry, often concrete visuals of the end product are easily incorporated to establish the connection. Here I was dealing with a very complex matrix of messages to be achieved – that of the Act itself, the semiotics and simplicity of the intended image. Simplicity and directness, not only in terms of a visual composition (which is to be read) but also in terms of reproduction at the basic grass root level (here I mean, it should be so uncomplicated that a village painter could replicate it on the wall with least amount of distortion).
To tell a long story in short, we are back to the drawing board, exploring metaphors of ‘give and take’ and the ‘open lock’.
more on that soon.
reflections and collections 