Why? Because I love to do a design under a lot of constraints. I believe that this will help me to explore and find innovative solutions. If I am correct, this is my fifth logo for a BarCamp (BarCamp Bangalore 7, Bangalore 8, Bangalore 9 and Kerala 9, Bangalore 10). I have tried to give an individuality to each of them. I suddenly found myself in an ideating mood.

Beach, Umbrella, Jellyfish, Seahorse…

This image shows the direction of my initial thoughts. Then I remembered the excellent observation by Joshua Johnson.

Rather than just making something attractive, designers look at the design process with a pinch of added intelligence and a perspective that skewed enough to see things differently than the rest of the world.

These types of logos make you smile at the brilliance of both the idea and the execution and have several layers of meaning that can hit you in waves.

A Foaming Beer Mug

The first time I visited Goa was on a ‘study tour’ from my graduate college. I remembered my friends observing that ‘Beer is cheaper than water in Goa!’ This made me to visualize a tall and foaming beer mug that you used to see in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

I had to add a yellow side and bottom lines to enclose the words tightly. The foaming bear is made from a half of the standard Barcamp logo.

Yes, I know. You indeed need ‘a lot of imagination’ to visualize this logo as a foaming beer mug!

One more option I tried was the one with a thought bubble in the place of the present foam. Later I abandoned it.

Incidentally, just see the typographic treatment given to the 2010 Tamil film Goa directed by Venkat Prabhu.

Fonts in the Mug

I wanted the alphabet ‘p’ of ‘BarCamp’ to be the handle of the mug. This made me to split the words as |bar|camp|goa| and arranged them one over the other to form the tall mug.

|bar| and |goa| are in Niagara Solid as it is a tall font. ‘The first edition, 30 October 2011′ is written in the font Journal. Now it took some time for me to decide on the ‘mug handle.’

Earlier I considered both Quadranta and Century Gothic. After the feedback from Niju and others, I settled for Yanone Kaffeesatz as the ‘p’ in this font resembles the shape of the actual beer mug handle pretty neatly.

Posters and Badges

Following are the two teaser posters designed for BCG1. Click on the image for a larger view.

Title: Chair on empty beach
Photographer: Fred Fokkelman, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Title: Colourful umbrella
Photographer: Gareth Weeks, UK

Two badges are also derived from the above posters so that people can display them in their websites.

So, what do you think? Drop your comments below.

Design date: 22-Sep-2011

Even during the logo competition for BarCamp Bangalore 9 (BCB9) in August, 2010, I was thinking about the logo for BCB10. BarCamp Bangalore 10 is happening on 11-June-2011 at SAP Labs. Being a fan of films, I have decided to make a typographic logo for BCB10 similar to the title design of the Hollywood flicks X-Men and XXX.

This is my logo that was created as part of the BCB10 logo competition. Click on the image for a larger view. Read on to know more about the design thoughts.

‘Genesis’ of the BCB-X logo

Michelangelo painted some scenes of Genesis in the Sistine Chapel, Rome that shows God creating man. The ‘touch of life’ is an inspiration for countless stories and designs.

BarCamp Bangalore is infusing life to the minds of Gen X and Gen Y. This idea made me to depict the ’10′ using the Roman numeral ‘X.’

The fonts used are ‘Magneto’ and ‘Niagara Solid.’ ‘Magneto’ has a classic, yet modern appeal. It is seen widely on modern technology based products. The ‘X’ is actually a flipped version of the ‘X’ found in the ‘Magneto.’ I did this to have a uniform width connection between the ‘bcb’ and ‘X.’ To gel both the fonts, I had to convert ‘Niagara Solid’ to a slanting format.

Version 2.0

As the logo started growing on me, I chanced upon an improvement of the logo. This modified version 2.0 shows the ‘X’ as a younger person who hand-holds the ‘bcb’ and marches on to a new future. The BarCamp logo is shifted towards the ‘X’ so that it forms a face that smiles.

Wish me luck for the BCB10 logo competition.

Image Credits

• Genesis by Michelangelo: Jeff and Joy Scott Family
• Signboard: Ilker, Turkey
• Rusty sign: Zsuzsanna Kilian, Hungary

Update on 10-June-2011

The results of BCB10 logo competition is announced.

And, I didn’t win. I would like to thank you for your ‘likes’ and comments in the competition page.

Design date: 03-Jun-2011

This is essentially a doodle — a single stroke logo — that conveys the idea of a man pedaling a bicycle. I would like to share with you the design process that went behind this logo.

Doodling is fun

As always, I started out to explore the ideas with pen and paper. Obviously, ‘bicycle’ is the center of the theme.

As you can see, ideas like bicycle bells were also tried before coming up with the following ‘candidates.’

Prospective Candidates

Apart from the selected version, following were the other suggestions from our side.

‘Pedaling’

This logo shows a front view of the bicycle with ‘Namma Cycle’ shown as pedaling it.

‘Typographic’

This logo versions are created only using alphabets in Century Gothic Font.

With a little bit of imagination, you can spell ‘c’-'y’-'c’-'l’-'e’ in this version.

‘Tangram’

The question of “Is it necessary to picture a bicycle only with circles and curves?” led to the idea of Tangram.

The logo is not created from the seven pieces of a Tangram. A forward tilt of the logo implies a faster pace.

More ideas on the selected Doodle logo

As I have mentioned already, this is a single stroke logo that conveys the idea of a man riding a bicycle.

The color coding and the positioning of the doodle take care that you will see and read ‘Namma Cycle’ instead of seeing ‘Namma’ and a bicycle doodle as separate.

‘Namma’ and the Bicycle doodle share the same base line. Lowercase alphabets are used to write ‘Namma.’ So the diameter of the bicycle tires are kept as the x-height of the font. This will prompt us to consider the riding man as an ascender of the Quadranta Font. This will also give a continuity from the alphabets to the doodle to make us read ‘Namma Cycle’ together.

Quadranta Font is a rotund font and is more rounder than Century Gothic. The alphabet ‘a’ is pretty round and the client thought that it looks like a bicycle bell. I too liked this idea and proceeded to give more ‘bicycle bell-ish’ character to the ‘a.’

I added a hexagonal nut to the ‘a.’ But this began to look like something that needs to be avoided in a logo. So we reverted to the original design.

Namma Cycle — Kannada Version

Kannada scripts are generally written using counterclockwise strokes. The bicycle doodle in ‘Namma Cycle’ logo also has this characteristic.

Compliance to 2011 Logo Trends!

After designing this logo, I came across the article ’2011 Logo Trends’ by Logo Lounge. It appears that the ‘Namma Cycle’ logo belongs to the 2011 trend of ‘Monoline.’

Monoline

An old rule of thumb to the socially adept was you can never to too rich or too thin. There is a certain elegance in an ultra-thin line, and this has never been lost on designers. Challenging as these may be on aging eyes, when designed well and not under-scaled, they will coax a pair of readers from the viewer’s pocket. Note that in the type and illustration solutions, the line is not variable but rather a mono-weight.

That’s all, guys. What are your thoughts on this design?

Namma Cycle Partner Promotion & Collaboration Kit

Logo ID: 110510TU

You all may have seen the pictograms of Olympic events. I am told that the pictograms of Munich 1972 Olympics are the most popular, even today. When I sat down to design the SnT Run logo, I did a small research on these simple, yet powerful pictograms.

The idea

A running person is the central theme in all marathon logos. I also decided to go as per this custom and include one in the logo. My attention was mainly on the font so that the whole experience will be unique. I decided to include a reference of the shape of a racing track in a stadium.

Execution of the Idea

The SnT Run logo is constructed using parallel lines of uniform width. A constant radius is maintained for the curves. The ‘n’ and ‘u’ of “SnT Run” are aligned in such a way that an abstraction of a racing track in a stadium is visible. The running man is also created by applying the same rules.

A 3D version of the logo is also created that can be used in print media for publicity.

The Result

Stage Backdrop for SnT Run 2010;
In the foreground you can see AnasKA / antzFx, Urvesh, Ashveen, Tojo and Praveen

Stage Backdrop for SnT Run 2011; A proud winner on stage.
Photo Courtesy: Mahesh C

This blog post explains the design of SnT Run 2010 Poster.

Design Date: 07-Feb-2010

The first image that comes to my mind when I hear ‘click’ is that of a cursor or a mouse.

But ‘Click’ can also be the sound of somebody taking a photo. If you are using a film camera, the sound comes when the film is exposed by the shutter and the next frame is advanced. In an SLR camera, the sound is generated when the mirror inside the camera rotates to direct the light on to the sensor or film. In a digital camera, the sound is generated electronically to give the ‘feel’ of taking a picture. There is usually a provision to turn OFF the sound.

FULLfx decided to name his photoblog as ‘Clickography‘ and he entrusted the logo design with me.

Click on the image for a larger view.

At the click of a button

I have an OLYMPUS digital camera where the zoom function is integrated into the photo taking button. In the Nikon D90 of FULLfx, instead of zoom, the ON/OFF is integrated to the button. This control became the center of my thoughts.

Century Gothic is a very ‘rotund font’ and I integrated the ‘C’ of ‘Clickography’ into the logo that represents the photo taking button.

Most of the “normal” people had difficulty in identifying the ‘photo angle’ of the logo. But the ‘client’ accepted it as all the photography enthusiasts identified it and made the connection.

Great!

Logo Design Date: 15-Feb-2011

Other Interpretations

The logo, when watermarked on a photo, can also look like the ‘Copyright’ logo.

One of my ‘uninitiated’ friends told me that my logo looks like the top view or plan view of a broken tea cup on a saucer!

Another friend told me that the logo looks like ‘Central’ logo. Following is the logo designed by Idiom Bangalore for Future Group’s Central Department Store. You can read the story behind Central’s logo here.

Appearances can be deceiving. If you ask me, the pieces of logos featured above are that of a ‘save environment’ club, a painter, a bathroom fittings manufacturer and a coil making company.

But no, they actually represent a multinational FMCG conglomerate, a well known music company, a popular antivirus software and a standard audio format in movie theaters, audio video discs…

Not able to recognize them? The answers are embedded in this post, so continue reading…

For the past six months, we were collecting news about designs of logos that are interesting. We managed to get the information of the names of the designers, the design brief and any hidden meanings in the logo. From this week, you can read about some of the clever logo designs in our new website ‘kiKKidu.com.’

Click on the poster for a larger view

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the meaning of ‘kiKKidu’?
Its root is a word in Malayalam language that means ‘Superb.’

Are you featuring all the latest logos and redesigns?
No. If a logo is appealing to me, I will feature it in kiKKidu.com. So, if you are looking for Canara Bank logo design or CEAT logo — look elsewhere.

Do kiKKidu has a Twitter account?

Yes, whenever an update happens, it will be shared in Twitter: @kikkidu.

What inspired you to start kiKKidu.com?
I liked the re-design of Dhanlaxmi Bank logo and I was told that FITCH Mumbai has done the design. I thought “Ah, never heard about this FITCH.”  Later I found out that FITCH has done the designs for the ubiquitous ‘more.’ supermarkets in India. I was thinking, if I float a website with information on logo designers, then at least some readers will get familiarized with names such as Landor, The Brand Union or Wolff Olins.

I want to feature my logo or a logo that I really like. Can you do that?
Yes, of course. Just send across a good image of the logo, the name of the designer and his website, the idea behind the logo and the logo release date to ‘design <at> kikkidu <dot> com.’

And the answers are…

Unilever Ltd., SONY MUSIC, avast! antivirus and dts are the logos featured in the poster. Visit the respective kiKKidu pages to know more about the designs.

We always look forward to your feedback.

Poster Image Courtesy
Thomas Egger

Barcamp Bangalore 9 (‘BCB9’) is happening on 18-Sep-2010. They are conducting a logo competition. I was brainstorming for a logo idea.

‘Talk of the town’
Much later, from the phrase ‘talk of the town,’ I came up with the above logo. Base of the design is a ‘9’ in Century Gothic font. The appearance of ’9′ is changed so that it looks like a single quotation mark that represents ‘communication.’

A speech bubble is incorporated into the design that contains the BarCamp logo. The placement of the elements is manipulated in such a way that ‘Bangalore’ on the logo is speaking about BarCamp. Clearly ‘the talk of the town!’

Following is an attempt on the branding of BCB9. Click on the images for a larger view.

An earlier version

This option with a green tint and a different placement, size of elements is later replaced with the current version.

Update on 13-Sep-2010

The results of BCB9 logo competition are announced today and I didn’t win. Thanks to all the people who voted for my design.

And, congratulations to Soujanya Sreenath, the winner!

Update on 21-Sep-2010: BarCamp Kerala 9 — BCK9

BarCamp Kerala Edition 9 is happening on 14-Nov-2010 at Amrita Campus, Karunagapally. Thanks to the organizers of BCK9, they adopted a reworked version of this BCB9 logo.

BCK9 Logo

BCK9 Wallpaper (1200×900)
Click on the image to download the wallpaper.

Photograph Credits

1. ‘Billboard’ by Asif Akbar
2. ‘Auto rickshaws on the way to Mysore’ by Matthew Logelin
3. ‘Hand tag’ by Marcelo Silva

Softwares: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Design date:
Ver.0.9 BCB9 — 12-Aug-2010
Ver.1.0 BCB9 — 20-Aug-2010
Ver.2.0 BCK9 — 21-Sep-2010

But do you know who choreographed this song? The answer is Longinus Fernandes and his name is left out in the end credits of the film.

“There’s one guy I should mention, we’ve mentioned a lot of people, I forgot the guy who choreographed the dance at the end of the film, he’s called Longinus [Fernandes] and I forgot him off the credits, and I only found out about it two weeks ago. I’m an idiot… and I apologize from the bottom of my heart Longinus”.

This is how Danny Boyle made up with Longinus while receiving his Oscar for Best Direction.

Why I am saying this here? Because, like Longinus Fernandes, I also had an experience.

You know that I was unhappy over the fact that CyberPark Kozhikode is using my logo for some time without my knowledge. When I accidentally found this goof-up a month ago, I contacted the authorities and I was promised that they are working on a plan to recognize my success in the competition.

I am very happy to inform that CyberPark officials recognized me as the ‘Designer of CyberPark Logo.’

I was invited for the foundation stone laying ceremony of CyberPark Kozhikode on 17-May-2010. A memento was presented to me by Mr. Bhaskaran, Mayor of Kozhikode. A cash prize was given to me by Adv. P M A Salam, Member of Legislative Assembly from Kozhikode.

The CyberPark foundation stone laying ceremony was attended by Mr. V. S. Achuthanandan (Chief Minister of Kerala), Mr. Mullappally Ramachandran (The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs), Mr. Elamaram Kareem (Minister for Industries, Kerala), Mr. Binoy Viswam (Minister for Forest and Housing, Kerala) and other dignitaries.

I would like to thank Mr. Binu A Pazhoor (CEO, CyberPark Kozhikode), Mr. Thomas (TechnoPark, Trivandrum) and Mr. Vasudevan (TechnoPark, Trivandrum) for helping me out and inviting me for the foundation stone laying ceremony of CyberPark Kozhikode on 17-May-2010.

Dear Reader,

Thank you very much for all the prayers, support and comments.

Photos of Foundation Stone laying Ceremony of CyberPark

I was reading the newspaper ‘Malayala Manorama’ and trying to have an afternoon nap. On the ‘Opportunities’ page, I saw the following advertisement.

The logo looked very familiar. Then I realised – it is my own design! I designed this logo as a part of a competition organised by TechnoPark Trivandrum, some 18 months ago. Since then I have never heard from the authorities about the contest results or the fact that that my logo is being used by them for about a year.

This post is about the experience of designing a logo for CyberPark Kozhikode. CyberPark is a Government of Kerala organization planned in the lines of Technopark at Thiruvananthapuram and Infopark in Kochi to build, operate and manage ITparks for the promotion and development of investment in IT and ITES industries in Malabar region of Kerala.

13-Nov-2008

26-Nov-2008

I prepared a PDF document explaining the background, thought processes and my contact details. I sent this document to the officer who was in charge of this competition. He acknowledged the receipt of my designs.

Then I heard nothing about it and I forgot about the design – until yesterday when I saw the advertisement.

My logo is already in use

Yesterday I did a Google search and came to know that by June 2009, my first logo was selected from the entries as the official logo of CyberPark Kozhikode. The only modification that was done to it is replacing the tagline ‘work is play’ with ‘creating opportunities.’ This logo started appearing in many websites. Below are some screenshots and links.

Page of CyberPark Kozhikode on the official website of Kerala IT

Home page of Kerala IT: CyberPark logo appears in the footer

Blog entry on ‘Blooming Calicut’ dated 25-Jun-2009

Discussion thread on SkyscraperCity Forum dated 26-Oct-2009

Blog entry on the official website of Kerala IT dated 23-Jan-2010

My attempts to get the due credit

I am happy that my logo is used by a prestigious institution of the Government of Kerala. I am sad because none of the officials contacted me about the selection. I am angry because a lot of strangers are using this logo for about a year and I didn’t get the promised reward.

I contacted the officer to whom I sent the entry. He didn’t have the old e-mails between us regarding this design. So I forwarded the old e-mails to him and he acknowledged that the logo is indeed my creation. But now, he is not in charge of CyberPark Kozhikode. He told me that he has alerted the proper authorities about this incident and hoped that I will get the credit for this design.

I have also e-mailed the officers in charge of CyberPark Kozhikode. I am awaiting a reply. I will update this post as soon as I have any news.

Update 1 on 22-Apr-2010

The CEO of CyberPark Kozhikode informed me that he will do an investigation and settle this matter as soon as possible.

Update 2 on 29-Apr-2010

The CEO of CyberPark Kozhikode informed me that “we are working on a plan to recognize your success in the competition.”

Update 3 on 17-May-2010

I am very happy to inform that CyberPark officials recognized me as the ‘Designer of CyberPark Logo.’

I was invited for the foundation stone laying ceremony of CyberPark Kozhikode on 17-May-2010. A memento was presented to me by Mr. Bhaskaran, Mayor of Kozhikode. A cash prize was given to me by Adv. P M A Salam, Member of Legislative Assembly from Kozhikode.

The CyberPark foundation stone laying ceremony was attended by Mr. V. S. Achuthanandan (Chief Minister of Kerala), Mr. Mullappally Ramachandran (The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs), Mr. Elamaram Kareem (Minister for Industries, Kerala), Mr. Binoy Viswam (Minister for Forest and Housing, Kerala) and other dignitaries.

See photos of CyberPark Kozhikode Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony (17-May-2010) here…

Design Brief
The design brief was simple: The logo should look like a house sparrow.

Ideation
I gave three options for the logo.
The logo given above is an artistic monogram that directly shows an association with knowledge. The logotype is cursive (running writing/joint writing) and looks as if written by hand. This logo is a direct communication of the themes ‘rare knowledge’ and ‘human touch.’

A silhouette of sparrow is used as the logo. The name ‘Gubbi’ appears on the body. The dot of the alphabet ‘i’ is placed such that it also represents the eye of the bird. This logo clearly says that Gubbi = Common house sparrow.

The sparrow is made of three overlapping pieces of brown cellophane sheets. An egg shape can be seen on its body formed by the overlap. This ‘egg’ represents an idea that is going to hatch. The font for ‘Gubbi Labs’ is free flowing without any sharp corners. It appears that the bird is perched on the alphabets ‘bb’ of ‘Gubbi.’ This logo directly communicates the central themes of ‘genesis’ of an idea and ‘futuristic’ solutions.

Refined Concept
We can clearly identify a pelican from its silhouette. But a sparrow does not have a unique shape that clearly tells that it is a sparrow. A silhouette of a sparrow just communicates that it is a bird.

Photo courtesy: Sudhira

So the client asked me to put a one to one mapping of the colors of a sparrow to the logo.

Final Logo

The logo represents a male sparrow perched on the ‘bb’s of ‘Gubbi.’ Bauhausm Medium is the font used in the design.
I really liked the outcome. Any comments? The space below is all yours.

Software: Photoshop, Illustrator
Design Date: 01-Feb-2010