A logo need not be complicated but every logo has a deeper sense to it - the story that went into each logo is spoken albeit subtly through the colours and curves that shape it. So what went into the logo for our very own Ecficio?
We started brainstorming how the logo should look, of course, and the final logo was not our first intuition, of course! The logo had to include engineering. And money, of course. But there's more than just technology and material value. Entrepreneurship is a respectable human effort for a better society, against all odds and with little resources, failure after failure with a hope that it all leads to success at the end.
Thus, we felt that the logo must have a human element and something to represent effort. And how could we put the societal element in? Protective hands like the famous LIC logo? Oh no, our logo cannot remind of some other logo. But again, it must have something in common with the host Institute's logo. The “live” light that is a part of the spirit of “Vignana Jyothi”, yes! A semblance of such a light can also represent the bright light that entrepreneurs add to the world!
Piece by piece, the various elements of the logo fell into place like magic! And voilà, the logo created itself using us as the instruments, no kidding!
The two vertical “bows” or E’s represent “Engineering” and “Entrepreneurship” and also poise to aim at the bows’ “target” which is the centre of the logo. And at the centre of the logo is an upheld hand with a “something” on it. The gears there represent Engineering and Technology and the Indian Rupee symbol (₹) is of course indicative of money. So, technology and money as resources together form the vehicle - and it’s just a bicycle that requires human effort to move, unlike an automobile - with which one can go up the exponential curve, representative of the barriers for entrepreneurs as well as the possible growth when the efforts lead to success. The “exponential curve” is not just a curve but is a hand - representing the support system including venture capitalists or angel investors, and mentors. The top and bottom shapes are only essentially included in the logo to give it a closed frame, but again, they represent the firm base (which supports the “supporting hand”, such as the Society that these supporters stem out of) and the Vignana Jyothi (“light”) that the whole “setup” gives out to the world.
We designed the logo itself using Microsoft PowerPoint – yes, good ol’ PowerPoint uses scalable vector graphics and thus is the favourite design tool for some of us at Ecficio – with the industry-standard Adobe Photoshop coming to the rescue towards the end, for a little patchwork. The frame, the “bicycle”, and the outline of the “light” were done in PowerPoint and it was easier for folks to use Photoshop to fill the frame and the flame. (Okay, we admit that it was for alliteration! We really meant to refer to the little fire.) We have already mentioned that we were mere instruments in the logo design process. Indeed, the hand is actually a real hand of “voluntary subject” that we photographed and took the edges and recoloured it using Photoshop. (No, the volunteer did not use a purple nail polish on her thumb! We added that to insist on the role of womenfolk in our Team and the rise of women entrepreneurs who bring in the undercurrent “Ethics of Care” into business. (We admitted it and so let’s not get into the discussion about stereotyping women with nail polish. That’s a positive symbolism here!)
Logos need not have taglines, yeah, but taglines can carry messages that the logos cannot tell as explicitly. A picture is worth a thousand words, but let’s say that there’s an undeniable urge to add a couple of more words to the thousand! The name itself was taken from Latin (more on that in another post) and so the logo could use another classical language – Sanskrit! Now, that complements the logo and the title with that subtle Indian touch too, right? “What is the most important aspect of Entrepreneurship?”, we asked ourselves. “We need to finish this act soon!”, urged one of us, and another one quipped, “Boy, we can only put in our efforts. You cannot expect instantaneous output.” And, the tagline sprang out of the pages of Bhagavad-Gita! (Okay, we made up the conversation but we are pretty sure we only paraphrased an actual dialogue heard at some point in the past few days.) “karmaNyéva adhikaarah” is one part of one verse in the Gita, and it literally means “You have control only on the action.” We believe that this verse has largely been misinterpreted of late! We think that Lord Krishna neither really meant “Don’t care about the output.” nor inspired Nike by urging Arjuna to “Just do it!” The verse essentially cautions that only the action is in our control and not its result or reaction and thus we need to ensure that the action is perfectly planned out and well-executed because we actually care about the outcome! What other statement can sum up the efforts of engineers and entrepreneurs and …every other professional and individual who does something at all! All we can do is put in every effort with full knowledge that we may fail entirely and to think about the consequence of every minute act before actually doing it! Ta-da, we had the tagline that tells its own story – in two words beyond a thousand!
We repeat, we’d not hold it against you if the description was not depicted well in the design. Words and graphics use different languages to instill and elicit emotions and so our logo is what you understood it to be! Of course, we had control only on our efforts! :-)
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