India's iconic logos

This is the fascinating story of logos – not the new age ones, the older ones which many of us grew up with and continue to exist even today.

The best and most recollected logo is undoubtedly that of Air India. The Maharaja was created by Air India’s design department for corporate purposes only and when Nargis Wadia joined in 1955, she was the one which gave it a twist and became an instant hit all across the world.

The SBI’s logo which we see today, was created  and adopted in 1971 after the bank decided to reinvent itself when nationalization happened in 1969. opted on October 1, 1971.

The keyhole symbol in the middle of the circle was designed by Shekhar Kamat. It was Mahendra Patel who later went on to design the font to go with the symbol.

And when we talk about iconic logos can the Amul girl be far behind? She was created by ace illustrator, Eustace Fernandes in 1966. From the blue hair to the frock, it was Fernandes who gave form to the idea of the Amul girl. And the tag line of “Utterly butterly delicious” was coined by Nisha DaCunha, Sylvestor DaCunha’s wife.

One man who has helped create over 100 famous logos is Sudarshan Dheer – HPCL, Titan, the Essar Group, Raheja Corp., Kissan, IDBI Bank and Centurion Bank all created by him and still going strong.

The Doordarshan logo was created by Devashis Bhattacharya, a student at the time with NID, Ahmedabad. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister at the time, selected this out of the 14 designs that were presented to her by NID. The symbol was to depict, “the yin and the yang.”