Thursday, September 23, 2010

400 Years of Mysore Dasara - Logo

After staking claim to the throne of Karnataka empire and called himself ''Karnataka Ratnasimhasanadheesha' in 1610 CE, Raja Wodeyar first conducted Darasa celebrations; he least expected for the tradition to endure for 400 long years.

Cut to 2010. Secretary of Ramsons Kala Pratishtana (RKP), R.G. Singh is frustrated that nobody is taking cognizance of the importance of Dasara 2010. He tries to explain the significance of the 400 years of Mysore Dasara to few but to no avail. 'Charity starts at home.' He decides to make a difference himself. RG then asked me to design a logo to commemorate 4 centuries of Mysore Dasara. He told me that we shall use the occasion to be the central theme at this year's 'Bombe Mane' and also use the logo for the same.

So I sat one fine morning in front of my computer system with a blank mind and monitor. No idea was forthcoming. So I relied on a pen and paper instead. I wrote '400' as it is and a little bolder. 400 is a big quantity when you are talking about years, so I decided to make '400' the central design of the logo. The next question was to depict the spirit of 'Dasara' in the logo which has to be something that is easily recognisable by one and all.

It didn't take long to decide upon 'Jamboo Savari' (elephant carrying golden howdah) which is the most apt image that conjures up Mysore Dasara in our minds. But how to depict Jamboo Savari and also '400'? Next I made the '400' thicker still until the digits were sticking to each other. Lo! it looked like an elephant to me. I scribbled the silhouette of the howdah on top of it, made two human figures seated inside and a mahout. To make '4' look more like an elephant's head I added tusks and finally scribbled a tail onto the second '0'.

The rough draft was ready and I showed it to RG and MB Singh, the Executive Trustee of RKP. I redid this concept in Coreldraw with few editing in Photoshop. After a few tweaks, the logo was ready. Here it is...


When I asked RG what made him to have a logo for this occasion, he answered me that in a country of one billion people and thousands of cities, only a handful can boast of such heritage and Mysore is one among them. He added that whatever we do with love towards it is a tribute to Mysore.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

logo is realy wonderful

Loveleen said...

The logo is absolutely brilliant!! Truly commemorative!
My congratulations!
( have seen it courtesy Vinay ( Royal walks link on facebook)

shyam said...

Really it is great logo, Congratulation

H.S. Dharmendra said...

[sriharsha] Thank you.

[Loveleen] Thank you and also to Vinay.

[shyamprasad]Thank you.

Arti said...

Hello Raghu,

I was directed to your blog from the news article about how your logo has been accepted by the mayor.
Congratulations..

- Arti

Exploring said...

It's a lovely logo Raghu and congratulations on it being accepted by the Mayor. Oh how I wish I was in Mysore this year for the Dasara.

Anuradha Shankar said...

Wonderful design! wish i could attend the Mysore Dasara at least once.. I have heard so much about it!

Shrinidhi Hande said...

good work! liked the logo.

Conversations said...

Raghu !! I'm glad to share that RG and you and your bombe habba sale in Ramsons got me thinking and going on the entire festival. I was so enamoured that i read up whatever i could find on the festival, started collecting dolls and am so glad to share that i will be celebrating Bombe Habba this year in my house !!

I intend to gift one bombe to whoever visits my house this dasaraa and who knows :) we may create enough ripples to spread this tradition.

A huge thank you to you and RG !!

bharathsci said...

That's wonderful ! I really like the logo ! But don't you think the "Mysore Dasara" part could have been written in some other font rather than Arial ? Just so that it looked unique...

H.S. Dharmendra said...

@ rt g, Ad astra, Anu, Srinidhi Hande: Thank you.

@ Just a Thought: It is wonderful to know that you have embraced the bombe habba, whole heartedly. Every one needs your kind of enthusiasm and interest to keep this beautiful tradition alive.

@ Bharat P: Thank you for appreciations. As for the use of Arial font for the legend beneath the logo, I did not want to use fancy fonts which would distract the attention away from the actual logo. I wanted the logo to be the centre of attraction.

Celeste Goulding said...

Do you know where I might find a list of Mysore Dasara art exhibition winners?