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Journalism of Courage
When Bangalore based Idiom Designs and Solutions won the mandate for coming up with the look for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) they were clear about avoiding cliches about India. We did not want to rely on typical metaphors about India. So we had to dig into our history and scrape out something that was new and improvisational, says Sonia Manchanda,Principal Designer,Idiom,who was in-charge of a team of designers,artists and technicians behind creating the logo,pictograms,mascot,branding graphics and the look of the cultural and heritage arenas for the Games.
In under two years,Manchanda worked in tandem with the two groups of teams from Delhi and Bangalore to come up with the designs that are a visible part of the citys landscape now. The hardest part was designing the logo which formed the backdrop to all the other designs and was the signature element which imbibed the spirit of the Games, she continues. For the logo,which looks like petals spiraling upwards,Idioms design teams incorporated the 24 chakras of the National Flag to symbolise movement,self-reliance and independence of India. The idea behind the logo,says Manchanda,was to have something inspirational,youthful,festive and celebratory and the rising chakras capture the energy and spirit of the nation.
The interesting part of the process was digging into Indian culture and craft forms and merging them with technology for a leaner look. The Sanjhi art form,for instance,inspired them to create suitable pictograms for the 17 sporting disciplines,which incorporate classical geometrical designs and styling to carry forward the common mans art.
All the other designs that were incorporated such as the iconography for the cultural performances,the banner graphics had to depict the nation as a sports friendly,festive and culturally active country. The team is still tweaking certain design elements like the passes for the Games events. Most sporting pictograms use rigid geometrical shapes. We thought of creating a new design language, says Manchanda.
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