The brief of the project was to design the brand identity for R brand, the brand design division of Rediffusion DY&R, one of the foremost advertising agencies in India.
I studied the origin, life-cycle and permeability of existing brand identities, especially of design and design-led companies to understand the qualities that build and sustain an identity. The design of the ‘Off-Registration’ identity became the catalyst for the building of an entire family of brand collaterals.
My role was to express the essence of the studio in a visual idea. ‘Off-registration’ is a term we often hear, in dejected tones, from designers and clients, unhappy with their printer’s prowess with managing the registration in a print job—it shows how much the printer lacks in attention to detail and quality. I made the R brand logo ‘off-registration’ by default. By appearing off-registered in parts of the logo, I was able to communicate the degree of control R Brand can exercise over the brands’ varied manifestation, and also the degree of extreme knowledge it possesses about a brand’s origin.
The core idea found life in the ‘R’ logo and in applications like stationery, T-shirts, mugs, watches and more. All design deliverables were detailed for production and documented in the brand manual.
The project was a reaffirmation of the belief that design plays a key role in creating brands. Identities today must live beyond a symbol, be alive and able to adapt to changing contexts in traditional and new media. |