Rebranding Echostream by Daisy Dutta

GRADUATION PROJECT

REBRANDING OF ECHOSTREAM Bringing humour, the Himalayas and humane design together

VOLUME

: 1 of 1

SPONSOR

: Echostream (P) Ltd

STUDENT

: Daisy Dutta

PROGRAMME : Bachelor of design, B.Des GUIDE

: Rupesh Vyas

2015 VISUAL COMMUNICATION (GRAPHIC DESIGN)

National Institute Of Design Ahmedabad

The evaluation jury recommends DAISY DUTTA for the BACHELOR OF DESIGN of National Institute of Design COMMUNICATION DESIGN FACULTY (GRAPHIC DESIGN) herewith, for the project titled “REBRANDING OF ECHOSTREAM - BRINGING HUMOUR, THE HIMALAYAS AND HUMANE DESIGN TOGETHER” on fulfilling the further requirements by

Chairman :

Members :

* Subsequent remarks fulfilling the requirements :

Registrar (Academics)

ORIGINALITY STATEMENT I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and it contains no full or substantial copy of previously published material, or it does not even contain substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in this diploma project. Moreover I also declare that none of the concepts are borrowed or copied without due acknowledgement. I further declare that the intellectual content of this Graduation Project is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. This Graduation project (or part of it) was not and will not be submitted as assessed work in any other academic course. Student Name in Full: DAISY DUTTA Signature: Date:

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT I hereby grant the National Institute of Design the right to archive and to make available my Graduation project/thesis/dissertation in whole or in part in the Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Knowledge Management Centre in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act. I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my document or I have obtained permission to use copyright material. Student Name in Full: DAISY DUTTA

Signature: Date:

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

Copyright ÂŠ 2015 Bachelor of Design, Communication Design (Graphic Design), 2011-2015 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad,India. All illustrations and photographs in this document are Copyright ÂŠ 2015 of the author, or respective people / organisations wherever mentioned. Please note that the colours used in the design deliverables throughout the document may not be the correct colour due to difference in printing process and pigments used for producing this document.

Written and designed by : Daisy Dutta typedaisy@gmail.com Photography by : Kunga Tashi, Latika Nehra, Aishwarya Ganeshan, Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen Processed at : National Institute of Design (NID) Paldi, Ahmedabad - 380007 Gujarat, India www.nid.edu Printed in Ahmedabad December 2015

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Document specifications The document is set in A3 Square size (297 mm x 297 mm). This document uses Memphis LT Std Bold and ITC Franklin Gothic Book for the titles and captions respectively, and Memphis LT Std Regular for the body text. Gotham Bold for quotations and page numbers. All the font families are free Typefaces. Adobe InDesign CS5 and Adobe Illustrator CS6 was used to layout the document while Adobe Photoshop CC was used to edit the photographs.

“It’s not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.” - Marty Neumier (Quoted from Brand Gap)

Acknowlegements

First and foremost I am deeply grateful to Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen for trusting me in every stage of the project and gave me this opportunity to work on such an important project. I am very fortunate to find a place so fun and peaceful to work like Echostream during my graduation project and also the people who were there to guide me during my difficult times. This project has been a great journey and an experience of a lifetime. I would like to thank all those people I came across during my time in Gangtok and Echostream. Right from the everyday taxi drivers who became so well known to me since it is a small place and everyone knows everyone, to the baini who used to make soupy wai wai and aloo paratha for us. I want to thank each and everyone. I am grateful to Tenzing Nyentsey and his family for giving me a place to stay and being so hospitable and helping me throughout like a family. I would also like to thank Sonam, Tenzing, Karma Sonam, Ranveer Singh and Palzor Bhutia for being such wonderful bosses and always trying to pull my leg. I would like to thank Aishwarya Ganeshan for everything; helping me with my work, staying with me, cooking together, sharing life issues,etc. The list will go on but I am immensely thankful to her for being such a good friend and a senior. I am grateful to Gangtok for being so calm, clean and beautiful, also for the people who were so kind and cultured. The place is mesmerising, even if it is small it has a charm to it and everyone is a born musician. I would like to thank Dheeraj who owns Downtown restaurant, for being such a great host every weekend we

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visited to release our life stresses and strains. I thank Downtown for being such an amazing place and providing a space for live music for the local artists. Lastly, but very importantly my guide Rupesh Vyas for understanding the problems that occurred during the project. Also, for guiding and giving directions to go about with the project. I would like to thank my batch-mates and friends in NID for being there for moral support and criticism. I would like to thank my lovely parents for their love and support. Also, for giving me freedom to do whatever I want without doubting my capabilities. I would specially thank my mother for being there when I really needed her in the last few months and my brother to get her to Gangtok. There are few people who needs a special mention for their love, support and also for helping me during the project : Abhishek Meena, Ankita Shinde, Latika Nehra, Akash, Swapnil, Jacinth Hazarika, Pratyush Das, Ribin Raj, Karen Kaisa Loli, Beda Prakash, Padmaja Handique, Saumya Kishore, Chewang Rinchen Lepcha, Chewang Bhutia, Kunga Tashi, Yuhina Lhachungpa, Reuben Dsilva, Nitin Patel, Tsewang Bhutia and her husband. I am thankful to Arjun for being a caring friend and brother when I was going through a rough phase during the period. I am grateful that I got a chance to be there with him at the best of his times in Gangtok and I cherish those last good moments we had together. He will always be remembered and missed. He would have been very happy to see Echostream to grow as a brand.

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012 Introduction : I 012 About NID 014 Synopsis 015 About the client 016 Design Brief

164 Deliverables : IV 166 Brand Identity 173 Website 178 Brand manual 186 Strategy

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018

069

Design Process : II

Conceptualisations : III

018 The Design Process 020 Echostream Vision 024 Design Manifesto 022 Echo People & Culture 026 Echostream Portfolio 031 Overview : Sikkim & Design Context 034 Design Scenarios 038 Brand : Case Studies 048 Interviews & Workshops 062 Analysis and Design insights 065 Redefined Brief

070 Brand Identity 102 Final Concept 111 Typeface Selected 113 Selection of Color Palette 116 Print Collaterals 134 Website Design 148 Final Layout - Desktop 157 Final Layout - Mobile

187 Conclusion : V 187 Conclusion 188 Bibliography

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INTRODUCTION

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ABOUT NID The National Institute of Design is internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost multi-disciplinary institutions in the field of design education & research. The Business Week, USA has listed NID as one of the top 25 European & Asian programmes in the world. The institute functions as an autonomous body under the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India. NID is recognised by the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research under Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, as a scientific and industrial design research organisation. Soon after independence, people were sufficiently aware that the process of development demanded a reinvestigation of the postulates and resources that determine the pattern & pace of growth envisioned for India. The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1953 articulated these concerns and also indicated broad guidelines.

It was in this setting that the Government of India invited the renowned design team of Charles and Ray Eames to recommend a programme of design to serve as an aid to small industry. On the basis of their document, ‘The India Report’, The Indian Govt. set up the National Institute of Design in 1961 as an autonomous National Institution for research, service and training in Industrial Design & Visual Communication. On the 17th July 2014 Hon’ble President of India gave his assent to the National Institute of Design Bill, 2014 and notification to declare NID as an ‘Institution of National Importance’ was published in Government of India’s Gazette on 18th July, 2014. As an institute of national importance since 2014, NID has started providing degrees and Doctorates (PhDs). The institute also receives special recognition and funding from the government.

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SYNOPSIS

This project has been the most eventful and memorable experience for me as a graphic designer and as well as a student. This project gave me the opportunity to work in various important sections of graphic design which included branding, strategy making, web design and also in print production. Rebranding Echostream was a project which led to developing a brand image and a communication system for networking with the world at large. Since the time of inception, the team at Echostream have been concentrating in developing a portfolio for last 8 years in Sikkim. During this 8 years they did not require a brand promotion strategy, websites, etc. since they were already popular around the state and the word of mouth strategy works well in a small state like Sikkim. Echostream decided this year to expand beyond Sikkim to connect to the people outside Sikkim and outside India to explore more opportunities in business and collaboration. So this is where I come in as a student of Graphic Design looking for a final year graduation project and I was given this project which let me go through their exciting journey through out the years. Since there was not a clear idea what the brand should be like in future and what was it like at that present time, the information had to be

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This project documents the journey of Echostream from initiative to an idea, from a whale to a meaningful whale. The major part of the work is done on building an identity for the studio and also its brand collaterals. It explores various different forms of the whale and the whole design process for building an identity and a website. This project also contains a brief study on the design scenarios in Sikkim, India and abroad to help position the brand and it’s vision. This project also gave me opportunities to work with other local projects from private clients and also clients from the Sikkim Government. Website will get live on 1st of January, 2016. As for me work doesn’t end here, I feel a lot more could be created for this project. It takes years to build a strong brand and commonly recognizable by the public. So my collaboration with Echostream will still continue.

Developing a brand image and a communication system for networking with the world at large.

“

collected from each of the members of the studio and also the loyal clients individually to know what they all felt about Echostream. All the members are from a design or a creative background so they all had varied and common perspectives about Echostream and I needed to know them better. It required me to know their stories and their personalities which eventually happened with time at Echostream.

ABOUT THE CLIENT 15

Echostream is an evolving community of designers, dreamers, doerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s with professional expertise in industrial and communication design. It started as an collective which aimed to provide design services to the Government of Sikkim and communities with the prime focus on larger development agendas in Sikkim. The secondary focus was to develop and build capacity and assets in Echostream to take on the challenges of a start up in design. Since the year 2009 (the year of inception) Echostream has collaborated with the Government of Sikkim and the industry in various sectors like Tourism, Forest, Handicraft, Handlooms, Information Technology (IT), Public Sector Undertakings (PSU), Culture, Conservation, Law, Hospitality, Agriculture, Co-operatives, Rural Management, Ecclesiastical, Urban Development and Housing Department, Event Management etc. Besides this Echostream has collaborated with NGOs, entrepreneurs, mountain communities.

ECHOSTREAM DESIGN STUDIO Gangtok, Sikkim Formed in 2008.

FOUNDERS Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen Tenzing Nyentsey Ranveer Singh Karma Sonam Bhutia Palzor Bhutia

In house collaborations B.R.E.W - Baking, Retail, Events, Workshops KUZU - Textiles and Apparel STILL A KID PRODUCTIONS Film and Photography ODODEEM - Sound Production BUMPO - Lifestyle Accessories & Products TASHIKUN PHOTOGRAPHY - Photography LUNGCHOK WINES

Vision To establish and lead the multi dimensional collaboration in the Indian Himalayan Mountainous region by 2017 and mountainous regions of the world by 2020.

Vision Statement Design for collaboration, incubation, services to build an creative mountain economy.

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DESIGN BRIEF 16

To design and develop a global brand identity & strategy for Echostream and it’s sub-brands. To provide a new image to the firm and also an online space for their portfolio and communication with the world. The duration was about 6 months which started from February of 2015, and the scope was wide and open to explorations for the brand identity. The deadline was not rigid and the brief was quite flexible according to the needs of the project.

SCOPE OF WORK • • • • • •

Building up the brand language Design and Development of brand identities for the sub-brands Design and Developing print collaterals - visiting cards, letterheads, marketing catalogue, Multimedia Demo Website design Design of a brand manual and strategy Design Documentation of the project

TIME-LINE • • • • • • •

Research and Data collection : 2 weeks Analysis of collected data : 2 weeks Guide visit : 1 week Design conceptualisations : 6 weeks Design detailing : 4 weeks Guide visit : 1 week Deliverables : 4 weeks

•

Total : 5 months

OBJECTIVES • • •

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To introduce Echostream as the parent brand of all the in-house sub brands. Make the brand more popular in the market through branding. Set up an online platform for better communication.

“

PRODUCTS ARE MADE IN THE FACTORY, BUT

BRANDS ARE

”

CREATED IN THE MIND.

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DESIGN PROCESS

INITIAL DESIGN BRIEF UNDERSTANDING THE BRIEF

BRAND VISION

CONTEXT

DESIGN SCENARIOS

PORTFOLIO

PEOPLE & CULTURE

REDESIGNED BRIEF

OBJECTIVES

DELIVERABLES

TIMELINE

IDENTITY DESIGN

COMMUNICATION COLLATERALS

WEBSITE DESIGN

- Brief - Conceptualisation - Final concept - Prototyping - Costing

- Brief - Information collection - Information architecture - Site mapping - Wireframing - Visual language - Programming

IMPLEMENTATION

BRAND MANUAL

BRAND LAUNCH

METHODOLOGY

OUTCOMES

- Questionairre - Interviews - Group discussions - Secondary reserach - Case studies - Observations

- Integrate brand vision with - Design insights Echostream manifesto and strategy - Define core idea - Develop clear deliverables - Define brand context - Swot - Mapping individual aspirations

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ABOUT ECHOSTREAM 20

Echostream is an evolving community of designers, dreamers, doer’s with professional expertise in industrial and communication design. It started as an collective which aimed to provide design services to the Government of Sikkim and communities with the prime focus on larger development agendas in Sikkim. The secondary focus was to develop and build capacity and assets in Echostream to take on the challenges of a start up in design. Since the year 2009 (the year of inception) Echostream has collaborated with the Government of Sikkim and the industry in various sectors like Tourism, Forest, Handicraft, Handlooms, Information Technology (IT), Public Sector Undertakings (PSU), Culture, Conservation, Law, Hospitality, Agriculture, Cooperatives, Rural Management, Ecclesiastical, Urban Development and Housing Department, Event Management etc. Besides this Echostream has collaborated with NGOs, entrepreneurs, mountain communities.

VISION To establish and lead the multi - dimensional collaboration in the Indian Himalayan Mountainous region by 2017 and mountainous regions of the world by 2020.

•• To provide insightful consultancy services to government agencies for better governance and developmental outcomes. •• To provide space and other services for promising entrepreneurs and start ups. •• To create and provide workspace for professionals/entrepreneurs to incubate their ideas. •• To spread awareness on the importance of design process and design thinking in planning, business and governance. •• To expand design education by providing opportunities for students and interns to explore community-based design, design-build, and sustainability.

IN-HOUSE COLLABORATIONS B.R.E.W KUZU ODOODEM STILL A KID PRODUCTIONS

VISION STATEMENT

TASHIKUN PHOTOGRAPHY

Design for collaboration, incubation, services to build an creative mountain economy.

BUMPO

ECHOSTREAM OBJECTIVES • To collaborate with individuals, organisations, communities on innovative business, products, development models and issues related to mountain development. •• To incubate innovative products and services.

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LUNGCHOK

THE ECHOWAY EMPHATISE SYNTHESIZE ANALYSE REALISE CREATE IMPLEMENT COLLABORATE EXISTING LOGO/IDENTITY The logo of Echostream which is a whale represents the interdependency of the self in it’s various contextual manifestations. It simply shows the relationship of the whale and the ocean where despite the whale being the biggest mammal is humble to the vastness and the depths of the ocean. The words echo and stream were drawn from a brainstorming session the design team had in the year

2008, where the members had jotted down keywords related to design, mountains, collaboration and multidisciplinary aspects of the team composition and want -ed to work with professionals from other disciplines. Echo is a sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener. It resonates the design process which is a nonlinear approach where every individual’s ideas, feelings are absorbed. Stream is a continuous flow of something fluid which takes different shapes and creates a sound in the valley which is symbolic to life itself. Hence, the word EchoStream was apt for the venture as it represented this age old collaboration between matter, sound and the infinite possibilities it has from this collaboration. The logo was initially supposed to be a fish which would be the carrier/witness of this collaboration and that is how the team landed up with the whale. The stream eventually becomes a part of the ocean (which is the vision).

CONTEXT PM Narendra Modi in the year 2015 announced the SMART CITIES and AMRUT schemes for Indian states to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technologies as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens. What would this mean for people of the Indian Himalayan region? Where do we fit into the scheme of being smart? These projections of a participatory national economic growth will eventually create problems as well as opportunities for the people of the Indian Himalayan region. Therefore, the aspirations of the mountain people to build an robust economy of it’s own, designed to cater to its capabilities and capacities individually and collectively keeping it’s ecological capital intact. Design features here as an active collaborator to build partnerships within Sikkim and across the pan Himalayan belt.

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ECHO PEOPLE

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AND CULTURE

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BURN. NOTHING IS PERMANENT

Every idea has a shelf life as it is a living entity. The death of an idea makes space for the birth of a new one. Nothing is permanent, not even this manifesto.

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HARDWORK

ECHOSTREAM MANIFESTO

To create individual benchmarks for the quality of ideas and experiences one has to work hard. Every individual at Echostream believes that mere skills and ideas are not enough unless you work hard at pushing your individual benchmarks. Surprise yourself.

EMPATHY BEFORE CREATIVITY We live in a time where ideas demands more empathic adventurers in all aspects of life. Empathy not just so we act better towards others, but also because it helps us create better innovations, services and quality of life.

EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR EVERYONE Enablers like technology, education and the opportunities that the future brings has opened up possibilities of interesting collaboration, initiatives and ideas today. Echostream believes in collaborations with professionals, dreamers, animal lovers, people involved in governance at all levels and Gurus of all shapes, size and colour.

CELEBRATE DIFFERENCES Everybody at Echostream has varied perspectives often strong and opposite to each other. We celebrate these differences which leads to heated debates and justice to the work done in the end. A diverse workspace is better equipped to meet the needs of a diverse clientele while bringing in different perspectives.

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SHIT HAPPENS. IT’S ORGANIC

BE ROOTED, SPREAD OUT

There are often times when things are not in your control and it leads to frustration and disappointment. At Echostream, failure is a part of success and it is a naturally evolving process.

Echostream is a culturally diverse working environment and intends to spread out reaching out to culturally diverse places and individuals. It also believes in pluralism in culture.

BE LIKE WATER

NO GOODBYES, ONLY SEE YOU SOON

Most of our lives we are trying to fit into a certain defined space, shape, form and meaning. We believe in formlessness and infinite possibilities in the work we do and the lives we live.

IMPERFECTIONS OF PERFECTS It’s not about being perfect and an expert at one thing, it’s about letting go of your ego and accepting that there is always someone better than you who you can learn from.

DANCE TOGETHER, WHEN THE GROUND SHAKES

Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye, sometimes you wait for the moment when you want to say goodbye. You don’t say goodbye to those who work with passion and joy because you know you will see them sooner.

TAKE THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED, ASK FOR DIRECTIONS It’s great to venture out in unknown territories and explore and it’s ok to ask for help when one gets lost.

Every disaster is an opportunity to rebuild, strengthen connections, learn and share experiences. You are not alone.

UNLEARN TO LEARN

NOTHING IS FOR FREE, NOTHING GOES WASTE

Problems solving needs a great depth of understanding the problem and the context. One needs to keep aside preconceived ideas of problem solving and look at the problem in it’s present state.

We believe that all work done has a price one has to pay in this lifetime or the next. Our natural resources keeps getting invaded with human ambition and development agendas. Echostream believes in coexistence with nature and all sentient beings. At the end, all that matters is what you leave behind.

BE GRATEFUL, DON’T LICK ASS

ALWAYS TIME TO MAKE TEA Tea brings people together in ways that you couldn’t imagine and its magic is something that is hard to describe in words. For each individual the ceremony of tea making is personal and cannot be duplicated.

It’s important to be grateful for all the opportunities one gets in life and acknowledge people involved in it. But one should not give into favouritism and irrational demands.

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Apparel

Handwoven

Packaging

Home Furnishings

Textile Design Interior Design

*IEC & Capacity Building

Identity Design Branding

Graphic Design

Animation

Website Design Systems Design

Communication Collaterals

Film Making

Product Design

Documentary

Promotional

Social Innovation

Handicrafts

Photography Event Design

Exhibition Design Agriculture

Retail Design Museum Design

Heritage Conservation Painting Documentation

Interactive Design

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PSUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Culture Heritage Education

Information & Public relations Commerce & Industries SHGs

Horticulture

NGO

Food & Beverages

DESIGN SECTORS

Disaster Management

Co-opeartives

Urban Development Agriculture

Handloom

Tourism Forest & Wildlife Rural Management & Development

Law

Handicrafts

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Photo Courtesy : Google Images

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OVERVIEW : SIKKIM & DESIGN CONTEXT

Sikkim is a colossal mountain amphitheatresurrounded by international borders with China, Nepal, Bhutan on three sides and a state border with West Bengal in the east. Sikkim has increasingly been exposed to the changing geo-political scenario with its neighbours and this exposure continues with recent developments in the information, technology and commerce sector. This inevitable change is transforming the landscape and its people. Sikkim, an independent Himalayan Buddhist kingdom was founded in 1642 by three revered lamas of the Nyingmapa school of Buddhism and was ruled by the monarchs of the Namgyal Dynasty, from the Minyak clan from Tibet.

Economic urbanization in response to an economic growth momentum; Rural poverty induced urbanization: In migration of the rural poor in response to better income earning opportunities to the urban areas is a major reason of growth of towns in Sikkim.

Sikkim became a protectorate of the British Government in 1890 and was integrated into the Union of India in May 1975, putting an end to the rule of the Chogyal or the ‘religious kings’.

CONTEXT

After the merger with India in 1975 and the transition of politics and power from a monarchy to a democratic system, Sikkim has been modernising - willingly or not. Accompanying these hasty developments are unavoidable cultural and environmental concerns. Sikkim like any other place in the world has opened up to these changes and is no longer “the hidden valley”. Sikkim underwent many changes in its economy and demography after it joined the National mainstream. There was a considerable increase in development activities which caused growth in urbanization. The population of Sikkim was slightly higher than 540000 in 2001 as against 4, 06,000 in 1991. Sex ratio of Sikkim was much lower (875) females than the national average (933 females).The population changes from 1891 to 2001 shows a growth of 24.4 times in Sikkim,with population density increasing from 8 in 1901 to 76 in 2001. Sikkim’s urbanization, as is the trend in the rest of India could be reckoned in two ways:

Sikkim is culturally very vibrant intensified by the strong bonding between the various ethnic groups. In Gangtok, residents celebrate all the major local festivals as well as Hindu festivals such as Diwali and Dusshera. The local festivals are Loosong, Saga Dawa, Lhabab Duechen, Drupka Teshi and Bhumchu that are celebrated by the Buddhists.

PM Narendra Modi in the year 2015 announced the SMART CITIES and AMRUT schemes for Indian states to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technologies as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens. What would this mean for people of the Indian Himalayan region? Where do they fit into the scheme of being smart? These projections of a participatory national economic growth will eventually create problems as well as opportunities for the people of the Indian Himalayan region. Therefore, the aspirations of the mountain people to build an robust economy of it’s own, designed to cater to its capabilities and capacities individually and collectively keeping it’s ecological capital intact. Design features here as an active collaborator to build partnerships within Sikkim and across the pan Himalayan belt.

Small State Sikkim is a small state surrounded by three international borders, so lot of trading is possible between these countries. There are both advantages and disadvantages for Sikkim as a small state, since being a small state it is relatively easier to implement and monitor development agendas and ideas. The

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Hospitality Sector In this sector, design application can be seen in the interiors of the hotel. Currently, 60-80% of furniture in hotels come from China which are designed similar to the furnitures here. Around 20% of them comes from Siliguri. The cost of making furnitures in that state is more expensive because of less resources which has to be transferred from another place and also the cost of labour is more here. All the houses are slowly adopting the home-stay model in all over Sikkim. Home-stays are mostly attached to the family and the traditional architecture of the house. All the activities are confined to the buildings and beyond that there are nothing much to do. It has been just 10 years and things like brand identity, designing a website has become a common necessity for everyone who is setting up a hotel or a communication system for tourists. Using the design process as a collaborative platform Echostream along with entrepreneurs, communities, the hotel and restaurant industries are working together to articulate all these activities and make it more enjoyable as an experience and enterprise.

Tourism Sector Sikkim being a very young state which is just 20 years old has seen a boost in the tourism industry in last few years. Because of increasing amount of tourists in Sikkim, there is a pressing need to have engage with design and planning at every stage. Sikkim has positioned itself with a progressive intent for development in the Indian Himalayan region. There is growing interest and increase in investment in the tourism sector.

Organic Food Sikkim is the only state in India which has successfully launched the organic mission. To imagine another state to become an organic state is a distant reality. Going organic has given an identity to Sikkim. It is in an incubation state now, at this state role of design is to announce the intent. It encourages farmers to do more organic farming. It tells consumers about the benefits of having organic food. Most of the people, even the well educated ones are not really aware of the benefits of organic food. By discussing and promoting organic farming in Sikkim it has added to the positive image of Sikkim, tourism has increased and has added goodwill. This is an evolving sector. Organic farming also promotes gender equity, child labour, women rights,etc.

Handicraft & Handloom sector Handicrafts and handloom industry has been around for last 60 years. It was established for providing women empowerment. Handicrafts and handlooms preserves the identity, culture and tradition of Sikkim. These industries are getting threatened by machine made products, if these kind of industries vanish then the other things tied with it will also go away with them. It is the most sustainable industry since traditional goods never gets old. Echostream, since 2009 has been consistently collaborating with the handicrafts and handloom sector in Sikkim through design intervention and product development.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Sikkim is the only state in India which has successfully launched the organic mission.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

population is manageable and therefore requires lesser resources compared to other states in India. The development of a particular city, town or a region depends upon natural, physical and socio-economic factors. Among these factors the population assumes significance in determining the future pattern of progress and development.

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DESIGN SCENARIOS

This study was done to understand the design scenario in India for Echostream to position itself and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision. And also to find collaborators/institutions outside Sikkim. The information have been collected from various reports from websites and blogs like design for India, academia.edu and National Design Report submitted by CII (Confederation of Indian Industry). Today design has become an element of strategy and a process which leads to innovation. It has evolved over the past years from being a mere function of styling or aesthetics where form and function are the focus to design as a process where design thinking is integrated into the development process. Echostream is deeply invested in integrating ideas and collaborating with individuals, governments, people, etc. particularly in the mountainous parts of the Indian Himalayan region. India is one the few countries to have formulated and adopted a National Design Policy. It recently constituted an India Design Council to implement the major provisions of National Design Policy. This design policy and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mandates have to be easily accessible to far flung areas in India. It is a huge task and the government need to look out for local partners to articulate the importance of design in development. Many private institutions are getting initiated which has resulted in growth of design education in last few years. The design education prospect was previously defined by Government supported institutions only, which were very few in numbers for a country as vast as India. Architecture, Interior, Animation / New Media, Fashion Design are leading domains within the design industry. Other segments are far behind at present. However with the change in the economic scenario, design domains such as graphic design, industrial design, human computer interaction are growing at a fast clip. With the increasing focus on designed offerings, the role of inhouse design departments has evolved from being just a redesigning or adapting outfit to a department which plays an important role in the organizations overall strategy. The number of inhouse

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design departments is growing, signifying increasing importance of design.

and multinational corporations will need to take assistance from Indian designers.

Design industry is characterized by small to medium sized firms. Many of them are one to five people operations. Of these many are founded recently. There are a few well organized design companies with higher employment rate. These firms offer multiple specialities and serve more or less as one-stop-shop for design needs. The number of design companies is growing as also there is growth in existing companies. There is a good trend of designers opting to start their own setup. Hence most companies existing today are new. The existing companies are consolidating further by adding more services to their portfolio within diverse design disciplines.

Majority of design activities is focused in 4 cities viz. Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune. Design activities are urban in character. The concentration of design companies in Bangalore and Pune is due to technology companies and older automobile firms. Also these two cities offer a very good standard of living, good weather and an experimental, culturally active society. Both cities offer a complete ecosystem for design including design firms, design users, educational institutions and a positive environment.

India is a large market and at the same unique as well. There is no such thing called as a thumb rule which can describe Indian market or consumers. They vary in cultures, traditions, religions, customers, food, dressing, etc. At the same time the Indian consumer is becoming more demanding and is asserting himself / herself to get his / her aspirations satisfied. A few Indian design companies are internationalizing their operations. They have been opening offices in other countries as also they are tying up with design companies from other countries. This number is miniscule at present, but the trend is visible. Many foreign design companies are setting up offices in India on their own. There are a few already here, mainly in the area of branding and communication. Multi nationals like LG Electronics, Whirlpool, Philips, General Motors, Renault, AMD, Google, GE, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Yahoo & Oracle have all set up their own in-house design units in India. Multinational corporations are focusing on India as a new market for trading their products /services. They understand that successes elsewhere may not necessarily translate in a similar way in India. They will need to understand the market, the sensibilities of the people and respond to them through their offerings. Global corporations will need to work with Indian designers to understand the local market. To better understand the Indian consumer, to meet the needs and aspirations of this assertive, active, enlightened consumer, Indian businesses

Mumbai and Delhi are natural destinations for design companies purely for the reason that these two cities host the topmost Indian corporations from diverse segments. These two cities offer a well developed market for design services. The presence of leading design education institutions in these cities is also another reason for concentration of design companies in these cities. While the overall concentration of design companies is in the urban regions, the practice of architecture and interior design is spread across the country. Still large architecture and interior design firms are concentrated in urban areas. This creates disconnect between design industry and businesses located in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. There is sizeable number of businesses located in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who find it difficult to engage with design companies and also are not able to appreciate the utility of design. Efforts are needed to connect to these businesses in meaningful ways so that not only they are informed about the possibilities that design can offer but also for them to engage with design industry. New design companies could think of locating themselves in these cities which offer lower establishment costs and untapped opportunities. There is certainly a language problem between design industry and business. Indian designers must start focusing on designing for India. They need to display sensitivity to real needs of people and also sensitize clients accordingly. They need to walk the talk.

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Design is an underused activity in most Indian businesses. Design is often seen as an expense item reserved for large companies thus keeping small and medium sized companies out of the design users list. Companies use design in different ways. Some use it as strategic tool and some relegate it to be used at the end of the development process for styling purposes. A handful of Indian companies use design strategically.

•• ISOLA- Indian Society of Landscape Architects •• ISE - Indian Society of Ergonomics •• Design for All Institute of India •• ASIFA, India •• Urban Design Research Institute •• National Institute for Advanced Studies in Architecture (NIASA)

DESIGN ASSOCIATIONS IN INDIA

DESIGN FACILITIES

India Design Association (IDA)

National Design Business Incubator

The association will be an inclusive body representing all the stakeholders of Indian design industry. The association will represent all the design disciplines as known today. The major objectives of the association are to further the cause of design as a profession and business, promote world-class, good Indian Design within and outside of India, to act as the reference point for the Government of India and other related bodies, to work closely with the India Design Council as an advisory body, create design awareness, set up design centres, to link up with national and international bodies to help promote the better understanding of design and to become a voice of the design Indian industry at government policy level and international arena.

AIDI The Association of Indian Design Industry, also known by its acronym AIDI is a professional not-for-profit body for designers and design organizations in India. AIDI is a national body of designers which represent all interest groups concerned with design.

InDeAs InDeAs is an association for addressing the interests of the design community in India. InDeAs is a panIndia networking, showcasing and events platform for India’s design community (drawn from across the spectrum).

Other such associations in India : •• Pune Design Foundation (PDF) •• IIA - Indian Institute of Architects •• IIID - Indian Institute of Interior Designer •• COA- Council of Architecture

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http://www.ndbiindia.org

NDBI is an initiative of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, set up with the support of Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi. The mandate of NDBI is to nurture a culture of entrepreneurship in the creative minds of young designers, so that their ideas metamorphose into newer and niftier products or services capable of being marketed and sold. The outcome is creation of a new class of entrepreneurs, the Designpreneurs. The initiative is a part of a commitment by NID to build on India’s design strengths aimed at translating the dream of “made in India, designed for the world” a reality. First and the only one design-led business incubator in the country, NDBI not only support designers to turn their ideas and concepts into successful competitive businesses but also provide an environment where they can develop the essential business management skills and systems that enable them to.

CII CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry led and industry managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process. Founded over 114 years ago, it is India’s premier business association, with a direct membership of over 7800 organizations from the private as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and an indirect membership of over 90,000 companies from around 385 national and regional sectoral associations. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has been espousing the cause of Design in India for the last 8

years or so. It has been doing so through its national committee on design and by organizing national design summit for the last 8 years along with National Institute of Design. Besides the summit, it has various initiatives going on around the year to promote design. As its ongoing pursuit to establish design as a tool for national competitiveness, CII is brought out the first India Design Report - a nationwide study on Indian Design Sector. The report seeks to analyse the current state of design in different design disciplines. Realizing the increasing importance of design in economic, industrial and societal development and in improving quality of products and services, the Government of India initiated a consultative process with industry, designers and other stakeholders to develop the broad contours of a National Design Policy. The vision behind initiating a ‘National Design Policy’ is to have a “design enabled Indian industry” which could impact both the national economy and the quality of life in a positive manner. The Union cabinet approved the National Design Policy in February, 2007 with the aim to globally position and brand Indian designs and making “designed in India” a by-word for quality and utility.

Kyoorius Verdict Kyoorius Verdict is India’s first Design & Print Awards to honour outstanding design & print communication works that sets benchmarks of quality and excellence. Design Excellence is open to designers, agencies, design firms and printers of Indian origin.

Other such awards in India : Institute of Indian Interior Designers Godrej Innovations Plasticon Awards

DESIGN EVENTS IN INDIA CII-NID Design Summit Pune Design Festival Kyoorious Design Yatra USID Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week Lakme India Fashion Week Anifest Above mentioned events are few of the names among the several other design events in India and the number still growing.

ABOUT NATIONAL DESIGN ACT The Indian Design Act, 1911 has been replaced by the Design Act, 2000 with some important changes being made. The essential requirement for the registration of design under the Designs Act, 2000 is that the design should be new or original, not previously published or used in any country before the date of application for registration.

AWARDS IN DESIGN IN INDIA Business World-NID Design Excellence Awards – In 2003, Business world Magazine & National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, joined hands to institute the annual “Business World-NID Design Excellence Awards”. The awards includes 16 categories like Urban Town Planning, Product design, Furniture design, Transportation and automobile design, Packaging design, Graphic design, etc

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BRAND : CASE STUDIES 38

IDEO IDEO (pronounced “eye-dee-oh”) is an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow. IDEO was formed in 1991 by a merger of David Kelley Design, London-based Moggridge Associates and San Francisco’s ID Two (both founded by Bill Moggridge), and Matrix Product Design (founded by Mike Nuttall). While the company started with a focus on designing consumer products by 2001, IDEO began to increase focus on consumer experiences (e.g., non-traditional classrooms). Kelley applied the term “design thinking” to business in order to encompass the approach to work of IDEO across industries and challenges. In 2011, IDEO incubated IDEO.org, a registered nonprofit dedicated to applying human-centered design to alleviate poverty.

FIRST LOGO

HISTORY OF IDEO’s LOGO Steve Jobs recommended the graphic designer who designed the first logo, Paul Rand. At the time, in 1991, IDEO couldn’t afford Rand’s rate for a complete corporate identity, and so Rand only designed the logo. Bill Moggridge had come up with “IDEO” after finding the root “ideo-” in the dictionary. However, people often asked what I-D-E-O stood for. Early acronyms, like “an innovation design and engineering organization,” came only after the fact and never caught on. In 1997, the logo was altered slightly by Pentagram’s Michael Beirut. The I, D, E, and O were thickened and reshaped to fill the blocks more evenly. There was even a Google-esque primary-color version, two years prior to the introduction of Google’s now-iconic logo. Each of the various departments within IDEO were allowed to choose their own color scheme for business cards, while each employee could choose one of the logo variations. This great idea granted a bit of individuality within a uniform corporate design. Other logos—many short-lived—were also designed over the years for various IDEO ventures.

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FIRST BUSINESS CARDS

In 2011, Ideo began discussing the changing nature of their business and where they might go in the next 20 years. This lead to inspiring questions like “What does the IDEO brand mean today in the US, EU, Asia? How might they express a global mission and local character simultaneously? How might they move from a monolithic representation of themselves to a diverse, yet consistent one? Can their identity communicate intent and not just presence?”

SECOND IDEO LOGO SECOND BUSINESS CARDS

They decided the best way to explore these questions, which was to design toward strategy. Instead of making uncertain proclamations about who they might become, they would embrace certain change as their future state. The process started with the phase called “inspiration phase”. A creative brief was distributed to IDEO’s 10 studios requesting analogs and new content in response to six themes IDEOers from around the globe posted ideas and inspirations exploring the themes, brainstorming on what they might mean, or pointing to energizing examples. Years ago, they needed a Paul Rand to design their own brand identity. After 20 years, with communications designers and brand experts in every IDEO studio, they looked inward to evolve their identity.

DIFFERENT WERSIONS OF THE SECOND IDEO LOGO

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This experimentation of the identity was named The Brand New Ideo. By breaking apart the two fundamental shapes of the curious lens, the circle and the square, they created a platform for storytelling rather than a single story. It could express how they tackle serious, big design challenges with a sense of optimism and a process powered by experimentation and serious play. Circles and squares can make anything. With the new elemental approach, the square remained a fundamental cornerstone of their identity. But it had a friend, the circle. By creating a platform of flexible components, they wanted to enable the identity to be responsive and adaptive – a contextual mirror. One that embraced the tensions inherent in identity of Ideo and reacted not only to their needs and interests, but to those with whom they were communicating. The new identity was: a principle based platform that encouraged dialogue, one that allowed the diversity of voices to express themselves and the collective, one that let those outside IDEO see themselves in the brand, a contextual mirror. It had unique behaviours : listened and adapted to context scales from oneon-one to many-to-many responds to human data fluctuates from frames, to watermarks, to stamps, reflects its creator and its audience (i.e. personalization and local nuance). It adapts to many modes: introduces, converses, invites, describes, suggests, explains, enquires, responds, listens, builds, provokes, learns, teaches, reveals, leaves. Overall, there were very positive responses regarding the dynamic and responsive aspects of the designs along with mixed reactions to the actual lens device. Some people missed the boxes.

OTHER IDEO LOGOS

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SUMMARY Identity is an interesting thing. On the one hand we are responsible for our own identity and can be intentional about it. On the other hand it is shaped by the perceptions of others. For individuals or corporations, the challenge of re-designing identity is one of evolution rather than revolution. In the recent experiment with their identity, the designers in IDEO took Paul Rand’s 1991 IDEO logo, which was updated by Michael Bierut in 1997, and explored the future of brand identity during a playful, provocative, global all-nighter. One thing to be learnt is that for many businesses in the 21st century, there is a design opportunity in being global and genuinely sensitive to the cultural nuances of location and people. This understanding can’t authentically come from a top-down approach. We are living in an unprecedented time of connectivity, and therefore an unprecedented era of human relationships. Tapping into the cultural nuances of connected places or connected people is a powerful source of creativity. In the 21st century, our networks are our identity.

CURRENT IDEO LOGO

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INDIGO AIRLINES 42

Indigo is an Indian budget airline company headquartered at Gurgaon, India. It is the fastest growing and also the largest airline in India. The airline offers 564 daily flights connecting to 37 destinations including 5 international destinations with its primary hub at Delhi’s IGI Airport. It presently operates a fleet of 91 aircraft belonging to Airbus A320 family. Indigo was set up in early 2006 by Rahul Bhatia of InterGlobe Enterprises and Rakesh S Gangwal, a United States-based NRI. InterGlobe holds 51.12% stake in Indigo and 48% is held by Gangwal’s Virginiabased company Caelum Investments. By February 2012, Indigo was expanding rapidly and was making solid profits, the only airline in India to do so. It had replaced Kingfisher as the second largest airline in India in terms of market share. Indigo’s strong adherence to a low-cost model, buying only one type of aircraft and keeping operational costs as low as possible along with an emphasis on punctuality are said to be some of the reasons for its success even when the airline industry in India was going through a bad patch. Despite appearances, success for Indigo has not come easy. An early advantage, however, was the careful planning that Bhatia and Gangwal did before the airline started operations. People who know Bhatia say he is obsessive about detail and quality. They describe how at first Indigo’s executives, including staff at the check-in counters, air crew and sales and marketing staff were hired only after Bhatia met each of them individually. Indigo has set industry standards in such critical but unglamorous areas as turnaround time. Its ground staff has been trained to deplane all passengers in six minutes and unload and load the hold within 10 minutes. An Indigo aeroplane can be ready to fly again in 25 minutes or less, even at a busy airport like Delhi. (Other airlines take more than 30 minutes.) Indigo airlines had quite a launch pad. Cleverly implied within the name is a play on ‘India’ and ‘Go’ – a smart shorthand for a nation where, according to government data domestic air travel grew 19 percent in 2010 to 52.02 million passengers on the go. IndiGo

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has become the kind of brand that creates customer appreciation pages on Facebook, an unlikely acclaim for an Indian airline where service-oriented brands usually get criticism for failures, not fans for their flair. Indigo has a summarily stated three-point corporate mantra that is trotted out regularly in press releases: “Offer fares that are always low, flights that are on time, and a courteous, hassle-free travel experience.” Going about the business of image building from scratch, Mohit Jayal, business director at W+K, has been working with Indigo co-founders Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal from 2005, the year before Indigo took off. They decided people shouldn’t feel cheap when they buy cheap. Jayal from W+K, describes the target consumer as “not a demographic but a psychographic” and the brand as having an abundance of crossover appeal. For Indigo W+K use plenty of young, urban style cues, demonstrating an long lasting respect for the fundamentals while indulging the cool quotient. Step-less stairs, handicap-accessible boarding ramps, q-buster scanners for passengers travelling without check-in luggage, were all on the manifesto from the get-go. Luggage stickers read ‘Fragile’ over a little heart-shaped graphic, so cute that Jayal says kids like to steal them. Indigo’s airsickness bags urge the passenger to “Get well soon” – a device adapted by Jet, whose bags now also ask you to “Take care.” Cookies packaged in pretty pastel pink and blue tins move like hot cakes. “When a brand has such a strong personality, it makes sense to extend it,” says Jayal. An airline passenger is perhaps the most captive of all audiences. But Jayal clarifies, “It’s not just pack ‘em in and sell ‘em stuff. The idea is to offer differentiated products that people actually want.” “What characterizes the Indigo gang is that they’re very keen to get it right, they’re obsessive about details,” says Jayal. “Even the tape that separates our (check-in counter or boarding) queues reads no red tape” Jayal adds. It is, of course, a precise shade of indigo. Apparently the flight crew were so enamored

of their slick on-screen projections, that fashion designer Rajesh Pratap Singh and make-up and hair artist Ambika Pillai were recruited to reinterpret the reel-life look for the real-life Indigo crew. Pillai’s flirty bob hair pieces and brick red lip and nail color, set against nude eyes with a pull out eye liner complete the look. Said the company press release, “India’s coolest airline now has India’s hottest looking crew!”

Indigo already has the lowest cancellation rate among domestic airlines in 2010, it was close to the top in on-time performance, and with W+K’s help they’ve already conquered the low-cost carrier stigma. Sometimes, as Jayal says, “The right thing to do is also the smart thing to do.” Interaction with several elements of the brand communication from the website, to airport hoardings & kiosks to the smallest of details, the recruitment ads in the inflight magazine, the box of snacks and so on. There is an element of consistency in all of them and it goes beyond the font. It is the tone of voice and personality that comes through. The in-flight magazine is called ‘Hello 6E’; A recruitment ad for air hostesses in the in-flight magazine says ‘30,000 feet above regular jobs’; the copy on the sliding walkway leading to the aircraft says, ’50 million and climbing’. The snack box containing cashews says ‘Nut case’. There are many such instances across their various touch points with consumers. The light touch of humour and the puns have an effect that they make the brand likeable. The low-cost carrier proudly wears its no-frills badge. It extends it smartly to the in-flight magazine (Hello 6E) too. Here’s why it should be checked while flying on Indigo. It’s no-nonsense. Most airlines offer an in-flight magazine, here it’s just a brochure, no dreamy travel escapades, no recipes for the monsoon. Just stuff you can buy on board and some information about their flights and routes. It’s in line with their ‘we focus

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only on what matters’ philosophy. The downside: the passenger needs to buy his/her own on-board reading, if they are looking for some. They do sell a couple of magazines.

It’s got a lot of white space. Clean pages, uncluttered layout, the magazine simply smiles ‘space’. The clean theme continues with the images; the objects are placed against clear white backgrounds. There aren’t a zillion things crowding for attention. It’s the ‘Apple’ feel on board. Excellent use of brand identity. The Indigo logo with the dotted aeroplane, the same dots are used cleverly to add to visual appeal and reinforce brand identity. Call outs use big, bold circles. Page numbers have the same dotted look. Shades of blue rule. If the masthead and the cover pages are taken away, the printed communication should still scream out their brand identity. This is not to say that sheer repetition and consistency will make the brand likeable which is far from it. If the messaging or execution is wrong the same factors can backfire on a brand. But Indigo has successfully managed to keep consistency in their brand without being redundant.

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SY PARTNERS SY Partners was founded in 1994 by Keith Yamashita. They help companies, teams and individuals achieve greatness. They started with three partners in 400sq 6ft with one phone jack and shared email account and had no clients. Would be waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive. First call came from Apple Computers to build a line of 20 shelf wobblers. These wobblers, or flags that prompted customers to buy Apple products over competing software on adjacent shelves, opened the business partners to the idea of reaching out to big brands.

MISSION In a world that too easily settles for less, believes it is worthy to work to envision, they believe in, and fight for greatness. That’s the work they do every day. Keith Yamashita founded and currently serves as chairman of SY Partners. For the past two decades, Keith has worked alongside CEOs and their leadership teams to define and then attain greatness for their institutions. He has worked with leaders at Apple, IBM, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, eBay, Nike, and Gap, among others. He also serves on advisory boards, including the MIT Media Lab Advisory Board. And he often advises start-up companies and leaders of new ventures.

45 From 2009 to 2011, Keith served as The Charles and Ray Eames Brand Fellow at IBM, a post dedicated to driving IBM’s growth and greatness as an institution, and enabling IBMers to perform at their best. In that role, Keith worked side-by-side with leaders to formulate the company’s brand strategy and design, to deliver a year-long commemoration of IBM’s 100th year anniversary around the globe, and to launch a shared agenda with the world about building a smarter planet. After two decades of work at SY Partners, Keith Yamashita, the master of the whole company reboot, is ready to help transform the way business is done globally. His field of vision is expanding, he says, but his winning methods stay the same : Begin with the individual person and work outwards, even across the world. Yamashita, chairman of SY Partners, didn’t always see the individual as the first mover in organisational change. “My point of view has really changed on this over the years,” he says. “In the

With offices in San Francisco and New York City, the company’s consulting practice focuses on helping great leaders build great companies. They partner with CEOs and their leadership teams to set vision and strategy, build the culture of purpose required to deliver, and design the brand experiences that truly engage their customers. Keith Yamashita founded SY Partners with Apple’s former creative director Robert Stone. The firm, headquartered in a sunny loft in San Francisco’s warehouse district, boasts an eclectic team of strategists “designers and technologists, poets and MBAs.” They navigate their practice through a compass of innovation, devised from their collective experience. The compass has the following points: “See, Believe, Think, Act.” KEITH YAMASHITA (FOUNDER, SY PARTNERS)

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beginning, we thought we could move the institution, and in moving the institution, we thought the people would come along.” As it turns out, it’s the other way around. If the people don’t budge, the institution idles. Yamashita’s focus on the individual has electrified major organizations like Apple, Nike, Starbucks, IBM, and others. His tactics are unique, but simple: Know your superpower, what you’re uniquely good at. Build duos that bring out the best. Trust that the project will not fail, nor will the people around you. In 2011, SY Partners launched a digital products business with our award-winning iPad app, Unstuck, focused on helping individuals live better every day without getting stuck. Launched in 2013, their product, Teamworks, helps teams perform at their best. They have built a product division, that channelled the two decades worth of knowledge that they had and offered up in a more strategic and interesting way.

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INTERVIEW & WORKSHOPS

Interviews were taken of the core members of the Echostream team and also few of the regular clients who works with them. A set of questionnaire was made which evolved during the process of taking various interviews and also the answers given by the people were very subjective to the individual, hence a summary of the interviews has been documented here.

The interviews were recorded with mobile phone softwares and later on documented on the computer. The reason for taking interviews of the members of the team members of echostream was to understand and know the people better. Also, to document the history of the company since it was not documented anywhere officially.

“

The stories and experiences of last 8 years of Echostream community had to be recalled and talked about.

After the interviews were conducted with the Echo people, it was time to interview the clients of the company who belonged from both private and government sectors. The interview of the clients were also equally important to see and analyse the clients echostream works with, what the clients thought about the company and also to analyse if the what the team members said were reflected in their client’s feedbacks. Basically, to analyse the communication between the team or the existing brand/company with the clients who has worked with the company. It was sort of a feedback session for the company from the clients. During the interview clients were also asked questions about design, branding and graphic design to know how much the clients knew or cared about those particular topics. Since Echostream is not a start up company, every information had to be collected from various people in the team and then confirmed in every stage in order to have a continuous flow to the story without any information being missed out. Interviews of team members of the company had more to do with the individual personally to whom questions were asked in order to know the person’s likes and dislikes, what part they play in the company, to know their part of the story of echostream and also to know their vision for the company. The stories and experiences of last 8 years of Echostream community had to be recalled and talked about. After all the interviews were taken, all the bits and pieces were put together to form and develop the brand’s identity which was later facilitated by the group workshops and meetings conducted with the team.

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SKETCHES OF THE OFFICE

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INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE 50

HERE IS A SET OF QUESTIONS WHICH WERE ASKED DURING THE INTERVIEWS WITH THE TEAM MEMBERS OF ECHOSTREAM.

•• What is your favourite color? •• What are your hobbies? •• What kind of work you do in Echostream? •• Where did you work before joining echostream? •• Why did you join echostream? •• What do you think Echostream is now? (What kind of place it is)? •• What it should be like? Any changes you want to have here? •• Where would echostream stand or be like, imagine after 10-15 years? •• What is your vision or thinking for the sub brand you are handling? •• What kind of work have you done here so far? •• Why did start this sub brand? What was the thought behind it? •• What does echostream as a company do? •• Describe echostream’s internal culture or atmosphere in one sentence. •• What is the work environment like? •• If this company were an individual person, how would you describe it? •• Is there anything the company does not do right now, but might do in the future? •• Describe Echostream in two words. •• Unique Founding story.

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•• How is your service better than what is available in the market? •• Is your company B2B or B2C company? What is your target audience? •• Any physical objects or visuals already associated with the brand? •• Do you have preferences of the colors you would like it to be associated with your brand? •• If you had to represent your brand without words, only visually, what visuals/ graphics would you use? •• What are the feelings you would like echostream to evoke? •• How would you like clients, consumers and prospects to perceive your company when they see echostream’s logo mark and other marketing materials? •• Who are your competitors? •• Is there anything existing like this particular sub brand which might become your competitor? •• If there aren’t any direct competitions, which are the brands that operate in the same space as you will? •• Can you name some brands that you admire in the sense of their work or logo or anything?

SONAM TASHI GYALTSEN

Co Founder, Product Designer Known as : Bhaila Worked in : Devi Design (Delhi) & Titan (Bangalore)

Personal Likes & Dislikes

Color : Blue Brands : Amul, the authority in the symbol of the National Emblem of India. Likes playing the guitar while playing the song on the laptop.

Just like the Government of India, steps taken by the government in the state are implemented and the results are seen faster and costs less. Successful stories are more seen in the state of Sikkim at the lowest costs and also impact is experienced more. Further, he says that Echostream is now as a company is in a confused state of collaboration. He says that they are trying to understand last 8 years of work they have done and for the first time they have stopped and taken a step back. They are trying to look back and see what they did in that span of time. They want to set a vision for the company’s future after 8 years which might again change after 10-15 years since Echostream as a company wont be same after that many years and if they expand in future.

In the future after 10 to 15 years, Sonam adds, they will be sitting hungry again whether they are active members of the company or not. He personally doesn’t want to work after few years, he plans on settling down with a family and spend time with them. He also plans to do something else other then being a designer. When asked about the internal culture in the company, Sonam replies with The Tea Culture which means in Echostream, a person don’t make a cup of tea for him/herself only, when they make tea it is made for everyone present in the office. The process and intent of making tea is good break for everyone. Echostream is the only design studio which is concentrating on the pan Himalayan region. Sonam says it is not their intent to be better than anyone else. Only thing is to make a difference. They take the responsibility of the project to be successful. Client’s investment is like their own investment. Sonam adds, Echostream is a fish bone as they feel they are going through a rough phase financially. Fish bone without any meat or skin on it symbolises scarcity and hunger. He also refers the company to a

triangle, because a triangle represents stability and there are three points which makes it stable. It represents equality and symmetry. Echostream also have stability and equality between its Co-partners, the working team and most of the clients. Although if it is not existent currently in few matters, they wants to achieve it. He says Echostream can also be a part of a hexagon. Metaphorically, Echostream being part of a larger system. Just how a hexagon can go bigger and then become smaller to form another shape. Similarly, echostream can blend with the situations. Echostream should be a multicoloured brand since it multi-cultured and also comprises of multiple disciplines.

“

Echostream is an opportunity to talk about design through a company or collaboration

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Sonam is the pillar of strength for the company as he manages work as well as people. He says in the interview, Echostream is an opportunity to talk about design through a company or collaboration and that opportunity fortunately happened in Sikkim because it is a small state and it has less difficulties, being a native from the state they were familiar to the demography and culture in Sikkim.

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TENZING NYENTSEY

Co Founder, Communication Designer Known as : Ninzey, Mr.Bajaj Worked in : Ideaspice Dubai & Mumbai

Personal Likes & Dislikes Color : Olive Green Brands : Pentagram & Ideo Likes humming songs. Tenzing Nyentsey manages and leads projects in the office. He also owns a collaboration with echostream, which was started by him and his spouse, Alpana Adhikari. The collaboration is called B.R.E.W. which full form is Baking, Retail, Events and Workshops. They organise workshops with school children on various fields like cooking, crafts, conservation, etc.

When asked about the internal culture, he says Echostream is more like a home. Nobody bosses around and asks to do their job. People are sincere and know their responsibilities. Nobody forces anyone to do their work and it should remain like that. People needs to be professional themselves. That is why there in no hierarchy in the company and everyone is equally responsible.

Tenzing says in his interview that Echostream is like a platform, where people come and work together. It supports people and incubates talent. He wants echostream to grow as a company, be more dynamic and more familiar among the people. He wants it to be an organ in Sikkim which harvests on young talents.

Ninzey says the company as a personality, Echostream is fun and rhizomatous. He says, their services are not better anyone else and they aren’t trying to but the kind of work that they do is very different than any other firms and others might not get a chance to work in the fields they are working in.

After 10-15 years, Tenzing says Echostream should be fully organized and should be able to function without the primary founders of the company.

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A platform, where people come and work together. Echostream supports people and incubates talent.

He says Echostream’s target is to seed funding; incubate new ideas, collaborators, VCs, international companies. When asked about what form or object he would compare the company to, he said echostream is like the rhizomes, which grows from every node, and they spread out from nodes to nodes. When questioned about the new brand identity, he said that people should feel excited about brand and the company. They should feel that the people in Echostream are doing something different and should feel inspired to get associated with them.

PALZOR BHUTIA Co Founder, Communication Designer Known as : Palzor Worked in : Hickapic, Ireland

Personal Likes & Dislikes Color : Red Brand : Nike Likes playing football.

Palzor is the celebrity in the studio. He loves football and plays it every morning. He is the goalie in the team owned by Baichung Bhutia of the Sikkim United Football Club. In his free time he will seen playing games in his iphone. In the interview he says that when they started Echostream, they were just three guys who wanted to do something themselves and use their training in NID for a purpose. Initially, they were not planning for anything big or fancy. He describes Echostream as a dormant volcano which is about to exploit or expand. In echostream, people get inputs from different minds simultaneously.

He says Echostream is philosophical, intelligent, has knowledge of what is happening and what happened before, it is also helping and compassionate about people. Palzor says echostream’s audience is universal. Everyone is their target audience since they are a multidisciplinary firm and also their open to everyone. When asked about the company’s services, he says that their services are better because they have better understanding of design. He says that the new brand identity for Echostream should be full of humour and fun.

Echostream is philosophical, intelligent, has knowledge of what is happening and what happened before

“

Palzor says Echostream in next 10-15 years will expand more and will set up more offices in different cities. His vision is to set up a whole production house consisting of production halls and huge sets. The company should have everything like a

one point shop for everything. A well understood company which produces good design and a multi- disciplinary services.

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RANVEER SINGH

Co Founder, Communication Designer Known as : Pops, Ranveer Papa, Papaji Worked in : That’s it, Mumbai\

Personal Likes & Dislikes

Color : Variable Likes discovering new things everyday. Favourite Beverage : Tea Ranveer is the encyclopedia in Echostream, he knows everything about everything mostly to do with music and technological matters. He is a Chai lover, a music curator and composer. He describes Echostream is a non-corporate place where everyone is equal and informal without being disrespectful and irresponsible. People don’t do things in a patterned way like in corporates, everyone have their own space. He wants to start

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He says the new brand identity for echostream should be mesmerising to the consumers and they should feel excited when they talk of the brand.

“

his own music production brand called Odoodem which would be a collaboration with Echostream. Odoodem will be a big platform where people can collaborate with lot of music which would produce good music with these collaborations.

Everyone is equal and informal without being disrespectful and irresponsible.

KARMA SONAM BHUTIA

Co Founder, Textile & Apparel Designer Known as : Karmaa, Sonam Worked in : The Shop, Benette & Synergy

Personal Likes & Dislikes

Color : Blue Brand : Pero and Chanel Likes flipping through magazines and multi- tasking Karma is like the mother to the people in Echostream. She handles all the people in the studio from co-founders to employees and keeps them sane. She has her own collaboration with echostream called KUZU which is an apparel brand specially for women. The name KUZU means body in Sikkimese. It has not been launched yet, it is under the process. She aims at making a different product in every collection with a special theme.

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Echostream is a mother. It is more like a family than a company.

Karma says Echostream is a multidisciplinary project, which is not only about design. People in echostream talk and learn. Interact with people and solve their problems with empathy. Being from a reputed institute like NID, people in echostream wants to use that education and make something useful out of it. People in echostream wants to come up with their own line of home accessories, textiles,etc. which would be their in-house collaborations. When asked where she wants to see herself and the company in next 10-15 years, she replied as a multi- millionaire (with a giggle). On a serious note she said they are still planning for the future. So she can’t say anything for sure. But one of their recent plans is to set up Heritage Homestays in Sikkim. When asked about the in-house collaborations she says that

he collaborations will have their own individual identity, they stand for their own individual purpose. If they can make it work then, people can imagine a company where a person does not have to go anywhere else. She adds that people here knows their responsibility and they as a company are very approachable. Karma describes her colleagues : Sonam as a working force who wants to know everything in and out, Tenzing is very focused in whatever he does and finishes projects in time. She refers Echostream’s personality as a mother. It is more like a family and not a company. Echostream is a second home to her. Work culture in echostream : People in the firm don’t finish the projects just for the sake of doing it and getting money but for the experience. Karma talks about Echostream’s existing identity : the company has always been identified with the whale. But they had an incident when a person came into the studio asking for a fish as he thought it to be a fish market because of the sign board outside the studio which had the logo of the whale. She says the new brand identity should be of blue color as it is soothing and it should invoke feelings like approachable, friendly and welcoming.

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CLIENT’S INTERVIEW 56

HERE IS A SET OF QUESTIONS WHICH WERE ASKED DURING THE INTERVIEWS WITH THE CLIENTS OF ECHOSTREAM.

•• Whom all do you know or have met from echostream? •• How attached are you to this company? •• What kind of company do you think Echostream is? •• On what kind of projects have you worked together? •• How was your experience working with them? •• How do they make you feel after discussing a project with them? •• How did you initially meet Echostream? •• When you think of Echostream what are the words that come to your mind? •• Why do you continue to be a customer of the company? •• Do you think Echostream is more than a design studio? •• How can the company improve themselves? •• If you were describing echostream to others, what would you say and would you recommend it to them? •Do • you think they are process centric? Crazy and creative? Empathetic? •How • do you want to see echostream in the next few years?

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KAILASH PRADHAN, 50 years old architect from Sikkim. He is a graduate from CEPT, Ahmedabad and is a member of Architects of Sikkim. He met Sonam Gyaltsen through a mutual friend in Bhutan in 2007 when he was exploring possibilities and opportunities in cottage industries. Echostream has worked with Kailash in the Sinkghik Project which was about the Eco-tourism project for the whole area in Sinkghik. Before this project, they also worked together in Bamboo workshops. After the earthquake in Sikkim in 2011, Echostream collaborated with the Architects of Sikkim for the post earthquake restoration activities. They have also worked together in the projects in Tendong and Mangan Village tourism. He says he won’t call Echostream as a company. It is like a watering hole, which is more like a community then a company. It can may be called a studio but when it is referred as a company it feels like a very organized, tight, corporate kind of brand, which he does not feel in echostream. Echostream stands as a positive urban culture in Gangtok. It is a big event for him which has lot of potential and importance. So far his work experience has been very easy and comfortable. There was very little explanation required to understand each other. Everyone is very open to discuss their opinions which is very stimulating.

He says that one of the shortcomings of the company is time. All the designers in general has a problem of commitment to time. The government works on very short frames of time, there are lot of people from the creative field has mastered that by giving them whatever they want. Because of which the end deliverables are not well thought through. He adds that Echostream has a good thought for going about with their projects and that kind of approach takes time but it is good thing. It is like a part of the deal.

they are doing and become financially more stable. Because that is one factor that slows down the creative process and as a result people start doing work for earning money and the whole creativity goes away. Second thing, he says is that they need a new place to set up there studio. Kailash says that it is one of the only studios in the country which has not gone into too much commercial business. They took a lot of effort, which was painful for them to adjust and fit in to this time and place where Sikkim exist right now. They were kind of unlearning whatever they have learnt to fit in the scenario in Sikkim.

He says echostream is like a support system for all other designers. It is like a cultural hub. It is like a live wire. Echostream is a place, which does things that not other studios would ever do. For example, they adopted a kid of 13-14 years to sponsor for his studies. Also, they are very welcoming to the people visiting the studio. Kailash says that echostream should continue what

Echostream is a support system for all the designers. It is like a cultural hub.

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Echostream is not crazy at all but they are creative for sure. They give more commitment to the community which is very important. They always make themselves and everyone feel like they are part of the community and not an outsider. Their work reflects that they are think about the community and not about their self recognition.

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UPENDRA GURUNG, 30 years old architect who is a graduate from Priyadarshini, Nagpur and a post graduate in Sustainable Design from Wales School of Architecture, Cardiff, UK and he is also a member of Architects of Sikkim. He met Echostream through a project called Projecting Gangtok. They were taking feedbacks from people, about the public projects, what they feel, what do they want and also to find out how much they knew about the on going projects. Surveys were taken when people visited the exhibition.

be seen even in the global context. He says Echostream is very process centric and it has always been a good experience working with them. It was never boring and he never felt out of space with them. When he first met them, he felt comfortable with the people of Echostream and decided to collaborate. There was no ego or anything in the collaboration but there were difference in opinions. The arguments made sense to him. He says one of the shortcomings of the studio is organisational skills.

GURU LADAKHI, a very well known businessman in Sikkim who owns businesses in automobile industry, liquor and coffee. He met Echostream through a friend. They first worked together for a social event which he had organised. After that, he has hired Echostream for lot of other projects like branding of his companies, event branding and is also about to start a joint venture currently. He feels that echostream is a community which is always ready to help people and give solutions to the problems.

He says Echostream is a design company which gives design solutions. Fundamentally it started off as a design company only. It’s quite apparent now what they are. It’s more than a design studio. Looking at the scenario here in Sikkim, design is not the prime thing; there are other things like culture, economics, social dynamics that is far more important than just design itself. Echostream is a group of sensitive people who cares of the social structure over here and they have tried to give design solutions in accord to the people living here with a real quality product that can

Upendra says that echostream is a sort of development and he sees it as a company that nurtures creative mind. He says it is like a hub where creativity is nurtured to the end. They have best of design and sensitiveness towards the people.

He says in the interview that design is a very important part of any business which could be used as a strategy to get success. The existence of Echostream has made it possible for him to access it easily as it works in the same kind of demographics and that becomes easier for them to know understand each other. He also says that over the years he has become good friends with the echostream community and will continue to work together as they make him feel comfortable while working on projects and he would like to recommend to everyone.

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He thinks that Echostream is creative but not so crazy. They are very empathetic and sensitive. He feels that they are quite affordable as he never heard complaining about it and he thinks that they understand the economy of the state very well.

Echostream is a group of sensitive people who cares of the social structure over here and they have tried to give design solutions in accord to the people

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WORKSHOPS

The results from the interviews were not enough for starting off with the brand identity and everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views and points had to be put together on to the same page. Answers were very varied from one another to decide what the new identity should be like and it is supposed to be varied since it was coming from very different beings. All the members have their own personal identity and relation to the existing brand. So, everyone in the team were called together to have a workshop.

THE CORE

The workshop was inspired from the process followed by Skool OS called the CORE, a fast and easy strategic planning framework for customer centric design, priorities customer needs, define their brand and produce results. The founders of the program are Jose Caballer CEO/Cofounder, The Skool A long-time creative director for big-name digital agencies, Jose later founded his own digital agency, The Groop, which he ran for 11 years. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worked with diverse clients that include Al Gore, Jamie Oliver, Thomas Keller and Alice Waters, plus corporate clients like Disney, Nike and MySpace. Chris Do Chief Strategist and CEO of Blind Design Director/Cofounder, The Skool An Emmy award-winning director, strategist, designer and educator, Chris has worked with clients that include Sony, Nissan, Microsoft, EA, Meters/bonwe, Ancestry.com and Coldplay. He has lectured all over the world on the business of design and has served on the boards for Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation, Otis College of Art and Design, AIGA, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.

JOSE CABALLER (L) AND CHRIS DO (R)

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WORKSHOP PROCESS The members of the team were asked to say about 7-10 words for each category mentioned in the table 1.0, namely : culture, users, voice, emotional benefit, value and x-factor of the company. A time limit was kept for every section, which was around 5-10 minutes for each. Since a limitless time will make them think, the workshop is supposed to be fast and clear, not to make the members confused and start discussing and debating. After writing down all the words for each section we selected three most important words from each section and then from those three words, one word was

selected from each section, which was closest to the question. The Blue colored words are the final selection of the words. From the words selected, we made this sentence out of it: Echostream is a multi-disciplinary studio, which provides design strategies and services for open-minded customers or collaborators in a community like environment with a crazy and creative voice helping them feel confident through an empathetic approach. X-Factor: Process-Centric

CULTURE USERS VOICE EMOTIONAL BENEFIT How would your community describe you?

Ideal person you want to work with?

Incubation Design Strategy People Centric Holistic Inclusive Caring Fun Humour Warm Friendly No authority No hierarchy Community

Young Clueless Experimental Entrepreneurs Visionary Design Centric Trusting Open-minded

How do you sound to others?

Surprised Pride Important Reliable Trustful Crazy & Creative Youthful Passionate

VALUE

X-FACTOR

How others feel after interacting with you?

What tangible impact do you have on others?

How are you different from others? What makes you special?

Amazed Satisfied Inspiring Design awareness Clarity Confident

More for their money Context Understanding Quality Novelty Considerate Empathy

Non-corporate Multi-disciplinary studio in pan Himalayan Belt Government work No hierarchy Not Stuck Flexible Evolving Innovative Not showy Process Centric Acknowledges Weaknesses Truthful Quirky

TABLE 1.0

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ANALYSIS & DESIGN INSIGHTS 62

ECHOSTREAM STORY IN BRIEF This was put together by analysing the information from the interviews with the team of Echostream. First of all Echostream is a family not a company. Once you join Echostream, you will always remain a part of it even after you leave the place. That’s how amazing this place is.

The environment in the office is always filled with fun and humour. One psychotic pet and two street dogs which keeps visiting the studio makes the place more lively. Echostream friends keep dropping in the studio to chit chat with everyone and have Chai. Chai plays a very important role in the studio.

The Echostream family started as a small company in Delhi in 2007 by three young Nidians, Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen, Palzor Bhutia and Sujay Narayan. After a while they were joined by more people from NID and they thought of making it more serious. The present co-founders; Karma Sonam Bhutia, Ranveer Singh and Tenzing Nyentsey used to live in Mumbai, so they decided to get together there and find a name for their company. The naming of the company was done after jotting down keywords which resonated with design, mountains and multi-disciplinary approach.

Echostream is in the REFLECTION STAGE right now to figure out what they want to be in the future. This branding project is a strategy to expand their audience and also make people aware of Echostream.

Echostream was registered in 2009 as a company in Sikkim under the Sikkim’s Companies Act and then they all shifted to Gangtok and others left their jobs in the cities and joined Sonam and Palzor in Gangtok. The studio is located in the very beautiful city of Gangtok, Sikkim which is situated in the lower Himalayas. The number of people working in the studio has now expanded from 3 to around 28 people. Since everyone in the company has known each other for a decade, there is no hierarchy in the office. It is like a mini NID itself even though there are other people who haven’t studied in NID.

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Echostream is in the reflection stage right now to figure out what they want to be in the future.

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Although the name Echostream was a combination of two words Echo and Stream which was selected only for it’s uniqueness but the meaning was still not clear. Echostream was started by people who wanted to do something on their own after college and they did not have big plans or a vision but just an intent to work together and have fun while doing it.

THE OLD LOGO

•• The old logo is black and white in color. •• Doesn’t show the funny and humorous nature of the brand. •• The whale’s form isn’t what is seen usually, the tail is positioned upwards and the whale has a subtle expression of looking up at something . •• The typeface is not very compatible with the existing form. •• It lacks character and brand language. •• Overall the logo does not look finished. •• It could be very misleading for people who does not know about the company. •• Appears very dull for a company as vibrant and exciting as echostream.

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ANALYSIS OF THE CORE WORKSHOP

BRAND PERSONALITY

BRAND PHYSICAL FACTOR

IN PROGRESS

CRAZY & CREATIVE FLEXIBLE HUMOROUS NOT SHOWY

RELATIONSHIP

CULTURE

EMPATHETIC FRIENDLY CARING CONSIDERATE

A COMMUNITY NO HIERARCHY NON-CORPORATE PROCESS-CENTRIC INNOVATIVE

ECHOSTREAM

REFLECTED

SELF IMAGE

OPEN-MINDED EXPERIMENTAL VISIONARIES

CONFIDENT SATISFIED INSPIRED

Prism Branding Model In the prism branding model, the same words which were given by the team members of Echostream were put together in a different layout. This is to understand the meanings of these words more and how they connect to each other in a different set up.

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REDEFINED BRIEF 65

BRIEF

OBJECTIVES

Echostream as a personality is empathetic and always welcoming. Echostream is a studio with a big heart and so are they people working in it. It is crazy and serious at the same time. People in the firm are process centric and puts empathy before creativity.

•

Echostream promotes design awareness and incubate talents. It wants to give a pedestal to the emerging talents in Sikkim. Although its been 8 years since the company was started, the minds working in the company are still young and fresh. Echostream is looking for opportunities to collaborate with people. The brief is to design and develop a brand identity which is fun and humorous, bubbling with creativity. It also needs to be dynamic enough to use it various platforms - print collaterals and website. The identity also needs to ensure the 8 years of experience Echostream takes pride in.

• • • • • • •

SCOPE OF WORK • •

• • • •

Brand Identity - logo, visual language, typography Brand collaterals - business cards, letterheads, invoice, receipts, presentation formats, project report cover page, stamp, envelopes, website design Brand Strategy for launching and popularising in the creative market Brand Mock ups Brand Manual Documentation of the project

• • •

•

To have a brand identity that is dynamic, fun and creative. Use the brand logo and language in all the collaterals to promote itself in the minds of the people. Make use of the print collaterals to establish the brand’s identity, like business cards through unconventional and out of the box ideas. Business cards are used as a strategy to promote business and awareness of the brand. Idea behind the logo and the brand is promoted in every collateral in a way so that there is consistency everywhere. Use of website to promote the brand, make people aware of the purpose of the brand and also the idea of collaboration. Use of website as a portfolio and also to keep track of the work. Using the website to communicate globally and also showcase the company’s work to the creative world and to the possible collaborators. Launching the brand through various public events and advertisements. Launching the brand social mediums like facebook, instagram, etc. Design a brand manual for future reference and help for the employees to keep the brand’s identity and language constant. Use the brand manual and the project’s documentation as study materials for the next designer/design team in order to change or redefine the brand’s identity in the future if at all it is required by the company.

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MOODBOARDS

This moodboard describes how the company is currently and how is the culture of the place and also how it appears through colors. The palette here is mostly made up of pastel shades which are very subdued and less engaging. But it has a vintage feel to it and looks quite soothing and comfortable.

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This moodboard describes how the brand identity of the company should look like. This also describes how the company wants itself to be known in public. The color palette here is more bright and colourful. This palette also has a fun and playful character.

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REDEFINED TIMELINE

LAUNCH THE BRAND

BRIEFING DESIGNING WEBSITE

ANALYSIS REBRIEFING

MID FEB

COLLECTION OF DATA

EXPLORATIONS

MARCH

MAY

APRIL

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DESIGNING COLLATERALS EXPLORATIONS

JUNE

JULY

PRINT PRODUCTION

LAUNCH THE WEBSITE

DOCUMENTING

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

CONCEPTUALISATION

BRAND IDENTITY 70

Few words were listed out from the workshops organised with the core members of the company, after analysing all the collected data to go about with exploration process of the brand identity. But these key words kept changing with time and situation. It evolved during the process since the project was building up with additional informations day by day and everything was back and forth in every step (Collect-Explore-Analyse). The exploration process follows the steps in the rough diagram given below.

COLLECT INFORMATION

ANALYSE

Here are the keywords selected for the explorations: •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••

Community Humour Fun Crazy And Creative Dynamic Flexible Empathy Friendly

Extensive amount of explorations has been done on the concept of the whale, the reasons for which are explained further in the chapter. Other than that concepts including the name of the company, nature or surrounding of the place, the multi-disciplinary aspect of the company and the core ideas of the company like community and collaboration has been explored. Since it was a rebranding project, more stress was given on the idea of the previous logo to try and achieve at an idea which is suitable for the current design scenario and audience. The concept which had evolved in the last 8 years and has a recall value for the brand to its past consumers.

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EXPLORE

INITIALS

The explorations started with integrating the letters E and S of name Echostream because it is formed from two words ECHO and STREAM. It has its own meanings like formation of waves, continuity, fluidness and flexibility . In some of the explorations the letters E and S are explored as forms which are waves of vibration or echoes. In the rest of the explorations, integration of the two letters has been explored but then it didn’t suffice at the end for the identity. Moreover, initials were not strong enough to portray the brand’s vibrant personality and also, it would make the audience remember the brand as ‘ES’ instead of the whole name Echostream as it was required from the brief to be able to know the brand by its full name.

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MULTI - DISCIPLINARY 72

In the second approach the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity was explored as a multi-disciplinary firm, like a one point stop for everything. The explorations were made of icons for things which are used in the studio or things which represent the different disciplines in the studio. The exploration also shows the location and environment around the studio. But then later on it was realised that these objects looked very common for an identity and as a logo it seemed too complicated. So, instead of using materialistic icons different natural forms were taken to show the same concepts. Inspirations were taken from the nature like birds, flowers, clouds, butterflies, etc. whatever that would suit the given theme or discipline. For music, clouds were used as clouds produces rain and thunder then it produces sounds which is a kind of natural music. Flower is used for representing the textile department of the studio since a lot of floral patterns are used in the apparels. Butterfly is used to represent the photography and films, since butterflies keep looking for flowers to feed on similarly the photographers are always looking for something interesting to capture. Bamboos are for the echostream products since a lot of bamboo is used in making them. Lastly, the rainbow for B.R.E.W. as brew consists of different activities, so a multi-colored rainbow could mean the various activities brew organises. Later on it was realised that the rainbow would be too colorful for the logo alongwith so many other icons. The idea here was good conceptually, but when all these icons are put together to form a whole logo it started appearing as more like a children park themed logo. Because of which it was then explored to show it in a more indirect way by using abstract forms instead of the natural and organic forms. But it did not represent the personality of the brand and could misguide people. This idea still has a lot of potential and could be explored in various mediums. One which was using it as a stamp which was tried during the process.

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ABSTRACT FORMS FOR THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY NATURE CONCEPTS

USING IT LIKE A STAMP

ECHOSTREAM

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While exploring the concept of nature which is explained in the previous page, since the idea didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work one more approach was tried which was to use 5 different patterns to show multiple disciplines which could be used to represent each discipline. So the idea of Butterfly was taken since a butterfly has lot of patterns on its wings and butterfly is natural being which is full of colors and very playful. Also, a butterfly has a process of growing throughout its life from a cocoon to a flying being. Different patterns were explored on the wings or forms inspired from butterflies. Explorations were also tried by keeping the outer form as a butterfly and inside as a wave which represents echoing or vibrations again that represents fluidness and flexibility. Butterfly as an inspiration represents the process of nature and creativity. Also, the integration of patterns in one form represents groupism or an evolution from one pattern which forms into another.

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WEAVE 75

In this approach the same concept of multi-disciplinary aspect of the firm was used but in the form of lines of weaving which were inspired from bamboo structures. Since weaving requires lot of interconnections and the lines needs to go over or under one another which then forms a structure. The concept was to show that intertwining lines always form a structure, even two lines can form something by coming together. Similarly, in echostream there could 2,3,5, or any number of lines which comes together and form a community and these lines represent people who could be collaborators. The lines could also represent multiple disciplines which are together in one place brought together by the people working in Echostream or who is a part of the firm. But this approach didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t appear as it was conceptualized since the explorations started appearing more like a textile or furniture design firm rather than a multi-disciplinary firm which offers various specialities. So then the idea was dropped and we moved to another concept.

2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

WHALE

Since it is a rebranding project of an already existent and well-known brand the previous logo was went through an analysis process to figure out its pros and cons. The previous was an organic form of the whale and very close to the real mammal itself. So it was decided to look at the idea of the whale from different perspectives. Why the whale? What does it have to do with the brand? First reason is that the symbol of a whale already carries a recall value alongwith it for the brand, people in and around Sikkim are very familiar with the company and its logo. Since the idea was relooked at it was also questioned how the personalities of the whale could be similar to the brand. When the research and analysis of the research was done lot of similarities were figured out. Whale is the biggest mammal and has the biggest heart in the animal kingdom, the company is also brand which always keeps empathy before creativity and are welcoming towards everyone. Therefore, Echostream also have biggest heart metaphorically and is loving in nature. Second reason, being a very neutral icon for the brand. Whale doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t signify Sikkim, India or any religious symbols it gives the brand a very neutral outlook because its not promoting anything and not being related to any particular place and culture. It give an identity to be known and recognised globally. Thirdly, the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s characteristics like playful, happy, loving, flexibility, community, dynamic, etc are similar with the character of the whale. Echostream is a collaboration of people from different fields of work. The collaboration first started when they started the company in 2008. Now there are collaborations with people like architects, students, anthropologists, designers, painters, etc. There are five sub brands of echostream that are coming up this year which are in collaboration with the company. Echostream nurtures its collaborations until its ready to be let free in the market.

NAME, MOUNTAIN, LETTER E

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

LINES

Whales have these similar qualities in them too, they have strong social ties with their offsprings. They always travel together in a group or a pod to hunt or migrate. The mother whales nurtures them and teaches them to swim, survive and hunt. They are amazing communicators as they use echolocation to connect the other whales over thousands of miles in the ocean. Echolocation is the process where whales send sounds like clicks or whistles to hunt, to contact other whales and to keep track of their offsprings. The sounds echoes back to them which helps in finding. The name of the studio was not thought through but now it can be related to the process of echolocation. Echo and stream both means some entity is vibrating or moving. It could be also said that, out there in the wild somewhere a stream is flowing and the sound of the stream is echoing. It represents openness and living with the nature. Whale as a form is very energetic, playful and flexible. Most of the whales are acrobatics, they jump high out of the surface of water and go back down again by slapping it tail on the water. Similarly, echostream is fun, playful and vibrant brand which is also empathetic in nature and considerate about people. The brand likes to provide more to the people than just design solutions. LETTER E From the name of the company Echostream, the initial letter E was explored with the form of the whale to represent the company’s name. The form of the whale was integrated with the letter E, alongwith mountains to show the nature of the location where Echostream is located that is the Himalayas. Also, few typographic logos were explored in the form of a whale with the full name of the company in it. But these kind of explorations didn’t make sense as whales don’t exist in the mountainous regions and using illustrations of mountains in the logo seemed too common or unrelated for a design studio. LINES A non-organic and abstract form of the whale was tried out using horizontal lines that curves in the form of a whale. The lines were arranged such that

2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

78 it appears like waves which are vibrating or echoing. Echoing is being related to the name of the company as well as the echolocating nature of the whale. The accumulation of various lines together also signifies a community forming together or people coming together to collaborate and work together. This also adds fluidity and playfulness to the form of the whale as the previous logo was very static in appearance. STEREO/TELEVISON Integrating the form of a whale and stereo or a tv. At first forms of old stereo were explored with a whaleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face to give a quirky and funny look to the identity but later on a form tv was taken as it was close to the concept and also as form looked more suitable. A whale TV that plays something which is going on in the company or show any aspect of the company could be utilised as a dynamic identity. But this idea only works for the later part of the branding like advertising and promotion through a medium. The next approach was to show the humour and playfulness in the logo. It was also to show the community with multiple disciplines in a dynamic logo which can be used in various ways with the help of color and lines.

TELEVISION/STEREO SET

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

NAME, MOUNTAIN, LETTER E 2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

FINAL DIRECTION : THE WHALE

The concept of the whale was chosen by the team members of the company to go forward with as the final direction for the brand identity amongst other mentioned directions in the previous pages. This section shows the further explorations of the form of the whale, its integration with other forms and also shows how a meaning was evolved to the identity. The keywords used for this exploration of the form of whale were fun, playful and creative. The round form of the whale was also inspired from the small letter ‘e’. The idea was to show the whale jumping out of the water and slapping its tail on the surface while going down inside the water. Circular form also suggests well roundedness and completeness. Also roundness gives warmth and comfort. Two different forms were explored for the mouth of the whale. One is little pointy and sharp edges while the other one has rounded mouth and softness in its form. The second one goes more with the brand’s personality since its softer, it looks happy and having fun. Some typefaces were explored with the form so that the team members can visualize how it will appear as a brand identity. Since the form is clean but also organic because of the white thin lines around it, a handwritten typeface goes well. Handwritten typeface also gives informal essence to the logo.

INTEGRATION OF SMALL LETTER E AND WHALE

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MOUTH TYPE ONE

MOUTH TYPE TWO

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The concept of tv set with whale was taken to show the multidisciplinary aspect of the design studio and how both communication design and industrial design works together. Since the main inspiration was the whale, the form of the whale and an old tv set has been integrated to make it appear like a fun, playful character. The idea was to portray different events, ideas, disciplines through the TV which could be used in the later part of the branding strategy. Over the period of time, different forms were tried to achieve the whale character and the tv set in one complete form.

TV SET AND WHALE

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

Jumping whale, this direction had keywordsfun,playful and confident. This is a simplification of the form of the whale. The form appears like its ready to jumping out which signifies echostreamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s confidence and playfulness. It is a simple form which can be easy to be remembered.

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This is an abstract way to show the whale which can be used in various ways of branding. Its form is solid and has round curves to show that the brand is approachable and considerate. Its dynamic in nature since its a very simple form with no ornamentations on it and can used to show different patterns, colors, images, illustrations, etc. Basically it forms like window in the form of an abstract whale shape. Echostream is a very diverse brand with different kinds of people and minds. This idea gives the brand full advantage to showcase itself. Few examples have been tried to show the potential of its application in the branding strategy.

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2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

Few more examples of using the logo in the brand identity by playing with the form in various ways using pictures.

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A line is a basic form for any design and combination of various lines make a fully formed design which has a meaning. This exploration has been tried to show the multidisciplinary and community like nature of Echostream which is formed by various lines of people and together they form a community which is fun, playful and dynamic.

2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

This was another form representation of the whale in a more organic way. A darker shade of the body color is used to give depth to the form and the same form is used to make the tail of the whale. The tail adds a playful and fun character to the bulky shape of the whale otherwise. This was to represent the company as a big whale with a big heart who is always approachable and welcoming. Combination of teal and orange has been used to give a young and fresh feel to the big whale. Orange represents happiness, enthusiastic, creative and determination. Teal is a darker shade of turquoise which represents water or aqua/ aquamarine and it also associated with the meanings of energy,wisdom, good luck, loyalty, wholeness, patience.

2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

These explorations (on page no.88) had the same reasons as the previous one to show a community forming through collaborations of different shades of blue. This is the form modification of the previous directions. Lighter shades of the similar colour are used to give depth to the form of the whale and also to show that different forms together gives another form meaning to it. Blue has been used to show calmness, trust in the brand, depth and stability of the sky and sea. It also shows comfort, faith, understanding and clarity. Purple adds a versatile and nostalgic feel to the identity.

This exploration shows the misregistered lines, to show the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;informalnessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of the brand. Reason for the lines not matching to one another is that the brand solves solutions differently and does not take things too seriously. This also shows that here is a beauty being not too perfect.

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This was based on the same form on page no.88 to show the whale in a more abstract way. The continuous lines on the lower part of the form is inspired from the baleen whaleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comb like structures which filters their food.

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This exploration shows a rhythm being formed by the lines and also a whale. This direction was tried out to represent the name echostreamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literal meaning in a visual form. It is trying to show the vibrations of the echo and the stream.

2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

This form again uses the concept of the lines forming a community but in a much more simpler form without showing the tail of the whale. The form has an open ended feel to it which extends from the centre to the right, which is to show the openness and flexible character of the brand. Multiple lines forming the abstract shape represents different collaborations or people forming echostream which is the core value of echostream as a company.

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This was to show echostream as a multiple people or collaborationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brand. Multiple colors has been used to show echostream provides diverse variety of services. Interaction between the colors have also been played around to show different forms formed by different types of collaboration of people.

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2015 | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | DAISY DUTTA

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

The above exploration shows a group or a community formed by three different sized whales. This represents the company is formed by different kinds of people and they welcome people from any group or community to work with them or form collaborations. It also shows that the company is ready to do business with companies big or small. The three whales faced in different directions gives a playful feel to the brand and also says that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move in one direction only. Its multi-colored to show the multidisciplinary facet of the company. Blue represents trust, faith, calmness,comfort. Orange and yellow provides warmth, fun, vibrance, happiness, energetic and creativity.

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The explorations in pages 98 and 99 shows the simplified form of the whale which is made by two colors and forms. It shows meeting of two entities can form a bigger form which means coming together and working brings out the best in each other. Orange brings in fun, vibrance and creativity to the brand, blue represents trust, calmness, confidence and also comfort.

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FINAL LOGO CONCEPT

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This is formed by two whales, one line drawn and other solid coloured to form the symbol of infinity. The infinity symbol formed by the two whales mean that collaborations can bring out infinite ideas and solutions to a problem. The whales are faced in opposite directions which means that two people can be very different from each other but can have similar vision.

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VARIATIONS The concept of the infinity was chosen as the final concept for the logo. All the members of the team could relate to the idea of the logo and could see themselves using it. All of them agreed to it but there were feedbacks on refinement of the form and color. Also the team members suggested to try out more typefaces with lowercases. Most of the people liked it because the form had a 3D appearance, to some it appeared like a ring or band. If the thin line is kept same color as the solid form, it looked like they are joined or hugging each other. It was refined to make the form look balanced and also like one form instead of two forms together. Alongwith the form refinement, typefaces were also explored, the typefaces were used as both lowercase and uppercase to see which one fits better with the form of the logo.

COLOR AND TYPE FOR FORM 1

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FORM AND COLOR VARIATIONS FORM 1

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While the variations of the form was still going on, type explorations were being explored simultaneously. A typeface which is fun and playful but also puts a feel of seriousness at the same time was being looked for.

FORM WITH TYPE VARIATION 1

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After the first refinement, the form was explored with different color palettes. The color palette was based on the brand personality which is fun, playful and dynamic. So I was mostly trying colors like shades of blue, orange, yellow, purple and teal as they are very fresh and vibrant. Also tried few color palettes from internet sites like colorlovers.com and adobe kuler.

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Even after lot of refinement, the form still looked separate and unbalanced like a fortune cookie which required further refinement.

FORM WITH COLOR VARIATIONS 1

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FORM VARIATIONS 2 COLORED LINES ARE USED FOR VISIBILITY OF THE LINE INSIDE THE SOLID FORM AND ALSO OUTSIDE IT.

SELECTED FOR COLOR VARIATIONS

COLOR VARIATIONS WITH FORM VARIATIONS 2

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COLOR VARIATIONS WITH FORM VARIATIONS 2

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FORM VARIATIONS 3

To make it properly balanced and appear like one form, it had to look more like the infinity symbol than the form of the whale. So the form was made using different sizes of circle, the mouth was made by a bigger circle and a smaller circle was used for the tail. But then it started losing its character of a whale and when two of them were put together it was more unbalanced then ever. After this experiment, the first form was taken again and was to tried manually fix it with the tools in the adobe illustrator to retain its whale character and also to make it look like a symbol of infinity.

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TYPEFACE SELECTED

LOGOTYPE - Barkentina The typeface selected for the logo is Barkentina. The typeface is designed by artist and designer Kiril Zlatkov from Bulgaria. This typeface will only be used in the logo to write the name of the company. Barkentina was chosen as the logotype because of the style of serifs which has a thin balance between stability and artistic behaviour. The curves of the serifs goes well with the curves of the form of the logo. Open Space is the characteristics of the counters and terminals of the typeface Barkentina. It is a display typeface mainly and is equipped with wide range of opentype features. It can set single lines, short paragraphs or playful typographic compositions. This typeface also has excellent legibility even in small sizes.

BARKENTINA TYPEFACE

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BRAND TYPEFACE - Bariol

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The typeface selected for the brand is Bariol which is designed by atipo, a graphic and type design studio in Spain. This typeface will be used in the company documents and website so the project required a legible and simple typeface but which also has a playful character that can be used when required. Bariol becomes a true match for the requirement, it is a rounded, slightly condensed typeface. It has a personality which is nice and familiar without being too sweet and it is very readable at small sizes because of its sober shapes and simple construction. It also comes in different weights and styles which is quite useful for the branding of the company.

BARIOL TYPEFACE REGULAR

BARIOL TYPEFACE BOLD

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BARIOL TYPEFACE LIGHT

BARIOL TYPEFACE THIN

BARIOL TYPEFACE REGULAR ITALICS

SELECTION OF COLOR PALETTE 113

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After the final refinement, different color schemes were tried out with the form and the type. Out of them, two color palettes were finalised which were shown to the team of echostream. Only two were chosen and shown to the team because too many options results in confusion and indecisiveness. The final color palette was selected on the majority of votes.

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OPTION 1 Red is a highly visible color, it represents courage and power. Blue is linked to consciousness and intellect. Blue is a cool color and red is warm color, when combined together it creates a high impact and a vibrant design. Since the form of the logo is soft, the color needs to be strong and easily visible.

OPTION 1 GETS SELECTED

OPTION 2 This is a light and friendly blue, which represents openness and freedom. Orange is a color of vibrancy and fun, it is a hot color and highly visible. When combined with a lighter blue, it creates a good contrast between them and highlights the most important part of the logo. Also they form a fun and playful combination.

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COLLATERALS BUSINESS CARD CONCEPTS 116

Print collaterals includes explorations and final designs of business cards, letterheads, presentation templates, project templates, stamp and envelope.

Various ideas were discussed in making the business card for the brand. First we discussed what the card really meant for us, what is it’s use for us in the today’s world when everything you can get from the internet and you have your mobile phones to record anything you want. What do we really do when someone gives us their business card? Most of the times, it goes to trash if we don’t need the card any longer or never needed it. People toss it on their table, write or doodle on it in case of lack of paper, cut it up to show something. Sometimes, you won’t even remember you gave you the card. So the brief given was to make a business card that is memorable and something which is kept by the people even if they don’t really need it or use it. So basically to make something pretty and lasting. Initial ideas on business cards. We discussed all the ideas with the Echo Team and went for the most doable one :

I. Transparent Cube In this concept, the business card when given to a possible collaborator or a client will be a folded paper which in shape and size looks like a business card. But, when the sides of the card is pressed from two sides it will form into a cube which has no flap on the bottom side and on the upper side there a folded flap. This entire structured was imagined to be made by a transparent sheet like OHP paper, on the upper flap the logo of the company will be printed on it and on the sides of the cube the company’s address and contact will be printed. So when the transparent cube is placed on a light source the projection of the logo will be seen on the wall in the direction of the light. This idea was to make the card little fun and experimental. Also, the cube could sit anywhere on its own and it would stand apart from other business cards.

Why it didn’t work? TRANSPARENT CUBE

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

The echo team didn’t like the idea much since the user would have to look for a light source which would fit inside the cube and if it doesn’t the effect of the card won’t be same. It was very experimental and risky. Also, the structure of the box might not remain steady forever since it is paper.

II. Paper Clip/Bookmark The business card will be in the form of a bookmark or a paper clip which could be made of plastic or metal. Since there are two whale forms in the new logo, there will a gap between the two forms which can hold the paper like a clip. Metal would a better option for it since it can be pressed and pull to adjust without breaking but a plastic clip might break.

Why it didn’t work? It seemed little expensive for a business card even if it will be very memorable and useful for the people. Metal would cost a lot and also to make that form will require more understanding and time. It was not feasible for the client.

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PAPER CLIP/BOOKMARK

III. A standing tent card The idea was to make the card which stands on itself. This could be used in business meetings by the client to show his/her card to the collaborators which would stand apart and will be visible to everyone. The structure of the card will be such that the card will have groove which when folded becomes a stand for the card. There was another idea for the card to stand which is like a tent. Basically the card stands like a tent and could also be used as an identity by the client by pinning it upon his shirt pocket while going for field visits in the villages.

Why it didn’t work?

STANDING TENT CARD

This idea seemed to common for the client and also the structure or the fold will get spoilt after a while and won’t last forever. Some people might throw it away after it losses its standing capability.

IV. Numbers on Card This idea was more useful for the client than the user. The business cards would have a writing space for a code which can be torn out by the person who is giving the card and also there will be a copy of the code on the card who will receive the card. So the echo person can register this code in his computer and write down to whom he has given the card to, when and which place. Since most of the times, we lose count of the cards given to people and to whom we met. So they will have a record forever of the people they have met.

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Why it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work?

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There was nothing fun and playful about this concept. It would be tedious job for the client to put each and every name on the computer after they met their clients and in one day they might meet many people which would hard for them to remember all the time. Also it would consume some time of the client to do note down all those information everyday and it might not really help them in anything later on.

V. Suitcase Clip

The form of the logo reminded me of the old suitcase clips which looked like infinity symbols. Similarly, the present logo could be used like a clip which comes together and joins. The strap could be made of elastic or silicon belts where the contact information could be printed.

SUITCASE CLIP

Why it kind of worked but it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t?

Everyone in the Echo team understood and liked this idea. It was memorable useful for number of things like tying up things together like cards, paper, pencils, files, etc. and also as accessories like bands, hair-bands, etc. But they felt that it will be more of a merchandise for the company rather than a business card. They could definitely use in their strategy to publicise their brand identity.

VI. Manifesto in a Card

There are 16 quotes in the manifesto of Echostream which is known as Echofesto. So the idea was what if all the 16 quotes of the manifesto are on the business card. There were three ways of doing it :

a) Accordion Fold

ACCORDIAN FOLD

A sheet of paper which have the manifesto written on it and also the contact details which will be folded in accordion fold such that when folded only the contact details and name will appear and when unfolded all the quotes could be read. Also it could be used as a poster with quotes to hung on the wall if not folded.

b) Booklet

One was to make a small booklet where the first page will have to contact information and the rest of the pages will have the manifesto and this book can be put inside a small box like a matchbox.

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

BOOKLET

ORIGAMI FLOWER

c) Origami Flower Game This used to be a childhood game for kids which is a origami structure, where you fold a paper from its corners and make it into a four petalled flower coloured in four different colors. The flower is hold by four fingers and you can move them in two opposite directions and the other person has to choose one color from it. Then the person holding the flower will open that petal and reveal what is written inside. So similarly, this idea could be used for the manifesto, the outer four petals will have the contact details written on it and inside the petals the user can discover the quotes. Also this could be used as a poster to pin up on a soft board or stick it on the wall.

Why it didn’t work?

Actually this idea worked but people liked the last idea more which of the sticker. The client might use one of these options for their manifesto later on but currently everyone decided to go for the sticker.

7. Logo Sticker The idea was to have a sticker of the logo on one side of the card and other side will have the contact details of the client printed on it. The receiver of the card can take out the sticker can use it anywhere like notebooks, laptops, phones, desks, etc. Since its a sticker you either have to stick it somewhere or crumple and throw it away and most of the times people don’t throw it away. Like the apple logo, it always sticks around even if that person might not possess an apple product. This concept will make the company memorable forever and cannot get spoilt.

Why it didn’t work? It seemed very doable to everyone and also very easy to implement it in real. Since its a sticker it has lot of options for the people to stick it and once it gets multiplied people will know the brand more and more. Even if they don’t know much about the brand but they will recognise by the logo and the name of the company.

LOGO STICKER

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After discussing together this idea, we had further improvements and suggestions of the idea. We decided to have a quote from company manifesto written on the back of each card and other side will have the sticker which when remove will reveal the contact details of the person. So when a person receives the card he/ she has to take out the sticker to know the contact details and have to put the sticker somewhere. People would also like the to keep the card after taking out the sticker, since the quotes are little quirky and has double meaning to it. But execution of this concept was not possible for the production process.

SONAM TASHI GYALTSEN

www.echostream.in

Give a call or message at

Drop in at

Give a call or message at

SONAM TASHI GYALTSEN PRODUCT DESIGNE R Give a call or message at

Drop in at www.echostream.i n

8. Others There were few other concepts which were tried out too, like patterns of the logo itself, playing with the brand colors, etc. SONAM TASHI GYALTSEN PRODUCT DESIGNE R Give a call or message at

www.echostream.i n

DAISY DUTTA | GRADUATION PROJECT DOCUMENT | 2015

SONAM TASHI GYALTSEN PRODUCT DESIGNE R Give a call or message at

www.echostream.i n

FINAL CONCEPT This concept evolved from one of the previous concept as the previous one was not possible for the printers to print. In this concept the business cards will be used as a strategy to promote the brand by its quotes from the manifesto in the form of stickers. These stickers will be given with every card, which are attached with the business

cards by putting the corners of the stickers inside the slits on the corners on the card. The purpose of this is that every person will get a different quote from the manifesto which is fun and quirky, the language on the stickers portray playfulness of the brand to the audience and also works as a promotion for the new brand identity.

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SLITS FOR STICKER

2 INCH

2 INCH 2 INCH

1.5 INCH

2 INCH

1.5 INCH STICKER AND THE BASE CARD TOGETHER

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TYPE OF PAPER The type of paper used is KENT paper of 300 gsm for the base card with slits and Sticker paper for the stickers.

COSTING Number of files to print : Base card with name and logo : 7500 Sticker : 7500

TEST PRINTS WITHOUT DIE-CUT

Price of one whole business card including price of paper, die-cut, die-punched and printing : Rs.2 Total Amount : Rs.15,000

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PRINTING AND DIE-CUTTING

DIE-CUT FOR THE SLITS

For the slits to be precised, it had to be diecut. So, an outlined drawing of the die-cut was given to the printers for making the die for the card.

STICKER

SAMPLE PRINTS IN NORMAL COPIER PAPER

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LETTERHEAD The letterhead needed to be clean and organised. The brief was to make a letterhead for the company which will be used as a common template by everyone to send letters. It need not be very colorful and creative, just a basic template which would be comfortable for everyone to use.

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INITIAL EXPLORATIONS

The yellow as a background color was used for the logo initially to highlight it and to show the secondary color palette as well. But it seemed unnecessary to the client and all the designs with the yellow patches were rejected.

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The horizontal format of writing the contact details had a problem of space. If the names are longer there is less space between the horizontal groups which means it will be irregular in everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letterheads. Also, it consumes lot of writing space of the letterhead.

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FINAL DESIGN This design was selected as the final template for the letterhead of the company. Since the contact details and logo were placed on one side of the page and longest email addressed has been used to determine the space it will require. The horizontal lines on the left hand side will keep the template consistent in every letterhead and there is enough room for writing the content. Also the client preferred lot of boundary breathing space on all sides of the letterhead specially on the top most part of the letter. The letterhead uses the typeface selected for the brand that is Bariol of regular weight and a type size of 12pt and leading 14pt.

SELECTED

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ENVELOPE The brief was to make an envelope that would fit papers little bigger than A4 size paper folded vertically. That was ensure that if there are sheets of paper more than or two the envelope is able to hold it together properly and it is strong enough. Also, to show the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea of collaboration and use the logo in some way to show it.

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CONCEPT The idea was to show the concept of the logo and make people familiar to it through the envelope. Some people may get it and some people might not but the objective was to make it as direct as possible. Since echostream logo is built on the concept of collaboration, the blue lined whale represents the collaborator and the magenta coloured solid whale represents Echostream. So, whenever an envelope is sent to a collaborator or a possible one, their name would be written inside the blue lined whale on the envelope to represent them as the collaborator.

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120 mm

To, Sonam Tashi Gyaltsen The Managing Director, SITCO, Gangtok, Sikkim - 737101 India M : +91-94745-22299

ECHOSTREAM (P) LTD

236 mm

FINAL DESIGN - ENVELOPE This was chosen as the final design, since it has a better placement of all the subjects on the envelope. The sender that is the company’s logo is placed below on the right hand side, which is usually used while sending a letter to people. The sender’s address on the right bottom and the receiver’s at the upper left side inside blue lined whale .

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Yangthang Building, Kazi Road, Gangtok, Sikkim, India 737101 www.echostream.in

DESIGN TEMPLATE FOR PROJECT REPORTS • •

LANDSCAPE COVER PAGE

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Reports Submitted By Echostream Template For Power-Point Presentation

The templates for project reports submitted by Echostream to their collaborators and also the presentations follows the same concept as the envelope to show the blue whale as the collaborator so that it follows a consistent brand language in every collateral and the consumers can relate to it. Bariol typeface has been used everywhere to keep the brand’s identity constant, even on the inside pages so that the different stakeholders doesn’t use typefaces of their own personal choice and stick to the brand language.

Company Name,Project Title And Date Constant in every page. Page layout will be according to projects.

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PORTRAIT COVER PAGE

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TITLE OF THE PROJECT BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

LOGOS OF COLLABORATORS ECHOSTREAM LOGO

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PRESENTATION LAYOUT

TITLE PAGE

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If the title of the project is long, the size of the typeface can go smaller.

SLIDES

END SLIDE

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INVOICE The brief was make an organised template for the invoice since the existing invoice looked very cluttered and everyone used a different layout. The date and invoice is kept at the bottom so that there is enough space and should appear immediately. The brand typeface Bariol has been used to in different weights and styles to differentiate the text and the numbers for easier usage by the client and the receiver.

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STAMP Making the stamp was little tricky since the logo has two colors and if its made in one color it loses its character and also the concept doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean anything then. So to keep the logo as it is and also to have it in one color, two lines of around 1pt was added to the logo forms and hence, it will act like little gaps which will not get inked when pressed and appear as white lines on paper.

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Initial brief was to have a online presence for echostream which will help in better communication, a space or database for their portfolio and also an online identity for the company. An user study was already done while doing the research on brand identity. Echostream is mainly targeting possible collaborators to collaborate with them. They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t require any website to get work or clients, they have already formed their base in Sikkim and they get enough work through word of mouth. Website is to fulfil the vision of reaching toward all the 11 states of the North and North East India. To collaborate and work with people from all these states, since they have similar demography, economy and design scenarios. There was confusion of calling all the clients as collaborators, initially three types of people were targeted collaborator, consumer and incubation. But later on a call was taken, and the stakeholders decided to name it as collaboration since people in echostream work in collaboration with everyone. Everybody takes equal risks in their work and put same effort in doing their work.

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WEBSITE DESIGN PROCESS PHASE I (RESEARCH)

PURPOSE

• To create a platform for collaboration and business • Expand business • To communicate better or make people aware • Promotion of Echostream • Promotion of information • Creating a database for portfolio and manage it.

PHASE III (DESIGN)

a. Look and feel of the website which includes wireframes, typography, color, content, layout.

b. Incorporate brand language and colors.

GOALS

• Collaboration • Business

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Primary : Collaborators (entrepreneurs, official, etc.) • Secondary : Echo team members

PHASE IV (PROGRAMMING)

a. Files given to the developer for programming the website.

CONTENT

• Portfolio • Introduction to collaboration • Introduction of sub-brands/ in house collaborations • People in Echostream • Contact information

PHASE II (PLANNING)

a. Develop a site map to determine the content type, amount of content, information hierarchy, navigational style.

b. Type of platforms to be used.

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PHASE I (RESEARCH)

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PRIMARY RESEARCH This research is based on the interviews taken from the stakeholders of the company. A discussion was conducted which only consisted the stakeholders of the company. Since the branding process was already done, people knew how their brand image should be like. The main idea was to target collaborators, so that should be the most important component in the website. After that the second most important purpose of the website is to make an online database of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work which will make the process of recording data more organised and easier for them. The vision of the company is to expand their business and collaborations throughout the 11 mountain cities in India and also other mountain cities outside India by 2020. So it was decided that the landing page has to be about collaborations whether it explains the concept of collaboration in echostream or anything else. Also there needs to be a collaboration form for the people to contact them.

WHAT WILL THE WEBSITE CONTAIN? LANDING PAGE Images, Text, Animation

WORK Searched by Tags. Work includes - images, videos, GIFs, illustrations, animations, links

ABOUT People - illustrations, icons, photos History of how echostream started - animations, GIFs, illustrations

CONTACT Address, phone, email - text, icons

NEWSFEED

DEFINING THE TARGET AUDIENCE We took generalised idea of the kind of users the website will have or we want to target. Since the vision is for 11 Himalayan states and the company was targeting for collaborators, the collaborator could be anyone from a Pan-wala to a CEO of a big company. The users in all these states have bad internet connections than the rest of the cities and villages in India. People mostly use their phones for internet and 3G network doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work everywhere specially in the mountainous regions. So the website needs to very light with less illustrations and to be easily browsed on the mobile smartphones even on 2G networks.

Daily updates Text, animation

IN-HOUSE COLLABORATIONS KUZU, B..R.E.W, ODODEEM, SAKP, LOTA Links to website and pages, images, videos.

COLLABORATION FORM

BLOG Link of the blog

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SECONDARY RESEARCH

Grid The grid of 1170px was used for making the website with 12 columns of 70px and 11 gutters of 30px. The programmer of the website suggested to design the website with the horizontal width below 1200px and height could be flexible but i wanted full page scroll in the website so i had to keep a fixed height for every page to appear on the screen. We decided to keep it at 600px.

The information for the secondary research was taken from online sites like bootstrap.com which provides free templates, standard sizes for web icons and images which can be used for responsive sites. It also provides grids to design websites for both desktop and phones. Other website like awwwards.com and bestwebsites. com, which promotes and recognizes some of the best websites in the world, were used for reference while designing the websites.

Font We decided to stick to the font families used for the brand which is Bariol and Barkentina for the website. The minimum point size used for web browsers and apps is 12 to 14 which is applicable for both phone and desktop sites.

30px

70px

1170px

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WEBSITE DESIGN REFERENCES 138

The initial concepts were first explored on paper in order to figure out the hierarchy of topics in the website. Also decisions were taken on what kind of site it will be, how many pages will it consist, what kind of information will be provided and how to make it the most convenient for the user.

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WEBSITE REFERENCES

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WEBSITE REFERENCES

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SITE MAP OF THE WEBSITE Available on each page

MENU One Page Website

NEWSFEED

HOME PAGE

HOME PAGE Images, Text, Animation

Daily updates Text, animation

WORK

VERTICAL SCROLL

Available on each page

Search Results

Selected project page

Searched by Tags. Work includes - images, videos, GIFs, illustrations, animations, links

CULTURE

Links to FB, instagram

WORK

CULTURE

Manifesto PDF

PEOPLE

Illustrations, icons, photos History of how echotream started - animations, GIFs, illustrations

CONTACT PEOPLE

Links to FB, instagram, blogs

People profile, illustrations, icons, photos

CONTACT

Google map link

Address, phone, email - text, icons

Collaboration form fill up page

IN-HOUSE COLLABORATIONS KUZU, B..R.E.W, ODODEEM, SAKP, LOTA - Links to website and pages, images, videos.

COLLABORATION FORM Filling up form for the user to start a collabration or to enquire about collaboration.

BLOG Link of the echostream blog

SHARE Facebook Share (User)

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NAVIGATIONAL STYLE 142

An one page website was decided to be designed since the website will be mostly browsed by target users who uses smartphones. Smartphones have become the most used device right now among the consumers to find out about something instantly. In the targeted mountainous regions by the company the users will be using mobile phones with 2G or 3G connectivity, therefore an one page website makes it easier for the user to browse through the content without opening too many tabs on their screen. Secondly, the informations like to know about the company or how to contact them, such informations should appear in the first page of the website for easy access as some users particularly look for those informations only and the purpose of the website is also to form a medium for better communication. Only during a search for project a different window will open but there is an option of going back to the previous page or any other page from the same window since the navigation bar is floating in every page.

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Three horizontal lines forming a rectangle is the menu button for the website which has links to pages like Home, People, Culture, Contact, Collaboration Form, In house collaborations, blog and a pdf of the manifesto. Placed at the right hand side of every page for quick access to different pages of the website. Share button letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the user share the particular webpage on their facebook timeline anytime during browsing through the site. Floats on the screen in the desktop version along with the Newsfeed button which is known as Latest Updates!.

VISUAL LANGUAGE - ICONS

Visual styles explored for the site keeping in mind that the website needs to be neat and clutter free. References were looked up for various flat and minimalistic styles. It was already known that the brand is fun, playful and dynamic but the website need not be too much fun it needed to be pretty simple and quickly accessible. The user should have a fun experience going through the site.

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The brand colors and fonts were already there but they had to be combined together to represent the studio in the site. Through the website we also show the secondary colors of the brand. The fonts which were used for the brand were all fonts with free licenses and could be used for online purposes too so it was decided to use them for the website as well. Since it lets the brand language flow in a consistent manner in every collateral.

FLAT DESIGN Flat design is a type of minimalist design that emphasizes usability. Microsoft was one of the first big tech companies to apply this design style to its interface. The biggest challenge of flat design is to keep it simple and individual at the same time. Five things people associate with flat design is simple, clean, colorful, modern and trendy. One disadvantage of flat design is that sometimes it is not clear what is clickable because of which in designing the icons of the website a drop shadow effect has been used which makes the user understand the purpose of the icon and differentiate between the clickable and the non-clickable icons. When clicked on this icons, they behave like real buttons when pressed. It adds a level of realism to the flat icons. Flat designs also loads fast in the browsers.

NEWSFEED ICON MOBILE BROWSER

MENU BAR FOR MOBILE MENU BAR, SHARE, SEARCH

INDICATION OF NUMBER OF PAGES

ICONS FOR GOING TO THE NEXT PAGE AND THE PREVIOUS PAGE

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LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAME

144 This is the homepage or the hero page of the website. This is the page that opens when the site is opened for the first time. The homepage will be showing a series of pictures which will explain the idea of collaboration in Echostream, it will have around 5 slides or photos.

After scrolling up the homepage, comes the page to search for echostreamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work. This is the only page which while searching for projects will open another window in the same tab of the userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s screen.

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145 New window opens the results of the projects which are available for the particular tags. The results appear in boxes on the screen which when clicked, it opens the particular project in the same window. Since the navigation is floating in every page the user does not have any problem in going back to home page or any other page they want to open.

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146 This is the page for projects that shows the project in detail with images and videos alongwith a brief description about the project.

Contact page wireframe which includes a link to the google map, phone numbers, email id and the collaboration form for the user.

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This is the culture and people page which will come after scrolling down the work page and before the contact page. This page lets the user know about culture of the studio and few fun facts about the studio and its working culture. This place is also about the people working in the studio. The user can know about the person and also check out the persons blog and portfolio.

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FINAL LAYOUT OF THE WEBSITE - DESKTOP

148 Menu bar of the website. This text changes and animates in accord to the picture alongwith the arrows.

Manual scrolling of images by the user.

Search box for the user to type for related tags or projects.

Shows the most popular tags on the search page for work.

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Close Key List inside the menu bar.

Close pop up window button.

Latest updates pop up window.

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Searched projects

Tags used while searching the project are colored blue.

Related tags to the searched projects.

Drop down menu for the search button

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Images and videos become full screen on clicking.

Tags used while searching the project are colored blue.

Icons animate on scrolling.

Opens pdf of the manifesto.

Icons for scrolling through the pictures. User can make the images full screen by double clicking on the images.

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Current updates from facebook or instagram linked to the website which can be updated directly from the facebook page of the company by the owners or anyone who has access to the account.

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On tapping, will open up another tab which would show an animation that would explain the story of Echostream.

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On scrolling a window appears with text from yellow circle next to the image of the dog. This appears automatically to let the user know that all the other circles in the page also opens ups with informations.

On clicking the other circles, it opens up the description about the particular person in the company. These circles are arranged according to their real height. The red colored ones are the circles for the owners of the company and yellow ones are for the employees.

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Icons open out like a flap to reveal the information.

Like buttons for facebook and instagram.

Google map link opens up in the browser.

Collaboration form opens in a new tab.

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This page which is called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;our in-house collaborationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; appears in a new tab. It can be accessed by going to menu bar and clicking on the above mentioned name. This page displays the logos of the collaborations and on clicking, it will open up a pop window that will give details about the collaborations.

Pop-up window for the particular collaboration. Later on individual websites will open up instead of pop-up windows. These logos will have links to the individual websites of the collaborations which will open in new tabs or windows.

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This is the collaboration form which can be accessed by either going to the menu bar or in the contact page of the website.

After filling up the form, the user can submit the form by clicking on the submit button which appears at the end of the form and the company owners receives it directly in their email accounts.

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FINAL LAYOUT OF THE WEBSITE - MOBILE

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A responsive website has been designed specially for mobile browsing. A container of width 400 px and the height is kept flexible. Phone users are more comfortable scrolling down a page than using small buttons to interact with the page.

GRID A very simple grid structure was made of equal column widths of 170 px and a gutter of 30 px to design the mobile site. In mobile sites everything in the desktop site starts stacking one below the other so it is not required to use the same grid which is used in the desktop site and also the grid is not always compatible for both the screen sizes. In this case, it was not possible to use the same grid and as there is an advancement in the field of coding, most of the coders donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really require a grid for mobile websites if they already have the designs for the desktop site.

FONT Different weights of Bariol which is same as the desktop site, with the size not less than 12 points as that is the standard minimum readable size for any device. 170px

30px

400px

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The newsfeed button becomes optimised for mobile usage, only the triangular icon is made visible in the browser.

This page appears in a new tab when the user is looking for projects done by the company in the ‘explore our work’ page. The tags used and the tags that are related to the company appears at the top part of the page. In case there are more than 6 tags, the rest of the tags can be seen by tapping on the left and right arrows. The tags which are used to show the results on the page are marked blue and the ones which aren’t colored blue are the related tags to the projects displayed. The search button also allows the user to search from the same page again if they don’t find the desired results or wants to look for more projects. The users can add more tags that appear on page by tapping on the particular tags to get the desired search results. Tags can be removed from the search results by clicking on the cross button next to the name of the tags.

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The menu option also changes to just three bars on the left. The top bar with white background which contains the options of newsfeed, company logo and menu bar appears in each page. While scrolling down the top bar disappears and appears again when scrolled upwards. So if the user wants to use any of the options in the top bar, they can scroll up once and complete their desired activity.

This page opens when a particular project is selected from the results or from the latest updates list. The pictures and videos of the projects are displayed by using horizontal scroll and on tapping them the images and videos become full screen which can be used both as portrait and landscape format.

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The information about the project can be read by scrolling vertically, the images go up at the top of the screen and the text part of the project can be scrolled vertically which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move the pictures or the videos alongwith it. This is done so that user can read as well as see the work at the same time.

At the end of the page, the tags that are linked to the particular project are shown. The user can tap on this tags which will take them to the page with results of the particular tag selected.

Picture slider that changes the pictures on single tapping. By double tapping, the user can make the photo full screen.

The white boxes appears as it is with no animations applied to the icons in the mobile version as that would require more internet data and lagging to display the information. Some of the icons are linked, so when the user taps on it, a pop up window will open up on the same page.

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Current updates from facebook or instagram linked to the website which can be updated directly from the facebook page of the company by the owners or anyone who has access to the account.

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On tapping, will open up another tab which would show an animation that would explain the story of Echostream.

This is a horizontal slider, which shows the descriptions of the members of the company with their picture alongside and it can be accessed by scrolling left and right on the circles. There is also a horizontal scroll bar which helps the user to jump through the information without going through one by one.

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This page which is called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;our inhouse collaborationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; appears in a new tab. It can be accessed by going to menu bar and tapping on the above mentioned name. This page displays the logos of the collaborations and on tapping, it will open up a pop window that will give details about the collaborations. Later on these logos will have links to the individual websites of the collaborations which will open in new tabs or windows.

This is the collaboration form which can be accessed by either going to the menu bar or in the contact page of the website. After filling up the form.

The user can submit the form by tapping on the submit button which appears at the end of the form and the company owners receives it directly in their email accounts.

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On tapping it opens the collaboration form in a new tab, as the form needs to be filled by the user.

This opens up the google map location of the studio, in desktop it opens in the browser while in mobile it opens in the android map applications which is used by the mobile user. This could also in other versions like apple os.

These icons give the information to contact the company like phone numbers and email id. The thumb icon is for liking the facebook and instagram pages of the company.

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On tapping the triangular icon on the top bar of the website, the latest update list opens up which has links to the latest updates of work, blog, instagram, events,etc. happening in the company. All links opens in the same window except for the blog which will open in another website like wordpress, tumbler or blogger.

This is the menu bar of the website that appears in every page alongwith the other options in the white top bar. This menu bar lets the user easily access the pages while they are browsing the website at any point of time.

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DELIVERABLES

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BRAND IDENTITY

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WEBSITE

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BRAND MANUAL LOGO : COLOR VARIATION 178

COLOR

LOGO CLEAR SPACE SPECIFICATIONS

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BLACK AND WHITE

LOGO : RESIZE SPECIFICATIONS 179 MINIMUM SIZE ON SCREEN

MINIMUM SIZE ON PRINT

70 PIXELS

30 mm

DO NOT RESIZE THE LOGO VERTICALLY

DO NOT RESIZE THE LOGO HORIZONTALLY

Never seperate the forms from the same file.

ALWAYS RESIZE THE LOGO DIAGONALLY, HOLDING THE SHIFT KEY

Always use the files from the folder named seperate forms available in the brand package.

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LOGO : TYPE AND COLOR 180

# d91d50 C - 10, M - 100, Y - 62, K - 0 R - 217, G - 29, B - 80

# 2E3092 C - 100, M - 100, Y - 0, K - 0 R - 46, G - 48, B - 146

BARKENTINA REGULAR

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BRAND IDENTITY : COLOR PALETTE 181

PRIMARY COLOR PALETTE

SECONDARY COLOR PALETTE

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LOGO : COLOR USAGE GUIDE 182 These are the primary color for usage of the logo. Other than these primary colors, the colors in the secondary color palette could be also used. Lighter colors should not be used on a light background and also darker colors should not be used for a darker background. Darker color from the combination should be used for writing the name of the brand.

SECONDARY COLOR USAGE

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BRAND TYPEFACES 183

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BRAND VISUAL LANGUAGE 184 Flat designs with outlined illustrations and icons with a drop shadow effect in the background.

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BRAND PACKAGE 185

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STRATEGY

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During the project some strategies were discussed and decided to which would take part in introducing the brand to the public more effectively. Most of these activities will take part during the launch of the brand and before through various mediums. • Launching in NID convocation - Launching the brand in the time of NID convocation gives the brand a lot of exposure as a lot of people from the design field will be present in the event. Presence of press will also give advertisement of the brand. • Branding through social mediums like Facebook and Instagram. Daily updates of projects, about the studio or any event will pull focus to the brand and everyone will always know what has been happening in the company. • Local Branding - Posters and events in local pubs and public spaces. Locally the brand is very popular but new look of the brand has to be introduced, so mediums like posters and events in the pubs and public spaces would make it easier. • Celebrating Indian festivals through branding on social sites and website. • Selling or gifting brand merchandise. Echostream sticker, bands, accessories, calendar, diary,etc. • Popularising the brand in other cities through collaborations and putting up hoardings if required. • Through business cards with stickers.

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CONCLUSION Rebranding Echostream has been by far the most significant project in my journey as a communication designer. I am fortunate to be given this project and to have chosen it as my graduation project. Bridging the gap between all the views of the people in Echostream was something that kept me occupied for a while during the early stages of the project. It went through a process of group workshops, discussions and debates which let us to make final decisions and clear my confused mind.

Most of the design studios in India which I have came across are always aiming for the commercial markets and making money but echostream is much more than that and not just a design studio. They care about the needs of the people and wants to do things that shows some impact in reality. There are various types of people involved in Echostream, it is not a small community. Anyone who has visited or worked in the company has always been a part of it till now.

Creating the visual identity was not just about making a logo, but also I learned about how people see a brand and how communication designers use their skills to portray a brand as they want it. Sometimes, after reading few articles and watching videos on branding and brands made me feel that graphic design is a discipline that is made for fooling people with images and texts. But for this project the identity had to be true to the brand and not fool anyone, it had to represent what Echostream stands for and what is their intention. I had to put together all the ideas of the core team members of echostream and give them one identity which would represent them to the whole world. It was a big responsibilty for me since if one of them do not like the idea they would not like to use it as their identity. The idea had to be neutral to everyone and a common point to which everyone would agree.

Echostream is more like a big joint family, and I am proud to be a part of it now. Everyone in the company are like old friends who cares for you. I saw and experienced the both the happy and sad phases of echostream. We laughed and partied together when we were happy but we also cried and mourned together when our friend, Arjun passed way in the most tragic way. They gave me strength and motivation to go forward and do my project well not just for them but for me and my academic career.

Designing the website was little intimidating at first for me because I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have much knowledge about the technicalities and the process for designing a website. When I started doing it, reading and asking people who have worked on designing websites before, slowly the process unfolded in my head and I had a clear vision of what the website should do and appear. I went through a lot of fails and mistakes during the project, but those mistakes have been a learning experience for me. It made me learn my weaknesses and my strengths as a designer as well as a person, so much more than I imagined when I started out. One needs to break the barriers and be open to making mistakes, new perspectives and to work in various work scenarios. Echostream design studio is a place which made me feel at home from the very first day. They are a very passionate design studio with lot of energy and desire to do more.

Gangtok itself has been a very kind and peaceful place to stay. People are always helping and happy to know about you without any other intention than knowing you genuinely. Although, it was a tough task for me at first to adjust to the situations in the place as it is a very small city in the lap of Himalayas with less urban facilities. So all the small conveniences of city seemed very valuable and important to me at that time. The internet connection is sometimes not existent due to heavy rain or just simply does not work, no phone connectivity at times which just used to make crazy at times when you really need it, climbing up roads to reach the office in 4 layers of clothing when its chilled cold and simply just commuting was so exhausting at the first few months. I had an intense and most memorable experiences in Echostream. After a while, all these became a part of my daily routine and the hard task was to complete the project at hand and create the best out of it because the place became so special and so attached to me, I wanted to deliver the best I could. Echostream made me learn about true collaborations; since innovations or great work does not happen in isolation. Finally, please do visit www.echostream.in to know more about the work and culture of Echostream.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Book References

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RE-IMAGINE by Tom Peters THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman VISUAL GRAMMAR by Christian Leborg BRAND GAP by Marty Neumeier BRAND APART by Joe Duffy DICTIONARY OF BRAND A TO Z by Marty Neumeier BRANDS AND BRANDING by Rita Clifton and John Simmons

Internet References Skool Os Core Channel - youtube.com teamtreehouse.com fastcodesign.com slishare.net academia.edu webfieldmanual.com ideo.org sypartner.com sixthemes.tumblr.com brandingstrategyinsider.com blog.seanmartell.com www.cii.in jessicahische.com indiadesignmark.in timesofindia.com design-for-india.blogspot.in designdesh.wordpress.com

identitydesigned.com behance.com brandingserved.com defender.org legworkstudio.com madebyfieldwork.com thekennedys.nl overthinkingdesign.com theinspirationhut.net fivefootsix.co.uk graphicburger.com fantasy.co wolffolins.com beta.rallyinteractive.com bariol.com onepagelove.com awwwards.com

logodesignlove.com lifeclever.com designdamage.com smashingmagazine.com thecreativeblog.com themashable.com heartkidz.co.nz tutorialrepublic.com dribble.com idesignstudios.com kyoorius.com logoed.co.uk wearedesignstudio.com howdesign.com

goldengridsystem.com thegridsystem.org fontpair.co typecast.com typegenius.com uxdesignweekly.com getbootstrap.com thenextweb.com writeclick.in media.queri.es

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Keith Yamashita : Be careful what you wish for Paula Scher what design can do Positioning your brand - Skool Os

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