Students of NID to Give a Local Touch to Railway Logos

Students from the National Institute of Design (NID) have conceptualised and designed logos and signage for four railway stations between Bengaluru and Mysuru: Srirangapatna, Channapatna, Pandavapura, and Ramanagaram. This was the outcome of one of the 28 workshops that were part of the 2016 Annual International Open Elective, conducted by NID across its campuses in Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

The theme for the festival was ‘Design for Railways’ and the students had shoen some excellenet skills in designing logos for the four Karnataka stations. The students gave a local touch to the logos by travelling to various cities and towns and speaking to the locals.The students kept in mind the history, culture and workforce of the locals and were successful in designing the logos accordingly.

For example: The feel of the Channapatna station has been designed keeping in mind the wooden toys that the town is famous for, Ramanagaram has been linked to silk and Sholay hills; Srirangapatna derives inspiration from Tipu Sultan and Ranganathaswamy Temple, while Pandavapura’s design draws inspiration from the Pandavas, Melkote Temple and KRS Dam.

Taking the efforts of the students to the next level, V. Ravishankar — who anchored the workshops for NID Bangalore — said that he would write proposals to the Indian Railways to implement the same.

This exercise is the result of a memorandum of understanding between NID and Indian Railways. Sanjeev Agarwal, Divisional Railway Manager of South Western Railways, who saw the work of the students and the faculty, said that it was a novel concept.

Some of the projects that the design students worked on include signage and branding of stations, tech interventions in compartments to enhance communication between passengers as well as redesigning the IRCTC website were all done after interacting with the locals of the place.

Theme of the two-week series that concluded on Friday was ‘Design for Railways’.