Bangalore Aviation News, Reviews, Analysis and opinions of Indian Aviation
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by Devesh Agarwal
Over the years, with your support, Bangalore Aviation has evolved from a simple personal blog, to become India’s largest aviation blog, and in the “top 15” of the world.
One the key drivers of this growth is our belief in “CIP” or Continuous Improvement Process. We believe in taking feedback from YOU, our dear readers, and trying to apply them as much as possible. You will observe we do not limit comments on the site, except those are foul in language or non-contributory in nature.
As the site has grown, it has undergone a refreshment of its logo. Today, a small story on the evolution of the Bangalore Aviation logo over the last five years.
The logo in 2008 when we commenced. It was simple and used basic Word-Art techniques.
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| Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2008 |
In 2009, we modified the logo to include the nose of G-OIJB “Ed Force One” the Astraeus Airlines Boeing 757 used by the music group Iron Maiden for their tour of India. Bangalore Aviation obtained exclusive photos of the group at Bangalore Airport.
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| Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2009 |
In late 2010, we realised that the logo needed to be refined to give a more professional look on our business cards. We also wanted to introduce brand colours to signify many things. We wanted colours from the flags of the United States and India, representing the duality of our site. The colour orange, signifies intellect, blue signifies the sky and world of aviation, and white represents purity of thought and integrity. Curved lines were brought in to signify creativity, forward and upward.
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| Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2010 |
However, the 2010 logo was a little jarring on the eyes when viewed on the website and could not be easily made in to a square icon to be used on various social media sites. In parallel, 2011 saw Bangalore Aviation gain traction, and a surge in traffic and reputation. By end 2011, based on suggestions from mobile users, we needed to refresh the Bangalore Aviation site, give it a new magazine style front page, along with a new look, brand, and a mobile site.
While I worked on the site itself, I contacted an old and dear friend, Narayan Gopalan, an avid aviation enthusiast and regular Bangalore Aviation reader. Narayan is a communication designer by profession, who has over seven years of work experience with industry big-wigs like Adobe Software India, and Ray + Keshavan The Brand Union, and specialises in working in branding, identity, and interactive domains.
Narayan took up my request, on a pro-bono basis, and I am very thankful for his contribution.
His first version was an evolution of the existing logo. In Narayan’s words
Attached, please find an idea for a logo, and extending the branding across collateral. I have used the same colors but modified the shades a bit to contrast and soothe the eye. The concept behind the logo form (the symbol) is the juxtaposition of a cloud (symbolizing the sky) and the icon of a “thought bubble” – representing the thought, and analysis concept. The icon of a plane taking off gives it the aviation touch.
I have used the same structure of your existing site, but changed a few elements. The idea was to keep it simple, without too many colors and gradients so the main focus is on the news and reading the same without distractions. The background image, can be keep changing as shown in the 2 examples.
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| Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2012 first revision |
Narayan and me continued evolving the logo through a series of explorations and revisions. The next major revision, and a precursor to the current logo keeps our original blue, orange, and white colours, highlighting the initials of Bangalore Aviation, B and A, along with the cloud representing both thought and the internet, and the aircraft icon taking off, representing aviation, and forward and upward movement representing the continuous improvement process.
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| Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2012 precursor revision |
The final logo, which is our current logo circa 2012, as described by Narayan
is a play of typography combined with a unique element (the could) suffixed by a aviation related mnemonic
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| Current Bangalore Aviation logo circa 2012 |
From this logo, we have also developed two icon logos which are used on our Twitter account, Facebook and Google+ pages.
