Serendipity:

Did I ever tell you that I’m a budding writer? ‘A blooming writer’, some of my frenemies may say snarkily, and not in the good sense of ‘blooming’.

Whatever the case may be, my writer's antennae are always on. I look for topics, stories and characters wherever I go. And my antennae went into a full tizzy when I stepped into the world of machines and machine people in Coimbatore.

You may think us branding people live in some rarified haven, blowing smoke into the A/C ducts as we ponder on archetypes and whatnot. The blowing smoke may be true in some cases (mea culpa!) but much of the time, we’re actually down in the trenches, living with our customers in their habitat, observing, distilling, seeking. We’re ‘flies on the wall’, Lilian says, ‘observing the brand personifications going about their business’. She even has a name for this ‘fly on the wall’ - she says he’s an Amazonian housefly called Dario!

Well, middle-aged hot flashes apart, I think you get my drift. While we like to think of ourselves as roll-up-your-sleeves kind of people, I got a whole new sense of being down in the trenches at Jaya Kamath’s manufacturing plant in Coimbatore. The assembly floor was an uneven patch of green epoxy pockmarked with exposed cement. The workers on the floor literally wore grey, as they went about their (noisy) business, moving ‘parts’ from machine to machine. They were literally taking chunks of steel, and pulverising them into usable components for automobiles, screw threads and all.

It was an alien world for me. I’d only seen factory floors in movies and TV shows, and had somehow assumed that today, in the 21st century, things would be far more…cleaner? Swankier? Quieter? But the factory shop floor, despite new-fangled automatons doing parts of the workflow, is still a noisy, almost rowdy place - people literally have to shout to make themselves heard over the din.

Jaya Kamath wanted this place branded.

I held my breath for a few seconds as I let the atmosphere wash over me. Grey uniforms, blue and white machines, epoxy green floors. Steel and metal automation. People working in shifts with red ear plugs on to protect their cochlea. Excel printouts pinned on the wall, glinting in plastic protectors with greasy fingerprints on them. Yellow hardhats. Safety and hazmat posters in large Tamil and English lettering on the walls. Yes, the moodboard created itself.

The archetype was clear too – an everyman with a dash of hero? Jaya certainly had a dash of superhero herself. A Indian Army veteran who lost her legs in a helicopter crash, Jaya had literally risen from the ashes of what could have been a life in the periphery to take over her dad’s manufacturing unit and had taken it to new heights. She was exporting now, to places like Western Europe and the Middle East. She was feted by her industry associations and featured on magazine covers. But inside, she remained the cool, level-headed girl in two plaits I knew from school.

“Well, what do you think?”, Jaya asked, as she perched in her wheelchair beside me. “Do we have an outfit that can be branded?”

“Is that even something to ask, Jay?”, I rolled my eyes at her. “Let’s go to your office and get started.”

“I have sketched some ideas for the logo I want to run by you, for starters”, Jaya sounded kicked as we made our way out of the organised chaos.

Hm, a budding illustrator on top of everything!, I mused as I followed her. Jaya was talented.

****

Most clients associate a branding exercise with logos. Deservedly so – as a symbol of who you are and what you stand for, a logo is that one mark that you carry with you in your lifetime with the brand, and perhaps even beyond. My advice? Think simple. I’ve endured hours of brainstorming and hand wringing with clients who want a logo to be ‘pregnant’ with meaning and tell their entire life story. I’ve had to give many of them a figurative kick in the pants to help them understand that it need not be so. Logos can evolve over time, and have variants that state a hundred different things, but start with the premise of why. As Simon Sinek famously observes, if you can identify the ‘why’ of your business, you’re halfway to building your logo. Start with phrases or words that answer the ‘why’.

In 1971, Phil Knight started Blue Ribbon Sports to make running shoes. BRS imported shoes from Japan for seven years and then decided to make their own. Knight approached graphic designer Carolyn Davidson and asked her to design a logo that denoted ‘movement’. She charged him a princely $35 (her rate was $2/hour) for the ‘swoosh’ she put together – one among a half dozen designs she proposed. He didn’t love it at first, apparently, but it certainly seems to have grown on him as Nike reached the pinnacle of the sporting goods industry riding the ‘just do it’ swoosh.

So, here’s my second piece of advice. Be like Phil. Instead of going after your designer for six or twelve more designs for your first logo (and I promise you, the 18th one will be a shambles), go with the easiest on the eye among the first few. Iterate and build it over the years, as you find your product’s market fit and anticipate market trends. Your ‘why’ will evolve and morph, and so can your logo.

Go with simple and functional for your first logo - something distinctive but simple. The ‘why’ of your brand will evolve and morph as time passes, and so can your logo.

Try out logo makers, AI tools and the like if they make sense and if it helps you put together your story for your logo. But I’ve always found it easier to work with a designer who understands your brand and branding framework, to collaborate with to build something impactful and enduring.

Machine logos abound, but it’s easier to work with a designer who understands your brand and branding framework.