Published on January 7, 2020
AHMEDABAD: It took the IIM-Ahmedabad more than a year and hard work to build the copyright wall around its distinctive logo which incorporates the ageless motif of Sidi Saiyyed Jali. The push to get the copyright was spurred by recent instances of unauthorized use of the logo. The institute’s officials said that legal action has been initiated to crack down on misuse.
Prof Vijaya Sherry Chand, a senior faculty member of IIM-A, said in his note about the logo that the concept of a visual identity was initiated by it’s founder members Dr Vikram Sarabhai and Prof Kamla Chowdhry immediately after the foundation of the B-school in 1961.
Prakash Tandon, the chairman of IIM-A at the time, was also the Hindustan Lever chairman who assigned the task of creating IIM-A identity to Lintas, then the arm of Hindustan Lever. Three years of brainstorming later, the logo took shape under Hasan Taj, the then chief art director of Lintas.
Decades passed and over a year ago, authorities realized need for protecting their distinct identity. A process to get the copyright for the logo, however, turned out to be one with many twists and turns.
Parth Shastri Archive 