‘Be You’: Bengaluru Is the 1st Indian City to Get Its Own Logo

The logo was unveiled at the Namma Bengaluru Habba at Vidhana Soudha by the state tourism minister Priyank Kharge.

The new logo of Bengaluru city.

(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

The wait is finally over. The official logo for Bengaluru city is out.

The logo, which was chosen by a panel of experts, was unveiled on Sunday at the Namma Bengaluru Habba at the Vidhana Soudha by the state tourism minister Priyank Kharge.

The red and black logo is part English and part Kannada.

With this, Namma Bengaluru joins a select group of global cities like New York City, Melbourne and Singapore to have a tourism logo of its own.

Incidentally, the logo for the city was a crowdsourced one made by Bengalureans themselves.

Vinod Kumar, creative designer at Nammur, the group whose logo made the cut, said:

It was an open contest after a brief had come in the papers. Uru is taken from Kannada and we have done the typography to match the Kannada font. The typography was created in-house from scratch.

"We wanted the ‘Be’ and ‘u’ to stand out,” Vinod added.

Elaborating on the thought behind the idea, Vinod explained, “We do not want to imply or impose anything on people — ‘this is our culture, this is our heritage’. I think Bangalore has a very vibrant, vivid open culture which allows people to do whatever they want. It does not restrict your freedom. ‘Be’ and ‘u’ represents ‘be you’.

There is a separate only-Kannada logo.

As part of Sunday’s programme, the iconic state assembly structure was made available to the general public for Habba, a one-of-a-kind traffic-free street festival. The event will also feature live performances, storytelling sessions and interactive workshops.

To push for organic farming and millets, food stalls will be set up and flea markets will be selling eco-friendly articles like terracotta jewellery.

The Karnataka Department of Tourism led by Minister Priyank Kharge wants the logo to establish Brand Bengaluru, thereby leaving its footprint on the global tourist map.

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