EVERYONE'S
BENGAL
2017
Government of the state of West Bengal, India
Place Branding
TEAM
Agency: Saffron Brand Consultants
Creative Director: Bill Darling
Designers: Silvia Fantuzz, Preeya Mistry, Roshnee Desai
Brand Strategist: Tina Mehta
IMPACT
The project was never executed due to political reasons. However, this branding effort was praised and appreciated by all the government departments we worked with.
THE ORGANISATION
The West Bengal Government was the longest running democratically elected communist government in the world for 60 years. Due to its political standing, while the rest of India was receiving ample investments and tourism, West Bengal was being perceived as a close-minded and redundant governance.
THE BRIEF
Saffron Brand Consultants was brought on board to change this. A team of designers and brand strategists were sent on a month long visual audit of the state and its communication and produce a brand communication strategy that would address its various issues.
THE SOLUTION
A bilingual brand called Shobhab Bangla (Everyone's Bengal) that spoke about inclusiveness and a symbol library that helped brand the government's various focus points.
logo design and concept
An inclusive, bilingual brand campaign called 'Shobhab Bangla' (bengali) meaning Everyone's Bengal (english) was created.
Bengali would communicate to the people of West Bengal and English would communicate to businesses, investors and visitors to the state.
SYMBOL LIBRARY
We created a library of different symbols derived from the 'ng' in the word 'Bengal'.
They depicted different aspects of the governance that needed addressing.
BRAND PHOTOGRAPHY
The design team traveled for 3 weeks across the state of West Bengal to document the state's visual language and came back with photos that then went on to define the brand, helping us translate the visual language as authentically as possible.
APPLICATIONS
How the symbols, graphics and photography created were applied across the brand on various touchpoints.
the roll out
In order to communicate the launch of the new brand and its guidelines, we chose a communication medium that the people of Bengal are familiar with - the newspaper. This newspaper-brand book was to be sent to government offices, communication agencies and would be ready for the people to access easily.
