Faced with reaction over its management’s plan to modify its historical emblem, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) stated on Friday that the new identity will retain both the visual iconography of the existing mark and its Sanskrit tagline. The business school’s plans to modify its historical logo and the backlash it received from faculty members.
On March 8, at least 45 faculty members wrote to the IIM-A Board of Governors, challenging the decision to finalise the logo without following proper protocol. They also brought up the possibility of removing the Sanskrit line.
“The colour rendition has been improved, the fonts have been modernised, the jaali inspired brand mark has been made more amenable to digital media communication, and the brand name has been made more distinct,” the premier institute’s communications team said in a statement on Friday, adding that the new logo would be unveiled in June. It went on to say that the Sanskrit line would be kept.
The controversy erupted with the release of the draught minutes of the 419th Academic Council Meeting on March 4, which documented a presentation given to faculty members by Hyokjin Kwak, an IIM-A professor of marketing. According to the minutes, Kwak addressed the decision to create two new logos for the institute, one without the Sanskrit line for international representation and the other with the Sanskrit line for internal use.
This generated a lot of interest. The new logos also downplayed the former logo’s imagery, which was a distinctive lattice work (thus jaali), inspired by the city’s famed Siddi Saiyyed Mosque’s lattice work.
Currently, the IIM- The institute’s emblem, which was meant to represent the tree of life and was inspired by the mosque’s highly carved stone latticework grille, which was completed in 1573 AD, was adopted in 1961 when the institute was founded. The Sanskrit verse Vidya Viniyogadvikasa (development by the dispersion or application of knowledge) was added a few years later. The style can be found in many official Gujarat tourism ads and brochures.