Sanket Avlani, young creative partner, and Prerna Mehra, creative partner, Creativeland Asia, have qualified (as a team) to represent India in the Cannes Young Lions Design competition 2012.
Young Lions Design competition is a new addition to the Young Lions competition which includes categories like film, cyber, media and print. According to the awards committee, the design category has been launched this year to "give graphic and other specialist designers the space to showcase their talent and test their skills against the rest of the industry."
Commenting on the brief given to these young creatives (art), Avlani said, "The brief was to re-design the brand identity for a non-profit organisation called Laadli. Laadli's primary aim in the past has been to draw attention to the problem of female foeticide. However, recently they made a strategic shift in their primary aim towards propagating 'gender equality'. In addition to that, they now intend to target audience of India and not just Mumbai."
"It was an interesting brief to begin with," added Mehra. "It gave a lot of ideas for starters. We wanted to design a logo that was new-age and cut-through. It had to reflect a balance between masculinity and femininity in order to portray gender equality. And it had to be visually arresting," she explained.
The two designed the new brand identity by using a masculine symbol, a moustache, that also looked like the pig-tails of a little girl. "A simple symbol that would break the barriers of language, and hopefully, gender inequality,"Avlani mentioned.
Excited to visit Cannes and represent their agency and their country, the two young art directors are looking forward to meeting designers and professionals from all over the world and understanding how they work in addition to going through the work exhibits and attending workshops.
Any preparations for the final competition? "A crash course in French perhaps," quips Avlani.
The Indian leg of Cannes Young Lions Design 2012 was organised by The Times of India in partnership with Kyoorius.
View the new logo they created for Laadli, here:
For more details on the final competition, click here.
