more on the Reliance Logo

After some animated discussion on the re-design of the Reliance [ Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group ] logo, I thought I’d write my personal opinion of what the re-design was about and some other connotations of the logo.

Here’s what the new Reliance ADAG logo looks like:

This is what the old Reliance Industries logo looked like:

Other usages like this Reliance Energy logo:

have been replaced by the following usage:

I personally don’t quite like the usage of the logo for Reliance Energy / Capital / Health – it looks extremely disjointed – as if someone’s thrown together the usage as an after-thought – but that’s my personal opinion.

Like I’d mentioned that the inverted “V” also stands for the symbol of the male phallus and hence “maybe” Anil is indicating to Mukesh that “mine’s bigger than yours”, at the same time, the double-inverted-V also means that “ammunition and firearms are needed” [ Read more on the Symbols.com website. ]

The two-inverted-V’s symbol is used by indian peoples in southwest USA. It is called track of the thunderbird and denotes bright prospects.

Of course the double A also signifies Anil Ambani’s name because the other half of Reliance is owned by Mr. Mukesh Ambani and their first names would be THE differentiating tools.

The two-inverted-V’s or multiple-inverted V’s are also used in the military to denote increasing rank – the more number of inverted V’s, the higher the rank – which derives from “more the number of penises, higher the rank” [ this bit of information has been picked up directly from Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code ].

I am not sure whether the logo-designer / agency thought of all these things while designing the logo in the first place – but the number of derivative meanings can be quite endless if one researches in detail.

Another good analysis and background of the Reliance ADAG logo re-design can be found here [ it is the IdentityWorks website and a good place to read briefs about various popular company logo re-designs ].

I was quite shocked to learn that the final design execution – including the 3D effect [ which I might add is quite pedestrian ] – was done internally – presumably by the internal Creative Design team at Reliance [ I believe they have an internal design team because I remember reading someone’s professional profile on Rediff Connexions and their designation was to the effect of “Creative Head at Reliance” ]. I wonder how Landor [ the design agency of the original concept – Landor also designed the ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT logo for FedEx – Landor has still not uploaded details of the Reliance project so we will just have to wait and watch what they have to say about the corporate identity revitalization for Reliance ADAG ] feels about the mash-up.

It’s really easy to criticise someone else’s work and there is always room for improvement for EVERYTHING – all the above comments are of course made in hindsight and I can never know what transpired between Anil Ambani and Landor and the internal Reliance ADAG creative team!