When all that matters is going that EXTRA MILE...

Yesterday one of my friends came from New York and besides other gifts there was one but obvious gift - I Love NY T-shirt. 

 
Yeah many of us have grown up seeing ‘I Love NY’ logo. Still it doesn’t go out of fashion. It can surly endorse an anti-aging product.  The logo has become a pop-culture icon, inspiring imitations in every corner of the globe.

But now the iconic ‘I Love NY’ logo is set for a makeover as part of a new tourism campaign. In May 2012 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo launched the campaign inviting both locals and visitors to replace the heart in the logo with another item which represents New York for them. (read more about it on http://www.logodesignlove.com/i-love-ny-logo-makeover)

The idea behind the new campaign is to reclaim the logo which has since been hijacked by scores of other countries and cities.  

It’s too early to say whether Andrew Cuomo will succeed in his campaign or not. But so far it hasn’t gone down well with many. The New York Daily News accused Governor Cuomo of "breaking New York's heart", adding: "What were you thinking Gov. Cuomo – is 'I pizza slice NY' gonna pull in the tourists?” "Replacing the heart … with drawings of things like pizza slices and beach balls for the sake of modernisation is like slapping tattoos on the Statue of Liberty to keep up with the trends of the 21st century." The new campaign also drew criticism from Milton Glaser, the designer of the original logo, who said: "I don't understand it. I saw one that said 'I Pizza NY'; I don't get it."

After reading this piece of news I thought of finding more about how the iconic logo came into being. And here is the story behind the famous logo.

In 1977 New York was nearly bankrupt. There wasn’t a thriving economy or tourism like today.

Government was really struggling with New York’s brand image and revenues. The then governor decided the best way to raise money was through tourism. But considering New York had a bad brand image he commissioned Wells Rich Greene Advertising Agency to do an advertising campaign to change the image of the city. It was asked to represent New York in a new light and to remind everyone what a great city it was.

Instead of creating a chest thumping campaign Wells Rich Greene went in for a disruptive, simple but effective approach. They decided to create a jingle that could stick in people’s heads and people might play it again and again. As a result it could generate free publicity. They got an old-fashioned jingle-writer called Steve Karmen on board. And he wrote the simple musical phrase “I love New York”.

After seeing the jingle the client felt something was missing. After lot of deliberation the Client and the Agency came to a conclusion that the campaign needed a logo. The idea to have a logo came from a future led thinking - people would hopefully pick up and use logo themselves like on T-shirts, car bumper stickers, posters, graffiti, memorabilia, basically anywhere. That again would generate more free media.

The next name that came on board was Milton Glaser, the famous graphic designer of that time. His job was to design an “I love New York” logo. One thing that was absolutely clear in Glaser’s mind was that the logo has to be minimalistic and simplest graphic form. Lesser the elements better it is. He reduced the four words to two oval shapes. “I love” reversed out of black in one, ”New York” reversed out in the other.

The logo was presented, approved and printing went ahead. But Glaser wasn’t satisfied; he wanted to reduce it further. He had to have the letter “I”, and he could reduce New York to the letters “NY”. But how could he reduce the word “love”? For days he kept thinking how he could reduce the word to bare minimum. He was thinking about where the word was used. And then like Einstein the great idea stuck him, albeit he was thinking this in the back of a taxicab. Long time back when New York wasn’t a concrete jungle he had seen the symbol for love used as a heart carved into a tree. It had two lovers’ names in it and an arrow through it. The equivalent of “John loves Tina” would be “John (heart) Tina”. He grabbed an envelope out of his pocket. He wrote “I (heart) NY”. He instantly knew that that was his big idea. He called up the client and persuaded him that he had a better idea and they should stop printing. The client as expected was mad at him, but Glaser persisted. Eventually the client agreed.

Now Glaser job was to work on the graphics. He took inspiration from Robert Indiana’s “LOVE”. The word was formed into a square, the letter “LO” above and the letters “VE” below. So Glaser wrote it like that, “I (heart)” above and “NY” below. A simple but powerful graphic.

The idea behind this logo evolved from the way people use language and not developing something new for them.

This logo became the biggest, most imitated logo, ever. Every city in the world copies it. And it’s all free advertising. Because everyone knows which city the original refers to.

The credit goes to Milton Glaser because didn’t stop thinking after the client bought the idea. He drew something better on the back of an envelope in a taxicab.That envelope is now a collectible item and is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. If you want to know more about the man and his agency read here: http://www.miltonglaser.com/milton/#0

One thing that I have learned from this story is that Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven’t yet figured out how to ask. We should never stop Dreaming because you never know when they can become a reality.

It’s very easy to get complacent with the present but victory comes to those who keep the success hunger alive and kicking in their belly. 

I am too at a life juncture where I am in two minds whether to be satisfied with what I have or go in full throttle for the biggest risk of my life. This story sure has inspired me. After all I have only one life and as Mountain Dew says “Darr Kea age jeet hai”. So I might as well do the due and let the analysis be left after I have taken the risk.

Who kahte hai na - Kyon dare zindagi mein kya hoga, kuch na hoga toh tajurba toh hoga.

To WIN don’t SCREAM

This post is inspired from hoarse criers and silent crusaders.

How many times have we seen the legends boast themselves? 

My guess is NEVER. In fact a legend will never say I AM A LEGEND. 

Tomorrow is one such legend’s birthday – ROGER FEDERER.

The silent crusader who has always let his talent and achievements do the talking. Even when people said that his time is up he didn’t react. He didn't loose his focus and instead kept working hard. And today he’s the greatest player in Tennis with 17 Grand slam titles.

Same is the case with another legend Sachin Tendulkar. He never got bogged down by critics. He always answered them with his superb performances on the field. His bat did the talking.

And then there are people like Mahesh Bhupati & Sania Mirza who made so much hue and cry before the Olympics but at the end what did they achieve? NOTHING

So basically SCREAMING doesn’t mean WINNING.

There was so much noise around Deepika Kumari, Abhinav Bindra, Vijender Singh, Sandip Singh but none of them could convert their expectations into reality.

I am not saying they didn’t give their best. Maybe over expectations got over them.

One great Indian that made us proud today is MARY KOM.

 

Mary Kom had gone through so many hardships – family opposition, mother of twins, from strife-ridden Manipur, without a coach, in a higher weight category still she won us a medal! She never screamed her lungs out to get noticed and even when she played in a higher weight category to a taller, younger and stronger player she didn’t complain. She won a bronze for India but even then she apologized. That speaks a lot about what kind of a person she is.

You might be in great pain but the key is to endure that pain and come out victorious.

There are innumerable examples to elucidate the same. But let me give you one example that you might have not heard about. 

There was a young city girl who was working in the social sector. She went to a remote village that had no phones, no electricity and no sanitation. After spending some months there she came back to the city.

One night while she was fast asleep she suddenly started coughing. She felt something was choking her throat. She had a worst kind of nausea. She tried to cough it out but she couldn’t. After lot of wasted effort she put her fingers in her mouth. Grabbed something gooey in her hands. To her surprise it wasn’t something that she ate that night in the dinner but was a fat, an inch long, squirming creature. 

A normal person would have either screamed seeing that thing come out of her throat or would have flushed it down the toilet. But she neither screamed nor threw it away. Rather she took a pragmatic decision and kept it in a small tin. 

Next day first thing she did was to go to a hospital and showing that creature to the Doctor.

What Doctors told her was quite startling. Thanks to her attentive approach she had avoided a big medical problem that could have worsened with time. While she was in the village she had eggs which often were contracted with worms. Those worms were not visible to the naked eyes but grew much larger in her body. And they had multiplied inside her body. 

Now since the doctors knew the problem in the initial stage only therefore they could do proper medical treatment. If she had screamed and flushed the worm down the toilet, they wouldn’t have known any of that.

So the moral of the story is that if you handle a situation in a mature manner without screaming then results are often overwhelming then what you would get otherwise. 

Even in situations where we think that we are facing a wall, it is better not to scream but think wisely. Getting emotional would not solve any problem but being reasonable would. 

We can turn around and scream and get angry, but we should let it go and MOVE ON.

Lastly it’s easy to write such stuff but very difficult to follow. I am drawing inspiration from Mary Kom, Roger Federer and many other legends. I will try my level best to walk on their path. I am determined to change myself.

YES I AM AND I WILL!!!!!!!!