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.