SBI: Instantly New, Yet Instantly Recognisable
MUMBAI, April 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Branding and Design Agency, Design Stack Rebrands State Bank of India
State Bank of India, the nation's largest banking and financial services provider, today unveiled its new brand identity, designed to position SBI as a modern, progressive bank, ready to meet the financial needs of all Indians.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman - SBI, stated, "In recent years, SBI has accelerated its efforts towards developing digital products and services. Hence, we felt the need to position SBI as a contemporary brand, ready to connect with a diverse audience in a world that is rapidly going digital."
SBI's top management and the SBI brand marketing team, led by Dinesh Menon, CMO - SBI, collaborated with the founding partners of Design Stack (a Mumbai-based branding and design agency), Priyanka Bhasin and Anoop Patnaik, to develop the new identity. The challenge was to arrive at a fresh perspective, while retaining the brand's iconic stature. Strategically, it needed to be 'Instantly new, yet instantly recognisable.'
About the New Identity
While the legendary SBI monogram has been the de-facto symbol of State Bank of India, combining it with the abbreviated SBI word mark was pivotal to the new identity. It made the brand more concise, modern and approachable, infusing new energy, while retaining its core values.
The original iconic monogram was retained, and refined for greater clarity and ease of use. It was opened up for more breathing space, showing the bank to be more approachable.
For the word mark itself (SBI), a modern Sans Serif typeface was further adapted to create a sense of weight and heighten the institutional feel. It is a sturdy, geometric and highly legible typeface. To connect to the monogram, a gap was introduced in the letterform B in the word mark, just as the monogram itself. This creates a visual hook and also sets it apart.
The family of colours have been expanded for scale and play. The iconic SBI Blue was refreshed to make it more approachable. The deep inky blue symbolises trust and integrity. A youthful yellow has been introduced for contrast.
The signature graphic, the Arc, will be used across every touchpoint of the brand, from media communications, to signage, to marketing and advertising across platforms, to reinforce the brand.
Dinesh Menon, CMO - SBI, stated, "The new identity symbolises the forward movement of SBI into a modern India, ready to service a new generation of consumers with new services with a renewed vibrancy."
"We followed a rigorous design process to make sure the new brand identity is optimised and consistent across all its touchpoints, one of the major challenges the brand has faced over the years." said Priyanka Bhasin, Partner - Design Stack.
"Considering the stature of SBI, the idea was to create an identity that was concise and modern, but also retained the established and immediate recall that the logo enjoys. The SBI logo was created in 1971 at the National Institute of Design. As NID alumni, this project is close to us," said Anoop Patnaik, Partner - Design Stack.
About Design Stack
Leading branding and design agency Design Stack is based out of Mumbai and services clients across the India. Founded in 2008 by two NID designers, Priyanka Bhasin and Anoop Patnaik, their highly specialised team works on a wide variety of challenging projects.
Design thinking is at the core of what we do and our aim is to achieve harmonic resonance between the brands we work on and their consumers. We use structured strategic planning tools coupled with intuitive free-thinking to arrive at optimal solutions for our clients. We work with large corporates and boutique start-ups with the same passion and energy. That is the hallmark of our output.
Priyanka Bhasin specialised in Communication Design at the National Institute of Design, followed by a programme in New Media from the Vancouver Film School. With a strong foundation in design strategy and experience in emerging media, she set up and continues to grow Design Stack.
Anoop Patnaik graduated from NID with a degree in Communication Design. As an independent consultant with various retail and corporate brands, from ITC to Westside to Sahara, he helped modernise their identities for an evolving consumer.
Design Stack #4,
Ashiyana Building,
B wing, 1st Floor,
13 NS Road, Juhu,
Mumbai - 400 049
For further information, contact:
Priyanka Bhasin:
+91-9821582293
[email protected]
Anoop Patnaik:
+91-9819915112
[email protected]
Ritu Kant Ojha
[email protected]
+91-9953718384
PRoact BrandComm
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