Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Dec 25: Bengaluru has become the first Indian city to have a logo of its own. Creatively designed, the first two letters of the word Bengaluru i.e ‘B’ and ‘E’ and last letter ‘U’ are painted in red to highlight tagline ‘Be You’.

The logo was crowdsourced through a contest which was part in English and part in Kannada and selected from the 1350 entries.

IT-BT and tourism minister Priyank Kharge said that the logo signifies Bengaluru's cosmopolitan culture and is an initiative of tourism department that is trying to rework on Bengaluru's image.

"We want to brand Bengaluru as a tourist destination, and not just as an IT hub or a city for start-ups. The idea is to brand Bengaluru with its history, culture, art and its cuisines and portray this as a global brand," he said.

The rolling font was devised by bankers-turned-designers Rushi Patel and M Venkateswara Rao, founders of Nammur, a design firm.

The logo was launched during Bengaluru Habba- an open street festival in front of Vidhana Soudha. “We have been working on this logo for nearly one year. The concept is 'Be & You’ - anybody can be yourself in Bengaluru,” says Venkateswara Rao.

While Bengaluru has been hitting headlines for issues that plague the city such as frothing lakes and garbage crisis, the logo is the latest in tourism department's strategies to promote the city in better light.