You have picked an expensive item at a mall, you are happy. You are at the billing counter, and there’s a sense of swag, as you hand over your Platinum Card to the guy at the cash counter. It’s the same when you are about to pay for your food and you hand over your credit card. These are moments when you hand over a token of plastic linked to your identity, feeling proud of yourself. But there are some moments in a day, where you have to hand over another piece of plastic and not feel proud at all because you feel that it does not quite reflect you. Want to have a guess? You are right if you reached into your back pocket to glance at your ugly looking Driver Licence, which now feels archaic. Its a little like peddling Doordarshan’s age-old serials on TV, when the generation right now binge watches sitcom’s streaming from their device. Basically anachronistic!

I come from Kerala, and I thought why not I re-imagine what my DL. My driving license should probably be something that reflects my identity with respect to where I come from and be neat. Kerala is known amongst economists as an economic miracle for ranking in line with those of developed nations on several socio-economic parameters, a feat greatly attributed to the spread of education in the state. My thoughts are around trying to create an identity around a better profile photograph and a chip/NFC base license card, which is a natural progression from the state government’s vision of minimizing the digital divide.

Redesigning the logo of the state Kerala

Whilst on the topic, I thought I'd pull up the state logo to match my humble upgrade. This redesign is essentially a reminder about keeping to our roots, whilst embracing and adapting to the changes in time. The elements that made up the existing logo, is reused keeping what is still relevant today and replacing the outed ones. The most significant addition is the houseboat which is associated with Kerala nowadays on an international platform, especially with the states tourism identity.

You can see the old logo here

What did you all think of the designs? I await your thoughts. Thank you :)

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