Reality Group Brand Identity
Work for Reality Gives & Reality Tours & Travel - 2016
Reality Tours & Travel is a responsible tour company dedicated to providing fun and authentic experiences around India, staring for a world where all tourism promotes cross-cultural understanding and local development. The signature Slum Tour concept lies on the idea of using walking tours to raise awareness about life in slums and simultaneously raise funds for local community projects. They thus use a profit-sharing model to fund their sister-NGO Reality Gives which runs education programs in underprivileged areas, focusing on primary education, youth empowerment and extracurricular activities.
When I was brought on board for a new brand identity, their logo was an eye, a blue one for the tourism company and a green one for the sister NGO.
Reality Tours & Travel and Reality Gives, are deeply connected, so it must also show through the visual identity. But how such different companies, even though connected, can have the same logo? An eye makes sense for Reality Tours & Travel, that claims to show the real India, but why an NGO that provides free education should be represented by an eye?
This was the challenge, to create two different logos, meaningful for the two companies, yet graphically connected.
The 2 shapes, joint, create the Reality Group logo, needed when the two companies are presented as one entity.
While for Reality Tours & Travel the eye is still part of the visual identity, for Reality Gives the same shape have been rotate,becoming a person, a member of the community connected with the NGO.
The new logos bought with them new letter heads, business cards, icons, gadgets etc...
I wanted to underline the fact that the NGO exists thanks to all its teachers, students and the staff members that pass through the doors of the community center every day. They were all given a part in the branding process, getting to leave their distinct marks on the logo.
These sketches were a starting point for creating a series of characters inspired by those at the NGO. They were then made into stencils and painted onto the wall of the community center.
The activity allowed the Reality Gives to make its visual identity a part of the community’s daily life.
The eye made for Reality Tours & Travel found its way into their next campaign – See the real India through the eye of a local. The campaign highlighted the non-invasive nature of their tours, aided by the locals, ever ready to show their cities from their unique perspectives, just the way they see it.
To keep the design sensibilities intact even after I’ve moved on, I put together little booklets covering each aspect of the brand identity and delivered them to everyone connected to the NGO. These went beyond conventional brand manuals, and presented clear simplified design guidelines for staff members to learn and follow.
It was my small attempt to make my colleagues better aware of good design, and keep the brands visual language consistent.
