Interbrand's Pradeep Debnath bags a finalist in TDV 'MerAgra' design contest

Debnath's work was chosen as amongst the best from over 7,000 entries across the world. The contest's aim was to reward the design that expressed the City of Agra in the most magnetic way

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | February 26, 2015

Pradeep Debnath

Pradeep Debnath, Creative Director, Interbrand India was recently awarded as the finalist in the TDV 'MerAgra' design contest. His work was chosen as amongst the best from over 7,000 entries across the world.

TDV 'MerAgra' contest was the first design competition launched by The Design Village in collaboration with the Department of Tourism, Uttar Pradesh Government and the Dutch Embassy. The goal of the competition was to call for thematic designs which not only explain Agra as 'City of Taj', but also bring other facets of Agra to their best use for representation.

The Jury comprised of Amrit Abhijat, Director General Secretary, Uttar Pradesh Tourism; Jeroen Van Erp, Co-founder and Creative Director, Fabrique Communications and Design; Pankaj Kumar, District Magistrate, Agra; Raghu Rai, photo journalist; Sourabh Gupta, Design Dean, The Design Village and Principal Architect, Archohm Consults; Subodh Gupta, sculpture artist; and Willem Woudenberg, CEO and Consultant, Brand Dialogue.

The contest's mission was to acknowledge and reward the design which had the potential to express the City of Agra in the most magnetic way. The brief was quite simple: The city of Agra attracts more than 2.5 million domestic and foreign visitors annually. To enhance the experience of the visitors and for creating a sense of belonging amongst citizens of India, the Uttar Pradesh Government is undertaking a project to create an identity for this vibrant city. To fuel this intention, 'MerAgra' was conceptualised with an intent to welcome varied views of the city of Agra.

After few rounds of judging and scrutiny, Debnath's design was selected as one amongst the best three designs. The slogan of his poster was 'Passion with Purpose'. Talking about his logo, he explained, “In creating the identity, I built on the same passion which built Agra to make it more purposeful. 'MerAgra' thus, stood for finding opportunities to make passion purposeful. The identity, based on a heart created with the letters 'M' and 'A', not only taps into the passion of the people, but also creates a distinctive graphic language that can spread across the environment, digital and even mobile applications.”

Ashish Mishra

Commenting on the win, Ashish Mishra, Managing Director, Interbrand India, said, “Having established Interbrand's offering in India on the strategy and analytics side during our first two years, we have now set an agenda for highlighting our equally benchmark design proficiency. Due to our substantial global reputation around Brand Strategy and Valuation, our design credentials sometimes tend to go unnoticed. That's something we plan to correct in the Indian market this year and Pradeep's recognition is a good first step.”

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