Malayali hand to a WED campaign

Logo designed by Kannur teacher selected for UNEP event.

UNEP has stated that Shibin’s inspiring design best expresses this year’s theme – ‘Seven Billion Dream. Our Planet. Consume with Care.’

Schoolteacher Shibin K.K. will soon be visiting Milan as guest of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

He has won a paid trip to the Italian city with the selection of the logo he designed for the World Environment Day (WED) campaign 2015.

The UNEP on its website announced that Mr. Shibin, a native of Koorara, near Thalassery, has won the competition for designers around the world to create an official logo for the campaign.

Announcing the result of the competition, the UNEP has stated that Mr. Shibin’s “inspiring design…best expressed this year’s theme – Seven Billion Dream. Our Planet. Consume with Care.”

It was for the first time that the UNEP invited designers to design a logo for the campaign. With the selection of his logo, Mr. Shibin has won the trip to visit Expo Milano 2015, an exhibition being hosted by Milan from May 1 to October 31 to showcase the best of the technologies of more than 140 participating countries that provide “concrete answer to a vital need.”

“The logo I designed was selected from nearly 300 entries from 70 countries,” Mr. Shibin, 36, a self-taught freelance designer, told

The Hindu on Sunday.

He said he used minimum elements to create brand identity of WED and fully convey the campaign theme.

The UNEP website in its announcement says that the logo “shows the planet with different resource elements classified in colours – water, soil, air, and flora and fauna.” The seven billion people are represented by the digit ‘7’ in the logo.

Shibin’s logo, it says, “encapsulates the need for sustainable consumption within the planet’s regenerative capacity.” Mr. Shibin, who holds a masters in computer science, is working as teacher at the Vocational Higher Secondary School at Chirakkara at Thalassery.

Finalist

He was a finalist in the competition for symbols for the Indian rupee. Several logos designed by him are being used by various organisations and institutions. He had also designed titles of a couple of Malayalam movies.

“Though I used to paint, I have been focussing on designing over the past 15 years since I completed my computer science course,” he said, adding that the selection of his logo for the WED campaign was a major recognition for his design and branding skills.