Contest to find a symbol for the Indian Rupee - Our entry

News about the Indian rupee getting a new symbol is all over the place these days. The results of the contest held by the Govt. of India for finding a symbol for the Indian Rupee (INR) have been announced recently. The contest invited ideas from across the country, and had the following selection criteria –

1. The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country.

2. The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard. The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation.

3. The symbol should be original work of the participant and must not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Here is the winning entry.

Some people have voiced their dislike for this design. I personally find the design quite good. It is interesting to note that all 5 designs that made it to the finals were very similar; each using the Devnagiri letter (ra), with a bar being placed at various places around it.

Nikhil and I participated in this contest and sent a couple of ideas from our side. We are sharing these along with the rationale that we had proposed. We would love to know how you rate our designs, as against the design that finally won.

Design 1 –

Capital I in Verdana font, with a horizontal bar bisecting it.

Rationale for design 1–

1. Capital “I” represents India and INR. It also represents the vertical Ashoka pillar.

2. The additional bar in middle creates 3 horizontal bars in total, representing 3 strips in our flag (and hence representing all that the Indian national flag stands for)

3. This is a most simplistic design that can be drawn by anyone by hand easily

4. The simplicity of design represents the principles of “single living, high thinking” propagated by our founding fathers like Mahatma Gandhi.

Design 2 -

Capital I in Times New Roman font, followed by R in Mangal font.

Rationale for design 2 –

1. Capital “I” represents India

2. R in Mangal font represents “Rupee” in Devanagari. It also represents Indian culture

3. The combined symbol created English R that stands for rupee