
An upcoming solo running event needed a logo and I had less than 24 hours only to come up with one. ‘Unstated requirements’ included a connection to technology and sports. The name ‘iRUN’ was chosen for the event.
Exactly a decade ago, I designed the logo and posters for ‘Science and Technology Run’ (stylized as ‘Snt run’) at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. I wanted to take the same inspiration of ‘race tracks in a stadium’ for the ‘iRUN’ logo design as well.

Look at the ‘n’ and ‘u’ alphabets placement of ‘Snt run.’
Race Tracks

A Cute Robot with a Fitness Band

To add more resemblance to a fitness band, three arcs are also added to represent a signal transmission. The robot’s facial outline also resembled the shape that we arrived at, sealing the connection to technology. I named this version as ‘Tech-loop’ logo.
The Logotype
When searching for ‘Tech’ fonts in Google Fonts website, I came across ‘Share Tech Mono.’ When written in this font, the alphabets ‘i’ and ‘U’ of iRUN attracted my attention. To me, the alphabet ‘i’ looked like a person kneeling and the alphabet ‘U’ resembled the shape of a race track. The font is a condensed, tall one that works best even if we apply a ‘faux italic’ treatment.

- This is how ‘iRUN’ appears in default in ‘Share Tech Mono’ font.
- The kneeling person ‘i’ of ‘iRUN’ is mirrored. Let us make him/her moving in a positive direction (left to right).
- The kneeling person ‘i’ is trimmed of the legs! Now ‘i’ looks like a standing person.
- The alphabet ‘N’ is replaced with a 180 degrees rotated ‘U.’ This is the other half of the shape of race track.
- Corrected the baseline of the new ‘N.’ then a ‘faux italic’ treatment is done by distorting ‘iRUN’ to some 10 degrees from the vertical. This is to represent a positive movement from left to right.
iRUN Logo

Within the available time-frame of a single day, I believe that this is the best result one could achieve. The event is planned in September 2020. Marketing collateral and merchandise design will all feature this iRUN logo.
2 Responses
[…] new logo was used along with the Rotary logo for iRUN marketing and social media […]
[…] race track as well as an activity tracker (fitness band) in the iRUN logo? Very good! The detailed design story of the logo is narrated here. Since iRUN is the initiative of Rotary Satellite Club of Cochin Downtown, the colors used are the […]