The Karachi School of Business and Leadership is set to start operations in late 2012, and supposedly with that it will revolutionize and modernize the Pakistani business education scene, which in turn will mean real competition for the de-facto top schools, IBA and LUMS, and more unpalatable stuff. In other words KSBL will spell doom for the aforementioned prestigious schools. And it is no coincidence that this doom will befall them in 2012. Yes, 2012. Now do you see it?! Until 2012 however, we have KSBL’s visual identity to judge it and its claims of revolution.
Lets get to it already. The logo itself is great considering it was designed in Microsoft Word in little over 4 minutes. Anyone who tells you that’s not the case is lying. But truth is, the KSBL logo is unimaginative and awkward- just a bunch of text and a block of color. The S and B eat into their respective neighbors K and L, and that – if you weren’t convinced already – is symbolic proof of KSBL’s hostile intentions for Karachi’s and Lahore’s premier business schools. Being the internationally-connected school (Cambridge, no less!) that they are, they should have paid more attention to their brand building, of which design and visual identity is no insignificant part. In short, it is just disappointing that a high-profile and much publicized institution has failed to carve out a proper visual identity for itself, or worse- and I think that’s the case – simply neglected that aspect altogether. In a business world where design is gaining traction as a crucial strategic tool and is being hailed as the new frontier of market differentiation, KSBL already feels antiquated.
It doesn’t help that KSBL’s color palette immediately brings to mind dear old KESC and their bijli ka bill. Needless to say those are very positive associations. Not. To be fair though, both the KESC logo and their bill are rare examples of very good design in Pakistan.
What we have for now to judge KSBL has failed to impress, let’s see if the actual degrees hold more promise.
UPDATE (04/01/2012):
KSBL responds:
KSBL in collaboration with Cambridge University Judge Business School is bringing world class business education and current management thinking to Pakistan. The people behind it are top business leaders and professionals of Pakistan who are establishing KSBL to create capable and transformational leaders for Pakistan who will be able to compete globally. KSBL’s visual identity including the logo is well thought through, designed by distinguished artists and selected and approved by the Board of Directors. It very well represents this top institution of higher learning. We respect comments and critique from everybody and work towards improving ourselves, however, beyond design we are more focused on the key ingredients of world class education including the curriculum designed by Cambridge, world renowned faculty, world class campus providing an enabling environment and selecting qualified students irrespective of their the socioeconomic and geographical backgrounds.
The Desi Design 
Mediocre is an overstatement.
It might well be!
Lol, if my ex client (KSBL) reads this..they won’t be happy..
Your client? Well I just hope you didn’t design stuff like this for them! :p
As amusing as the post was, perhaps the author needs to do a little homework on color psychology. I quite like the logo, although it looks a little chunky – to me it seems to work for a university. It has a solid and grounded feel to it, and at the same time the cut out letters (yes look like they belong in pac man) breakaway the chunkyness of the solid blue background and gives it a contemporary look. It seems to work…
Opinions. Everyone has ’em!
Color psychology was really not touched upon in this article- what I did say about colors was that they are just too similar to a brand as well known as KESC- surely they could have explored other options while sticking to desirable color-psychology-attributes.
For me, not only is there no comprehensible thought process behind this logo but even the execution is severely lacking, even more so considering the high-profile status of the institution.
Yup thats right about opinions…you guys should do a cross comparison of how other major local universities are branding themselves – now that would make for an interesting read. A browse through the sunday dawn shows how most of them have done a poor job at branding themselves….
I think Creative Chaos designed this! I don’t agree with everything that has been written here as it’s not that bad for a university.
I did notice CC’s logo on the site. But since they don’t usually design logos and identities, I am guessing they just handled the web design.
@Raheela. Yeah actually that’s a great idea!
KSBL in collaboration with Cambridge University Judge Business School is bringing world class business education and current management thinking to Pakistan. The people behind it are top business leaders and professionals of Pakistan who are establishing KSBL to create capable and transformational leaders for Pakistan who will be able to compete globally. KSBL’s visual identity including the logo is well thought through, designed by distinguished artists and selected and approved by the Board of Directors. It very well represents this top institution of higher learning. We respect comments and critique from everybody and work towards improving ourselves, however, beyond design we are more focused on the key ingredients of world class education including the curriculum designed by Cambridge, world renowned faculty, world class campus providing an enabling environment and selecting qualified students irrespective of their the socioeconomic and geographical backgrounds.
yuck