A complaint was filed by a Mumbai-based activist Naaz Patel in association with Avesta Foundation NGO. The complaint was filed in December 2020. In the complaint, Patel demanded that the Flipkart-backed e-commerce giant remove the logo, and urged the police to take appropriate action against the company.[1]
Myntra’s logo was a multi-colored letter ‘M’.
According to the Times of India, Naaz’s complaint stated “the overall placement of the colour scheme” of the letter “M” in the logo was “obscene to the eyes of any person of normal prudence” and claimed it was “deliberate placement of the colour scheme” to “depict a woman’s vagina and such is again highlighted with the colour scheme of depicting her legs spread out in a suggestive manner”.
The activist said that the logo supposedly depicts a ‘naked woman’, and the activist took umbrage to the ‘offensive’ logo. DCP Rashmi Karandikar of Mumbai Police’s Cyber Crime Department said, “We found that the logo was offensive in nature for women. Following the complaint, we sent an email to Myntra and their officials came and met us. The officials said they will change the logo in a month’s time.” [2] When the police approached Myntra, instead of offering an explanation they chose to immediately change the logo. As of today, the Myntra logo is changed.
But what is offensive about the logo?
When Naaz Patel was asked what is it in specific that she found offensive she dictated an in incident that at a social gathering when an myntra advertisement played on the television, two women started giggling and when she asked about what is it they refused to tell. On asking some men she came to know they perceived the logo to look like a women’s legs spread apart. And when she went on to search online, she saw many jokes and talks are made on the same logo.
Hence, she planned on writing to Myntra about the concern but did not hear back from them.May stake holders told her that it is a big company and hence they would not respond to the same. Hence, she planned on taking it to Mumbai Police.
Myntra Teams Response:
Myntra has written to the Mumbai Police claiming that they would revise their logo on their website, app as well as on all packaging material and that they have already issued printing orders for packaging material with the new logo.[3]
The social media response:
Many people took on to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and made many memes on it. Many people started pointing out other brands logos on how their logos are also vulgar.
Conclusion:
Many logo designers are now of the thought that whenever a brand has its logo fixed before making it public it should be shared amongst a few people to see if they find anything vulgar, wrong or offensive in the logo.
[1] Arijit Saha, Myntra Changes its logo for this reason-details inside, DNAIndia (Jan 31, 2021, 09:02 AM IST), https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-myntra-changes-its-logo-following-police-complaint-supposedly-depicts-naked-woman-2871936
[2] Myntra to change logo after woman files complaint against it for being ‘offensive’, Business Today.in ( Jan 30, 2021, 1:26 PM IST), https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/corporate/story/myntra-to-change-logo-after-woman-files-complaint-against-it-for-being-offensive-286004-2021-01-30
[3] Mythreyee Ramesh, ‘Offensive Towards Women’: Myntra to Change Logo After Complaint, The Quint (30 Jan 2021, 7:14 PM IST), https://www.thequint.com/neon/gender/myntra-logo-change-offensive-to-women#read-more
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