India is fighting inequality and is heading in the right direction, but there is a long way to go. Creativity and design can help rally people more powerfully to make an exponential impact, especially when operational efforts are giving only incremental returns.

So we challenged the well-established 'equal to' symbol and created ‘the equity bars' as a symbol for Darsa’s mission for 'equity'. It leverages familiarity while seeding a visual disruption. This small change to the equal sign, will go a long way in spurring a movement for equity which is essential for true social progress.

Over the past 25 years, Dasra has been working as an orchestrator for the social sector in India. Their vision is 'Towards a transformed India, where a billion thrive with dignity and equity.' Equity is at the centre of all they do because they are deeply concerned about it.

What is particularly worrying in India’s case is that economic inequity further handicaps a society that is already fractured along the lines of caste, religion, region, and gender.These widening gaps affect women and children the most.

As per Jan 2023 data, the top 5 per cent own nearly 62 per cent of the total wealth. Ironically, India has the world’s highest number of poor at 228.9 million.

On the Gender Inequality Index 2022, India stands at rank 108 out of 193 countries

As per April 2023 data, more than 55 million people are pushed back into poverty every year because of "catastrophic" health expenses.

So clearly, the pursuit towards equity needs to be galvanised.

The use of symbols has been intrinsic to the Indian heritage, across religion, politics and social change. They create a common language and association to a fuel a movement. This presented an opportunity to create symbol that unites and energises everyone in the fight for equity. And the time is now, when a young India, if made more equitable, can contribute to herself and the world - more meaningfully.

Even as India actively fights inequality, the economic, gender, geographical, caste and class disparities persist stubbornly. A lot is being done but more has to be done at a more strategic and transformational level.

Dasra, is concerned about the wide divide that still exists in a country that is needs to do lot more to meet SDG goals. They wanted the agency to come up with a rallying cry to help spur further urgency in addressing this.

Objectives: Bring various stake holders to though a common equity mission

1. Challenging embedded power imbalances in policy and funding .

2. ⁠Ensuring gender equity at an opportunity and representation at all levels

3. Representation of minorities and targeted action for disadvantaged groups.

4. Empowering community leadership (proximate) and social protection.

5. Redistribution and downstream changes to create sustainable equity.

Launched at Dasra Philanthropy Week, India's largest philanthropy event. Reached over 1500 leaders.

Historically, symbols that have had a transformational impact have been simple yet rich with meaning. So, when we had to design a symbol to champion equity, we built on the universally known ‘equal to’ sign to pull people in with its familiarity and create an impact with its disruption. We extended the lower bar proportional to its height and created a symbol for Equity - concept that is more powerful than equality.

To make the symbol more human, we added soft corners and organic edges. The symbol in its purest form as an outline, is open to being adapted and adopted by the sector.

For Dasra, we added a gradient and grain inspired by the dynamic and nuanced nature of equity.

This simple yet powerful symbol was adapted across Dasra's programs and brought alive through touchpoints like website, social media, sector reports, t-shirts, badges, and even art.