Keeran is winner of N-Day logo

KEERAN Janin, CEO of local mobile software developer MeSixty, has been chosen as the winner of the 29th Brunei Darussalam National Day Logo Design Competition.

His design, a 29-pointed star shaded in red, yellow and grey, was chosen by a panel of judges from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports as the logo for 2013's National Day celebrations.

"It's quite an honour to make a design that is going to be used and seen that much," he told The Brunei Times, the media partner for the government competition.

Keeran's design beat out 92 other entries to be chosen as the eventual winner.

"Previous years' logos, they highlight the number - and some of the designs are quite clever - but this design is more symbolic."

Describing the logo, Keeran said the 29-pointed star represents Brunei's 29 years of independence, and is dressed in four colours easily associated with the Sultanate and national flag.

"The points of the star geometrically arch inward and intersect at every fourth point, creating four concentric interlocking inner stars which represents the four districts of Brunei," he said. Many have commented that the design reminds them of the tiled Islamic pattern on the dome of the Royal Regalia Building.

"Islamic art is very geometric and there's a lot of mathematics involved. I happened to figure that out by accident through computing."

"The way that I learned how to do this particular design is when I first learned how to programme a computer back in school, using a programme called Logo."

"I remember doing a pattern similar to this by accident... And I came up with a very typical Islamic art pattern. I figured out you can come up with these patterns through mathematics - they are purely geometrical designs."

Using Adobe Illustrator, Keeran managed to create the winning design in just a weekend.

"I wanted to reflect on some of the experience I had with design as well," he said. "The main points I had in my head is I got 29 years of independence, four districts, how do I turn that into a logo? I wanted all elements to be represented."

With a background in IT, this is the first time Keeran has entered a design competition, despite being heavily involved in MeSixty's visual side.

"This is something I've done on a personal level, and I consider it a personal achievement rather than a professional one."

As winner of the competition, he also bags $2,000 sponsored by Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, an Acer 14 inch Aspire Notebook and a Canon EOS600D.

Themed, "My Country Brunei Darussalam", the logo will be used on a range of official promotional materials for Brunei's 29th National Day.The Brunei Times