SHAMAL IROSHANCreative Designer
Winning the Bro_Code Logo Contest 2024 — a holiday gift-giving brand identity with three hidden Christmas elements in six letters.
LKR 100,000 Cash Prize
1st place · 423 entries
The Brief
Santado is a Sri Lankan startup with a bold vision: a one-stop platform covering the entire holiday gift journey — from discovering and curating the perfect gift to doorstep delivery. Think of it as “Santa, but as a service.”
The contest brief was clear: design a logo that captures this full experience in a single mark. It needed to communicate joy, the holiday spirit, the act of gifting, and the reliability of delivery — without becoming generic Christmas clip art.
Gift-giving spirit
Capture the joy and generosity of holiday gifting.
Delivery promise
The brand covers end-to-end — gift selection to doorstep.
Holiday magic
Festive, warm, and instantly recognisable without being generic.
Memorable mark
Distinct enough to own — not just tinsel and ribbons.
The Concept
Before touching Illustrator, the answer was already in the word itself. “Santado” breaks into two parts — and three of its letters hide the entire Christmas gift-giving story.
Santa
The Spirit
The universal symbol of holiday generosity. Joyful, warm, and immediately understood — the emotional heartbeat of the brand and the reason people gift at all.
do
The Action
Delivery. Action. Making it happen. “Do” transforms the spirit into a service — Santa, but reliable, on demand, and at your door exactly when you need it.
Three Hidden Elements
Hover any highlighted letter to reveal its hidden meaning.
Hover the letters
Santa Claus Hat
The opening 'S' incorporates Santa's hat — symbolising Santa Claus himself, the spirit of Christmas and the joy of gift-giving. The giver, encoded in the very first stroke of the brand name.
Christmas Stocking
The middle 't' is shaped like a hanging Christmas stocking — one of Santado's founding business ideas made permanent in the letterform. Regardless of how the brand evolves, this keeps the festive spirit alive in the mark itself.
Reindeer Antlers with Heart
The closing 'O' transforms into reindeer antlers with a heart-shaped end — Santa's delivery vehicle sculpted into the final letter. Swift deliveries carried out with care and love, completing the gift-giving journey on a heartwarming note.
The Mark
Three hidden elements in six letters — a Santa hat in the ‘S’, a Christmas sock in the ‘t’, and a reindeer in the ‘O’. The entire brand brief, encoded in the wordmark.
Primary
Red on white — default use
Monochrome
Black on white — print / single-colour
Reversed
White on brand red — dark backgrounds
Brand in Action
Applied across delivery vehicles and brand collateral — the wordmark holds its character at any scale and on any surface.
Delivery Vehicle
The logo at full scale — every delivery becomes a brand moment.
Brand Identity
“Spread the Joy with Santado: Where Every Gift Brings a Smile.”
The Competition
The Bro_Code Logo Contest 2024 was Sri Lanka's first major public logo competition — a live, multi-round event with real judges, audience voting, and a LKR 100,000 prize on the line.
423
Total Entries
Designers from across Sri Lanka submitted logo concepts for the Santado brief.
50
Round 1 Shortlist
Judges reviewed all 423 entries and selected the best 50 to advance.
10
Grand Finale
From the 50, the top 10 were picked for the live Grand Finale on June 29, 2024.
1st
Winner
Combined judge scoring and live audience voting placed Shamal Iroshan in first place.
How Scores Were Calculated
2,000 pts
Best choice
Each judge awarded 2,000 points to their single favourite logo in the Grand Finale.
1,000 pts
Top 10 pick
Each judge also gave 1,000 points to their remaining top logo choices.
1 pt / reaction
Live audience vote
During a 15-minute live window, every Facebook reaction on a logo counted as 1 point.
The Judges
Kamaj
Entrepreneur · Artist
Evaluated logo versatility and brand storytelling potential.
Ravi J
Designer · Artist
Assessed design craft, typographic quality, and originality.
Dilshan
Entrepreneur · Content Creator
Judged brand appeal, audience resonance, and marketability.
The Result
On June 29, 2024, at the Bro_Code Grand Finale live event, the Santado logo won first place. A combined score of judge points and live audience reactions placed it at the top of 423 submissions from designers across Sri Lanka.
The cash prize was LKR 100,000 — but the real outcome was proof that a single well-reasoned typographic idea, grounded firmly in the brief, beats decorative complexity every time.
LKR 100,000 · Bro_Code Logo Contest 2024
What I Learned
Competitions are tempting to over-design. A holiday gift-giving brief is an invitation to pile on Christmas trees, ribbons, bells, and gradients. The winning approach was the opposite: encode the entire brief into the letterforms themselves — invisibly — then let people discover it.
A Santa hat in the ‘S’. A Christmas sock in the ‘t’. A reindeer in the ‘O’. None of them shout. All of them work. That's not decoration — that's concept. Judges respond to insight. Audiences respond to the moment of discovery. This mark had both.
Skills Demonstrated
Open to freelance projects
& new collaborations.
