A changed surname, a lawyer and a lock business of 1897.

The Godrej name was chosen before it became a brand. English Wikipedia says Ardeshir Godrej was the eldest child of a Parsi family of Bombay, now Mumbai, and that in January 1871 his father had the family name changed to Godrej. The article says Ardeshir trained in law, gave it up after a case in Zanzibar in 1894, worked as a chemist’s assistant, and in 1895 borrowed money from a family friend to make surgical instruments.

Locks came next. English Wikipedia says the business was founded in 1897 by Ardeshir Godrej with his brother Pirojsha Burjorji Godrej, who managed the manufacturing, and that it began with locks. The company the brothers built is known today as Godrej & Boyce. The article says it made springless locks and fire- and burglar-resistant safes, and says that under Pirojsha’s son, Naval Godrej, it developed the industrial township of Pirojshanagar at Vikhroli in Mumbai, which is still its headquarters.

The name spread across categories through the twentieth century. English Wikipedia says the business began making furniture in 1923 with the Storewel cupboard, that Ardeshir Godrej launched a soap made from vegetable oils in 1918, and that refrigerators followed in 1958. The same sources date Godrej Chemicals to 1963, Godrej Aerospace to 1985 and Godrej Properties to 1990, and say Godrej Consumer Products was formed in April 2001 from the consumer products division of Godrej Soaps. Godrej Interio was set up as a separate furniture division in 2006.

All of those businesses carried the same family name. By the early 2000s it sat on locks and safes, cupboards and refrigerators, soaps and hair dye, housing projects and aerospace parts. The brand work of 2008, as the group’s own executives described it, set out to use that one name as a unifier of the businesses.

A red signature becomes three colours in 2008.

The Godrej logo is a signature. Business Today wrote in its print edition of 4 May 2008 that the logo is actually the signature of founder Ardeshir Godrej, and that the signature, which until then had been red, would now appear in maroon, green and blue. Chairman Adi Godrej told the magazine that it had been important to review what consumers thought of the brand, and that the aim was to make it contemporary and relevant.

The magazine named the designer. It said the new-look logo had been designed by the UK-based brand consultancy Interbrand, and that the idea of a new look had been conceived about three years earlier. Adi Godrej said Interbrand had been appointed about eighteen months before the launch. He also said that for a long time the logo had appeared in various colours, and that around three years earlier the group had standardised it to red. A team called the Strategic Marketing Group, headed by Tanya Dubash, executive director and president for marketing at Godrej Industries, worked closely with Interbrand.

There was never a plan to draw a new symbol. Business Today quoted Jamshyd Godrej, chairman of Godrej & Boyce, saying the logo was used in so many places that changing it would be difficult, so the group had decided to keep the original logo and make it more contemporary. He said there would have to be a strong, overriding reason to replace it.

afaqs! reported on 22 April 2008 that the change covered both the Godrej master brand and its corporate identity. It said Interbrand had studied the brand among employees, consumers, investors and business partners, and that the new logo was colourful, unlike the earlier red. Tanya Dubash said the corporate identity stemmed from a detailed analysis of the group’s product, service and business portfolio, and that using the Godrej brand as a unifier of its businesses and people made sense. The publication said the initial phase would build the master brand alongside four businesses: personal grooming, furniture, property and aerospace.

Indian family groups and their marks.

Company brands from India and China often carry their history in the name itself. Many Indian groups are named after a founding family, and the surname on the letterhead can stand for a bank, a steel works and a soap at the same time. In that setting a logo has to work across very different businesses, so the identity tends to lean on one wordmark, one colour and a consistent way of setting the family name rather than on a single product picture.

Chinese internet and retail companies grew up with two names: a Chinese name in characters and a Latin-letter name for domains, app stores and overseas markets. Some began with a pinyin spelling, some shortened a long name to a few letters, and some changed their Latin name entirely as they moved beyond their home market. Each rename has to keep the visual memory of the old mark while making the new one easy to read.

Mascots and uniforms do a lot of the work. A cartoon animal can appear on an app icon, a parcel and a billboard, and a delivery rider’s jacket, helmet and box turn a city street into a moving sign. For designers, these everyday surfaces are where the colour and the character of a company brand are seen most often.

Two groups, one name, two refreshes.

In 2024 the family business divided. Storyboard18 reported on 2 May 2024 that the Godrej family had reached an agreement to split the conglomerate into two branches. Adi Godrej and his brother Nadir Godrej would head the listed companies under Godrej Industries, while their cousin Jamshyd Godrej would control the unlisted companies and the land bank under Godrej Enterprises. The agreement filed with the stock exchanges addressed royalty, brand usage and land development. Citing sources who spoke to CNBC-TV18, the publication said both groups could use the Godrej name because it is the family name, but that the logos would have to be differentiated, with the Godrej Enterprises side changing its logo within about a year.

That change arrived in November 2024. afaqs! reported on 28 November 2024 that the Godrej Enterprises Group, whose flagship is Godrej & Boyce, had unveiled a refreshed brand identity in purple while keeping the cursive logo, which the publication described as reminiscent of founder Pirojsha Godrej’s signature. The group said the shift from three colours to a single colour allowed greater consistency across its businesses. Manifest reported the same day that the launch film opened on the springless lock, which the group called its earliest product, and was made with the agency Lowe Lintas, directed by Katie Bell and produced by Entourage Films. Executive director Nyrika Holkar said the new identity was more than a change of colour.

The other branch followed in 2026. Business Today reported on 22 April 2026 that the Godrej Industries Group had unveiled a new purpose statement, “Crafting tomorrow since 1897”, and a refreshed identity developed by its in-house design team, DISCO, with a bespoke typeface named GI Sans, a sonic identity and a signature fragrance. Manifest reported on 23 April 2026 that the new logo would be used on the corporate front, while consumers would continue to see the old logo on products, and that the group restated three values: inspire trust, create delight and be bold.

The two refreshes start from the same inheritance. Both keep the Godrej name and the cursive script that goes with it; one moved it into a single purple, the other built a new corporate system around it while leaving the product packs alone.

For a design guide, Godrej shows how a signature can outlast a change of colour, a change of consultancy and even the division of the family that owns it. Compare Aditya Birla, another Indian family group brand, and Reliance, another Indian group brand built under one family name. For this guide we use maroon, green, blue and purple with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Godrej’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.