NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 19 – Elvis Otieno, 23, was just going about his usual day in July 2019 when his friend sent him a screenshot of the East African Breweries Limited (EABL) logo competition.
Otieno thought to himself that he was up to the challenge as he had been trying out many logo competitions in the past albeit successful.
“I went ahead to research on what EABL wanted, from this I found out that they wanted something modern which would take them for the next 100 years,” Otieno told Capital Business.
He however noted that he was not as good with graphics, he just used to do it as a hobby.
Otieno submitted his logo on the deadline date after a week of developing his ‘award winning logo’.
He submitted a design with barley in the iconography. Barley is one of the ingredients in the manufacture alcoholic beverages.
He customized the font in circles to represent unity and stability and coloured it purple to represent the loyalty that alcohol consumers have to the brands they consume.
After this, he had to wait for a week to when the results would be announced, and he was lucky to be among the top 20 who were now to participate in a hackathon.
During the hackathon, the participants got to interact with various creatives and art directors who assisted them in fine-tuning their submissions.
Otieno later moved the iconography in the final logo to make it bolder and more balanced, adding the tagline ‘Celebrating life’.
“I could gauge myself with the others and I was sure I would make it to the top three,” said Otieno.
He said that when he got the call that he won he was very excited.
Otieno, who was a third-year Film and Animation student at Multimedia University in Nairobi at the time, won Sh1 million for the logo design.
He also got to intern at three creative agencies, namely; SCANAD, Ogilvy and Squad Digital.
The Firm and Animation student used the money to buy computers and graphic tablets to use in his career. He also sent some money his parents.
“I was very grateful for this opportunity as I had no experience in design , I am trained as a filmmaker, so I really enjoyed learning from my peers at the agencies,” said Otieno.
Otieno did very well during his internship and was able to secure a job at SCANAD as an arts director.
It was not all rosy for him however; as at the time he was submitting his logo he felt as if he was too young since the competition had people aged from 21-25, he was 21.
“When I met the other 19 competitors, some of their designs were complex and I was amazed but I believed in myself I believed my idea was good and I went for it,” he says.
Otieno urged youth to believe in themselves in all these competitions, even the recent KBL Got Skillz challenge.
“As long as the idea behind the logo is good, the art is good enough, so you should participate,” he said.
