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← Back to IdeasCannes Juror Q&A w/ Maurice Wangalachi
Prior to this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, we sat down with our Ogilvy colleagues serving as jurors at this year's Festival to pick their brains about the category their judging, what they're expecting this year, and more.
Maurice "Rizz" Wangalachi, Creative Director, Ogilvy Kenya (Design Lions Juror)
How does it feel to be a juror for this year’s Design Lions?
This being a first for Ogilvy Africa to have a design juror to the world’s most creative work, I’m extremely honored and delighted – it’s also an opportunity to contribute to assessing groundbreaking creativity.
It is exciting to be a juror in a category that celebrates visual craftsmanship, focusing on entries that demonstrate how design has been used to define brands to communicate key messages. Work which has produced measurable, tangible business results, and which was instrumental to culture change or integral to achieving brand purpose.
And for me, it’s also a personal milestone in my professional journey of creative storytelling.
What do you look for when assessing effective design?
A key aspect for me is to establish if there is a clear and observable strategic approach, that combines creativity and purpose to captivate and engage the target audience. It involves using visual elements such as colors, typography, imagery, and layout to convey a compelling message and evoke emotional responses. Cultural nuancing also plays a significant part, especially in providing context, either geographically, socioeconomically, or both.
Effective design ensures clarity and simplicity, enabling quick comprehension of the intended message. It incorporates a strong visual hierarchy and language, directing the viewer's attention to key elements to facilitate seamless navigation.
In well thought out entries, and there are quite a number this year, desired results can be derived from the target audience, through a compelling and memorable case.
How does design thinking influence you in your creative work?
My creative work is significantly impacted by design thinking, since I have to employ a very structured – and in almost all cases, an empathetic – approach to problem-solving and innovation.
It makes me first seek being informed by a deep insight and understanding of the audience’s challenges, needs and ultimately motivation to enable me provide a pragmatic and impactful creative solution.
Design thinking takes me down a path where I question the status quo borne out of assumptions – here is where the risk of stereotypes comes to fore. I want to challenge conventional ideas, I want to explore and experiment, leading to fresh thinking and pushing the envelope on craft.