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 It’s been a long haul, but we’re finally there. Last week, after getting hold of all the entries, the members of the Rock Me Leonardo! judging panel put their heads together and stared long and hard at the seven entries, finally naming the winner as...
The Brand Union’s team effort, entitled Guitar Hero 1500 – congratulations to them!
Altogether, the seven entries we received clearly represent many, many hours of painstaking work, and we were extremely impressed with the effort, imagination – and most importantly the talent on show. You can see all of the entries below.
However, like the Highlander, there can only be one, and The Brand Union’s entry succeeded on so many different levels, from concept, consistency, execution and attention to detail, that it is clearly a deserving winner.
“On hearing the news that we had won, initially we thought about throwing a TV out of the agency window, but seeing as The Brand Union is situated 43 floors up, that probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. Of course there was a sense of achievement, it’s always nice to win something, but it was also humbling, as we know the calibre of the competition would have been high,” said the branding agency’s team, after hearing news of their win.
“As soon as we first heard about the competition it captured our imagination. The ‘Rock Me Leonardo’ theme was brilliant. It immediately opened up a floodgate of ideas. The toughest part was settling on which idea to go for,” the team added.
The guys will win a PlayStation3 console, an Xbox 360 console, and a copy of Guitar Hero for each system.
We’ll be organising a little get-together and ceremony for all the entrants at some point in the near future, as well as some sort of showcase. In the meantime, anyone passing by AdNation Towers can have a sneak peak at all the Guitars in the flesh.
About the judging
The judging panel consisted of May El Husseiny, marketing manager for Sony PlayStation, Aman Sangar marketing manager for Microsoft Xbox, Nitin Mathew of Red Entertainment, and AdNation publisher G2’s own Mahmoud Boksmati.
All entries were given marks for: relevance to rock music; relevance to gaming; relevance to the Middle East; overall creativity; and overall effort.
Rock Me Leonardo! Guitar Hero design competition – The Entries (in no particular order after the winner)
Click to go straight to the entry
WINNER: The Brand Union
Saatchi & Saatchi – Clare Napper and Hussain Moloobhoy
The Brownmonkeys – Rollan Rodriguez
Ogilvy One – Ahmad Sadek
TBWA\Raad – “Black Sheep”
Grey Dubai
Lowe MENA
 WINNER: The Brand Union
The Brand Union guys actually somewhat exceeded the brief, by producing not only a customised guitar controller, but also a completely redesigned box (see above), as well as customising the instruction leaflet and optional stickers, all along a Leonardo da Vinci theme, the eponymous Italian Renaissance man of our competition providing sufficient inspiration, and indeed source material.
The design melds da Vinci works – the Mona Lisa (aka La Gioconda) for the box, and various sketches for the guitar, including the famous ‘Vitruvian Man’ on the rear, all reimagined with a modern rock twist. Interspersed with the art are various lines in English and Arabic on the nature of music, talent, art and so on.
Aside from the Arabic, there’s not too much of a Middle East theme going on here, but the overall quality of both the concept and the execution more than made up for it in the judging.
The Brand Union team behind the entry consisted of: Mark Marlborough, Chris Talbot, Neil Williams, Lubna Ghannam and John Ridgway.
Click for a larger image of the front of this entry.
Click for a larger image of the back of this entry.
 Saatchi & Saatchi – Clare Napper and Hussain Moloobhoy
This entry was probably the most successful at the “sticking to the brief” stakes, encompassing elements from the world of rock music and classic gaming, all with a Middle East flavour, some of it unfortunately too subtle to be seen in this image, including Space Invader aliens.
Click for a larger image of this entry.
 The Brownmonkeys – Rollan Rodriguez
This Brownmonkeys/Tonic guitar is by far the most colourful and energetic of all our entries; the controller has been hand-painted back and front with this lively and humour-filled design based around a rocking devil (minus his finger-tips...).
Click for a larger image of the front of this entry.
Click for a larger image of the back of this entry.
 Ogilvy One – Ahmad Sadek
Gosh, wonder where the inspiration for this design could have come from...? The strong regional inspiration and use of a limited palette make this guitar instantly striking (and indeed the subject of a couple of informal offers of purchase). The Arabic calligraphy reads “rock”.
Click for a larger image of this entry.
 TBWA\Raad – “Black Sheep”
This is the most deconstructed (literally) entry we had, with the artist actually pulling out elements of the controller (not strictly in the rules, but never mind...) to create some sort of weird but wonderful guitar-clock-Buddha hybrid – in gold. This definitely wins the “most painful to hold or play” award.
Click for a larger image of this entry.
 Grey Dubai
Mariam’s entry is definitely up there in the effort an innovation stakes, but lost out in the judging thanks to a lack of obvious rock/gaming/Middle East elements. Decorated across every inch of the controller except the buttons, this almost cubist effort uses cardboard, fabric and even a fragment of a ruler to create an interesting textural effect, inscribed with some slightly paranoid-sounding (“The sky is falling...”) lines.
Click for a larger image of this entry.
 Lowe MENA
This entry extended Guitar Hero’s own theme, building on and using the decorative elements included with the controller, and basing it around a classic red-black-silver colour theme, and a headscarf-wearing black head just at the base of the neck, for some interesting texture.
Click for a larger image of this entry.
Rock Me Leonardo at thejamjar
AdNation and Red Entertainment Distribution invite you to join us at the showing of the creative entries to the Rock Me Leonardo Competition.
Hosted at thejamjar gallery on Monday 27th April, from 7pm to 10pm, we will be awarding the winning entry.
RSVP: Zeina Madanat,
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- 04 321 9848
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