As a promotion, Nokia held a design competition recently encouraging designers to conceive headphones based on their favorite music. The photo above is called the ‘I’m Flying’ headset which was design by Rodshakur and inspired by R Kelly’s track I Believe I Can Fly. Creative Review have some photos of other entries here.
We do have a problem with the competition though. The ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy seem to have been a little underhand. One of the winners (below) is a freelance designer that works for W+K London. Dodgy, no? Oh, and there’s a handy link in the comments of the Creative Review post to the blog that describes how he made this set inspired by Thriller. Dodgy-dodgy, no??
Hey, we don’t mind the fact that you had to get the competition rolling – but W+K, you’re duping people with your lack of transparency.
UPDATE: New PSFK Article: Why this Nokia competition sucks for creatives.
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This was W+K’s ringer to make sure something decent was in the show. Fair enough, you have to stack the odds in your favour but they might have been less self-congratulatory about it.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hi there, thanks for the post on this but just wanted to clarify some of your points. None of the competition winners are employed by W+K. Johnny, the designer behind Thriller, has been involved in a couple of projects for us in the past but we have never made any secret of this. In fact we are really proud that he decided to be involved in this competition along with all the other amazing designers who chose to take part.
What’s more the public actually decided on their favourite designs. These were then put to a panel of expert and impartial judges including Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx and vinyl toy maker Eddie Yip who picked the overall winners, meaning us lot at W+K had no clue who was going to win!
Also just wanted to say that that handsome chap you have pictured above is not actually Johnny, its Carlos our interpreter who helped when our Brazilian winner came to town :)
Anna @ W+K
March 25th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Sorry, Anna. I’m not buying it. It doesn’t feel that way. That ‘how I built my headphones’ blog is so amateur for a designer it must have been orchestrated by a campaign. Hey – we’re not saying you shouldn’t seed the campaign – but maybe some transparency would have been a little more honest.
March 25th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Oh, and another thing: That bit about ‘he’s not employed by W+K’ – erm, check out the fella’s portfolio page…. OH – not only does he list W+K as his clients, Nokia is his client too??? WTF!
March 25th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
AND: Within the competition rules, this statement:
The employees and directors of the Sponsor and/or its licensees, advertising, promotion or production agencies and provider companies (and their respective IRS dependents, immediate family members (spouse, children, parents, siblings) and individuals residing in their same household) are not eligible to participate.
http://www.nokiamaheadsetdesign.com/rules_GB.html
Dodgy, NO?
March 25th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I think you have a fair point, Piers. Although the winner is not employed by W+K or Nokia, the fact that he’s worked on projects for W+K or Nokia puts his involvement into a grey area. We should have noticed this and apologize to all competition participants that we didn’t. However, nobody was paid to make designs, all were voluntary and competition winners were decided on via a public vote and panel of expert and impartial judges. Neither W+K nor Nokia had any involvement in the selection of the winners.
Lesson learnt though.
Finally, I want to thank everyone for the great competition and the inspiring designs. They really blew our minds!
March 26th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Thanks – so the W+K contractor will not get a prize, right?
March 26th, 2009 at 2:47 pm