The QA Venue Solutions Rwanda on Wednesday, December 23, announced Axel Kalisa as the winner of the ‘Kigali Arena Logo Contest’.

The contest which was launched in November is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Rwandans to stamp their creativity onto the Kigali Arena, one of the most famous African sporting and events venue. 

Kalisa beat out over 1,400 applicants who were contesting for the prize.

The logo that won the contest will be used not only in the Arena but also on all online, print, merchandise and visual collateral. 

Announcing the winner, QA Venue Solutions Director, Kyle Schofield said that they picked Kalisa’s logo basing on the criteria that was set when the management called for entries for the contest.

"We wanted to get a logo that was simple, relevant and easy to apply. The logo that we selected not only fit the criteria but it also gave us the identity that we were looking for,” Scofield said.

Scofield added that he is confident that the Kigali Arena brand will continue to grow and hailed Kalisa for producing a logo that matches the heights and standards of the facility.

"Moving forward, we shall work with Kalisa to create the different applications of the new logo as we create the new Kigali Arena corporate identity”.

The winning entry was chosen by a judging panel which included representatives from the artistic community, Government of Rwanda and the Kigali Arena management, after assessing the logo’s major attributes namely artistic appeal, originality, simplicity, and relevance.

Besides using the logo on different artistic features of Kigali Arena, Kalisa walked away with a cash prize of USD 1,000 (Rwf890,000).

Kalisa explained that his winning logo was inspired by the Kigali Arena’s architectural design after taking a day-long visit to the state-of-the-art facility.

"The inspiration came from the architectural design of the Kigali Arena. We made everything from scratch, be it the drawing or the digital creation process,” he said.

Inaugurated in August 2019, 10,000 seater Kigali Arena is the latest addition to Kigali’s infrastructure aimed at establishing Kigali as a host for international conferences and sporting events.

The multi-purpose facility, which is managed by QA Venue Solutions, can host live concerts, sporting events, beauty pageants, gala dinners, product launches and exhibitions among others.

It has, among other events, successfully hosted renowned R&B star Ne-Yo in a sold-out concert as well as the FIBA Afrobasket 2021 Regional Qualifiers.