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Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Reporter
A local graphic designer Tendai Gakaka sparked a social media storm this past week after he shared redesigned images of some of Zimbabwe’s most iconic brands, Mazoe Orange Crush and Air Zimbabwe.

The Twitter handle @tendaigakaka was flooded with comments after he shared pictures of a redesigned Air Zimbabwe plane. While conversing with him, people also gave Gakaka ideas on how he could best improve the design.

The Harare-born and raised designer runs a company called Stanley Rose Agency and according to him, he has worked with brands such as Schweppes, Cairns Food Zimbabwe and Softex.

The former Prince Edward High pupil said he was driven by a need to bring to the fore, more exciting designs for brands in Zimbabwe.

Tendai Gakaka and his wife Thelma and child Zuva

“I’m a creative at heart and I’m very interested in the branding, advertising and corporate communication space.

What drove me to do this was that we work on a lot of corporate work that isn’t as exciting as I want it to be. So as a creative, I think of things like that and in my spare time and I thought of doing (redesigning) one or two of our popular Zimbabwe brands.

“Creating something without people seeing it isn’t exciting. So, I decided to post and see what people would say. The Mazoe one was something I did recently but the Air Zimbabwe one is something that I had for a long time,” said Gakaka.

He said the creative space in the country is stagnant.

Redesigned Air Zimbabwe

“It’s very rare that a company will do a campaign that people will go crazy about. What we’ve seen with these few posts that I’ve done is that they’ve gotten a lot of traction and gone viral with people commenting and sharing their opinions. That’s what should happen in essence.

“Look at the South African advert by Chicken Licken with its Michael Knight theme, people like it and are going crazy about it,” said Gakaka.

“A lot of Zimbabwean brands are content to stay in the norm and don’t want to seem as if they are colouring outside the lines. So, I wanted to do some work that’d ruffle feathers hence I picked such iconic brands.”

Asked whether he has approached the companies with his ideas, Gakaka said he has not as he understands how expensive it is to rebrand.

“I haven’t approached these companies and the reason is that I work in that space and know what it takes to do a rebrand. It’ll cost a lot of money, millions of dollars and I don’t think our economy and our companies are able to adopt those strategies.

“My intention was not for them to adopt those strategies but to spark conversations about our Zimbabwean brands and showcase our skills,” said Gakaka who is married to Thelma.