Young Lions Central Asia 2025 Design

KAZAKHSTAN, UZBEKISTAN 2025

Young Lions DESIGN Competition - All Works

Design Jury 2025

Brazil, Spain, Germany, Russia

Ciro Ribeiro Rocha

Founder & CEO
Enredo Brand Innovation
Brazil

Ciro Rocha is the Founder and CEO of Enredo Brand Innovation, an award-winning consultancy working with clients from different sectors such as AB Inbev, Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co., Lar Cooperativa, Record TV, Eurochem and more.

He is a Branding Specialist, Business Administrator (Universidade Federal de Goiás) with Strategic Marketing extension (HEC Liège, Belgium), MBA in Marketing (FGV), and Service Designer with a strong Design Thinking/Design Sprint background.

Outside of his main job, Ciro Rocha is a mentor, MBA Professor for Branding, Marketing and Innovation, Regional director of Brazilian Association of Design Companies (ABEDESIGN) for Goiás, President of Customer Service Excellence Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM), Director of MGC (Movimento Goiás Competitivo) and member of the Consultive Council at ACIEG - Associação Comercial e Industrial de Goiás.

Ciro is a winner of the iF Design Award, FeP i and Lusófono awards. He has been a jury member of many creativity and design festivals such as El Ojo de Iberoamerica (Argentina), FePI (Argentina), Lusófonos (Portugal), Lisbon Awards (Portugal) and Prêmio ABRE de Embalagem Brasileira.
Covadonga Díaz

Executive Creative Director
Dentsu Creative
Spain

Cova is an Executive Creative Director from Spain, where she has been working for the last 15 years. She started her career at Leo Burnett and, since then, she’s been part of different agencies such as Shackleton, China, and Young & Rubicam, where she’d developed works for brands such as P&G, Kellogg’s, and NBC Universal International Network.
Cova currently holds the position of Executive Creative Director at Dentsu Creative Spain, working for Orange Telecom and CaixaBank amongst other brands.
Her work has been awarded in different festivals such as Cannes Lions, Festival Iberoamericano El Sol, El Ojo de Iberoamérica and Club de Creativos. Recently, she has also been a jury member at The One Show in the Direct category.
She is also a member of Más Mujeres Creativas, a non-profit organization in Spain dedicated to promoting female visibility in advertising.
Eike König

A citizen, a lover, a father, a professor, a graphic designer, an artist, founder of HORT and a funny humble guy
Berlin, Germany

In Germany any design hipster will nod (or not) enthusiastically at the very name, like a nodding dog brought to life on the back shelf of a car. The sorts of creatives enamored of grids and dismissive of pleasure, however, will shake their heads the other way and refer, anxiously wide- eyed, to the danger that comes from König-style anti-aestheticization. And that’s not all: For all the modern performers who see creativity as a good assistance system for planned business success in the branding coordinates system of international communication, he remains an unfathomable puzzle.
Eike produces not answers, but rather discourse. Partly with autobiographical justification, in his creative structures he triggers a ubiquitous media cacophony, which pelts us daily with content-bearing messages, almost like being pelted with bags of cement at the Holi festival in Rajasthan, India. He thus becomes the couturier of a visual decompression suit that banishes into weightlessness our self-made performance pressure stemming from competition and repression for the moment of observation. At first glance, König’s route seems so simple here: Serial repetition, little color, bold type, short statements and omnipotent branding are all thrown into the mixer and then, with no great shock absorption, chased across the cobblestones of modern, economically-shaped data highways. For moments here, he becomes the deconstructivist chronicler of a world in which brands, through the DASD plate tectonics of countless DNA servers, crumble into ever smaller particles. The grid-free swarm intelligence that thus comes to light issues a refusal of classic readability. But Eike wouldn’t merit his kingly surname if he did not touch upon the anti-aesthetic tabernacle with quite so much virtuosity or have invented his very own visual chaos theory. His eternally creative light transforms design elements into free radicals, which develop a hugely associative delight in reaction among observers at every interface of contact.
He lives and works in Berlin Germany.
Vladimir Lifanov

Designer, Creative Director and Founder
Suprematika agency
Russia

20 years in the profession, co-owner of the second most creative branding agency in Russia, author of several hundred graphic design projects, winner of hundreds of awards in the field of creativity, including Cannes Lions, One Show, D&AD, Eurobest, European Design Awards, ADCE Awards, Epica Awards, Red Dot, Golden Drum, Red Apple, KMRF, ADCR, Popok, Golden Hammer, Logolounge trends, White Square, Idea, Runet rating and many others.

DESIGN BRIEF

CLIENT

TAF! (Tashkent Advertising Festival) is the main festival of advertising and creative industries in Uzbekistan, organized by the Marketing Association of Uzbekistan. This is one of the six major events of the Association. In 2025, the festival will be held for the 7th time and for the first time will reach the international level and become an international advertising festival. All previous 6 times the festival was local (award for Uzbek participants, but with the participation of international speakers and a jury).

The festival will begin on October 11 and will last 2 days. The program includes:

A competition part, where the best advertising and communication cases of the past year are awarded.
A forum where leading foreign and domestic experts share their experiences and cases.
Brand activities for consumers: competitions, sweepstakes, presentations of new products.
Screening the best examples of world advertising.

PROBLEM

The festival identity was created during the first TAF! and has not evolved. It no longer corresponds to the new stage of the festival’s development:
It does not reflect the international status: TAF! has grown from a local event into an international festival, requiring a visual language understandable to a wider audience outside of Uzbekistan.

It does not convey local identity and new meanings: the festival is not just a meeting place for advertising specialists, but a cultural code of Tashkent, reflecting its desire to become a key point of creative industries in the region.

The central element of the old identity was the name TAF! with an exclamation mark emphasizing the rigidity of the abbreviation. This approach no longer corresponds to the modern positioning, which requires a more flexible, inspiring and scalable visual solution.
The old identity was formed organically, but did not have a clear strategic update. Now it is important to create a system that can evolve in the future, rather than become obsolete. The new visual style should combine dynamism, modernity and the cultural identity of the region.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Fans and regular participants are the key audience whose involvement is important to strengthen. Involvement segments:

Veterans – have been participating since the first years, have already won awards.
Activists – come, but have not yet participated in the competition.
New, but interested – considering the festival for the first time.

2. New participants – those who have never been to Tashkent, but are interested in the festival. They need to be attracted by the uniqueness and hospitality of TAF!. Segments of new participants:

Curious – hear about the festival for the first time and are not yet considering active participation.
Explorers – are interested in the event, are studying the program, but have not yet decided to go.
Potential participants – are seriously considering participating in the competition or visiting the festival.
Future ambassadors – came for the first time, but are already involved and are ready to recommend the festival in their country.

STRATEGY

Initially, we focused on Uzbekistan.

Now the festival has become international, and our target geography has expanded to Central Asia, Russia, the CIS, Eastern European countries, the Caucasus and the Balkan region.

The main focus now is on the CIS countries and Russia.

The next stage is expansion to Asia and Europe to attract even more creative communities and professionals.

Here it is important for us to stand out among similar festivals in the region:

Red Jolbors (held in Bishkek, Almaty, this year - in Tashkent).
Baku Flames (Baku).
AdBlackSea (Batumi).
Red Apple (Moscow).
White Square (Minsk).

KEY MESSAGE

TAF! is a place where creativity meets Uzbek hospitality.

What does it mean:

TAF! is an international festival that grew out of a local event, maintaining its connection with the cultural and creative heritage of Tashkent and demonstrating the hospitality of the city through a unique experience for participants.
International scale: the festival has ceased to be only an Uzbek event and now brings together participants from different countries.
Local identity: despite its global focus, TAF! remains closely connected to Tashkent, its culture and spirit.
Hospitality: an important feature not only of the city, but also of the festival, which creates a friendly and open atmosphere for all participants.
Participation experience: TAF! is not just a platform for competitions and a forum, but a rich creative experience that inspires, unites and reveals the potential of the industry.

PERSONALITY

Young, ambitious, educated.
Hospitable, open, but not intrusive.
Bright - original, does not imitate, remains himself.
Positive, sincere, modest, but confident.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

Tashkent Advertising Festival TAF! is the main event of the creative industry of Uzbekistan, uniting marketers, advertisers and brands. Here, participants find inspiration, new partners and the best ideas.
The festival attracts leading brands, agencies and experts. Every year, the conference is attended by international speakers, sharing practical cases, and participants get acquainted with the best world advertising and get the opportunity to win awards.

The festival has already been heard in the countries of Central Asia.

In 2024, 22 speakers from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan spoke at the festival. 235 cases from 120 brands and agencies participated in the TAF! 24 competition. The international jury included 15 experts, and the local jury - 50 industry representatives. The festival was supported by 200 partners and 100 experts of the Marketing Association of Uzbekistan.
The festival is not only a professional platform, but also an atmosphere of a real holiday.

The new festival will hold an award. Competition program:

Number of applications: 300-320.
2 blocks: Efficiency and Creativity.
8 groups of nominations in creativity
35 nominations in total.

DOs AND DON'Ts

DO:

Rethink local culture through modern design.
Form a connection with the festival concept and its unique atmosphere.
Create an identity that will inspire, attract the international community and at the same time preserve the local flavor. Don't be afraid to experiment and go beyond standard solutions - it is important to create a modern, unique visual style that can surprise and be remembered.

DON'T:

Make a direct transfer of local patterns and elements - it is important to avoid cliches and banal ethnic motifs.
Turn the identity into a folklore template.

WORKS

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