Greetings all.
As I mentioned in a previous posting our Faces of Africa Springleap.com theme competition is now underway and is set to summon up some really awesome local design power.
However I was reading through the description on the Springleap.com site as well as mine and thought that I may just be a tad more specific in regards to what constitutes African design content.
Obviously when you read the Springleap.com Faces of Africa page you get the impression that all of the examples provided are indeed South African…which it seems they are.
The problem for me here is that this is not Faces of South Africa, its Africa as a whole.
Even when I wrote my original blog I focussed on South African heroes and spoke of the struggle….yep, those themes are very SA, but not African. I’m hoping that designers will look beyond the typical Apartheid struggle icons and instead look beyond the borders of Southern Africa to find inspiration.
Just a few ideas off the top of my head:
Think of the Somalian pirates causing no end to mayhem on the East Coast of Africa. These pirates represent what is wrong with Africa and situations that need to be handled in the near future in order to make Africa a better place. Of course tragedy is no by means isolated to the East of Africa, think about the horrors that are happening right now just over the border in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has a seriously iconic face…albeit from an infamous standpoint.
What I’m getting at is that I feel that Faces of Africa should not only be about the people that we hold dear, but also the people that shape this continent to this very day. These people may not be the nicest people on the block, but that just means you get to perhaps draw a satirical image telling the world exactly what you think of them.
What I’m worried about is that every designer that enters will think of boring iconic ideas. African design content should not just be about Mandela and some Mama Africa chic with an afro….please, it’s been done to death, summoned from the grave and then killed with a stake through the heart.
What is uniquely African to you? What “faces” inspire the most awe, fear or humour?
Maybe it’s the insane taxi drivers that you think of in SA, or maybe the lady with the big smile who sells mielies’ at the bottom of your road.
I’m really hoping that designers will take their ideas for African design content to a whole new level and surpass the overplayed hand of iconic African designs that have been done in the past.
Duncs.
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