#gathwalker

The argument about (graphic) design and culture incorporating South African elements into our design style has been dealt with in so many ways and talks around it are very interesting. I was reading a paper by Moeketsi Lebakeng, were he is writing about fusing our South African cultures with graphic design elements. The paper got me inspired with regards to the variety of cultures we have in the country.

In his paper He is referencing people like Gath Walker a well known south African designer, who has had an influence the graphic design scene of South Africa and started a couple of design Magazines like I-Jusi. What inspired me the most is that it got me thinking about creating my own design based on the findings from my culture which is SiSwati. The Swati people use graphic elements in their dresses, line, shape, texture and color that embraces graphic design for me, and my culture. Based on what Moeketsi wrote about in the paper I can establish that it is an interesting fact to incorporate our cultures as designers but the point in terms of advertising, it would be tricky. I mean South Africa with so many cultures and language doing an ad targeting one group of a culture or sub-cultures that we have in S.A. One it would only narrow the advert to one target audience or a group of people, which limits the brand from getting a wider target audience.

And a lot of designers in South African use cultural elements, like Sindiso Nyoni, using African patterns with a mixture of western patterns aswell. On the illustration below.

  Test illustration of SA recording artist Toya Da Lazy

Also the KFC ad uses South African slang, their copyright says, “Sithi Salute klever” lloosely, ‘sithi’ means saying, and Kleva means a smart person according to KFC street smart person. In all the ad has been a success in fusing our identity as south Africans in advertising and graphic design, but what is still missing is the visual identity elements found in cultures, that’s one part a sub-culture with street slang used in the KFC ad.

In all it is an ongoing thing, and people are coming with new ways of doing it example would be The Calabash stadium that was created for the 2010, FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Reference:

http://www.kfc.co.za/streetwise/