Learn, un-learn and re-learn
Background:
Design Corps is a course at Pratt Institute that partners with socially or environmentally conscious organizations to provide pro bono design work, while at the same exposing Communications Design students to industry experience. In 2021, Design Corps partnered with Inkululeko, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide South African township youth with the skills, support and guidance necessary to apply, attend and succeed in university. Students were tasked with researching and developing concepts for an identity and collateral for Inkululeko’s Kunye program, a new travel initiative that offers the opportunity to engage with, teach and learn from Inkululeko students through purposeful volunteering. After a series of presentations and meetings with the client and stakeholders, my design direction was selected by the client. I was tasked with the production of multiple deliverables including; logo, brochure, social media content, website and a presentation deck.
Concept:
Kunye, a Xhosa word meaning “together”, captures the spirit of the travel initiative that aspires to bring people together through education. Both Americans and South African participants have something of value to contribute in the promotion, co-creation and co-existence within the program. In creating the identity for Kunye, I researched different modern and traditional South African aesthetics and visual culture. My inspiration for the logo design came from South Africa’s expressive and vernacular hand painted signage. In addition I took inspiration from the layouts of South African record cover art and the colorful geometric patterns of shweshwe fabric used for traditional Southern African clothing.
Working with existing typefaces, color palettes and photos an image treatment was developed to adjust for inconsistencies in the photo’s image quality, lighting and background to create consistency of the overall branding.
