PROJECT BRIEF:
The design of a typographic piece of work, exploring one of the various topics including: anniversaries, writing women into history and food for thought.
The design of a typographic piece of work, exploring one of the various topics including: anniversaries, writing women into history and food for thought.
DESIGN STRATEGY:
Amakipkip focuses on the topic ‘Mark My Words’, which aims to explore the origins of language.
Amakipkip focuses on the topic ‘Mark My Words’, which aims to explore the origins of language.
South Africa, the rainbow nation, a melting pot of people and cultures. As a result of the evident cultural hybridity, a vernacular English language has developed. With bits borrowed from here and there, our English has developed into the slightly strange but wonderfully appropriate language of our day-to-day lives. This fabric book demonstrates words used in everyday South African English that are borrowed from different cultures and now form part of our South African identity.
Shweshwe fabric was originally a gift from the French to the Sotho people of South Africa. Similar to the words in this book, the immense popularity of the fabric has, over the years, caused it to become a part of a South African identity. It therefore made sense to use popular Shweshwe fabrics as a medium, in the form of a material book, to display the various eclectic South African words that share a similar story of origins.
Amakipkip, the everyday South African snack. This multicoloured, sweetened popcorn is the perfect representation of our country; so many different shapes & colours and so much flavour!
Every element in the decorative fabric is comprised of the letters that make up the word, so make sure to get a close look. These vibrant, busy prints are juxtaposed with clean sheets of structured typography that explain the origins of the word, the pronunciation, and the attributes of the typeface chosen for that particular word.
