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Check out Fak’ugesi's Black Panther-inspired poster

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This year’s illustration winner Sonwabo Valashiya‘s design took its influence from the popular Marvel Afrofuturist release, Black Panther. Artwork: Sonwabo Valashiya
This year’s illustration winner Sonwabo Valashiya‘s design took its influence from the popular Marvel Afrofuturist release, Black Panther. Artwork: Sonwabo Valashiya

The annual Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is all about collaboration, conversation and projects – for Africans by Africans. It’s aimed at encouraging people to embrace their innovative thoughts and creativity and to gear them towards the digital era. This year’s theme – Afro Source Code – prompted creatives to “tap [their] Afro source code” for inventive Afrofuturist, tech and African aesthetic-inspired illustration concepts for Fak’ugesi’s 2018 poster.

This year’s winner Sonwabo Valashiya’s design was influenced by the Marvel Afrofuturist release Black Panther. Connecting the vision of the film with that of the festival, Valashiya says both act to spotlight Africa as an innovation hub and thought leader.

The “Wakanda forever!” salute from the film was the driving force for the visual actualisation of Valashiya’s design.
He told Bubblegumclub: “This poster also speaks about how Africa is rich in all these ‘sources’ of wealth and how the world feeds off these resources. This notion is also found in Black Panther as they use vibranium as a source to create their weapons and all their innovations but they have to fight to keep their Afro Source Code – [the vibranium] a secret from the world.”

Growing up in Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape, Valashiya is a graphic designer with a passion for illustration. Influenced by his cultural heritage and identity, his work is a “celebration of African aesthetics, Afrofuturism and the diversity of the continent’s cultures”.

Runner-up Shayne Capazorio’s design took its inspiration from science fiction, comic books and intricate African patterns – “combining elements from the past and remixing them to move forward into the digital future”.

Capazorio is a graphic designer and says the city of Joburg and its inhabitants are his muse. “I’m inspired by South African pop culture and I like to incorporate Jozi’s eclectic flavours in my work – bold, colourful, loud, dangerous and strange.”

With his belief that Africa is the future, Capazorio says he’s recently been captivated by Afrofuturism and it has inspired him to create his own series of robotic characters.

The other runner-up Lwazi Gwijane considers himself a creative designer and completed his studies at Vega in Durban. He looked to the past of the continent to shape an illustrative design of a technological future.

“I looked at ancient Kemet, which was ruled by Africans and is called Egypt. I placed myself in current day South Africa to tap into my Afro source, which allowed me to imagine a creative Afrofuture.”

Clean, minimalist, eye-catching digital illustrations were created by all three, bringing African innovation and African aesthetics to the fore.

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