For your inspiration we found this awesome ad campaign done by DDB, Maputo, Mozambique. The ad campaign was created for the Mozambique Fashion Week in 2009.

Found via Creative Roots

An animation for Vital Voices, an organisation working globally for women’s independence. This film tells the childhood story of Kakenya Ntaiya, a Masai woman who negotiated herself out of an arranged marriage and convinced her village to collect money for her to study in the USA. She has since returned to the village and built a girls’ school there. Directed by Aaron Kisner and Pistachios. Music by Dan Radlauer. Produced by Blacklist.

The piece chronicles the real-life and inspiring story of Kakenya Ntaiya: a young girl who —throughout her childhood— escaped dogmatic African traditions toward women by pursuing a higher education and fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher.The style does not deviate too far the signature Pistachios aesthetic. The look is abstract, graphic, and sparse, which recalls the emblematic patterns and geometric taste of African design that has become globally acknowledged.

- Motiongrapher

The Kinetic is a full service production house specializing in Animation, visual effects and high-end print design. This is one of their latest animation piece that experiments with motion graphics quite effectively. Included also is a little behind the scenes look at how they executed these dynamic graphics. Enjoy.

found via 10and5

Kronk is a prolific South African illustrator, designer and digital artist. His latest project is a NIKE campaign headed by South African agency Trigger.

The essence of the campaign is to Bleed Your Colours – we see the country literally bleeding its colours together with a chaotic mascot running through the streets. Ninja style. NIKE teamed up with KRONK for this collaboration, with Kronk doing his typically awesome character style. This video featured above is the final set in the campaign. While it wasn’t done by Kronk (we think…), it does feature all the creative elements that Kronk did for the Nike campaign.

Found via Slybeaver

In case you can’t get enough we have another awesome African animation. This time we are pleased to feature the brand new music video of South African Hip-Hop group Godessa. The premise of the video is “created against a Cape Town backdrop with a powderpuff girls in Africa theme.”

The music video was animated by the Martist a full service animation and design studio based in South Africa.

We are pleased to introduce you to Manu Kongolo, Zambian Illustrator who specializes in vector and character illustrations. We asked Manu to tell us a little about himself and this is what he had to say…

It all begun with me watching and being obsessed with the ninja turtles back in the 90’s. From there I just wanted to draw. Honestly speaking I never thought I could improve looking back at those back pages of my school books. Everything learned is self taught and I have no formal training in art. About eight years ago my mentor introduced me to GIMP an open source image editing software that was the transition into digital colouring. I work with 3H pencils, bond paper, flat bed scanner and photoshop. For now I’m currently working on characters I created for an animation feature. My dream is to design characters for a feature film for Lucas Arts, DreamWorks and Pixar.

Sembene! is an animated documentary about the life of Senegalese filmmaker and author Ousmane Sembène, directed by Jason Silverman

This innovative documentary combines original and archival footage with animation to tell the story of the great Senegalese filmmaker/novelist Ousmane Sembène, who used storytelling as a means of political resistance and cultural renaissance. By dedicating his life to creating meaningful, fully African works, Sembene created a potent counter-narrative to the alienating stories presented by outsiders from Europe and the U.S.

If you are not famaliar with Ousmane Sembène, he may be one of the greatest African filmmaker and artist of all time. The ‘Father of African Film’ begun his career in the 1960′s where the film industry was entirely dominated by American and European films. Until his death in 2007, Sembène created beautiful African films that defied Western ideology and principles of storytelling using African languages, actors and stories. Sembène remains a prolific storyteller transforming how the world sees Africa.

The feature documentary SEMBENE! reveals the mechanics of the modern, corporate- or government-controlled media, the radical possibilities of storytelling. Most of all, SEMBENE! celebrates an artist who, better than any, embodies the need to reclaim our stories from outsiders. Through Sembène’s life and work, the film will explore the global political-social forces that have shaped the past century, using an innovative blend of animation, original footage, scenes from his films and never-before-seen archival photographs and film in a way that will inspire young African, African-American and African-European youth who still absorb stories from a media system that doesn’t represent them.

We are pleased to feature this animation shorts and games designed for the Design Indaba Event that was held this year in February 24-26. Design Indaba is probably the biggest design event held in the continent with international artists, designers, and creators coming each year to South Africa to showcase their talents.
If you vist the ABSA Design Fights website you have a chance to pick your fight against, VInnie “The Client” Jones,  Rusty “Technology”,  Tiny “The Budget” Kat, Danny “Deadline”, and Self Doubt. This game is every designer’s dream to take out their frustrations. We recommend to take a break and play whenever you get frustrated.  Make sure to check it out.

Found via - Between 10and5

A few months ago we featured African children animated series Tinga Tinga Tales. Scheduled to go on air in February in the UK, Tinga Tales is one of the most ambitious animation projects that has taken place in East Africa. Showcasing the talent of local artist, Tinga Tinga Tales promises to be an inspiring African made animation series that will bring more attention to the African animation industry. We have for you screenshots and video of the spanking new animation. We absolutely love it! Bright colors and patterns, beautiful characters and overall just awesome! Enjoy!!!

We are pleased to feature this talented illustration studio from Egypt, Aiman Studio. Named after the Egyptian artist, Aiman, the studio produces 3D animations and illustrations of life-like and colorful characters. Aiman Studios provides Arabic and Middle Eastern content for cartoon animation shows, commercials and tv shows. The illustrations done by Aiman are certainly inspiring for anyone who is interested in character design. Make sure to check out the portfolio on deviant and join us on our African Animators group.