Behance is hosting their 2012 portfolio review in various cities and Cape Town’s hand picked choice by Behance to be hosts were the lovely designers and peeps at Am I Collective. Lined up to present their work at the swanky Tjing Tjing Bar on Longmarket street in down-town Cape Town, were Gerhard Human (Illustrator), Nanna aka Marija Anja Venter ( Comic Artist, Graphic Designer & Illustrator), Rikus Ferreira (Designer, Illustrator and Drawer), Merwe Marchand Le Roux (Illustrator at Am I Collective), Xanele Puren (whom we’ve featured before – Owner, Painter and Illustrator at See-Saw-Do), and Bruce Mackay (whom we’ve also featured previously – Illustrator & Graphic Designer).

An incredible bunch of talented artists & designers and all, illustrators in different disciplines, doing incredible work. For those of us who missed it, here are some photos from the night (May 15th) by Am I Collective & some of the artists work from their portfolios.

Thumbs up to Behance whose mission is to empower Creative Professionals around the world and encourage their online community to take part and receive feedback from peers in their own local Communities. A hat tip as well to Am I Collective whom we love and admire for getting this event together.

Next Behance cities to showcase their work are Nairobi, Kenya (Friday 18th May) and Johannesburg, South Africa (Saturday 19th May) and a few more.

Cape Town Presenters:

Gerhard Human

Nanna aka Marija Anja Venter

Rikus Ferreira

Merwe Marchand Le Roux

Xanele Puren

Bruce Mackay

Audience at the event

Ned Wenlock a designer and animator in New Zealand creates a charming spot for DDB South Africa and Honda. Animated to The PeteBox’s music from mouthed mulitracked & layered beat-boxing,  it’s easy to drum and whistle to and fits well with Wenlock whose skilled in creating great animation alongside music. Put together in a carousel stye with movement looped similar to the work he’s previously done for Apache, and all done in aftereffects with design from illustrator and photoshop. This spot put’s a smile on your face.

The PETEBOX

Via Motionographer

Every week African Digital Art showcases digital projects made by African artists or projects influenced by Africa. It is exciting to see African projects that displays and encourages creativity. Inspiration is a key component in the design process so we searched the web for the best projects from a variety of genres. We are here to promote your work so don’t forget to send us your recommendations. We recently introduced our online community The District, Africa’s creative online space. If you are interested in submitting your work please join the African Weekly InspirationGroup and submit projects from around the world that highlight Africa’s creativity, diversity and innovation. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr so post your projects and we’d be happy to share.

MODÈLE JONATHAAN

Steeve Aukingso

Sentient Rebellion

Graham Tshabalala

Liqueur de Warang

Courtney Remm

Polar panorama with Dr. Amr Galal

Ahmed Belal

Joy of Africa

Marcello Tomasi

Motherhood and the Surreal Beauty of Africa

J.T. Noriega

Ethiopia

Eric Lafforgue

Penepole

DISMISS80

White African

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Eben

Jean Phillipe Kalonji

Stan Engelbrecht (left) & Nic Grobler (right) have published the best 162 portraits and stories of the over 500 portraits of cyclists they’ve photographed during their 2 year journey around South Africa. Divided over 3 books, each contains a different 54 stories, and also two essays each by local South African and major international cycling figures. The books are designed by Gabrielle Guy and they have also collaborated with celebrated South African artist Gabrielle Raaff to create an individual hand-painted watercolor map, based on Google Maps, to indicate the location of each of the portraits.

As I await my copies in the mail, it’s an amazing feat to see this project together in a book series. Nic a motion designer and Stan Photographer have done more than collect stories and journal the cyclist revolution in South Africa. They continue to herald a community of conscious cyclists and share this trill and joy among all ages, keeping the bike culture classy. The Bicycle Project was on display at Design Indaba Expo earlier this year in March. They have also held an exhibit for their photography and continue to hold small bike activities and gatherings in Cape Town. Make sure you order your copy here.

When they started the project, Bicycle Portraits aimed to be a study of South African commuter culture, and they wanted to find out who rides bicycles, why they ride bicycles, if and why they love their bicycles, and of course why so few South Africans choose bicycles as a transport option. But Bicycle Portraits has turned into a portrait of a nation through the bicycles that they own and ride every day – revealing all manner of social, class, historical and cultural nuances never imagined.

Here are lovely samples of Gabrielle Raaff’s hand painted watercolour maps. She picks the colours from the photographs and it matches it quite successfully.

Ian Willow

Stanley rd, Millpark, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Momade Yassin Ambasse

Avenida Kwame Nkrumah, Maputo, Mozambique

Peter John Heneke

N2 outside Heidelberg, South Africa

Alfred Motloung Maibi

R57, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa

We ask you to join us and in participate in this global event.

Real World Images – Taken By Real People, In Real-time

On Tuesday May 15^th 2012, the Aday.org (www.aday.org) initiative will invite the entire world to participate in the largest and most comprehensive photographic documentation of a single day in human history. Whether an amateur with a mobile phone camera or a professional photographer, Aday.org asks anyone – and everyone – in possession of one of the world’s estimated one billion digital cameras to document their experiences of the day: uploading their images in order to create a visual archive of our lives today.

The images will form the biggest searchable online picture archive of its type, and the most striking photos will be used in a simultaneously-staged global exhibition in October 2012, and feature in a book entitled ‘A Day In The World’ (to be published in November 2012). For the purposes of maintaining this image archive for future generations, hard drives containing all of images from May 15^th 2012 will be stored within a secure underground location (details to be announced in April). The principal sponsor of Aday.org is Ericsson, the world’s largest mobile telecommunications equipment vendor.

“Take this unique opportunity with me, and thousands of others around the world, to create a priceless collection of images, to boost understanding and enhance research and education.” – Global Advisory Board member,  Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“This great project is about real people taking pictures of real life in real-time. Please get your camera and share your life on May 15.” - Global Advisory Board member, Sir Richard Branson

Joining the Archbishop in documenting their days are astronaut Andre Kuipers, currently stationed at the International Space Station 300km above the Earth’s surface, as well as Grammy-nominated singer, Robyn,former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Jan Eliasson – but so too are less immediately recognisable, but equally important individuals that have already signed-up to participate, including teenagers in Greenland, Japanese adults displaced by the Fukushima disaster, Moscow-based arts students, and psychoanalysts in Buenos Aires. Each person’s contribution will be of relevance to help document a day in all of our lives.

How To Get Involved

In advance of May 15^th all interested participants should register (for free) at www.aday.org to receive updates on the project and to access details on how to make the most of the day when the world photographs itself.

Participants will be asked to upload their images at www.aday.org (following the easy-to-use instructions) and are requested to link each submitted image to major themes such as ‘Home’ and ‘Work’. Within users’ profile spaces, participants will be able to sort work into distinct sub-sections named “my wall”, “my tools”, “my room”, “my energy”, “my transport”, “my people”, “my technology”: allowing users to search and share pictures along specific themes. Any upload of a photograph will be accompanied by unique data on who took the picture and where, what camera was used, and why the subject or topic was chosen. This categorisation will assist in the display of all of the images submitted, helping make the pictures searchable and comparable.

Participants will retain the copyright to their images, and pictures submitted will be used for future research, and never for commercial purposes. A book ‘A Day in the World’ – containing the best images – will be published in several language editions in November 2012. The project is open to anyone with a passion for photography. Each person can upload up to 10 images. All images must be uploaded within 5 days of May 15^th.

The ADay.org website – containing full instructions – is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic.

This mornings Google doodle got me thinking about more doodles on Africa. There aren’t too many out there – but here are the selected favorites :

Howard Carter

110th Anniversary of the Uganda Railway’s Completion

Ibn Battuta’s 708th Birthday

South Africa Freedom Day 2011

Morocco Independence Day 2011

East Africa Common Market

Ghana Independence Day 2012

Egyptian Elections 2011

Tunisia National Day 2012

Celebrating the Wildebeast Migration by Samuel Githui

Kenya Independence Day

Senegal Independence Day 2012

Senegal Independence Day 2011

World Cup 2010 Final

HKLM commissioned The Kinetic to produce a video for the launch of South Africa’s new independant energy provider’s brand reveal function. The aim being to showcase the brand’s vibrancy and to leave attendees with a deeper understanding and lasting excitement for Cennergi.

Every week African Digital Art showcases digital projects made by African artists or projects influenced by Africa. It is exciting to see African projects that displays and encourages creativity. Inspiration is a key component in the design process so we searched the web for the best projects from a variety of genres. We are here to promote your work so don’t forget to send us your recommendations. We recently introduced our online community The District, Africa’s creative online space. If you are interested in submitting your work please join the African Weekly InspirationGroup and submit projects from around the world that highlight Africa’s creativity, diversity and innovation. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr so post your projects and we’d be happy to share.

1,2,3, Jump

April Maciborka

The Pendoring Awards 2012

Clement de Bruin

Bovine Series

Aldo Pulella

Think Handfont
Merwe Marchland le Roux

Awras

Belhiouani Hadjer

Space Walk

Yinka Shonibare

Tamanrasset

Sahour Khaled

Art Direction

Clement Mwangi

Creatures Under Your Bed

Luthando Mfabe

Nigerian based photographer and conceptual artist; Ade Adekola creates a visual story of Lagos and it characters (ICONs) in a collection of montages of street characters found in the mega-city of Lagos Nigeria.

He has identified twenty “icons”. He could have selected places, wares or objects, but he has focused, almost exclusively, on street people.

As he says: “Icons of a Metropolis” offers a non-judgmental look at 20 character archetypes – they are the ICONS. They are a creative force, a self-organizing and self-referential manifestation of the zenith of urban survival.

The Cart Pusher

The Challenger

The Praise Crier

The Okada

The Opportunist

The Sand Dredger

In case you missed it!

“Kichwateli” (Swahili for TV-head) is a short film by self-taught animation / film director Bobb Muchiri set in a post-apocalyptic African slum and city. This afro-sci film takes the viewer on a spiritual and metaphorical voyage through a young boy’s dream mixing new imagery of a young boy wondering inquisitively with a live TV as his head to show the effects of media on a young generation.

Featuring music by Just A Band (Africa’s super-nerdy electronic band), Modeselektor (Berlin’s breakbeat duo) and Maasai Mbili (Nairobi-based Art group) this music-metary is a metaphor for the way we are now all plugged into the same images of global anxiety while at the same time being ourselves subjects of scrutiny of the all-seeing ubiquitous cameras.

Introducing fresh talent: Carlton Namai
Produced by Studio Ang

“Kichwateli” is Studio Ang’s contribution to the BLNRB project, a cooperation of Kenyan and German artists initiated by Goethe-Institut Nairobi and Gebrüder Teichmann.