Saki Mafundikwa
If you are discussing typography in Africa then you will come across Saki Mafundikwa. Saki Mafundikwa is a Zimbabwean graphic artist that has influenced typography and graphic design all around the world. Educated with a Masters of Fine Art at Yale and a BA in Telecommunications and Fine Arts at Indiana University, he left the United States to return to Zimbabwe to found the first school of graphic design and new media. Saki Mafundikwa's Beginnings Saki Mafundikwa's inspiring story and legacy of worked was featured on AIGA . Source: AIGA, Camille Lowry Saki Mafundikwa is a maverick visionary who left a successful design career in New York to return to his native Zimbabwe and open that country’s first school of graphic design and new media. Mafundikwa is the author of Afrikan Alphabets, a comprehensive review of African writing systems. He has participated in exhibitions and workshops around the world, contributed to a variety of publications and lectured about the globalization of design and the African aesthetic. In going home and opening his school, Mafundikwa’s ambition is nothing less than to jump-start an African renaissance. Mafundikwa was moved to draw from an early age. Using a stick, he illustrated on every surface he could find—on the ground, in the sand, even tattooing his thighs and arms. He loved drawing letters in particular. Though he had not yet heard of printing and thought typeset words were done by hand, his aim as a child was to make letterforms as good as those he saw in books. On becoming a designer: My family always knew me as an artist, so to them it’s always been like, “God gave him the gift. We do not understand completely what he does, but he’s done well for himself.” His father, a schoolteacher, recognized Mafundikwa’s constant scribbling as a talent to be nurtured. He enlisted his son to design classroom instruction materials, and soon other teachers were making use of Mafundikwa’s artistic gifts, too. READ MORE