Starting in the 1990s in South Africa, according to Sauthoff, designers in general and graphic designers in particular have sought to create an inimitable design style that is imbued with a recognisable (South) Afrikan cultural identity. This is in reaction to the entrenched hegemonic influence of Euro-American design practices. Names like Saki Mafundikwa, Karabo Poppy, Garth Walker, and Sindiso Nyoni are on the influential list of designers bracketing a so-called African design aesthetic. How is this ‘aesthetic’ related to design that is culturally significant, according to Twigger Holroyd, and that lends authenticity to an artefact, positioning it as representative of Afrikanness?

This paper considers whether the notions of Afrikanness in design can be included in the learning and teaching processes of graphic design. The intention is not to suggest that there is a formulaic approach to designing that results in an Afrikan ‘feel’. Rather, that the methodology employs Afronowism as an attitude to design that considers several ways of knowing Afrikanness, and consequently, embedding that in ways of doing. This is achieved by seeking to identify the ‘essence’ of cultural identity that embodies an Afrikan sensibility and acknowledges cultural diversity.

The methodology includes a multivalent approach that uses Rose’s “Visual Methodologies”, Hall’s “negotiated reading”, and Pauwel’s arguments for visual analysis and selective sampling that recognise the importance of the author/designer’s subjectivity in understanding the sample and analysing it. The findings allow for the development of criteria, which can then be used as a teaching strategy for a design brief and engage in a design process that is culturally sensitive, ethically aware, and humanistic. Together with visual and cultural studies, this approach to designing artefacts and visual communication creates a space of criticality and questioning for students that centres on recognition of the diverse aspects of visual culture underpinning Afrikanness. Although, in this paper, graphic design and visual communication are posited as the vehicles of learning, the methodology was conceived with broader design disciplines in mind and so serves all streams as a method.