Tag: “online lecture”

From an idea to founding Africa’s first graphic design and new media college, graphic designer Saki Mafundikwa will spoke on his 20 year adventure on running Zimbabwe Institute of Digital Arts without funding. This online Letterform Lecture was recorded on Zoom on April 28, 2020 and is now available for viewing.

Please visit the Letterform Archive site to view.

About Saki Mafundikwa

Saki is the founder and director of the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts (ZIVA) a design and new media training college in Harare. He has an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University. He returned home in 1998 to found ZIVA after working in New York City as a graphic designer, art director and design educator. His book, Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Afrika was published in 2004. Besides being of historical importance, it is also the first book on Afrikan typography. It is currently out of print. His award-winning first film, Shungu: The Resilience of a People had its world premiere at 2009’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Active on the international lecture circuit, he was a speaker at TED2013 in Long Beach, California. He has keynoted the first ever Pan African Design Institute (PADI) conference in Ghana in February, 2019. He has also run workshops for design students in Europe, North, South and Central America, and Afrika. He has been published widely on design and cultural issues and is currently working on a revised edition of Afrikan Alphabets which he hopes will be published in 2021. He lives and farms in Harare, Zimbabwe.

While the physical libraries are closed,

Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Afrika is available in digital format to UC faculty and students through the HathiTrust’s Emergency Temporary Access Service. Read more.