Illustration, copy, and print and web design for Mandela 100

Tight timescale turnaround of identity, PR, and website work for a program of events celebrating what would have been Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday. The African Women’s Forum in Portsmouth got in touch at the outset of spring ‘18, just a few weeks before their Mandela 100 celebrations began. A couple of days later, I’d created an emblem for the commemorative program, designed print and digital artwork for each event, published a Mandela 100 website, and written and distributed a press release. Much like the flag that’s represented South Africa since April 27th 1994 — the day the nation had its first racially-inclusive election, resulting in Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as South Africa’s first democratically-elected President — I initially considered my first emblem concept for Mandela 100 something of an interim idea. Like the flag, my initial sketch unexpectedly became the final design. The call for a new South African flag was made just one week prior to election day, on April 20th, thrusting manufacturers into a panicked rush. Its introduction retired a design which had been in place since 1928. That old flag was the only national flag in the world to contain a flag in a flag in a flag (a vertically-spread Dutch flag in a vertically-hung Orange Free State flag in the South African tricolor). With calls for the flag’s retention far outweighing suggested changes, it became permanent on September 28th 1995. Thus, the green, black, white, yellow, red, and blue flag was debuted — a scheme I channeled in my logo for Mandela 100. Between the initial sketch of the first concept and the decision to adapt it as the final piece, I tested some ‘regal’ ideas with serif fonts and gold foil textures, but the hand-drawn lettering and wilder geometry felt far more fitting for a liberating celebration. Somalia’s western horn formed a natural alcove for the ‘100’, and the southernmost countries and republics were an ideal home for the tagline I had to incorporate into the logo. For the background motif, I uncovered some ‘Ankara’ textile patterns. The history of Ankara designs flirts with Dutch textiles of centuries passed, similar to how the old South African flag-within-a-flag-within-a-flag intertwined with Dutch influences. There are thousands of distressed ‘grunge’ textures available to buy online, but sometimes it’s nice to create your own. A great method for this is something I call ‘digital frottage’. Frottage is a surrealist painting technique based on taking rubbings of uneven surfaces to build the basis for artworks. To me, the digital equivalent involves maxing out the contrast of photos of textured surfaces and outling the results as vectors. For the Mandela emblem, I: 1 opened a photo I’d taken of some seaside paving slabs that were cracked and covered with shingle, 2 set the image to grayscale, 3 pumped up the contrast/dehazing until only the most abstract shapes from the details were visible, 4 placed the outcome in Illustrator, 5 outlined everything to a vector format, and 6 cut the resulting texture through the silhouette of the continent.