Online Lecture w/ Saki Mafundikwa: A Typophile’s Twenty-Year Adventures in Zimbabwe

Submitted by the Event Organizer

From an idea to founding Africa’s first graphic design and new media college, designer Saki Mafundikwa will speak about his 20-year adventure running Zimbabwe Institute of Digital Arts without funding.

Saki Mafundikwa 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 instructor. His book, Afrikan Alphabets: the Story of Writing in Africa was published in 2004. It is the first book on Afrikan typography. Currently out of print, it will be re-printed in 2021.

His award-winning first film, Shungu: The Resilience of a People premiered 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 was a TED speaker at the PMI 50th Anniversary Conference in Dar es Salaam in September, 2019.

He has been published widely on design and cultural issues.

He lives, works, and farms in Harare.

Letterform Lectures are a public aspect of the Type West postgraduate program. The series is usually co-presented and hosted by the San Francisco Public Library, but this special lecture will take place online.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.