In my work as graphic designer in a public university in Ghana, African characters are often the subject of my illustrations. As a European portraying Africans I am in a position where I might be unconsciously reinforcing colonial attitudes. I want to find out how the heritage of colonisation affects work as a European designer illustrating African characters and how the awareness of one’s own biases affect the design process.
The case study of the thesis is the production of a series of illustrations depicting African characters. Autoethnographic narrative follows how the project evolves from an attempt to provide variety to illustrations of African characters in microstock image banks to a personal sense making quest of a cultural practise where Ghanaian children, known as house girls or house boys, find themselves under living arrangements resembling both unofficial adoption and domestic servitude.
ILLUSTRATING THE OTHER 