On Saturday, August 11th 2018, a large section of Ghana’s Design community came together for their the second meetup at Mak’s Place in Dzorwulu. The second edition of the meetup was dubbed “Artmostphere02“.
The theme for the second edition was focused on “Female Creatives/Designers” in Ghana.
Think about it: Do you have female designers/creatives on your team at your workplace? Are they marginalized or do they have a lead role in contributing to the work?
These were some of the issues discussed at the meetup. Female designers DO exist but they are in the minority in Ghana. The second meetup the Design Community was to bring some of the issues that female designers face to the forefront.
Showcase And Portfolios
In the first half of the meetup, Natalie Narh, the creator of Latch Productions led the audience through some design discussions in which the focus was on who the “villain” and “hero” was when it came to design at work in some real world situations.
After the discussions, the audience was entreated to Portfolio and Showcase presentations from some female designers in the design community.
First up was Audrey Quaye, a Typography Illustrator.
Then there was Aba Taylor from Creo Concepts who share some of her creative works.
Finally, Natasha Nyo, an illustrator and animator showed off some of her illustrations and animations. Natasha actually went to the Maryland Institute College of Art for her degree in design.
Discussion
There was a great discussion by Sharon Mills, a design consultant, who spoke about the female participation in design force in Ghana. Sadly, female designers are still a minority and don’t have enough representation.
Sharon spoke about how it takes more passion for a female to stay in design more than males because females face more stigma and negative stereotypes.
She also adviced on how “pampering” girls actually made them bad in design because often times, females are left off the hook for some of their design work because of the fact that they’re females. In the future, they don’t get better at design because they’ve been preconditioned to think their work is great when it could be mediocre at best.
Sharon Mills had a really enlightening talk and also shared a fun fact that the lead designer at Club Beer is a female.
Overall, it was a great meetup and we’ll definitely be looking to the next meetup.
