The shoe is manufactured by World Shoe Limited at a pioneering facility in Akosombo, Ghana — built from the ground up in twelve months — and has already created 200 local jobs while directing sales profits towards regional health interventions. Made from a compression-moulded foam with an organic additive to accelerate biodegradation, and incorporating a natural antimicrobial powder derived from discarded oyster shells, The Rowe is as considered in its materials as in its form. In this interview, Johnson talks about the automotive inspiration behind the shoe, the decision to manufacture in Ghana, and what it means for the design world when Africa sits on the judging panel.

Becoming a footwear designer was somewhat accidental. That is to say, it was not planned. At Carnegie Mellon University, where I studied design, we were surrounded by cutting-edge technology – computer science, robotics, AI, before it was called AI. And so it was more likely that after school, I would have headed to Silicon Valley to design computer housings or printers. But I made my way to a design conference and showed my portfolio to the Design Director at Saucony. I always liked sports, and I really like sports equipment, so when he offered me a job, I took it. But even then, I didn’t really know I would have a career as a footwear designer. I just thought sports and design, I’m in!

In the first World Shoe, I had designed a shoe that we loved internally, and by all measures, outsiders loved too. It was designed specifically for humanitarian purposes – to protect feet from disease – but I also designed it to embody important functional and stylistic cues from the sports industry and from sneaker culture. The idea was to take the design beyond a so-called “charity shoe” to one that would be attractive to young people – one that they would want to wear.

When it came to designing The Rowe, I had a different kind of freedom. As a brand, we decided that we could take a step towards a consumer who was interested in fashion and style. It’s true we wanted something that would be accepted in the healthcare space, where clogs were the standard. But even the choices for that consumer were not the most attractive choices; rather, they were practical ones. When I sat down to design the shoe, I drew from an experience I had two years prior when I was invited to Nissan Motors Headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, as part of a cadre of international designers from across the globe to take part in a review of new models, concept cars and interiors planned for upcoming release. 

For starters, I have always admired Japanese design for its beautiful balance of traditional and the avant-garde and the attention given to detail. It is a deep source of inspiration. At the Nissan design review, there was one car that I was particularly struck by – The Hyperforce, an all-electric, high-performance supercar. What struck me was its aerodynamic profile and the surface changes that were defined by crisp, recessed channels. It was sporty and sophisticated at once. I felt it was the perfect formula to bring newness to the molded shoe world. I called it “updressing.”- a counter to the casual trend brought on by the pandemic, where comfort took precedence over style. The Rowe was designed not only to be extremely comfortable but also stylish, proving that a shoe can be both a retreat for the feet and a statement piece.

The qualities start with our patent-pending foam material, which includes an anti-microbial agent that fights infection and a biodegradation accelerant that makes microbes want to eat it faster. It was independently tested by a world-class laboratory, which determined it had all the important qualities that one would want in a shoe – great cushioning, durability, shape retention, flexibility – all of it. It tested above average. After that, I designed into it ventilation grooves and what I call a “hybrid heel” – a clog-like feel with a shoe-like heel.

That is a really important question because it gets at our “Why”. From the start, our mission was not only to break the cycle of poverty by making people healthy but also to create opportunities to continue their journey toward prosperity. Creating jobs, we decided, is the way to do that. The emergence of the World Shoe as a brand is, in fact, deeply rooted in Africa. Our founder is from Nigeria, and we have roots in Ghana. Manufacturing in-country was always a part of the plan. I remember being in Ghana scouting out potential factory locations. One year later, we opened the factory. The speed at which we achieved this important step is unheard of in the footwear industry!

It is incredibly rewarding. Of all the things I imagined for myself as a designer, being recognized for work that is connected to the continent where I was born was not one of them. I grew up outside of Africa and away from African culture. But for me, this represents an important connection to my own roots. But what is especially profound to me – “what African design looks like when Africa does the judging.”

Why do you think a platform like AIDA Awards is important now for African fashion design and for projects that connect creativity with wider social change?

What I think is most important is delivering design that is rooted in Africa to the international stage and doing so on your terms. There is a stigma that is often attached to design grounded in Africa – that it is one-dimensional and often connected only to philanthropy. AIDA proves that design rooted in Africa can take on numerous challenges and can do so while being innovative at the same time. Fashion as innovation.

The truth is, I am not hopeful, but rather I am confident. I see footwear as a flywheel that can do so much good beyond putting shoes on feet. Who would have thought that the design of a shoe could build a factory, teach people good hygiene, inspire young students to pursue a career in product design, engineering and manufacturing and seed the idea of a design academy? The World Shoe has inspired the development of all of these things. There is more to come!

The structure relies entirely on regional resources and low-carbon building techniques. Its walls are formed from compressed earth blocks made using soil dug directly from the site, while a wide roof directs rainwater into a large storage tank for community use. This commitment to local materials and social purpose earned the project Architectural Design of the Year at the 2026 AIDA Awards. We spoke with architects Felix Holland and Xavier de Kestelier about how they balanced technical engineering with local craftsmanship to deliver a lasting asset for the settlement.

Felix Holland: It was always the green angle. I was something of an environmentalist already before I studied architecture, and that interest has stayed with me ever since. It would be too easy to say that’s the only thing — of course it’s not — but it is a very formative part of how I approach architecture. Beyond that, I would widen it to say it’s also about being human-centred, keeping the user in mind, and trying to bring these two things together into something that is rooted in place and responds sensitively to location and climate.

Xavier de Kestelier: For me, it has probably always been about building — about how things are put together. I studied architecture, but at an engineering school in Belgium. I actually started in engineering, failed the first year, and found it far too theoretical, too disconnected from reality. That’s what led me to architecture at the same school, and suddenly everything was so much more about making things, small models at first, then larger prototypes. Later, in professional life, the first fifteen years of my career were really about how to build complex systems, both through digital tools and within physical constraints. I think that drive, and it might well trace back to failing that year of engineering, has always come from building, from thinking through making. You can probably see traces of it in the Bidi Bidi project, too. It was never just about creating a form. It was about creating something that does something, and arriving at form through that intention. The form did not come first.

Xavier: I was born in Ghent, in Belgium, a city of around 270,000 people, which is roughly the same population as Bidi Bidi. Extremely different in every other way, of course, but similar in scale. Growing up in Ghent, we were very fortunate to have a wealth of large cultural buildings: museums, a design museum, modern and classical art galleries, opera houses, and theatres. Going to Bidi Bidi and understanding that community. There were essential services, education, food programmes, and various support structures, but there was no cultural centre. And cultural buildings matter. They look different, they feel different from what surrounds them, and they tend to carry a level of care and attention to detail that sets them apart. That is exactly what we wanted to bring to this project: the same attention to design we would give to a cultural building anywhere else in the world, Australia, Europe, wherever. For that reason, we also drew on the same tools and techniques we would use in any of those contexts.

Felix: To add to that, what I find important about this project is that the idea did not come from us. Our client, TO, approached us with a brief they had developed together with Sina Loketa, who is now the building’s primary user. So, we came to the site and tried to understand it on its own terms.

There is no good reason to approach a project in a refugee settlement any differently than you would approach any other. You take it seriously, you bring the respect it deserves, and you try to understand the location and the needs of the people. And it becomes a very slippery slope to start asking why a refugee settlement needs a music and arts centre, follow that logic and you end up in a very difficult place.

Our first approach was one of modesty and careful listening, the same as with any project. One thing that became immediately obvious was the issue of water. That is really one of the essential elements of this design, the rainwater collection system, which did not have to be part of the Music and Arts Centre brief, but made complete sense in combination with it. Wouldn’t you say that was also a defining aspect of the project?

Xavier: Absolutely! And it wasn’t part of the original brief at all. It wasn’t about water collection to begin with. But we realised we needed a large roof anyway, to protect the centre and shield the walls from rain. And then it struck us: this roof could do something more; it could serve a second function. When you factor in the contaminated boreholes in the area, harvesting rainwater didn’t just make sense, it felt almost necessary.

Xavier: It is relatively straightforward to design for what you already know. We knew there would be performances, recording, music teaching, all of which were defined. The harder challenge is designing for what you cannot yet anticipate. When we visited, two things genuinely moved me. The first was seeing children playing on the central structure; it had become something else entirely, a place to hang out, to climb, to inhabit in ways we never planned for. The second was seeing entrepreneurs using the space to sell their goods. I had seen photographs of this before, but witnessing it in person was something different. People had taken the building and made it their own. That, I think, is the hardest thing to design for: a function that doesn’t exist yet, that only emerges once the building is alive.

Felix: There is also one function that is particularly difficult to reconcile with the others, and that is the music recording studio. By nature, the assembly space, the dance area, and even the teaching space are noisy, busy, and chaotic. And right next to all of that, you have this completely introverted, quiet room.

Xavier: That was the hardest one to design, wasn’t it?

Felix: Absolutely. It had to be sealed off acoustically, but it still needed light, it still needed air, just not noise. All of those competing requirements are converging on a single space. We made compromises, as you always do in design, and it’s honest to acknowledge that. In practice, the idea is that all activity in the adjacent spaces stops during recording sessions. But when that happens, the studio heats up quite quickly, and the users have to live with that tension. It is a real constraint.

Xavier: What I find remarkable is that we achieved everything with essentially one type of brick, one mould, which we sometimes cut, but that was it. And I think that restraint is what gives the building its aesthetic coherence. We didn’t rely on different systems to bring light in, no windows in the conventional sense, no proprietary acoustic panels. Everything was resolved through that single brick. Is it the most acoustically refined solution? Probably not. A proprietary system would likely perform better on paper. But given the location, the scarcity of available materials, and the difficulty of getting anything to the site, I think it was the right answer. And architecturally, that constraint became a strength — the building has a unity precisely because everything had to be done with one element.

Felix: In my experience, if you want a building to truly belong to a place, one of the most reliable approaches is to use materials found on or near the site. By definition, those materials already belong to that landscape. I was reminded of this when we recently drove away from the site; the road takes you around to the other side of the valley, and for a moment, we genuinely couldn’t find the building. We kept asking, where is it? And then, finally, there it was. That is not something you would expect. In an environment of small, low structures, a 400-square-metre building would normally demand attention. The fact that it didn’t, that it simply settled into its surroundings, felt like a real achievement. We had no interest in creating a monument that announces itself. It was always meant to be part of Zone 2, part of that whole environment.

Xavier: I’m often asked, particularly by people in the West, why we didn’t make more use of vernacular architecture. I find it a slightly odd question, because we did. We used the materials that were literally present on the ground. We drew inspiration from the way people in the settlement were already using corrugated panels for openings, windows, and doors. To me, that is absolutely learning from and working within the vernacular. It doesn’t need a label to be what it is.

Felix: And the form itself, your very first sketches were inspired by something much closer to the ground, weren’t they? The image of an African gathering space, a community under a large tree.

Xavier: Yes, though it was never a literal copy. People tend to assume that vernacular has to mean direct imitation, and of course, that’s not what it means at all.

Xavier: What I love about the recognition this project has received is that it has come from different places and from different angles. It has been acknowledged through African awards, but also through the Dezeen Awards and the RIBA Awards. And what feels most meaningful now is that the programmes themselves are being recognised; Sina Loketa’s music programmes, the work actually happening inside the building. That, to me, is fantastic. The building and the life within it are celebrated together. I hope it gives us the leverage to do more of this kind of work — it demonstrates what is possible, and with that, hopefully, more funding will follow.

Felix: What makes this particular recognition feel special is precisely that it is an African award. There are countless awards programmes around the world, but very little exists in the way of celebrating African talent and design excellence on the continent itself. I am genuinely excited about anything that begins to fill that gap. And we should be proud that the Bidi Bidi Centre is the inaugural winner of the main design category. What I know for certain is that it is a profound source of pride for the users and the owners of the building; whenever news of an award reaches them, the excitement is real and immediate.

Felix: Honestly, it hasn’t changed our direction because Bidi Bidi was always an expression of where we were already headed. It was an extraordinary opportunity to work in a remote and challenging location and pursue excellence through local materials. But there is something we haven’t touched on today: one of the most exciting aspects of the collaboration between Hassell and Localworks was the bringing together of two very different worlds. There is far more high-tech and parametric design thinking embedded in this building than you might suspect from simply looking at it. That combination, rigorous digital design methodology meeting local materials and craft, is what made it so compelling for us. And we are not stopping there. We are continuing along that path, already working on other projects that excite us in similar ways. For me, this is one step on a much longer journey.

Xavier: Exactly. The project gave us confidence. We have done it once, we have the reference, and now we know it is possible. But what I valued most was realising how much we learned from each other as practices. We work in completely different parts of the world, and yet our ways of thinking and designing turned out to be very closely aligned. That was perhaps the most exciting discovery of all, and being able to draw on each other’s expertise made the whole process richer for it.

To break through, lead designer David Vallier and the team at Ag Partners Publicis Africa Group took a deliberately disruptive approach — partnering with Tampidaro, a popular young urban painter from Dakar, to create visually arresting posters and stickers that spoke directly to the city’s youth. The campaign earned the project the title of Communication Design of the Year at the 2026 AIDA Awards. We spoke with Vallier about how disruptive design can spark real dialogue — and why African design deserves its own international stage.

Our group operates across the entire continent, where nearly every country and region has its own unique characteristics. Whether we’re working with brands or in social marketing, the challenge remains the same: getting a message across to the relevant audiences and establishing a genuine dialogue. As the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” And when it comes to awareness campaigns, we’ve heard it all so many times it’s become tedious…

When the European Union entrusted us with the campaign, it became clear that, given the extent of pollution in this area, the public believed the problem was beyond their control. The challenge was to convey the message that it is everyone’s responsibility. The primary target audience, naturally, was young people. It would be wrong to assume that young residents are indifferent to this pollution problem; however, they have long since stopped responding to the awareness messages that have been used. We therefore needed to change our approach, our angle, and, of course, our tone.

We had already worked with Tampidaro in a different context, and we had noticed from comments on social media that his work and his style resonated deeply with urban youth. The choice was an obvious one.

Tampidaro’s artistic perspective was central to the campaign. His distinctive visual style transformed a familiar environmental issue into something fresh, engaging, and culturally relevant. By using imagery that reflected the codes and aesthetics of urban youth culture, he helped make the campaign instantly recognizable and more likely to spark conversation. Because of its relatability, style, and alignment with their values, young people embraced the message and also felt valued and heard by this disruptive approach.

This campaign has already won awards in other competitions (EPICA, African Cristal Festival), but the AIDA Awards’ strong focus on design seemed to us to be a good fit for the creative direction we had chosen. That is why we entered the competition, and it is for the same reason that we are particularly honored to have won.

By its very definition. The AIDA Awards is the first international program celebrating creativity and forward-thinking design across the African continent. It fills an important gap by giving greater visibility to African design excellence and socially engaged creativity, while providing a platform where African voices, perspectives, and solutions can be recognized and celebrated.

We’ve done it before and will continue to do so because we firmly believe that “disruptive,” “generous,” “visual,” “empowering,” and tailored communication is the most effective way to raise awareness and, above all, to establish a genuine dialogue. This is, in fact, the same approach we applied to another campaign we ran on behalf of the European Union in Senegal: “Dajé and Gagné” (meet, collaborate, win), which received a tremendous response and achieved unprecedented levels of engagement and impact.

In this conversation, the polymath designer reflects on her deep roots in Ndebele culture — where women have historically served as the primary architects of their communities — and on how a global upbringing shaped her approach to placemaking. She also speaks candidly about what it means to receive recognition from her home continent, and why the international design conversation needs to make more room for African voices.

I would describe myself as a polymath. My work moves between architecture, urban design, public art, teaching, and cultural storytelling, but at the core of all these disciplines is a deep passion for placemaking. Whether I am reimagining a city or neighbourhood at an urban scale, designing a building, or creating a public art installation, I am ultimately interested in how people experience space and how design can create meaningful connections between people, culture, and place. To me, architecture is a form of public art. Buildings shape our daily lives, influence how we interact with one another, and contribute to the stories we tell about ourselves and our communities.

My path has been shaped by a lifelong curiosity and a desire to work across scales and disciplines. Growing up with a global upbringing rooted in African culture gave me an appreciation for the richness of identity, heritage, and storytelling. Over time, I realized that design could be a powerful vehicle for expressing those ideas. Whether through architecture, urban design, or projects like Pearl Jam, I see my work as an opportunity to create spaces and experiences that celebrate culture, inspire joy, and foster a sense of belonging.

What is unique and profound to me is that all of these disciplines are connected. They are simply different ways of exploring the same question: how can we create places that enrich people’s lives and leave a positive impact on the world around us?

Ndebele culture is my paternal cultural heritage, so in many ways, my connection to it has always been personal. Historically, Ndebele women were the architects of our communities. They built our homes, maintained them, and adorned them with the beautiful geometric paintings that have become synonymous with Ndebele identity. Architecture, art, and cultural expression were deeply intertwined. Today, we see less of this architectural tradition being practiced in everyday life, but the culture continues to be expressed through ceremony, clothing, adornment, and beadwork. Ndebele jewellery carries stories, identity, and craftsmanship that have been passed down through generations of women.

As an architect and designer, I was fascinated by the relationship between these different forms of expression. I began to see parallels between the way Ndebele women used architecture to communicate identity and the way they use jewellery and beadwork today. Pearl Jam emerged from that realization. I wanted to create a project that honored this lineage of female makers while exploring how cultural expression can evolve across scales—from a beaded pearl worn on the body to a large-scale public artwork experienced by an entire community.

The beading became a crucial part of Pearl Jam because it represents both heritage and continuity. The project brings together traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design, creating a dialogue between past and future, between ornament and architecture, and between individual expression and collective cultural memory.

The intention behind Pearl Jam was to create a joyful and accessible celebration of culture. I believe that many cultural elements are far more universal than they are divisive or polarized, and I wanted people from all backgrounds to feel a connection to the African continent through the work.

My hope was that people would engage with the piece with a sense of curiosity, wonder, and playfulness, while also recognizing the beauty of the stories, craftsmanship, and traditions that inspired it.

It’s such a blessing! There is something especially meaningful about being recognized at home, by your own continent and peers, for work that is rooted in African culture, memory, and identity.

This recognition gives me the confidence to continue creating, exploring, and sharing the richness of our cultures with international audiences. It reinforces my belief that our stories, traditions, and ways of making have global relevance and deserve to be celebrated on the world stage. For me, the award is not just a recognition of Pearl Jam, but an encouragement to keep building bridges between culture, design, and contemporary public life.

I think a platform like AIDA Awards is incredibly important because it is intentional about celebrating and elevating African design on its own terms. I have attended many international awards and exhibitions where I rarely see work that reflects our cultures, our perspectives, or the incredible talent that exists across the continent. AIDA creates a space where African designers can be seen, recognized, and valued, while also connecting us to one another. It allows us to discover what our peers are creating, learn from each other, and be inspired by the diversity of ideas emerging from different regions of Africa. As the continent continues to grow as a creative force, platforms like AIDA help build visibility, confidence, and opportunities for designers, while ensuring that African voices are contributing to and shaping the global design conversation.

As I continue to explore cultures, cities, and human-centred design, I’m focused on building futures that feel more connected, inclusive, and grounded in lived experience.

At the core of my work is a belief that design is a way of preserving who we are while also reimagining who we can become. While I may not know exactly what the future holds, I am excited by the process of continuing to discover myself through this work and through the cities and cultures I engage with.

I also hope to see art and design expressed across all socioeconomic communities so that this sense of creativity, identity, and magic has a more universal footprint that is not limited by place or privilege but felt everywhere. Ultimately I want to contribute to spaces that are more humane, expressive, and alive where people can see themselves reflected in the environments they inhabit.

We spoke with Armstrong about her personal journey into art and design, the deep research behind the lighthouse metaphor, the deliberate choices that shape the book’s form, and how she sees technology serving genuine human and social needs going forward.

From a young age, creativity was always my primary language – at school, I studied art, and it was through art that I first understood the power of a visual idea to communicate something words couldn’t quite reach. One of my matric (Grade 12) artworks was a mixed-media charcoal drawing installation about my personal experience living with Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID), and it placed first in the International Festival of Paintings for Pediatric Patients in 2018. That experience taught me early that most resonant work tends to come from truth, from real stories, real struggle, real life.

Almost everything I’ve made since has followed that instinct; here are a few projects from my studies that reflect that. Save Our Seas uncovers how we exploit our oceans and tries to cultivate a deeper love and respect for marine life. Zebruh, a gender-neutral pop-up shop concept, uses the zebra as a metaphor for community, individuality, and freedom, challenging the black and white lens society has unconsciously taught us to see the world through. And Be Bald, inspired by my brother’s experience with Alopecia, reframes hair loss not as something to hide, but something to own. Each project started with a real person, a real problem, or a real injustice, and Becoming a Beacon was no different.

After school, I studied a BA in Visual Communication (majoring in Graphic Design) at the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography, graduating with a Distinction in 2021, and went on to complete a BA Honours in Multimedia Design at Greenside Design Centre, College of Design in 2022. More recently, I finished an MA in Digital Media Design at Birkbeck, University of London, again graduating with a Distinction in 2025.

The project was actually born from the International Society of Typographic Designs (ISTD) 2022 brief, which centred around lighthouses, structures that exist entirely in service of others, standing alone but guiding everything around them. Being selected in the ISTD Student Assessment Scheme 2022 and elected as a Member of the Society as a result made the brief feel even more significant to me looking back. The more I researched the history and architecture of lighthouses, the more I kept arriving at Mandela. A lighthouse doesn’t simply appear fully formed; it is built in layers, each one structural and each one essential to what comes next. Mandela’s life works the same way. Remove any section, and the beacon doesn’t hold. Once I saw that parallel, the concept felt inevitable. The structure of a lighthouse became the architecture of his story, and of the book itself.

Every decision was made in service of the metaphor and the reader. The book is structured around the five sections of a lighthouse (the Foundation, the Entrance, the Staircase, the Windows, and the Beacon), each corresponding to a phase of Mandela’s life. The colour palette was drawn directly from the South African national flag, anchoring his story to the country he helped build. The typography pairs Helvetic Neue with Athelas, a clean modern sans-serif alongside a warmer, more classical serif, holding the tension between a contemporary audience and a deeply historical story. 

For the imagery, I converted archival photographs and newspaper headlines to black and white with a grain overlay. This textured historic quality runs throughout, complemented by graphic devices drawn from the lighthouse theme itself, such as stars referencing maritime constellations, circles used like pins on a pinboard to link images to information, and dotted lines threading it all together. The physical object mattered too; the hardcover binding, the coloured page edges, the tactile quality of the paper. In an era where everything is scrolled past in seconds, I wanted to make something that asked to be held.

Working on Becoming a Beacon taught me three things. First, the importance of research. Before I touched a single layout or made any visual decisions, I spent a long time immersing myself in two subjects simultaneously, which brought the history and architecture of lighthouses and the life of Nelson Mandela. That depth of understanding is what gave the concept its integrity. Second, I learned to trust my concept. Once I committed to the lighthouse metaphor, there were inevitably moments where I questioned whether it was too abstract or too indirect a way to tell Mandela’s story. But the strength of the final book came from not abandoning the idea when it felt uncertain; committing to it fully is ultimately what made it work. Third, and most personally, I learned that design is a form of responsibility. When you design around a subject, especially one as historically and politically significant as Mandela’s life and South Africa’s past, you can’t treat it casually. You have to understand it deeply and find a way to honour it honestly. Designing this book changed my own relationship with South African history in a way that has stayed with me, and that sense of responsibility is something I carry into all of my work now.

Receiving this recognition means a lot to me. Becoming a Beacon was my BA Honours project, the work where I first started to feel like I had found my own voice as a designer, where my technical skills and instinct for storytelling came together in a way that felt genuinely like me. To have that piece of work still being recognised four years later is something I didn’t expect, and it means a great deal. The timing also feels significant. Since completing the project in 2022, it received an ISTD pass award and was selected as a Loerie finalist in 2023. But I am now on the other side of a master’s degree, and looking back at the designer I was during that Honours year, this feels like a kind of full circle, a confirmation that the ideas in that project have a life and a relevance beyond the classroom.

I think platforms like AIDA are vital, particularly for students and recent graduates. Speaking from my own experience as a student, there simply aren’t enough platforms that specifically celebrate African students and emerging design work. Most of the big international award platforms are expensive to enter and heavily weighted toward established agencies, making them largely inaccessible to students or those just starting out. Having a platform that sees that work, celebrates it, and puts it on an international stage does something really important. It tells young creatives that they are good enough, that the stories they are telling and the work they are making from this continent matter and can stand alongside the best in the world.

Looking back, my studies felt like a natural progression, from graphic design to multimedia design, to digital design, and I think that mirrors the shifting creative landscape we are all moving through as technology becomes more present in every aspect of our lives. I never want to be left behind by that shift, but rather grow with it and figure out how design can harness it meaningfully.

The stories I am most drawn to are rooted in social issues, particularly environmental ones, and how design can shift the way people feel about something and move them to care. Going forward, I want to push that further, and I’m increasingly interested in how technology can amplify that work. My master’s dissertation is a good example of that. It explored how UX and UI design could improve systems in the agriculture sector, specifically looking at how sugarcane farms in KwaZulu-Natal could move from manual ticketing processes on trucks to a more efficient digital system. That project came from exactly the same instinct as most of my earlier work, identifying something that isn’t working, understanding the people affected by it, and using design to find a better way. It made me realise how powerful the intersection of people and technology can be when driven by a genuine human or environmental need, and that intersection is where I want to keep working.

At my core, I remain passionate about visual communication and the tactile elements of graphic design. But I am evolving, and excited about what becomes possible when you bring those instincts into new spaces. The medium may change, but the drive underneath it, to tell real stories, solve real problems, and make people care, stays the same.