Traditional African Designs

Over 200 pieces of clip art from various countries in Africa, including representations of people, animals, designs, borders, plants and jewelery. A resource for graphic design and collage, or as a source of jewelry design.

Black-and-white linocut prints of geometric and abstract motifs, textual patterns, masks, and mythical figures provide a pictorial presentation of African designs

African design encompasses colours, textures, patterns, styles and traditions varied enough to fuel a range of dazzling home decorating looks. Detailed captions identify the design elements in each photograph, offering readers ideas for their own home

A pictorial survey of printed fabrics - includes abstract and geometric, floral and animal prints. There is a companion volume entitled "African Fabric Design."

The Nigerian and West African practice of aso ebi fashion invokes notions of wealth and group dynamics in social gatherings. Okechukwu Nwafor’s volume Aso ebi investigates the practice in the cosmopolitan urban setting of Lagos, and argues that the visual and consumerist hype typical of the late capitalist system feeds this unique fashion practice. The book suggests that dress, fashion, aso ebi, and photography engender a new visual culture that largely reflects the economics of mundane living. Nwafor examines the practice’s societal dilemma, whereby the solidarity of aso ebi is dismissed by many as an ephemeral transaction. A circuitous transaction among photographers, fashion magazine producers, textile merchants, tailors, and individual fashionistas reinvents aso ebi as a product of cosmopolitan urban modernity. The results are a fetishization of various forms of commodity culture, personality cults through mass followership, the negotiation of symbolic power through mass-produced images, exchange value in human relationships through gifts, and a form of exclusion achieved through digital photo editing. Aso ebi has become an essential part of Lagos cosmopolitanism: as a rising form of a unique visual culture it is central to the unprecedented spread of a unique West African fashion style that revels in excessive textile overflow. This extreme dress style is what an individual requires to transcend the lack imposed by the chaos of the postcolonial city.

"Traditional African forms were noticed, described, and brought back to Europe as early as the statues and masks, but none of the books on the subject covers the broad geographic and stylistic range adequately or presents these beautiful objects appropriately." "This volume reaches into practically all of Africa and thus covers an area perhaps 50% greater than that of most books. Similarly, it is unique in treating a broad variety of articles: household objects and weapons, jewelry and textiles, musical instruments and devotional items. The coverage is extensive, but the purpose is not to be encyclopedic; rather it is to present a wide assortment of top-quality utilitarian objects, beautifully photographed, and to give sufficient background information, carefully researched but in a lively, readable format, to enhance the enjoyment of this material as art."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved