Halifax Public Libraries
40th Anniversary of
African Heritage Month
T-shirt and Digital Design
Synopsis
For Halifax Public Libraries' 2024 African Heritage Month, marking the library's 40th anniversary of the celebration, Nahom designed a T-shirt artwork, open to local artists each year. Originally from Ethiopia and part of the African diaspora himself, Nahom created a map of Africa with each country rendered in Pan-African colours, layered with African patterns to reflect the continent's many distinct regions and cultures, rather than a single entity.
The design speaks to the diaspora's experience of integrating into a new community, with African Nova Scotians woven into that same story as distant relatives connected back to the continent.
Worn by library staff and community partners throughout the 40th anniversary celebrations, including the African Heritage Month Opening Night, the design also appeared across the library's digital channels for February's programming.
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Halifax Public Libraries opens its African Heritage Month T-shirt Design Contest to local artists every year, with the design open to any style, as long as it aligned with past editions and used the Pan-African colours, green, yellow, and red, plus black and white. It also needed to function well both as a print and across the library's digital channels for February's readings and events.
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Nahom rendered each African country in Pan-African flag colours, layered with African patterns throughout, pushing back against the idea of Africa as one single entity, a view often shaped by colonialism, and showing it instead as many regions, each with its own culture, customs, and lineage.
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Selected as the winning design for 2024, the artwork was worn by library staff and community partners throughout the 40th anniversary celebrations, including the African Heritage Month Opening Night, and featured across the library's digital channels for the month's programming.
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Illustration
Pattern Design
Cultural Representation
African Diaspora Studies
Merchandise & Print Design
Adobe Illustrator