Yali Profile : Graphic design artist shapes African identity

By The NewsDay | Jun. 22, 2015 | 2 Min read

Graphic artist and animator Tinodiwa Zambe Makoni views the Mandela Washington Fellowship as a “brilliant initiative that is connecting people and equipping them with knowledge that will form the bedrock for true transformation in Africa and in turn the lives of Africans.”

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Tinodiwa has over 10 years experience in the industry where he has been specializing in character design, conceptualization, design for print, 2D animation, illustration, comic art, brand and identity design and story-boarding. This has been no hardship for him, as he is “inspired, energetic, creatively crazy and absolutely passionate about Comic Books and African visual communication.”

In pursuing his passion Tinodiwa founded a number of enterprises namely Cross Caption Comix (CCX) from which he published the first Zimbabwean Action Comic Book, which was distributed nation-wide and established the first well-known Zimbabwean superheroes – The Gift and Gundog and MakAnimation Creative Studio to support Cross Caption Comix efforts through animation and branding design services to the public and corporate world.

With nothing short of enterprising enthusiasm Tinodiwa in 2013 also established Comexposed as a vehicle to kick-start the Zimbabwe comic book and Digital Arts industry with a view that Africans creating new content, freely expressing ideas, and building on their cultural identity will positively impact on the whole continent.

Comexposed coordinates the Zimbabwe Comic Book Convention annually and he has at one stage used the forum as a springboard to launch ComicUP, the first anthology Comic book in Zimbabwe.

Tinodiwa will spend six weeks at Clark University in Atlanta where he hopes to meet as many young African leaders, form the links and connect with the key individuals: He will spend an additional eight-weeks on attachment.

In return Tinodiwa says he will “implement everything he will have learnt in his business and projects specifically restructuring his business to incorporate new techniques, apply any new global standards and systems beneficial to his projects and continue to seek mentorship and guidance from U.S businesses and individuals interested in building stronger U.S-Zimbabwe relations.”