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Since its first issue in 1994 (the year of the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa) this magazine has promoted the “look” of South Africa. In early issues Walker, South African to his core, presented indigenous street art and ephemera which he deemed crucial to this country’s identity (he has collected thousands of these images). And as i-jusi evolves (issue 16 has just been published), local motifs, styles and naive artworks not only appear in their own right, they inspire Walker and contributing designers to visually parody or to incorporate the textures, patterns, images found on the streets into more sophisticated designs. One issue featured hairstyle portraits by a local barber. A subsequent issue featured an African haircut-inspired typeface.
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Page from i-komix, i-jusi issue No. 13 in collaboration with Bitterkomix,
South Africa’s only independent satirical comic magazine.
Illustration: Brandt Botes
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Above: Spread from i-jusi National Typografika issue (No. 11). Design: Shani Ahmed
Left: Poster for Bruno haircuts from i-jusi No. 12. Design: Brode Vosloo. Illustration: Bruno
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With recent issues of i-jusi focusing on death, religion, pornography, and street style, the reader is presented with a vision of a Third World country in a monumental struggle. South Africa has the usual problems of an “economy gone south,” a falling job market, debates on privatization, education, housing and health care. But Walker adds, “our biggie is crime which affects everyone (including fraud and bribery in the public sector), and AIDS (highest in the world).” There has also been a consistent migration into South Africa from other African countries adding to overpopulation in the cities. These issues are reflected in i-jusi and sometimes offered with a sardonic twist, low-ball humor, scathing commentary, or personal soul baring combined with visual motifs and idiosyncratic iconography that blatantly could come from no where else.
Walker’s own perspective on South Africa is that it is “a land with no ‘gray’: things are black and white. It’s a land where the animals may be beautiful, but eat you, where you may have a gun in your ear since someone may want your running shoes or your car.” But none of this depresses him. “At the end of the day you are forced to have these visceral elements in your life, extremes which affect your brain.” These he feels are key to a sense of “identity—a need for everyone here to have a voice and a sense of how this affects other people.” Personal and cultural identity for Walker is “a sort of African design” drawn from the visual life of the streets and townships of Durban. “While much of my inspiration comes from the streets of Durban, I have traveled (quite literally) to every town (dorp in Afrikaans), city, or ‘two huts and a horse’ in South Africa,” says Walker. “If a road leads to it, I’ve been there. Much of my image collection is an accumulation of stuff I have photographed on these journeys. Interestingly, Durban really is a ‘fruit salad’ of everything, everywhere, countrywide.”
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Spread from Porn issue (No. 15). Design: William Rae
Cover of Porn issue (No. 15). Illustration: Conrad Botes
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Cover (above) and spread (left) from i-jusi Amaout: Street Style issue (No. 10). Design: Garth Walker
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In notes for a conference a few years ago, he reflected, “Elections in May, 1994 didn’t just mark the crossover into a new South Africa, they heralded a new way of seeing.” Walker also proposed that a powerful new visual language has emerged out of this changing culture, one that mixes icons from the past and from different cultures. It is a language, he says, that “everybody can understand—a visual language that starts on the streets and ends up in glossy magazines on coffee tables. Our visual language is our most powerful traditional weapon. It’s our tool of change.”
And i-jusi has been part of that emerging language, and Walker’s tool of change. He attributes much of the magazine’s visual and verbal verve to his collaborators (often with specialist skills) beginning with the talents of his staff of ten at Orange Juice Design. Other alliances include art schools. Issue 16 on religion was done with The Red Yellow School of Logic & Magic. An upcoming issue on identity involves students from The Royal Academy of Art and Design in The Hague. Writers like Alex Sudheim (an award-winning journalist for The Mail & Guardian) and Steven Kotze (a Zulu historian and linguist) Walker describes as “devotees” of i-jusi, which offers an alternative outlet for their talents. In the “Amaout: Street Style” issue, Sudheim and Kotze collaborate, documenting the adventures of “an Irish-Afrikaans Catholic Marxist-Leninist Zulu Historian with a Hexx or Two” who goes to a Zulu fortuneteller for “revelation” (translated from Zulu). The story also includes a sidebar on “some herbs used by izinyanga (traditional healers) and their uses.” This five-page spread is designed by Walker who also writes (and encourages all designers contributing to i-jusi to write).
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Cover of i-jusi Black & White issue (No. 8). Design & illustration: Garth Walker
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Opening spread of Death issue (No. 12). Design: Garth Walker. Photo: John Pauling. Text: Suzy Bell
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Poster from i-komix (i-jusi issue No. 13 in collaboration with Bitterkomix). Design: Scott Robertson |
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In each issue of i-jusi, both the Fishwicks Group of Companies (printers) and Sappi Fine papers are thanked for “their generosity and commitment in promoting South African design.” Walker maintains that i-jusi would not publish without these supporters.
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Ironically, this highly visible and vocal, oversized publication (11 ¾ x 16 ½") has a press run of 500. Walker estimates that more than half go to Europe and the USA. The copies distributed in South Africa go to clients, who relate to it as “arty-farty stuff,” Walker says, and the remainder go to “fellow designers.” In spite of its provocative content, Walker says that he has the advantage of publishing that he wouldn’t enjoy in the “first world.” Since South Africa has no strong tradition in reading publications and because so many languages are prevalent, it is unlikely the magazine would be seen by anyone who might object to it.
Walker has brought his vision of a South African, African design to conferences and art schools and on the Web (www.ijusi.co.za). He also brings a commitment to his country in spite of its many problems. “There is much optimism here. The weather is spectacular and the quality of life is good (assuming you have the wherewithal to cope). On balance, most of us feel the price paid—the transition—has been worth it.” Through i-jusi, Walker presents a vision for a new South Africa where the black and white, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-dimensional diversity of this place has a voice.
font editor Margaret Richardson is a writer living in Portland, Oregon.
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Cover of i-komix (i-jusi issue No. 13 in collaboration with Bitterkomix) Conrad Botes & Anton Kannemeyer
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Table of contents
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