David Krut Publishing

Celebrating the exhibition of Contemporary South African prints and I-Jusi magazine, the gallery had a recent reception and we were thrilled to have Gavin Rooke, director of Rooke Gallery in Johannesburg and publisher of the I-Jusi portfolio, give a talk about his collaboration with I-Jusi Magazine. Rooke traced I-Jusi’s beginnings to Garth Walker’s hometown of Durban, which offered Walker, who founded the magazine in 1995, visual inspiration that heavily influenced the magazine’s interest in developing a South African graphic language. Rooke described Walker’s interest in the “vernacular” of South African graphic design and South African visual identity in the graphic arts. Rooke’s presentation revealed the formal and informal examples of graphic design in Durban, which ranged from architecture signage to “Beware of dog” signs to hand-drawn storefront text to advertisements. Combining all these sources, I-Jusi explored the graphic language present on the streets and published this vibrant history, circulating this graphic language beyond its national borders as I-Jusi has become increasingly popular. In subsequent issues, I-Jusi invited contributors to react to the question of African graphic identity and expanded the conversation to graphic design artists abroad. Engaging with the graphic realm of comics and satire to include the beautiful, the profane, and formerly censored topics, I-Jusi later went on to work with the founders of Bitterkomix.

Rooke’s talk provided our New York audience with a better understanding of the rich vernacular of South African graphic design that continues to inspire I-Jusi and its readers as well.

Keywords: Painting, History, Arts-and-Culture, Design, monograph, Photography, Art, South-African, International, Bookstore