Konnect & Saka: Identity for a Community Rooted in Culture
Brand identity system for two sister initiatives of a private NGO supporting African immigrant communities across Europe. Each initiative is anchored in an Adinkra symbol, a West African visual tradition encoding wisdom, values, and collective memory, translated into a contemporary identity system covering logos, colour, presentation templates, iconography, and collateral.
Designing for communities that have been made invisible
A European NGO working with sub-Saharan African immigrant communities needed a visual identity for two of their core programmes. The organisation operates across multiple cities, offering social integration support, vocational training, and economic empowerment to recently arrived and established migrants from West and Central Africa.
The challenge wasn't just visual, it was strategic. The identity had to feel authentic and empowering to the communities it serves, while remaining professional and trustworthy in institutional and funding contexts. It needed to carry cultural weight without becoming decorative.
Konnect primary logo
Saka primary logo
Adinkra as a design system, not decoration
The conceptual foundation is Adinkra, a visual symbol tradition from the Akan people of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. Each symbol encodes a specific philosophical concept, making them ideal as the visual anchor for initiatives with distinct but complementary missions. The symbols were chosen for their meaning, and that meaning shapes every design decision.
The resulting system is warm, contemporary, and unapologetically African, designed to resonate with the communities it serves without falling into either humanitarian clichés or generic "global" aesthetics.
A palette drawn from West African visual tradition
The colour system is rooted in the natural pigments and textile traditions of West African visual culture. Vermilion, Gold, and Forest as primaries, supported by Terracotta, Sand, and Sage. Each initiative inherits the full palette but leads with its own signature colour: Vermilion for Konnect, Gold for Saka.
Colour system — primary and secondary palette with usage ratios per initiative.
From logo to presentation, a cohesive system
The identity extends across a full presentation template system used in stakeholder meetings, funding applications, and community events. The design language, geometric patterns derived from Adinkra composition principles, warm earthy tones, and the baobab as a recurring visual motif, creates a consistent world across formats.
Presentation system — slide variants across both initiatives.
Title slide — Saka
Content slide — Saka
Iconography
Small artefacts, shared identity.
An identity that knows where it comes from.
A coherent, culturally grounded identity ready to live across digital and print. The brief was to build something communities would recognise as theirs. The system delivered on that.