Ophelia Acquah
Ophelia Acquah (born 29 August 1989) is a Ghanaian professional graphic designer. She is also a humanitarian poster activist. She is known for her poster, Congo: The worst place to be a woman[1]: This poster, which addresses the issue of rape, was Top 3 in a list of 30 shortlisted posters displayed at GREEN+YOU International Poster Exhibition 2014 which took place in Seoul, Korea, and it is currently one of many posters on display at the "Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: International Posters on Gender-based Inequality, Violence and Discrimination." curated by Elizabeth Resnick.[2]
Education and early career
Ophelia Acquah entered Ghana National College at age fifteen to study Visual art. On her first introduction to graphic design, she became entranced with the course and resolved to find out everything she could about art and graphic art. She spent most of her three-year secondary school stay in the library. By her second year, she was a student/teacher assistant to the head of the graphic design department. Ophelia’s first attempt at creative business was her “Creative Bookmark Designs” at age sixteen; she designed and produced her own bookmarks and sold them to her mates. At age seventeen, she graduated to designing and printing her own T-shirts with the screen-printing method. She became more successful printing shirts than designing bookmarks. Many of her mates paid her to design shirts for them too, and she later went on to land a big contract to print all the shirts for her house’s inter-houses competition.
After graduating from Ghana National College in 2008, Ophelia gained admission to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to study Communication Design. In her second year at KNUST, she participated in 4Tomorrow’s poster workshop facilitated by Professor Natalia Delgado, which birthed her desire for humanitarian poster designs. She later went on to create designs on many social issues including famine, gender equality, education, and global peace.
In 2012, Ophelia got the opportunity to become a creative intern at Digicraft Advertising Agency where she discovered her love for brand design; her colleague nicknamed her “walking brandguide.” Ophelia continued to work at Digicraft for five more years after graduating from KNUST, and in that time, she worked in the position of Assistant Creative Manager.
Design projects
Branding projects Ophelia worked on include XARA Developers, EIC, Capital Bank, DAS, Consolidated Bank Ghana, UT Bank, Ghana @ 60, Heritage Bank, and many others which did not see the light of day. Other brand communications include
- Dear Money – GCB[3]
- SMILE Internal Campaign – GCB
- The New African – Capital Bank[4]
- Live Free, The Choice is Yours – Lydia, DKT[5]
- You First – UMB
- SPEED UP – UMB[6]
- 22nd Ghana International Trade Fair – Ghana Trade Fair Company Limited
- I pledge, Ghana @ 60 – Ghana Government
Humanitarian Posters that were selected and displayed at exhibitions around the world
In 2011, Ophelia attended her first poster design workshop organized by Poster For Tomorrow but facilitated by Natalia Delgado at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology[7], Ghana. Later that year, Ophelia submitted her poster design "An educated Africa is a happy Africa" to the Right to Education Poster Competition[8] which was shortlisted as one of the top 300 posters, out of which 100 were selected and exhibited later that year. The impact of that initial poster contribution encouraged Ophelia to express her views on various human rights issues through poster design. Some of her other poster designs include
- I will save Tipnis - Contributed to jSALVO EL TIPNIS![9] Campaign in Bolivia
- Congo, The worst place to be a woman – Contributed to GREEN+YOU[10] Africa Breathe International Poster campaign in 2014 & "Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: International Posters on Gender-based Inequality, Violence and Discrimination."[11]"
- Droidcil - selected for Ataturk University's Innovation in Education Poster Exhibition 2013[12]
References
- ↑ "Poster Monday: Congo the Worst Place to be a Woman". Poster Poster. 2015-10-05. Retrieved 2019-08-15.
- ↑ "Elizabeth Resnick - Posters Without Borders - International Immigration Poster Exhibition". posterswithoutborders.com. Retrieved 2019-08-15.
- ↑ https://www.behance.net/gallery/84689569/GCB-DEAR-MONEY
- ↑ https://www.behance.net/gallery/70207289/Capital-Bank-Brand-Awareness
- ↑ https://www.behance.net/gallery/84693405/DKT-GHANA-LYDIA-CONTRACEPTIVE
- ↑ https://www.behance.net/gallery/84696143/UMB-SPEED-INTERNAL-CAMPAIGN?
- ↑ "http://www.posterfortomorrow.org/en/blog/view/we_love_ghana!". posterfortomorrow. Retrieved 2019-08-16. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ "http://www.posterfortomorrow.org/en/projects/the_right_to_education/shortlisted-designers". posterfortomorrow. Retrieved 2019-08-15. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ "Salvemos al Tipnis. Save the Tipnis. Carteles Posters". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- ↑ "Green+You Exhibition Catalog". Issuu. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- ↑ "El Centro de Arte y Exposiciones inaugura la exposición «LOS DERECHOS DE LAS MUJERES SON DERECHOS HUMANOS»: una muestra de carteles internacionales sobre desigualdad, violencia y discriminación de género, Ayuntamiento de Ejea de los Caballeros". www.ejea.es. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
- ↑ Papaefstathiou, Maria (2013-02-26). "Call for Entries! "Innovation in Education" International Poster Exhibition". Graphic Art News. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
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