The annual African Film & Art Festival (AFAF), hosted in Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America, is a five-day cultural event celebrating the diverse ancestral music roots of the African diaspora and contemporary African cinema from various directors and production companies. Chance Kinyange Boas founded the festival as one way to preserve African culture. The event has gunned a growing fanbase with the help of various partners, collaborators, and sponsors like the Rhode Island Council for the Arts, Providence Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism, 195 District Park, Columbus Theatre, Southside Cultural Center of Rhode Island, and the Watson Institute Africa Initiative Center.

For the past four years, the AFAF needed a distinct identity. We faced the challenge of crafting an identity that resonated with the essence of the event. Africa is a diverse continent, how do we design a mark that celebrates that diversity? How can we merge the music (art) and cinema (film) in a mark? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves throughout the process.

To underscore the significance of cultural preservation, we finally drew inspiration from one of Burundi’s lost/ stolen wooden shields. The geometric patterns on the shield become the foundation for our visual style, elegantly incorporated into the logo. Subsequently, we developed two distinct visual languages-one resembling a mask & a musical drum and the other resembling a mask & a film camera. The outcome is a captivating and unique identity designed to make a lasting impression and set the AFAF event apart.