Design Indaba Emerging Creative: Nicole du Toit

WORDS Michaela Stehr

Cape Town-based graphic designer and 2019 Design Indaba Emerging Creative, Nicole Du Toit, believes that good design has the power to change the world.

“The long-distance vision and technical ability that five years of study abroad has given me has served to strengthen my love for Africa and has brought me full circle to a place where I now choose to grow and thrive as a designer, filling a space in the South African context and beyond,” says Nicole, who completed her studies abroad at the Pratt Design Institute in New York. “I believe that it is our duty as South African artists/designers to take from the world around us and grow and contribute to our own beloved community.”

Nicole perceives great art and design as a type of “visual poetry”, by layering beauty and meaning. “On one hand, its message must be clear and unambiguous and on the other, great design should shape perception and evoke a response that is focused, pertinent and relevant to the intent of the designer and their creative challenge,” she says.

Her most successful project to date, entitled “Period”, was aimed at rebranding government-issued sanitary pads and to make sustainable pads and reproductive health education more accessible to women in South Africa and across the globe.

See more of Nicole’s work on Instagram.