Domestic Propaganda™
An ongoing typographic art and interior print series that treats ordinary thoughts, Kenyan expressions and everyday absurdities with the visual seriousness of government notices and institutional propaganda.
Challenge
How do you give everyday phrases, minor inconveniences and shared urban contradictions the authority of an official record without flattening their humour or cultural specificity?
Role
Creative direction, concept and art direction, typography, graphic design and series development in Nairobi, Kenya.
Solution
A fictional institution built from brutalist typography, modernist grids, bureaucratic forms, public-information graphics, archival documents, utility notices and unnecessary data theatre. Each work follows one statement, one visual idea and one deliberate interruption.
Outcome
A growing Kenyan edition spanning phrases such as SI LAZIMA, NIKO NJIANI, TUTAPANGA, TOKEN IMEISHA, KESHO and MAJI HAKUNA, developed as collectible prints, framed objects, installations and custom commissions.
About this work
Domestic Propaganda is an authored visual and product system borrowing the authority of the public notice, the catalogue, the stamp and the institutional instruction. Its institution is fictional; the habits, compromises and contradictions it notices are familiar.
Kenyan urban experience, behavioural observation, satire and typography meet in work intended to exist physically as well as on a screen. A print can function as an observation on a wall. A short thermal issue can be read and passed on. A comic can continue a screen story. A QR is useful when it opens an actual continuation rather than merely decorating the object with technology.
The established catalogue includes produced artwork and print directions, Internal Affairs, Reminder Department, Kenyan cultural adaptations, scriptural poster work and music-linked issues. A3/A2 editions, framing and finish systems have been explored alongside 80 mm carry formats. An edition's availability, specification and price belong to that specific approved product; the existence of a mockup is not evidence of stocked inventory. The whole system remains recognisable while allowing each notice to make a distinct point.
Selected artwork and print applications
