Création Africa Platform
Client: IFAS
Period: 2024-2025
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
01 The sneak peek
African creativity, pictured from the inside
When the Institut français needed a single image to carry Création Africa — its continental platform connecting creative entrepreneurs across 33 countries — BBA convened a team of African fashion creatives to make it. A hero visual for the platform's home: a narrative of Africa, by Africans.
02 The liminal moment
Création Africa is a French cultural platform reaching into African creative life — connecting creative entrepreneurs across 33 countries through mentorship, funding and networking. That places it in a delicate in-between: Northern funding, Southern practice. At launch, the platform had to show whose voices sat at its centre.
The Institut français appointed BBA, through a competitive French government tender, to run communications across press, content, events and social — bilingually, across markets as different as Senegal and South Africa. It also needed one powerful image to define the platform's visual identity, anchoring the homepage and the programme's story of connection and creative excellence. The deeper problem was a familiar risk: a Northern cultural programme can easily speak over the people it means to support. The work had to come from inside African creative practice, so the platform read as a partnership with African voices leading it.
03 The transformation
We were chosen because we know African creative industries from the inside. We read the brief's real risk — a Northern platform talking over African voices — and answered it by putting African creative authorship at the centre, working bilingually and with cultural judgment across very different markets.
We assembled the idea rather than illustrate it. A team of celebrated African fashion creatives came together: creative director and stylist Chloe Andrea Welgemoed, photographer Aart Verrips, whose editorial work spans TIME, i-D and British Vogue, and a wider crew, each bringing published credentials and shared values. The ecosystem was the method.
We let colour carry the meaning. The vision honoured a colourful, diverse Africa — heritage, energy and contemporary creative identity in one frame. Seven models in vibrant designer clothing, arranged to read as connection and collaboration, embodied the platform's purpose: uniting creative professionals across borders.
04 The craft
One image, the whole idea
A narrative of Africa, by Africans. Colour became the through-line — heritage, energy and contemporary creative identity in a single frame. Seven models in vibrant designer clothing, positioned to convey connection and collaborative spirit, became the key visual for the Création Africa homepage and the anchor for the platform's communications.
Production credits
Client: Institut français / French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs
Agency: Breinstorm Brand Architects
Photographer: Aart Verrips
Creative Director & Stylist: Chloe Andrea Welgemoed
Production Designer: Francois Ferreira
Creative Studio: Spanspek
Hair & Grooming: Saskia Buxton
Hair & Grooming Assistant: Zoe Georgina
Styling 1st Assistant: Jana-Marie De Jager
Styling Intern: Sarah Tombani
Retoucher: Lauren Plit
Model Agencies: My Friend Ned, Sister Management
Models: Agnes Nozibonele, Leah DeVeroux, Sara P, Milan Gomez, Terence Masamuna, Joshua Baillie, Nathan
Brand identity design
