Today December 3, several high schools students began the two-week AkiraChix Design Bootcamp at the *iHub – Nairobi set to help them know design fundamentals and come out with applicable graphic design skills.
AkiraChix said, “Despite the ongoing Matatu strike in the country, young girls aged between 15 and 18 made their way to Bishop Magua Building this morning, ready and eager to get started on this design boot camp, led by Nyandia Kamawe.”
The AkiraChix Design Boot camp costs Ksh 2000 per student and entails introduction to elements and principles of Graphic design, visual elements in page design, print layout design, use of photographs, illustrations, and use of page composition software.
The bootcamp aims to help the girls create layouts for print magazines and newspapers, learn concepts and production specifications, understand visual components (photography, illustration, text blocks, and headline typeface and form) and learn to use effective visual structural systems (grid structures) to produce a cohesive group of ad layouts in a variety of page formats.
Founded in 2010 in Nairobi by Judith Owigar, Linda Kamau, Marie Githinji,Angela Oduor,Gladys Kittony and Kate Kiguru, AkiraChix works like US’s Black Girls Code, with an aim to have more girls in science and technology, a field once thought to be prelude for men only. Apart from networking, mentorship and training, Akirachix works with women in technology to reach out to university and high school students with a training program that gives basic tech and entrepreneurship skills to girls from around the country.
